Steve (00:00.856)
We can, anything that happens, you need to stop as you said. Anything you want to reconstruct at any time. I just, give me my 15 seconds to get my orientation, looking at you, getting a feel for your product.

Amina Bulman (00:12.152)
Take your time.

Steve (00:32.824)
When you have a full package joining on the transaction report, particularly one who does an undergrad at Yale, Harvard Business School with honor. Ryan, was that you? Well, that's okay. So you know what? I apologize. We can edit that out. We'll do it again. You don't need to. You don't need to. Keep it. We can edit anything out.

Amina Bulman (00:46.978)
was me.

Amina Bulman (00:51.758)
Let me just turn the sound.

You can edit it out.

Steve (01:01.996)
This is the only part where I kind of press.

Amina Bulman (01:04.45)
Do your thing. Yeah.

Amina Bulman (01:11.17)
Yeah, exactly. Let me just figure out how to do it. Yeah, that was a slack method.

Steve (01:12.088)
That was a notification? okay, I thought it was a can of Coke. Which I was gonna say, Amina, as your nutritional expert, I'd like to...

Amina Bulman (01:18.55)
No, gosh, no.

Amina Bulman (01:25.56)
Give me just a second to figure out how to do this.

Steve (01:26.965)
Yeah, take your time.

bottom right side, I think on the.

Amina Bulman (01:32.781)
Yes.

Amina Bulman (01:47.552)
All right, pause notifications.

Amina Bulman (01:53.912)
for an hour. Great. right. Apologies for that. We should be all set to go now.

Steve (01:56.665)
Thank you, all good, all good. And Ryan, by the way, Drew can adjust the height of the screen as well. So I'll get a wee bit closer and then leave it at that. So, okay, here we go.

Steve (02:26.562)
When you think about driving for excellence, driving towards excellence, and you think about someone who chooses to go to Yale, then complete her master's degree in business at Harvard Business School with distinction, in the order, may not be accurate, but ends up at McKinsey, works for the Obama Foundation.

finds herself restructuring probably one of the most controversial sports brands in the history of the United States, the Washington Redskins to the commanders, and now has become chief revenue officer at the Boston Legacy, the expansion team that won out when the initial bid put out by the.

National Women's Soccer League consisted of 60 different bidders. And the ultimate, one of the ultimate winners was the team that Amina Bowman represents, and that's the Boston Legacy. We're gonna have a tour de force discussion today, and it's just a pure pleasure to welcome you, Amina, to the Transaction Report.

Amina Bulman (03:36.952)
Thank you so much for having me, Steve.

Steve (03:39.609)
You know, you have such a diverse background and in our business at SportsBiz, you know, we use it not as a cliche, but as a drive for our kind of life's mission, which is there's no perfection, but you drive for excellence. You gotta have that pursuit of excellence. And it seems like the narrative at this stage of what I would suggest is a reasonably young career.

that you've been raised and schooled, that not that it's number one at the loss, zero-sum game of another person, but your own mantra seems to be get into the trenches, give it all you got, and it seems like you've been pretty successful at making sure that you've achieved many of your life's ambitions. What was the root of that?

Amina Bulman (04:35.534)
Well, thank you, Steve. That's very kind of you to say. And I think I have been lucky to be in positions where I get to work on really interesting problems with amazing people. And that's always been something that brings me a ton of joy. You know, I think since I was a little kid, I grew up as an athlete. I was a collegiate rower. And so I've always loved working with great teams, trying to tackle really hard problems. And I think that has been a through line for my career is

finding interesting problems and great people to work on them with.

Steve (05:09.312)
It's interesting, I didn't think of it until now, having studied a little bit about your background, that it's the team play, you know, when you're on that, what do we call again, not a skull, is it a skull that we, what is it in rowing? A boat, okay. So it's not crew, it's rowing. And I used to enjoy rowing when I was younger, it's probably that along with boxing and swimming and wrestling among the harder sports, more demanding all body sports.

Amina Bulman (05:21.797)
I just thought about it.

Steve (05:37.976)
But I like how you said, know, a lot of team play. By the way, is it a singular person in a rowboat when you're in collegiate sport and rowing or are there multiple individuals in the rowboat?

Amina Bulman (05:48.27)
There's usually four or eight, so it's very much a team sport.

Steve (05:52.749)
And you've gravitated toward that. You've gravitated towards team sport. And you've done it in a way where you walked into a situation at the Boston Legacy where there's an awful legacy, and I'm using that in a figurative sense, in the context of just a massive amount of.

of action that took place before you joined that team and a great parallel for the five years that you spent over at the Commanders, which prior to your joining, am I correct? Well, obviously you went rebranding. So you obviously were there when they were the Redskins and you certainly don't shy away from media attention, not for yourself, but for the team that has to write the vote. No pun intended.

Amina Bulman (06:35.864)
Yes.

Amina Bulman (06:41.378)
Well, I think I've always been drawn, as I said, to interesting challenges. And I joined the Redskins the week after they announced they were changing their name. So I joined during the first week of the Washington football team era.

Steve (06:56.552)
Did you know that? they were, were you joined the week after, you say? Okay, but you joined, but your negotiation is to join and to solidify a contract to come on board. That took place prior to the announcement.

Amina Bulman (06:59.776)
I joined the week after.

Amina Bulman (07:12.546)
Well, it all happened very quickly. I had graduated from business school and actually had no intention of working in sports. It was not on my radar, not on my career bingo card, but a mentor of mine from McKinsey, Jason Wright, was going to be the new president of the team and asked me to join as his chief of staff and help manage the transformation. And at first I said, no, thank you. I can read the Washington Post. This sounds like just a really challenging organization, but.

As you said, I've always really cared about building strong teams, creating great cultures, and this felt like an opportunity to do that on truly a global stage. And it was the summer of 2020, it was a time when a lot of organizations were sort of reckoning with their place in culture and their place in society. And what an amazing opportunity to get to combine.

really challenging business problems with really interesting brand problems and cultural and community opportunities as well. And so it just felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity that I had to jump at.

Steve (08:16.408)
Would you ever have imagined a president of the United States would be discussing today and put on the table that we're going to revert back to the Redskins after you guys laboriously and methodically came up with the name of the commanders?

Amina Bulman (08:29.326)
You know, hindsight is 20-20 at the time.

You know, at the time, it was obviously a contentious decision. And part of the process that we went through was really trying to engage in thoughtful ways with our fans around what they valued around the club, how we could maintain aspects of the Redskins brand and carry them forward into the future. And I think we always felt like there were ways to preserve elements of that brand that were meaningful and valuable to our fans without keeping the name itself.

And I'd like to think we've managed to do that and carried those forward. And I don't think anyone could have anticipated the cultural whiplash of the last 10 years.

Steve (09:15.158)
No, and to be frank, just thinking upon it myself, I never would even thought it was an option, nor do I think it will happen, but I think under the consortium ship of Josh Harris, it just seems like that's unlikely to happen. But then again, what we all know is when you're trying to build a new stadium and you're doing it awfully close to the White House, who knows what will come about in this wild world in which we live. But my interest in speaking with you

I only again identify that just because there's a fascinating parallel as you join the commanders or the Redskins at the time or they had just rebranded, renamed or they hadn't renamed yet. They had announced to rename. Is that correct? Right. And so now you're with the Boston legacy, which it rebranded.

Amina Bulman (09:59.907)
That's correct.

Steve (10:05.648)
from its prior name, which I'm just going to go and again, my opinion is absolutely irrelevant. I tried my best to understand the controversy for which I was unaware of the prior name Boss Nation. And obviously the slogan that was used was certainly racy, but all the accusations against a women's owned in totality club of being misogynistic and otherwise seemed to me

something that I was unable to relate to, but nonetheless, there was a decision to rebrand and come up with this name, Boston Legacy.

Getting into the depths of it is my objective and looking at it from our viewer standpoint, many, many brand managers watching this program, custodians of major sponsorship budgets. hope many of those will end up calling you from this conversation because it's certainly a compelling case study and a compelling sponsorship opportunity. What I want to try to understand first and foremost is when you look at introducing a new team,

parenthetically the legacy usage. I want to process that because to me it was almost, I don't want to call it an oxymoron, but I didn't get it. We have something called Boston Legacy for a new launch team. So would you kindly just first help us clarify what is the legacy we're referring to?

Amina Bulman (11:34.122)
Absolutely. So first of all, I'm a Boston native. I was born and raised in the Boston area. I've always been a Boston sports fan. And I think legacy to me spoke to a couple of different elements of Boston sports culture. Obviously, we have an incredible history of male sports teams reaching the highest levels of excellence. And we wanted to pay homage to that. We also wanted to build a new legacy for women's sports in Boston.

and think about how we build a brand that speaks to perhaps a different fandom, a different community in Boston that hasn't necessarily been served by men's sports. And so it's both a nod to the past, both men's sports and the female athletes from Boston who have paved the way, but also a look to the future and a promise to the next generation of fans that we want to build a club that speaks to them, a culture and a brand that they get excited about.

you know, to give them a team that they're proud to root for and proud to wear on their jerseys for the next 50, 100 years and beyond.

Steve (12:36.792)
It's interesting when we look at launching new leagues or new teams, and I've had the benefit over the last 36 years in this industry of doing both. What I find so interesting is that...

sometimes for new sports and we have, I believe if you look collectively over the last, COVID, perhaps several dozen new leagues that have populated in the United States, some of the more prominent than others. Amina, if you need, I know you're hearing ambient sound, but it's all good. It's all good. you, we're gonna be, sure, you got it.

Amina Bulman (13:17.518)
I'm just gonna go close the door, because there's some folks right outside.

Amina Bulman (13:23.938)
Sorry about that, didn't want to cut you off mid-flow.

Steve (13:25.718)
No, no, no, it's okay. I was just going to tell you about my childhood now. So give me a second.

Amina Bulman (13:29.518)
You

Steve (13:35.712)
Ryan, this is where I need an earpiece.

Amina Bulman (13:39.554)
You were talking about building new teams and leagues.

Steve (13:42.688)
Right, thank you.

What's so interesting about building new teams or new leagues is very often the education process that one has to get into to actually school the local community or regional or national community what is being introduced and having spent 13 years in the Far East. Very often that's what you did, particularly when you bring over.

pro beach volleyball and bring over the top teams in the world in a sport that had not been played there before. In certain markets, tennis was, there was not an awareness of specific tennis players that were, or even how the game was necessarily played. It just wasn't broadcast back many, decades ago when I lived there in certain markets. But here you're taking certainly the most popular women's sport in the United States. And from a historical standpoint.

And in many ways, there's an aspect of enormous education that has to take place in a specific market. And again, it's metro area, broader area on a regional basis throughout New England. So help us understand when you go through that process, unlike what you had when you were at the commanders.

There is this starting from scratch, being kind of a renegade, you call it a startup culture, a startup team identity, all women owned, out to frankly prove to the world that this is gonna be another success in the National Women's Soccer League. What would you identify or what are those three perhaps most fundamental aspects

Steve (15:22.26)
of newness that have to be overcome for the fans and really many newly cultivated fans that are going to come as a result of your and your colleagues efforts. What would be in your opinion the top three that are required to get this team off the ground and meet the KPIs that you guys have established?

Amina Bulman (15:45.922)
Well, I'll tell you one of the reasons that I left the NFL to join this club was that soccer is the most globally popular sport in the world. And the NWSL is the best women's soccer product in the world. And so from a pure fundamentals of the business, I got excited about the potential. My theory of change for fandom in Boston for this team is if we can get fans out to see a game.

to see the caliber of play, the level of excellence of these athletes, and also the kind of experience that we can build that's welcoming both to diehard fans, but also more casual fans who want to be supportive of women's sports and the broader cultural movement around female athletes. If we can get them to experience that, they will come back. And so for us, it's all about in year one, how do we introduce fans both to our brand, but also the actual product?

because I'm fully convinced that if we can hook them on that, they'll come back and become season ticket members. They'll come back for our second year when we open White Stadium in Boston.

And we'll be able to give them an experience where they say, wow, this is new, this is different, and it's so much fun. we in sports are so lucky that we get to be in the business of joy. We get to be in the business of creating joyful experiences for people. And we're really leaning into the fun of soccer and the fun of women's sports in particular. And so I'm convinced that once our fans get a taste of that, they'll come back.

Steve (17:13.142)
And just for clarity for everyone, the Boston Breakers, when you say come back, again, we're launching a whole new team, but this again was a team that existed in Boston in various forms in multiple leagues, three different leagues throughout its inception in approximately 2001 till 2018, I believe, where you had your, was that the last time you had pro soccer in Boston?

Amina Bulman (17:35.488)
Yeah, that's exactly right. Although I will say Boston has a very strong soccer culture. The New England Revolution, the men's team have been very popular. in terms of youth soccer culture, Massachusetts actually has the highest per capita rates of youth soccer participation in the country. So I'm convinced the market is there for folks who want to come out and support women's soccer.

Steve (17:55.129)
So let's go again and peel one layer now. So, and this is a concern I have, and it's again, is a concern of someone who's sitting on and rooting for every bit of success of you and your colleagues and owners. And that is having been on briefly on the board of the World Lacrosse Championship in 2018.

and then having a colleague of mine who actually was an owner of two different major league lacrosse teams. And on one of them, the New York Lizards, had the, with unquestionably the greatest lacrosse player ever played at the game, and that was Paul Rabel, who went off and founded his own league, the professional PLL, professional lacrosse league.

Amina Bulman (18:40.856)
Mm-hmm.

Steve (18:42.594)
just did a deal I believe with ESPN that was announced a few weeks or a month ago, which was very important to them and their development over five, seven years or so. But what they did in that first season, I don't know if they do it anymore, but my heart broke when I saw that they were gonna play lacrosse, it's not soccer, and their opening game was in Gillette Stadium.

Now got 65, we just did a deal for United Health Group in our software, we're an AI powered company, sports biz, which really is sponsorship empowerment. How do you know what to sponsor with your associated KPIs giving that power to the brand? And then what do you do with it? You got 50 official partners in the NBA, how do you stand out? And then not only what did you get, what was your valuation?

What do you really leave on that table? And how do we extract or extricate all that untapped value? So when I looked at that decision to go to Gillette and I said, lacrosse, which I've been playing since I was in second grade, as much as I love it, as a sober adult, that wasn't gonna happen. And so therefore all the broadcast angles literally cut out virtually all the seats. And there were times they couldn't.

And it was very difficult. It was extremely difficult. Because from a sponsorship standpoint, as you being head of revenue generation, what we want to show is fans having a wonderful time. There's joy. There's something a community to be a part of. I know you're going into the White Stadium coming up in the 27th state, 27th year, your second year of your launch. But for your inaugural nascent year,

How do we navigate that and navigate it in a way that the brand comes out stronger versus the alternative?

Amina Bulman (20:35.746)
I think there are both challenges and opportunities associated with playing with Gillette. And I will admit that when I heard the news, I had the same reaction as you, because frankly, it's hard to make a 65,000 person stadium feel like it's the right fit for a crowd that is going to be only a fraction of filling that size. However, Gillette is the premier stadium in New England. It's the host of the Men's World Cup next summer. It's going to be the epicenter of soccer in the Boston area.

It's also, mean, in my conversations with athletes, the chance to play at a field like Gillette is unparalleled. Many of these athletes have never had a chance to play in a stadium with the name recognition of Gillette. And so I think as we think about introducing our brand to a market that is very used to driving to Gillette Stadium, in many ways it creates a smoother ramp for folks to engage with the brand for the first time and access it for the first time.

Now it means we're gonna have to get creative, especially with our partners. And this is one of the first conversations that I'm having with my partners is how do we make sure that both brands show up in a way that is exciting and deliberate and intentional. But you know, for many of these brands, they're otherwise not showing up at Gillette Stadium. And so I think if we can take this opportunity and find a way to...

create more value for our partners. They'll be showing up in two different venues with two different populations. In many ways, that's actually an exciting value proposition for the right partner.

Steve (22:14.572)
Well stated. just it's interesting when you look at what it takes to give a stadium ambiance. It's a really interesting science, by the way. And obviously each stadium is built differently and it depends on how that stadium was constructed. But for your average football stadium, let's call it like a Gillette Stadium or a.

Stadium in New York. Usually you're at about a 25,000 seat objective to get a real feel at least on one side of the stadium without having to go up into the bleacher seats where you start feeling it's really, really a lot of action and there's ambiance somewhere between that kind of 18 and 25,000 mark. It's interesting the average audience for the

August 24 to 25 into 25 was about 10 almost 11,000 in the National Women's Soccer League. And when you look at that, one of the things that, and I don't know how it works in your universe.

But I've seen it and done it. And it's remarkable opportunity, which I think you noted at the outset that there's an opportunity here. And there is so much. I know you guys think of this in many more options. But when you look at that metro area or a certain radius of 20, 30 plus miles from Foxborough.

And you start targeting every school in that area. And just like you said about 50 to 100 years from now, we're gonna be a part of the legacy of the life of younger people who are gonna so much value the memorabilia that they get from the Boston legacy. And it was interesting. I call it kind of the China, not syndrome, but the China approach. And what they did is they bust in school after school after school after school.

Steve (24:15.02)
And there was so much interaction with athletes on the field for those younger folk that they made it so that every game, and again in China you can do this without much choice of the other party opting out of attending, but they would bus in to stadia, tens of thousands of younger folk. And that always stuck in my, because I saw it back in the early 90s.

And it taught me something of the importance, and I'll just give one other anecdote. When I had an event that had to fill 14,000 seats, and we were in selling tickets because we priced them too high. And all of sudden, a week before the event, my partner and I said, what do we do? We've got two of the, some of the greatest players in the world in tennis history playing against one another. This will be a national, international scandal if no one shows up. And we created a methodology to make sure that that stadium was overflowing.

Have you ever considered using this as a marketing tool where you get that loyal base cultivated early and you've got obviously enough time?

where you can start literally sowing seeds so that when you have so many excess seeds and you don't want to fill a 65-seat stadium, but you want to get somewhere between 18 and 25 in there, and knowing that will give you a really good vibe for broadcast, has that been ever part of a strategic consideration for an organization like yours, having to play because the stadium's not ready, where you have an 11,000-seat stadium in White Stadium that's about to be inaugurated for 27?

Amina Bulman (25:51.382)
I'd say it's one of the premier strategic decisions that I think about on a regular basis. On the one hand, we want the price point to be accessible, especially in year one, so that fans do have the opportunity to come to a game to bring friends, bring families. On the other hand, I think we as folks who work in the business of women's sports need to be raising fan expectations for...

paying to watch excellent sports. And I don't want to train the market to think that they can get a $5 ticket to come see a game. The other consideration that I'm thinking about is we'll be moving from a 65,000 person stadium in year one to a 12,000 person stadium in year two. And so just by virtue of the different scale of those venues, we'll be able to drive pricing power by moving back into an urban, smaller, more intimate setting.

And so it's something that I'm thinking about a lot, how we create that full feeling, that feeling of intimacy, of noise, of the crowd, while also thinking about how we create a successful transition to year two, where our diehard fans can still get access, they're still able to buy season tickets, but we know that realistically, we're gonna be moving into a much smaller space.

Steve (27:10.008)
You just gave me an idea and that you look at it from a sponsorship standpoint and one multiple deals with specific sponsors that come in early can get into a very meaningful point of sale activity where you're starting to reward with tickets, doing certain campaigns where it becomes that you're very community based and obviously working with your.

Amina Bulman (27:29.452)
Yes.

Steve (27:30.104)
partners to Boston municipality. Obviously when you start to fuse strategic relationships with brands that see this as wow, wait a minute, I'm getting a sponsorship, but I'm also doing this enormous societal good and I'm getting this unprecedented number of tickets that I can start to identify X, Y and Z schools so it doesn't come off as a free offer, but it comes off as our company providing the largesse if you will, the goodwill.

bring those 10,000 young folk who are now going to become lifelong fans of your club. And again, we could talk about this all day, night, having seen it with the PLL and having told the chairman of those other two teams it was going to happen and then see it happen. And you don't want to see that happen because we want all of you to be so successful in everything you do and knowing that that's a big nut for one year. And obviously with the white, I did have a question about the white stadium.

And as much as, forgive me for not remembering his name, but he's been around a long time, Mr. White, who has that stadium blessed in his name. But from naming rights, what happens as we look at his, because you're putting up, as I recall,

The overall investment now is perhaps double what happens to everybody. I once met with John Maurer, the owner of the Giants, and he was telling me about the spend on the new stadium they were building probably 15 years ago. And literally, they doubled their costs. But as I understand it, you got almost 100 million coming in from your side into the investment of white. Just what I read, don't know if it's accurate. But how do you navigate

putting that type of money into a stadium when there's already this quote unquote naming rights identity in an individual who I don't believe is extent and we want to get you to have sponsor as a chief revenue officer one of the greatest privileges having naming rights is there anything that you're waiting for is there a tipping point where white stadium ultimately becomes Coca-Cola Stadium is that ever in the cards or is this in perpetuity white stadium

Amina Bulman (29:39.278)
So White Stadium actually initially opened in 1949. So it's really, it has a long history in the city of Boston. To answer your question quickly, and then I'll give a little bit more context, we're talking to partners who will be naming partner field at White Stadium. So Coca-Cola Field at White Stadium, for example.

Steve (29:58.361)
Interesting.

Amina Bulman (30:00.546)
And I think the partners who I'm engaging with around that opportunity really see this as a unique and distinct value proposition that looks pretty different from other naming rights deals. And that's because of our unique relationship with the city of Boston, in particular, Boston Public Schools. We are building the stadium jointly with the city of Boston, and it will be a purpose-built women's stadium, all-electric, state-of-the-art, and...

When the club is not using it on the 15 to 20 game days that we'll have each year, it will be a facility for Boston Public Schools. So this is actually a venue that will be programmed 40 plus hours a week, 365 days a year. And so for the right brand that wants to access a very specific mix of audiences, both the audience that we attract as the club, but also the Boston Public Schools community and those families and the diversity of audiences that get brought in from a space that is both

a sports venue, but also a multi-use community asset, it's really a compelling value proposition. And I think, you know, especially for brands that have much more of a community lens, the ability to invest in that sort of dual use partnership, I think creates a lot of opportunities.

Steve (31:16.79)
Yeah, it's interesting the history of that and how that White Stadium has always had this public property identity working with the local schools. And as you said, there's a lot of value when you have that type of traffic coming through incrementally. And I should mention, by the way, in my hometown of New York, of Manhattan.

And when you look at the Bronx and the Steinbrenner family that never took a title sponsor for Yankee Stadium, right? It has always been clean. There's never been a naming rights partner, although it would be ideal in this case to have that for the Boston legacy. But at the same time, when you look at that Delta, I don't believe anyone identifies Delta with Yankee Stadium as a.

MetLife Stadium in that context of flowing out, I'll meet you at MetLife or I'll meet you at, let's say in the old days in LA at Staples Center.

Amina Bulman (32:08.493)
Mm-hmm.

Steve (32:08.834)
But I do think when they have up on the highest pinnacle, the largest branding of Delta, you get a pretty good feel that this is a very powerful player there. So there's a lot of real estate in which to work. And obviously, ultimately, there's a lot of creativity that you have being an owner of the property and then having co-ownership with that stadium. When you look, go back to what you said at the beginning and saying how there had been this very kind of male dominant

sports environment. I lived in 84, 85 in Brookline and a New Yorker who became a Celtics fan. was contagious with Larry Bird and DJ and a lot of other guys.

that I just couldn't resist. But I would agree with you. For me, it was really what I knew of it were the Bruins, clearly the Celtics, clearly the Red Sox. And when you look at the Patriots, obviously Patriots ownership and under Robert Kraft, when you look at all of those competing interests and having such successful college teams, you you look at a Boston college that I believe has

if I remember correctly, 23,000 average spectator attendance on a game day, which is pretty awesome for a college team drumming up that type of interest. How do you position in a way when there is so much choice as a chief revenue officer?

I know you look for like-minded vision and philosophy, and obviously women's sport being so exciting and contagious in its appeal today. But then again, sponsors who want to know how do I ultimately look at my value based on return on objectives or return on investment or value generated.

Steve (34:08.386)
How do you as a chief revenue officer, how do you dice that differently than perhaps and fit in to that culture of Boston where sponsors are looking at you and feeling, yes, this is a must have?

Amina Bulman (34:23.214)
Two things to me I think have consistently rung true. One, Boston is just an incredible sports city. Bostonians eat, drink, live, breathe sports. And so it's just a part of the culture and the ethos. And so we're excited to become part of that community. And I think the data that we're seeing on women's sports shows that especially in soccer, we're not.

We're not taking fans from men's soccer, we're not taking fans from the NBA. We're actually unlocking new fandoms. We are unlocking new sports fans. And so if you're a brand thinking about how you reach beyond traditional audiences, how you engage with potential customers who might not be existing fans of men's sports, that is an incredible opportunity. We're speaking to people who have never been sports fans before.

And so that's often how I talk about what we're building because I do think it's less of a, you know, shrink it and pink it approach from men's sports and more shrink it and pink it. I think we have the opportunity.

Steve (35:22.924)
Yeah, wait, let's say that more time. Trinket and... Trinket. Well, three in one second. Trinket I got and pinket. Can you give me some color on the pinket, please?

Amina Bulman (35:36.438)
So I mean, think traditionally the thinking has been how do you take the model that's worked in men's sports and just sort of adapt it for women's sports?

Steve (35:44.824)
So zero sum game mentality.

Amina Bulman (35:47.936)
Or just let's take this model and shift it. Lift and shift, copy and paste, make it work for women's sports. I'd argue that what we're doing here is actually a totally different model. It's community first, it's culture first. It's a different way of building fandom and a different way of engaging with fans than I think men's sports have traditionally built. And so I want us to be able to tell that story with partners. How we're building new fandom, reaching new audiences.

and identifying new and very high value customers for them. mean, the data shows that fans of women's sports are much more likely to be fans of brands that partner with women's sports. They're stickier consumers. And so from a pure value play, it just makes a ton of sense.

Steve (36:34.473)
Could you just color that please? Your fans that you anticipate. Can you give us a demographic breakdown please?

Amina Bulman (36:43.118)
We're seeing all sorts of fans who are really drawn to the club. I'd say right now the sort of through line of the early hand raisers is folks who are very excited about women's sports in general. So they are much more likely to be fans of the WNBA, for example, than the MLS. But I'm really interested in the sort of cross-section that we're seeing.

Steve (37:02.104)
And those, just so I have clarity, those fans are, demographically, what do they look like? What, give us some percentiles on who are we going after? If we want to get 12,000 people sold out every single game, that's our objective by 27. Who are those 12,000 people?

Amina Bulman (37:23.566)
So you really see a mix. Certainly some are younger, female, highly educated, high net worth. I'd say those have been the initial hand raisers, especially in the Boston market. Highly educated, post-grad, young people.

Steve (37:35.786)
age group.

Age strata, what was our range in age?

Amina Bulman (37:41.742)
Really in the sort of 16 to 35 range. But we're also seeing families. We're seeing the large and diverse immigrant communities in Boston say that they're excited about having a global sport come back to Boston. And then I'd say taking a step back, especially in Boston, there's a real community that I think cuts across demographics. It says we want to be here to support women's sports.

We want to be here to support female athletes and to support their excellence. And we're seeing those folks show up as well.

Steve (38:15.256)
You know, it's interesting. And again, there are no zingers on this program. This is really just exploring and helping our viewers understand the opportunities and really where the value propositions lie. So if you will, before we get into what I would call not a zinger, it's really just understanding the position you're in and how does someone with your expertise, which is vast, navigate, because that's what we can learn from.

So first and foremost, the top tier value propositions, I'm going to ask you to give us a use case example. So I'll volunteer one you've said, which is community involvement.

So with community involvement, when you sponsor the Boston Legacy, the expansion team, one of them that won out for the 26th season, a big win, all women's ownership, some A-list new investors, Ali Raisman, the gymnast, one of the great voices and very sensitive moral voices.

Take one of them that you said is a value prop, which is our involvement with community. And if you would put a use case behind that, that a sponsor would gravitate toward.

Amina Bulman (39:29.378)
So say, for example, you are a grocery partner, right? And you become our field naming rights partner. Not only will you be in front of our fans on game day and obviously on our social channels and all the other ways that we help our fans associate our brand with our partners, but you are also getting in front of the Boston Public Schools community, those athletes, those parents, those buyers, day in and day out.

Not only that, you become a partner with us in our community give back programs, whether that's engaging with the health of black and brown communities in Franklin Park, whether that is youth sports across the state, or whether that's community programs that have particular meaning to that partner themselves. And so.

Steve (40:15.072)
And Anita, just to be clear, what does that look like from a tangible, practical deployment level? If I were meeting with you as a prospective sponsor and I was saying, this sounds really interesting and I know you're going to customize for me.

But how could you give me a taste of where I would be able to look to my CMO or CFO or CEO and define that value proposition so that we can say, we're getting more than we invested. This is a very sage sponsorship engagement.

Amina Bulman (40:51.704)
Well, a very tactical example is we will have 12 Boston Public Schools sports playing in our stadium. So if you are a naming rights partner, your brand will be physically visible 24-7 in front of all of those athletes, their coaches, their families. And so if you want to get in front of that community, there is no better way to be able to have that visibility and brand recognition than by working with us.

Steve (41:17.528)
Is there engagement that comes with that? Is there opportunities for those brands off game to actually engage those who come through on those non, you played 26 games I believe a year, is that correct?

Amina Bulman (41:30.03)
We'll play between 15 and 20 at home.

Steve (41:33.048)
excuse me, 15, 20 at home. So that number with all those 340 plus other days, are they able when individuals come, is there opportunity to have some form of touch with the consumer above and beyond that important brand exposure as far as reach goes physically being there?

Amina Bulman (41:54.102)
Absolutely, and I'll continue with the illustrative grocery example, but we will be doing healthy eating workshops with students at our training facility. We might have a community garden at the stadium. And so the integration goes far beyond game day. think we...

Steve (41:57.644)
Please.

Amina Bulman (42:13.71)
One of the ways in which we stand apart from other clubs is that truly integrated close knit relationship with the Boston community and Boston public schools. And that shows up in a 365 degree way.

Steve (42:24.34)
Excellent. Excellent. I'm going to come back to one thing that I learned when I was researching to meet you. I'm going to come back to in just a moment. So that would be one value proposition. The community. What would be the other two value propositions with a brief tactical connection?

Amina Bulman (42:40.726)
As I mentioned earlier, unlocking new fans. mean, what brand would not want to get in front of fans who have never really engaged in sports and sports fandom before? And I think for the brands that I'm engaging with, they're particularly excited about this demographic of young, progressive, socially aware, often women, but not always. We're seeing a pretty even gender split in this cohort who are excited about becoming sports fans for the very first time. I mean, that is, I just think.

You know, in the NFL, you're constantly trying to eke out sort of how do you get in front of the marginal fan? How do you get, you know, a marginal percentage of higher brand recognition, brand voice, and we are unlocking entirely new communities for our sponsors. And so I think just from a...

Steve (43:25.592)
And their core passion above and beyond the sport itself. When you look at a, we had April Seifrodon who is a PhD in consumer behavior and she's narrowed it down in her company's mind to nine critical variables of a persona that she knows that the ultimate, when you look at a team of all the thousands of variables, there are kind of nine core and a lot of it has to do with.

really the psychographic element and the passion of, so if we had to kind of give a taste of those 16 to I believe you said 35 age group demographic, majority based women, passionate about also the WNBA among other sports, what might be above and beyond a love for soccer or a future love for soccer?

What might be an overarching passion that they exude and have in common?

Amina Bulman (44:25.75)
It's really values alignment and community. When we look at the data on women's sports fans, they are much more likely to enjoy their fandom socially, meaning with other people, whether that's online or in person than male sports fans. And so for them, it's all about this community of people who share my values, who think like me, who want to be supportive of female athletes. And that creates incredibly strong and sticky bonds.

Steve (44:52.152)
Okay. The third, by the way, I wanna just if you, because it's very helpful, it's very interesting. The third value prop for a incoming soon to be sponsored. By the way, have you already launched your sponsorship drive and secured sponsors at this date? You have.

Amina Bulman (45:09.09)
We have a couple of our marquee sponsors still out to market with a couple of our major assets. The third value proposition is the NWSL is the fastest growing league in the country right now. This is the opportunity to engage with a club in its infancy in a sport which is projected to grow by multiples over the next couple of years.

And the partners who want to build something new with us are the ones who our fans are going to associate with the club from day one. And so the conversations that I'm having with brands are about what is the possibility here? What's the potential here? What does growth look like for both organizations over the next five, 10, 15 years? And the sky's really the limit.

Steve (45:56.323)
You know, it's interesting when you look at some of the strata of the teams in the National Women's Soccer League. I had not known about this until probably three weeks ago. But when you look at its growth...

and literally that it's generated in 13 years. And by the way, until this conversation, if you had asked me which women's sport is the fastest growing, I would have thought it was basketball. So thank you for educating me about that. I would not have thought. I remember when we were moving with Alex Morgan and we were just the national World Cup coverage was, the men's were not even on the radar for the United States. The women's was what we watched.

Amina Bulman (46:27.256)
Mm-hmm.

Steve (46:37.994)
It's interesting and it's really engaging to know that national women's soccer is the fastest growing women's sport in the country. And so much so that after 27 seasons for the WNBA, which it took them to get to $76 million in revenue generated for sponsorship, the WNSL has done that in 13 seasons. Which is really interesting.

Amina Bulman (47:03.438)
That's exactly right.

Steve (47:06.614)
Over 400 sponsors are now affiliated with the teams within the National Women's Soccer League. One stat that floored me, and as someone who's been in sponsorship for a long, long time, gave me a moment to pause. And I know you know what I'm gonna say, and that is that of half the revenue that was generated, just about 46 million, more than half, came from three specific teams.

in the National Women's Soccer League. And that to me was very, that was an intense stat that I had not anticipated. And I'm curious when we know that the deals are averaging out about $170,000 according to what is on record. Again, I'm not within the league and with Jessica Berman, so I don't know the veracity of that.

10 deals over a million dollars were done for sponsorship in the league. How do you navigate when you have, know, Angel City, The Current, I forget which the third one was. I'm inclined to say, I know it's not New York. It will come to me in a moment. But when you look at those major brands as properties, I think it was the San Diego Wave.

is the third one, that gleaned literally a good chunk, 46 % of league-wide sponsorship revenue. How do we become at the Boston Legacy that fourth one that is up there where others have struggled?

Amina Bulman (48:50.04)
Well, I think that stat that you raised about the sort of disparity in where the money is flowing is actually reflective of two things. One, which you know very well is just the timeline of partnership cycles, right?

some major, you know, major assets only come up every five or 10 years and the market is just moving at a faster pace. So I would expect for some of those clubs that are not in those top three, that when they're going back out to market with naming rights, with Jersey positions, they're getting valuations that are 4X higher than they might've been the last, the last go around. So part of that is just, you know, the cycle. and then the second is the, you know, I think just the growth of the sport.

Steve (49:26.136)
Interesting point, yeah.

Amina Bulman (49:34.478)
is driving some of that imbalance. You have clubs that are saying, let's take advantage of this momentum and find partners who are excited to work with us. And it becomes a bit of an arms race when there are only so many positions across the league and the brands who are excited about women's sports know they only have these few opportunities. And so I would expect that disparity is reflective of just the...

the changing pace of the league and the relative maturity of the clubs and the league. And I would expect to see over time that that evens out.

Steve (50:10.776)
Huh, main goal for the first tranche of brands coming in, numbers, as far as what you hope to secure. With respect, obviously, there's some go-to.

industry positions that slots that have a proclivity to get more involved with women's soccer at this particular time. Do you have in your mind without anchoring you, it could be a range, obviously maximum to a limit, to a reasonable limit is the ideal, whatever that kind of nebulous statement means, but there gets to a point of laws of diminishing return in sponsorship where clutter is probably one of the biggest bains in the existence of a proper brand sponsorship.

too difficult to penetrate the corporate veil of the mind of the consumer. Do you have a kind of first tranche in launch objective?

Amina Bulman (51:02.954)
I will say Steve, we very much expect to be in that top quartile that you mentioned. And I think the market is showing us that there's demand for that based on the conversations I'm having. But more importantly for me, it's about finding the brands who authentically want to partner with us and help us grow and want to grow together with us. And so as much about the money as though, although obviously that's very important, it's brand alignment, it's values alignment, and it's finding the right people who want to build together with us.

Steve (51:29.592)
So refreshing. I really value what you just said. How many times I have seen, I mean, we all have seen, but in particular, and geographically it doesn't make the difference where you are in the world, this unrelenting pursuit to max out the bottom line, but not realizing that with a little bit of foresight, a little bit of patience,

Getting into channels of distribution, and I'm not saying anything that I know you don't know, but getting into that proper channel of distribution where I can leverage the daylights out of that brand that just brought me into 20 million of public relations of value. And what that's going to do to me over a three to five year period is going to so far exponentially surpass.

Anything on the bottom line that instead of the average deal of according to again one report 35 average sponsors per team at an average of 170 grand at the end of the day if I got another brand in at 280 or 350 but I had another company in at 100 but it's bringing me the world the world of channels of distribution. I mean 100 out of 100 in my opinion.

barring a catastrophic situation where I was scraping to the point that I, I mean, once paying off debtors per se, I would say absolutely your comment is so refreshing and shows enormous foresight. I'll ask a rhetorical question, but it's sincere. Does your ownership team endorse that long-term vision?

Amina Bulman (53:15.298)
Yes, absolutely. We talked earlier about the meaning of the name Legacy, and one of the things that attracted me to this position was the shared understanding among our ownership group that we're building something not for the next five years, but for the next hundred years. And I think taking that perspective leads you to make choices that are good for the fans, that are good for the players, and that are good for our partners. And so that's always been a North Star for me.

Steve (53:42.393)
Brilliant, and I see that it's a different generation and you of course thinking of AI and transhumanism and in today's world there's not a three or five year plan but there's a 50 to 100 year plan and with all that's going on in AI, you, I know you, you.

actually foresee being there at that 100th anniversary and celebrating with the legacy fans that have come along for that journey with our changing world technologically and its impact on the human race. So I'm learning every day in these programs that there's no longer a three to five year plan, but a far lengthier one in the form of a century. With that said, fascinating expansion fee was about 58 million. I, I, I,

don't remember offhand what the first entry fee was for the first NWSL team was, but I imagine that might have covered the whole league at the time. So with that said, mean a pure pleasure, think we drilled down into some of the tactical usage from a community standpoint, talked about your stadium and your transition obviously from going from one very complex environment to one that's very focused on creating in a very

Fabula Rosa, real open field of creating and inserting, if you will, your own impromptu. By the way, your team at this point, how large is that team outreaching to the market at large in a sponsorship context?

Amina Bulman (55:16.422)
We're very lucky to be working with Excel Sports Management on some of our marquee assets. Right now, it's just me. So we're building out the team side. We are a startup and looking for great talent. So please send folks my way.

Steve (55:20.384)
Excellent.

Steve (55:29.184)
That's the best. By the way, anticipation of national versus regional versus local. Do you have a sense in your mind of what that composition might look like when the tapestry is complete and you look at your first tier brands of multiple dozens coming in, joining your team? Do you have a sense of what that distribution might look like?

Amina Bulman (55:50.84)
think a healthy mix. Eager to have folks that have obviously the broad national recognition, but also in terms of brand building, it's always fun to have some local names too.

Steve (55:59.288)
Brilliant, brilliant. Well, Amina Bowman, