 Hey, everyone. I'm Molly Gingling, Adweek's Senior TV Reporter. I am so glad you could join us for another episode of Most Powerful Women in Sports, where the world's greatest marketers, media pros, and athletes come together to share the remarkable career journeys and how they achieved peak performance. So I want to remind everyone that we are live and taking questions. So please join the conversation in the chat and drop any questions you might have in the Q&A box. Today, I am so excited to speak with the amazing Carolyn Kendall Betts, the first female president and CEO of an MLS club, St. Louis City SC. So Carolyn led the majority female-owned ownership group through the bid process after the MLS expansion team was awarded in 2019. She oversees all operational and business aspects of the new team. And if that doesn't keep her busy enough, she's also president of the Enterprise Holdings Foundation, the charitable arm of Enterprise Holdings. She's also a board member of St. Louis Sports Commission and Gateway Art Park Foundation. I don't know how she has the time in the day to even think about soccer in addition to everything, but we have a ton to talk about. So Carolyn, welcome to the show. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for having me. Thanks so much for being here. I am so excited for this conversation. Me too. So we do have a lot to talk about, but I want to kind of, before we even get into soccer, I want to go back to the beginning. And I know you're not from a soccer background or even a sports background, but you're president and CEO of a soccer team. So how did you grow up? What was your childhood like? So I'm St. Louis, born and bred, third generation Taylor. My grandfather Jack actually founded an enterprise renaissance at the time. And then in 2007, we acquired the National and Alamo brands and became enterprise holdings. But that aside, I have a younger sister who I love and adore. She's got two nieces, but we grew up, you know, a small Midwestern family. I was actually a tennis player and a softball player. So you were correct. I never played soccer. And in fact, nobody in the Taylor family played soccer, but my family, especially my grandfather, was always very passionate about giving back to the communities, especially where our employees lived and worked because they rented from us, which allowed enterprise to grow, but he had a very soft spot in his heart for St. Louis. And it sort of has been passed down through the generations. And so really soccer came about because we were trying to figure out, you know, what, as a family, what, what's something we could do to continue to spur growth and revitalization in the St. Louis region. And somebody said, how about a soccer team? So fast forward four years later, here we are. So that's super, super interesting. So can you talk a little bit about the bidding process? And like, why was this important to you? Why was it so important for soccer? Well, I think first and foremost, soccer is an international sport. And as I've come to find out and view, and they've got very passionate fans, they're very loyal fans. And St. Louis is very much a sports town with very passionate, very loyal fans, but St. Louis also has a lot of really cool micro communities. And like I said, my family wanted to do something that could bring everybody out of their micro communities and support something together and really like bring the region together, unite the region, what better way to do it with sports, but also, you know, festivals, other things as well. So it was a crazy run. The region has been so supportive of us since the day we announced that we were gonna go for the bid in 18, 19, we were awarded the expansion team and then 20 hit. And of course, we all know what happened then. So we actually had our stadium start construction. We did our crest, our colors, team name. We did it all virtually. But you know what? Like I said, the region, every time we asked, they supported, it's been so exciting over the last two years to watch this group really help us build our brand of St. Louis City SC. And we're so excited for March of 2023. Yeah, even with 2020, you've still got all of this done and it's super impressive. And again, even with COVID, the league is still rapidly growing. So last year, the new expansion team in Austin debuted, Charlotte FC kicked off this year and just this past weekend, Nashville SC played its first match in its new stadium. So with all this rapid expansion happening and league growth, what have you seen and learned over the past couple of years that you can apply to St. Louis ahead of March? Sure, I mean, I think one of the things, just first of all, you know, just how great the other MLS donors have been for talking soccer specific. I mean, they welcomed us with open arms. We did, we toured facilities. We talked to all levels of management within the teams, talked to ownership. It was actually very helpful at a minimum to hear people say, you absolutely have to do this. You absolutely do not want to do that. I think also just learning about the sport of soccer. I mean, I literally bought soccer for dummies. I played like, you know, an eighth grade required physical education. But I think just learning about the fan base, you know, the age, the diversity, you know, how they consume the sport of soccer. But even, you know, the whole supporter concept and watching some of these EPL games and Bundesliga games. I mean, they're passionate and crazy, excited about things and to see that we could be and hopefully will be and lead the charge and some of that here in the St. Louis region. It's really exciting. But I mean, I've had to learn everything from stadium construction to building a team to