 Hi everyone, I'm Lisa Granitstein, Adweek's Chief Content Officer, so glad you could join us for another episode of The Most Powerful Woman in Sports, where the world's greatest marketers, media pros, athletes, and coaches share their remarkable career journeys and how they achieve peak performance. We'd also like to hear from you, so join the conversation in the chat and questions in the Q&A box. Today we'll be speaking with Hailey Rosen, founder and CEO of Just Woman Sports, a groundbreaking media brand that's all about women's sports all the time. We'll talk to Hailey about her vision for Just Woman Sports, her take on women in professional sports, and what's next for both. But first, some background on Hailey. Frustrated by the lack of media coverage devoted to women's sports, Hailey founded Just Woman Sports in 2020 with an Instagram account and a big idea. Within a few short months, Hailey and her team grew women's sports into a multi-channel media brand with more than a million pounds and counting. Previously, Hailey worked in tech following a brief professional career in soccer. So, Hailey, welcome to the show. Let's go. I can't wait to talk. Got a lot to catch up on. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for joining us. So, let's start at the beginning. Where did you grow up? Tell us a little bit about who shaped the person you are today and got into sports and athletics. Yeah, well, big questions right off the bat. I'm from LA, grew up in Southern California. Always was into sports. My dad played sports his whole life. He was a football player, played rugby after college. And I think he had a really big impact on me. But, you know, I played everything. I played softball. I did a little bit of basketball. I danced. I did everything, but I really, really fell in love with soccer right away. I fell in love with the 99 World Cup team and everything that I met. I loved my teammates. I loved the game. And just, you know, playing soccer competitively from a young age most of my life, I think is, has had a huge impact on who I am today. And you played both in college and you played pro-soccer? Yeah, played in college and then played professionally for a little bit in the U.S. and abroad. Oh, wow. So, any big names that we would know that you played with? Can you drop a few? Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, playing in the NWSL, you're playing with some of the biggest names in the world, Crystal Dunn, Allie Krieger. I mean, I played college soccer with most of the U.S. women's national team now, now that so many Stanford players. So, yeah, I mean, the soccer world is small. That's amazing. So after college, you went on to do some work in tech, but what made you decide to do just women's sports? How did that idea pop in your head and talk a little bit about the Instagram account you started? Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, really my experience playing sports at the college and professional level led me to starting just women's sports. At Stanford, we were a super popular team on campus. We would, you know, have people come into our games and getting really excited about it. Our stadium was always super full. There was a couple times I forgot to leave tickets for my parents and they couldn't get into the game. So, you know, like we're a really popular team on campus. And then playing professionally, I saw that same type of momentum. You know, we were selling out stadiums, attendance was up, viewership was up. And this wasn't just in the U.S., but when I played abroad, it was the same thing. And so I could see and feel that women's sports had something special and that people were excited about it. And there was an audience around this. And then I had a bunch of injuries and I had to retire probably sooner than I would have liked. Came back to the Bay Area, was working in tag. And for me, that was, hey, I'm hanging it up. I'm taking a real person job. That was a part of my life. This is a new part of my life. But I love sports. You know, it was my whole world. I've been in my whole world and I still cared a lot. You know, I had friends that were still playing or coaches I was close to. So I wanted to follow along genuinely as a fan and I couldn't do it. And, you know, we now know it's 3% of sports coverage is dedicated women's sports, which is something I never really felt as an athlete because you're in the world. But as a fan, it was so jarring. And then as someone that was really actively seeking out that type of content, everything I was seeing didn't feel like the world I knew. It was geared towards younger people. It was very lifestyle. It felt really, really feminine in a way that didn't feel authentic to the space. And I found myself just asking, you know, where are the sports? Where are the highlights and where are the stats and who's at the top of the table? And I think my friend just got traded, you know, where are the sports? And that's really the whole idea for just women's sports. And so how did it start on an Instagram account? You just, what was that? What was the first post about? So I think, you know, I've said this before, I think social media has been the great equalizer for women's sports. So, you know, how do you, you have an idea to start a media company around women's sports? What does that look like? What does that mean? You know, it's really hard to stand up a TV channel, but really easy to spin up an Instagram account. And so that was the first thing I did. You know, I, I mean, it was kind of crazy, but like I basically just started posting on Instagram and reposting women's sports highlights. And I, if anyone has seen my personal Instagram account, it is nothing to see. I, you know, didn't have this background in social media, but the account just really started growing really quickly. And we went from zero to 10,000 and 20,000 to 30,000 really, really quickly. And it was really validating to see, you know, I felt it firsthand when I was in this space. Now I'm sort of seeing this early validation. And for me, that was enough to quit my job and, you know, start working on this basically during the day. And then at night I was doing soccer privates to get the business going. And that's really how it all got started. Okay. So you went from having this Twitter account that was doing really well to getting an investment from Kevin Durant and 45 ventures. So talk a little bit about in between, like how, how did you do that? I mean, you, you have a tech background, but what, what was it like bringing the business people in? How, how did you do all that? Yeah. So