{"id":2607,"date":"2026-04-14T13:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=2607"},"modified":"2026-04-14T13:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:32:08","slug":"ally-picks-womens-sports-over-traditional-cable-1236720944","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=2607","title":{"rendered":"Ally Picks Women’s Sports Over Traditional Cable — and Sees Boost"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tThe financial services firm Ally<\/a> has worked to carve out new roosts in sports that in years past might never have been shown on TV.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlly is a major sponsor of the Unrivaled<\/a> three-on-three women\u2019s basketball league and plans to invest ad dollars in \u201cWomen\u2019s Sports Sundays,\u201d a new showcase from ESPN<\/a> that will replace the long-running \u201cSunday Night Baseball\u201d this summer. If Andrea Brimmer<\/a>, the company\u2019s chief marketing and public relations officer, has her druthers, Ally will increasingly be able to put ads alongside Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League Games in more prominent TV slots.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis wasn\u2019t the case just four years ago. In 2022, executives at Ally learned that 94% of women in C-suite roles had played sports at some point in their lifetimes, but that women\u2019s sports received less than 5% of overall media coverage. \u201cWe did some quick back in the napkin math and said, \u2018How much are we spending in women\u2019s sports?\u2019\u201d recalls Brimmer. \u201cAnd at the time, we were spending 90% of our budget in men\u2019s sports and 10% in women\u2019s sports. And we said, \u2018Okay, we\u2019re part of the problem. So, let\u2019s fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlly decided it would take five years to devote 50% of its sports spending to women\u2019s sports. It has accomplished the task one year earlier than expected.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlly\u2019s drive to its goal may be watched closely. More advertisers \u2014 even those that in the past didn\u2019t seek to court a sports-focused audience \u2013 find they cant make efficient investment in advertising without getting their messages in front of large groups watching the same program simultaneously. With more consumer watching scripted dramas and other series at times of their own choosing, sports \u2013 with dramatic storylines that expire the minute a game or match ends \u2013 have become the one sure thing left in media for much fo Madison Avenue.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat is one factor driving the NWSL<\/a>, WNBA<\/a> and a host of emerging leagues tied to women\u2019s hockey, volleyball and other games, to new attention. WPP Media, which represents Ally<\/a>, found that overall viewer impressions in women\u2019s sports impressions grew 79% \u00a0in 2025 compared with 2024, , with ad spend on women\u2019s sports up 69%. Ally\u2019s ads in women\u2019s sports generated 85% higher engagement compared to commercials that ran in non-sports programming on broadcast and cable, WPP Media found.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo find more money for women\u2019s sports, Ally opted to overhaul its ad spending in traditional non-sports cable. \u201cWe have gone to zero in terms of any of our cable investment\u201d that isn\u2019t tied to sports, says Brimmer. \u201cWe have gotten out of certain media that we just don\u2019t use anymore,\u201d she says, while keeping its spend steady in men\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company couldn\u2019t just flip a switch and rework its sports allocation When Ally first unveiled its goal, other advertisers had the best ad positions in WNBA games and Unrivaled had yet to launch. But Ally was able, over time, to cut new ad deals with Disney, CBS and Scripps that in some cases called for moving championship women\u2019s game to primetime or getting networks to pick up rights to women\u2019s sports they had not linked up with in the past. Ally also kept its eyes out for recap shows and video podcasts built around women\u2019s sports that it could sponsor.<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch programming could win more support over time, says Brimmer, who cites new efforts by Sue Bird and Billie Jean King as highly entertaining. \u201cI think fans have a different relationship with female athletes than they do with male athletes. And they have a rabid interest in knowing as much about them as they possibly can. And these emerging platforms have started to exist, they are able to give that,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d like to see that continue to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlly will continue to keep its eye on women\u2019s sports, says Brimmer, citing a need \u201cto make sure we don\u2019t fall below the 50\/50.\u201d Still, there are other sports plans in the works.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe average fan needs about $1,600 a year to attend the sporting events they want,\u201d she notes, \u201cand there\u2019s not a lot of disposable income to do that.\u201d Ally will aim in the future to help fans gain access to games, in various ways. Perhaps an Ally-sponsored watch party or an event at an Ally facility might give consumers \u201cthe ability to be in the moment while they might not necessarily be in the stadium,\u201d she says. \u201cLet\u2019s make sure the fan doesn\u2019t get left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The financial services firm Ally has worked to carve out new roosts in sports that in years past might never have been shown on TV. Ally is a major sponsor of the Unrivaled three-on-three women\u2019s basketball league and plans to invest ad dollars in \u201cWomen\u2019s Sports Sundays,\u201d a new showcase from ESPN that will replace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1261,1262,405,3,167,62,1263,1264],"tags":[1258,1259,1260,929],"class_list":["post-2607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ally","category-andrea-brimmer","category-entertainment","category-lifestyle","category-netflix","category-news","category-nwsl","category-wnba","tag-ally","tag-andrea-brimmer","tag-nwsl","tag-wnba"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}