building a brand. And it has been very exciting for sure. Yeah, I don't think there's anything quite like soccer fans. They have some of the most passionate bases I've ever seen. Yeah, I mean, just from learning about the TIFOs to the chance and the matches and the marches. I mean, it was literally a crash course, but like I said, it's just so exciting. And I love to hear about it and learn about it. But like in my mind, I'm like, how are we gonna be able to do this in St. Louis? And so I'm just so excited to see what, you know, what wonderful product we'll have in March. I'm so excited to see it too. But I wanna talk about the stadium. You touched on it a little bit earlier, but when the MLS started in 1996, I don't think there were any soccer specific stadiums in the U.S. But in just the past five years, they're 10 of open. And this year, there'll be 26 stadiums across the country built or rematched for soccer. But you guys didn't just build a stadium. You've built an entire complex downtown. Can you tell us about it? Absolutely. So we were very lucky that there was the large enough footprint for us to not only build a stadium, a training center, a headquarters, but also create an entire district that can be visited 365 days a year. Our hope is to make it more than just, you know, obviously soccer is the driving factor there, but to really find ways to engage with different communities. So is it festivals, certainly holding international friendlies, maybe NCAA tournaments, the list goes on and on and on. But we're one of the only few professional sports I think in the world that can be able to house that all within the same footprint, if you will. Our stadium's 22,500 seats, open air. I have to brag, it's beautiful. Our architects did a fantastic job. But even more, the people that putting up the, putting up the stadium have had to navigate COVID and everything else, they've certainly have taken care of themselves and each other and of their families so we couldn't be more grateful. But within the district, we're part of a greenway. Think a lot of biking, hiking, walking, and different ways to connect the city. But I think one of the critical pieces too is that our stadium sits on part of what used to be called Mill Creek Valley. It was a thriving African-American community and it was raised back in the 1950s. And because our stadium sits on what used to be Mill Creek Valley, we feel very strongly to pay homage and acknowledge the valley. So we worked with a local St. Louis artist to create a permanent art installation that will sit on the southwest corner to really, like I said, we have to remember the past but also hopefully have a way to create conversations about the future. That's gotta be special growing up and having your whole family from St. Louis and them seeing this impact you're having on the community. Yeah, you know it is. And I have to tell you, since nobody in my family has ever done this before, it's actually brought us closer together because now we sort of have, we've always had the company of course, but having this soccer team and everything else, conversations have definitely changed to get together. My aunt is super supportive. She's turning into a fan, my mom. But I think also being able to tell the story that we're a majority female ownership group with seven women and two men is sort of an interesting uniqueness about St. Louis. But no, I think my family has certainly been very supportive of me in every sense of the word. I appreciate everything they've done, but we truly are very excited about this opportunity. So I wanna talk about that, being the first female majority owned to name an MLS. What does that mean to you? Well, it was so funny because like I said, my family was really trying to figure out what we were gonna do together. And it didn't really hit us until like three months into it when we finally had to list everybody's name. And we were like, wait a second, we're a majority female led ownership group because my uncle at an age I can't divulge is the youngest man in our family because my mom had two girls, my uncle had two girls, we had the fourth generation as all girls. So whenever we do anything together, it's always going to be majority female. But I think it also added to the uniqueness of why this ownership group was so perfect for St. Louis and it was the right time for us to go for this bid. But I think just having the opportunity to work with my family, being able to say that we're a majority female led ownership group, all the females very successful in their own right, it's been a great story to tell. You're making history and you didn't even realize while you were doing it. Literally, did not. I mean, when I say we were going down the list and I'm like, wow, there's like seven women and two men and you watched everybody go, say that again. And it was like, wow, we didn't even recognize it. But it's like I said, for our family, it's so normal to have tons of women. So we didn't really think anything about it quite frankly. That's awesome. So in terms of naming rights, in February, you announced the naming rights sponsor unveiled the name of the stadium. So what has that partnership been like and why does that make sense for city FC? Well, so let me start with the stadium. So Centine's been with us from the beginning, right away when we said we were gonna go make the run to get this team even when we were awarded the team. So Centine, we had been in contact with Centine. I think what we really needed to do was just make sure that we took our time to come up with a partnership that both parties felt was advantageous to both of them. So it was really exciting when we got to unveil that it was Centine stadium, the hardest part is knowing and not saying it out loud. As far as the kid's sponsor, I mean, Purina, who doesn't love puppies, right? We were so excited to have that partnership again, and congratulations to my chief revenue officer and our sponsorship team. Those are not easy deals, but interestingly enough, Purina has a female CEO at the time and now Centine has a female CEO as well. So we've got a lot of stories that are sort of coming out of it, but Purina has been a great partner. We're working on a lot of different activations to really promote, obviously, adoptions, but just to help pets can help with mental health. I'm noticing they love to chase balls too, so it kind of works with our players and our puppies. So we're able to sort of expand with both of our partners and really think outside the box when it comes to not only game day programming, but community programming as well. There's so many opportunities there with both of the brands. Yes, for sure. Okay, so we've got a team, we've got a kit, we've got a stadium and you need fans. So we touched on this a little bit earlier, but I know the club launched a record-breaking season ticket deposit campaign back in 2020, which something like 50,000 ticket deposits in the first 24 hours. So how have you built up this fan base in the city? How are you working with the community and how are you working to kind of cultivate this soccer culture in St. Louis? Well, I mean, St. Louis really has always been primarily a soccer town. We had a couple of players play on the 1950 World Cup team from St. Louis. And so I think we were blessed with the fact that soccer is a very familiar sport to everyone in our region. And so it was really just sort of tapping into them, having community groups, outreaches, obviously with a pandemic, trying to figure out ways to really talk to them, hear from them. So even going back to how we got our team name, we had over 5,000 submissions. And so we kind of the top 10 we took and then that's how we really ended up on city. But like I said, every time we're like, hey, can you share this on Twitter or share this on Facebook? Everybody in this region is more than happy to do it. So now that we're sort of coming out of the pandemic, we really need to sort of focus in on a couple of different groups. So we're really thinking about how we're going to reach into whether it's the Bosnian community, whether it's the Croatian community, females, college students, LBG, TQ, IA. So we saw the lot of work to do. But like I said, the fans in this region, whether they're soccer fans or not, have been so supportive and we couldn't have done this without them. That's fantastic to hear. Can you give us any update on ticket sales ahead of the first season? So we're completely sold out of our suites, our premium and our loge. We're getting ready to start our reserved and general admission tickets May 18th. It still cracks me up because people are like, I need to put down a ticket deposit. I'm like, okay, well, we're up to 60,000 ticket deposit. So I'm not sure what I can do for you, but I'm happy to do it. So it's just so exciting. People are sharing their timestamp on Facebook or they're sharing it on Twitter and we're actually going to do something which I think is pretty unique. We're scheduling appointments so season ticket holders can come down and tour the stadium and actually pick their seats. Because of the pandemic, we never really got to have a sales center. So we've got, I think, five to 10 days where we're going to host tours and let them pick their seats. So we're super, super excited. Actually, it's exciting we have seats in. So I guess I should start there. But yeah, no, it's coming along great. Again, excitement and where we are just really looking forward to March 2023. That's fantastic. And another good way to build community by bringing people into the stadium, getting them super excited. But 60,000 ticket deposits, that's very impressive. And the stadium seats, I think 22,000? 22,500. So we, I have to say that the ticketing team led by Edmund Elsie has been unbelievable. I mean, they really had to create a program from nothing. And the way they've handled it and the calls and the zooms. And I think he just, I mean, I'm biased but he has an amazing staff and I'm so proud of everything that they've done. That's great. So we touched on this a little bit earlier but you've never been in the sports business but you've been a business woman your whole life. But what's that experience been like breaking into the business of sports and what advice would you give to other women that are trying to do the same? Yeah, I mean it was daunting and it still can be because I had a very interesting chat with my mom this morning and she's like, you're too hard on yourself because you're a perfectionist. But I think one of the things that I've learned about breaking into this business is it's okay to be wrong. I mean, it's a startup, it's something that you're not familiar with and you're gonna make mistakes. I think one of the other important things that is but don't be afraid to ask for help. And really at the end of the day, if you think about it, a lot of business is, I'm sorry, a lot of sports is business. And so I think sometimes people think that being in the business side of sports means you have to be into sports and I'm here to tell you that that's not true. I've also been told by some friends that it probably works better to run a team when you're not super passionate about a sport because it allows you to make decisions based on what's good for business and not necessarily what's good for your team or you yourself wanna be able to have this player. So I think it's really just important to remember that. You can do whatever you want. You just have to apply yourself and don't be fearful if it is a sports team because again, I'm living proof that you don't have to have a sports background to be successful, you just have to want to be successful. That's great advice. And then kind of along the same vein, like as a business woman, how did you go about building the front office for the new team? Well, I really needed to kind of come down with three things that were very important to me. Number one was you have to be able to agree with what I think are our founding pillars. So we worked very hard to come up with, you know, five founding pillars like Tenacity and a few others and Swagger. And so I needed anybody that interviewed with me to believe in those as well because if they didn't, we were never gonna work. I think number two, I need you to be honest and transparent with me. I am that personality. I do not like surprises. I am much better with, hey, I don't think this went the way I wanted it to. What do we do? I love collaborating, strategizing. And like I said, I'm gonna be much happier if I know something from one of my employees before I find it out from somebody else. But third, and I say this, being a good person overall, and I don't really define good, but it's, you know, I'm very blessed to have a team that, you know, they're truly great people. They're kind, they're sweet. They have a lot of empathy. They're hard workers, you know, they'll jump in even if it's not their task and help out. But they're fun too. And I think those are very important to me when I'm building a team because it's long hours. It's sometimes like trying to walk in the forest, in the dark with no flashlight. And you just have to be willing, and I need people that are willing to high five. I also need people that'll look me in the face and say you're totally dead wrong. And I've been blessed enough to build that kind of team. Sounds like a great team you built and just the principles behind it. Today I'm blessed for sure. Thank you for acknowledging them too. So what have been some of the biggest challenges in launching a new club? And where do you see kind of further growth opportunities for the MLS? Yeah, you know, I think just in general, being a startup during a pandemic, you know, because everything that you had envisioned up until March, you know, we had these big launch parties and these big watch parties. And to be able, and to have to make that pivot quickly too, we don't know if we're ever gonna go back into an office. We don't know what it's gonna look like. You know, factor in building a stadium, you know, how much of our stadium design was gonna have to change because of what would come from COVID. And again, luckily we got through it. It was amazing, truly a once in a lifetime event. I think the other thing too, is just sometimes taking a break and looking at all the wonderful things that we've done. It's very hard to enjoy things in the moment because your mind is so busy racing towards, what do I need to do Thursday? What do I need to do next Thursday? And so I think my team does a very good job of like, we have to just enjoy this moment. It's the first time ever. We're probably never gonna have this moment again. And so I think just kind of taking that, you know, take a deep breath and just take it all in. And so, you know, as far as soccer as a whole, I think there's an entire untapped demographic out there. And I think that we all just need to really remember what it is that brings soccer fans to MLS. So is it physically great customer experience or a great fan experience, great stadium experience? Have to have an exciting team on the pitch, right? I mean, you want people to just be counting down the days. But I also think the MLS already does a great job. But I think there's a lot of opportunity to make sure that players and coaches are visible in communities. And I brag on the St. Louis Blues quite a bit because they're always in the community. They're accessible. They could be at your kids' school. They could be at your local golf course. And I think that that's very important. So for Citi in particular, I want to make sure that we drive that culture because I remember the commissioner once telling me that you have a very successful team when the community feels like they own your team, not you own your team. That's fantastic. Well, Carolyn, unfortunately we are almost out of time, but before I let you go, you have some key takeaways to share with us. Okay. Yeah, I mean, kind of really first and foremost, sort of by mantra the last four years, I mean, in the business of sports, diverse perspectives and experiences bring value to every club. And I definitely took a little bit to learn this, but I'm getting there. You have to be confident in what your experience can bring to the table. And two, we really didn't talk about it, but you saw do my quick plug, you've got to find mentors. Consistently put yourself out there, through networking, look outside the box for ways to get involved with sports. But these mentors are really gonna be what got you through the great times of celebrating, the tough times that picked me up. And finally, do not fear adapting and innovating when you face setbacks using the whole, we had to completely pivot our whole plan in March of 2022, but stay true to the vision. We are building a legacy for our community and building something well takes effort and time. Great. Well, Carolyn, I think that is a great place to end it. Thank you again for being here. This was such a great conversation. And I personally am very excited for March 2023. Thanks, Molly. All right, thank you. And for everyone watching, please feel free to join us and please do join us for the next episode on May 25th.