basically, you know, started with the Instagram account quit my job and just really was posting and kind of figuring out what this could be. And that was kind of end of 2019. Around that time too, you know, so much of I think life is, you know, right place, right time, a little bit of luck. And being in the valley, being sort of, you know, in San Francisco, knowing a lot of investors, I had been talking with one investor, his name is Eric from Ogo Fun. And he was sort of mentoring me through this when I was at my previous company. And when I was sort of thinking about this, we had been talking about it. And for me personally, I wasn't thinking about it as an investment yet. I just wanted to talk with someone that I respected and I thought was smart and just say, this is what I'm seeing. This is the opportunity. This is crazy that we have this opportunity in front of us. I'm not sure, you know, how we get there yet, but I am sure there's something here. And basically he was like, yeah, me too. And he wrote our pre-seed check, ended up putting around $400,000 and that let us really get the business going. So we were able to officially launch in 2020. But that was a really soft launch. It was at the time me and one other person, I think we had a contractor too that was helping create content. And we just, you know, it was a soft sort of turning on of the company. We went from an Instagram account to a newsletter to a Twitter and basically geared up towards our first podcast, which was the Just Women Sports podcast hosted by Callie O'Hara from the U.S. Women's National Team. And I gotta tell you, that was a really validating moment launching that podcast. We officially launched as a company at that time too, because for so long, so much of our early feedback was, is women's sports interesting? Is it marketable? Can it be profitable? Is there a market around it? And that podcast launched at number one in sports and stayed there for a long time. And there was a nice mic drop moment. This is what we've been saying, like we just got to build it. And, you know, off of that podcast, we built a ton of momentum. We went on to launch, you know, a couple more shows. Our social channels grew a lot, just having more cross promotion. Our newsletter grew. We started building out our website. And just, I think the progress that we had made, the progress of the space, you know, it's help so helpful that end of the cell WMA, all these leagues are seeing their metrics just go up and up and up year after year. And so in May of 2021, we ended up closing our first sort of proper raise that was led by as well ventures and then rich climate and Kevin Durant's 35 ventures as well as a couple of other professional athletes, Elana Deladon, Kelly O'Hara came in as an investor, Sam, you as Hillary night. And we've just been running. We've absolutely been running. That's amazing. So how is it? How is your, your brand different in the way it covers sports? And we, we actually did talk a little bit about this. There is, there is a clear distinction between how, let's say sports illustrated covers women in sports versus ESPNW, even tell us a little bit about your, your perspective on, on, on covering women in sport. Yeah. And so for us, like we're exactly what our name says, we are literally just women's sports. So sometimes people think that means women in sports, which I think is interesting and important, but very different. Um, since in sports, you know, by women for women, this isn't, you know, this is literally women's sports for all. And we sort of have three pillars that we think are really, really important. And they're going to sound incredibly obvious when they say them. One is treat women's sports like sports. We don't see enough of that. We don't see enough of the game content around the game content and the stats and the highlights and this trade. We don't see enough of the game. We don't treat women's sports like sports enough. Treat female athletes like athletes. Part of what makes sports interesting is the debate, you know, did this player perform? Can she do better? We don't see that enough in women's sports. That's, that's part of it. You know, you want the energy and the disagreement and these women are the best in the world. We can be critical. That's, that's part of it. You know. And then lastly, and I think this is really, really important is lead with hype over guilt. No one should watch women's sports. You don't, no one owes women's sports anything, right? Women's sports is pretty freaking dope. You know, it's got so much energy and excitement. You want to be a part of it. Great. And if you don't, great, but you know, the train has left the station. There's a ton of momentum here. Let's lead with that. This is an exciting space. It's an emerging market. We are hyped. Yeah. And women, women are actually really rabid fans. And I'm wondering if you can, you know, as, as much as you could tell from the, from being an athlete and seeing it yourself, to the way you're covering it and the reactions you're getting from your own audience. What is it? How is it different than even guys? How are women female fans following in a different way? Sorry. And I don't know if you can hear that's my dog Banjo. Sorry. But anyway, go on Banjo. I think, you know, something that's been really interesting for me as we've gotten started is, you know, this space is so nascent and it's evolving so quickly that, you know, we have, we have to just take bets and have the hypothesis and run and see if it works or not. Something that we've learned really early on is that so much of the audience we're seeing today in our mind, we attribute to Title IX. Title IX, you know, we saw this after Title IX, we've seen basically over a thousand percent increase in girls participating at the high school level of over 500 percent increase in women participating at the college level, just this huge influx in participation, which we believe has translated to a huge influx in interest and viewership and attendance, just this massive rise in interest. And so basically, we have this whole demographic of women today that grew up playing sports at the amateur to elite level that they're out there and they want the game that they know. And they're out there, they're following their favorite leagues, their favorite teams, their favorite athletes, but there isn't a single platform pulling them together. And so for us, that's where we see our value proposition is we're pulling that together. We're building the media environment, the cross promotion where people can come and be a fan of the space. And I think, you know, it's we just based from, you know, surveys and just looking at different data sets, like the majority of our audience today is millennial women and it's almost 80 percent identify as former current athletes. And I think that's really, really interesting. And we're going to, you know, again, we're not bi women for women and we're going to continue to grow and expand and we want to bring in more people. But I think that makes perfect sense that you just basically have a bunch of women that know, you know, soccer as women's soccer and they want to see more of that. Right. And there seems obviously the, the FIFA World Championships and the Olympics, there's there's so much buzz around, especially women's soccer and even basketball. And it'll be interesting to see how that translates. We're starting to see a little bit of it here now with, as I said, with soccer and basketball as bigger or growing growth areas for women. What other sports do you see on the horizon that's getting some more attention or where is your coverage going? I mean, I think just across the board, everything is just trending up, up, up, which is really exciting. I think it's worth calling out lacrosse and volleyball. We're just seeing the number of girls participating at the youth level just going up really, really quickly. And so I am excited for both of those spaces. I think lacrosse is going to look really different in the next decade. I think volleyball as well, especially if we can get a professional league in the US. So those are two sports I'm really watching, but also, you know, softball has been huge at the collegiate level, the World Series, the last World Series out drew the men's, you know, there's just such an interested and engaged audience around it. So it's really everywhere right now. And I think just really more coverage, more visibility is, it's going to be huge for the space. Now, so how do you, how are you looking right now at controversial issues like transgender athletes? Is that something that just women sports is going to tackle? Is it something down the road? Or, you know, it seems to becoming a national part of the national conversation, especially with the swimming team at Penn. What's your take on that? Yeah, I think that women's sports is, I mean, it's a really nascent space and there's stuff that needs to get figured out, and it's going to evolve and change. And, you know, for us, the way that we see it is there's this one category of sport, and it's men's sport right now that gets so much of the coverage and so much of the resources and energy and time. And there's this other category of sports that gets 3% of that. And so we want to solve that. And so that's what we're about, that we want to bring the hype and the energy and the attention and visibility, we want to get these women paid. So there's going to be stuff to figure out, there's going to be growing pains, there's going to be moments that are uncertain, there's going to be moments that are ugly. It's going to all happen because it's a new space and that's part of it. So looking at the weeks ahead, we're heading into the Winter Olympics. How are you going to be covering that? Yeah, we're going to be doing what we do, you know, we have our social channels, we have our website newsletter, podcast, and the Olympics are a moment for us to like really go big and really show up and really show up for the female athletes that are participating in the game. So it's just going to be more of what we do. Do you have any favorite sports that you like to watch? I mean, I love all Olympic sports. I'm excited for the hockey team. That's always really fun in the Winter Olympics. I love all the skiing and snowboarding. So I mean, it's so fun. It's just fun to watch people compete at the highest level. Yeah, no, it absolutely is. So we're almost out of time, but I want to ask you what kind of advice you'd give to women who are looking at entering sports right now, whether it's on the sports media side or getting involved in sports and helping promote women, what would be the best way to get in the space? Or what to think about? You know, I can't really speak to working in men's sports. I think that's different and not to me personally, I've ever experienced, but in women's sports, like there's so much opportunity right now. This space is evolving so, so quickly and the space needs excellent operators to help move it forward. So my advice would be go for it, you know, reach out to these teams, reach out to companies like just women's sports, reach out to the athletes, they're starting to build out their own personal teams. There's a ton of opportunity and I think, you know, if you want it, it's there. All right. Well, on that note, and that's really inspiring, we're going to shift over to your takeaways and I'll let you take it away. Yeah, yeah. So I thought this was an interesting way to wrap this. So three big things for me. One is embrace mistakes. We have made a million and one mistakes. And something that we always say is we don't have to get it right the first time, but we have to be the fastest to learn. And I think it's part of being in women's sports, it's part of operating a company, it's part of playing sports, you know, you have to have a memory like a goldfish in some ways, but you know, you want to learn and embrace it and be okay with it and just keep, keep pushing. And I think that's one of my biggest lessons from starting just women's sports. Second one for me, I mean, this has been the theme of this whole conversation, women's sports is a sleeping giant, you know, it's projected to be over a $200 billion industry in the next decade. All the metrics are up, up, up from viewership, from attendance, from merch purchasing, everything is going just up. And I think it's a really exciting moment in the space and I just wouldn't sleep on women's sports. And then lastly, I got to shout out my own company, Just Women, Women's Sports. I'm really, really proud of the team. I'm proud of everything we've accomplished. I'm really proud of the content that we're pushing. We have a lot to do. We have a long road in front of us. There's a lot of areas where we can improve and get better. But I think we're really, really well positioned to continue to be the leader in women's sports. And so remember the name, Just Women's Sports. All right. Well, thank you so much. This is so inspiring. Really appreciate you being with us today. And I hope everyone will join us in two weeks. We'll see you back here February 9. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.