After a long day, Elizabeth Lindsey at the agency Wasserman sends NFL chief revenue officer Renie Anderson a wine glass emoji. It means it’s time to grab a drink and catch up.
Lindsey and Anderson are among a group of high-powered women sports leaders whose regular gatherings have become a source of dealmaking, career advancement, and support in their corner of the industry.
Their connection began growing 15 years ago, when Lindsey brought together about 10 friends for drinks while they were in Miami for the CAA World Congress of Sports. Other women from the sports world spotted them at the bar and joined their conversation. They decided to make it an annual meetup, which Lindsey has helped organize since.
“It is difficult to be a senior woman in this industry,” Lindsey, the global president of brands and properties for Wasserman, told Business Insider. “What this gathering did for those women is give a little bit of an outlet at least once a year where you could breathe.”
Lindsey estimates that the Women of Sports Cocktail, as the annual April event is now known, has grown to include a database of roughly 800 to 900 women across sports. It’s helped connect them with jobs and mentorship and propel initiatives to grow women’s sports. In addition to Lindsey and Anderson, participants have included former LA28 Olympics CEO Kathy Carter, the US Tennis Association’s commercial chief Kirsten Corio, and Kerry Tatlock, the National Basketball Association’s executive vice president of global partnerships and media.
“For one night a year, you’re not the only woman in the room,” Lindsey said.
How the cocktail hour brings women of all ages and positions together
The annual meetup has become a who’s who of women leaders in sports and a key networking forum. Attendees are encouraged to bring friends and colleagues to expand the network.
“There’s more of us at the senior level, and I think there are more coming through the system as well,” Tatlock at the NBA said of the growth of women leaders across sports.
Lindsey, Anderson, and Tatlock said this network has led to job opportunities. Anderson said she’s personally hired a few women she met at the event. Lindsay said hiring managers who want to hire more women have contacted her for recommendations to fill roles like team presidents, athletic directors, or chief revenue officers.
Other times, women come to Lindsey, who’s become known for these events, simply to get an introduction to another exec.
“Those relationships are valuable and can lead to a lot of really positive stuff for someone willing to take advantage of the moment,” Anderson said.
During the pandemic, this network of women continued to connect over Zoom. They helped Mori Taheripour, an author with a sports business background, launch her book about negotiation, in one example of how they rallied around each other during that time.
These meetings also inspired Wasserman to launch its women’s sports research branch, The Collective, six years ago. Wasserman already represented athletes, executives, and other women in sports, and The Collective aimed to help others see the potential for the women’s sports market.
“It’s about thinking about how we take all of the resources that we have at Wasserman, how do we leverage some of those incredible executives to be smarter about women as consumers or as fans of women’s sports?” said Thayer Lavielle, the managing director of The Collective.
The event has also led to deal negotiations. Anderson and Lindsay said they’ve worked on sponsorship deals involving the NFL and brands like Nationwide and Microsoft.
“We’ve done a lot of deals together, and it’s, and it’s cool to be able to do that with someone that you respect,” Anderson said.
Lindsey said she’s seen many women rise through the ranks from low-level managers to senior executives of major organizations, and hopes the network will only continue to grow.
“The more we change the gatekeeper and put women in charge of key areas in this industry, the more that we are hyper-serving this industry,” Lindsey said.
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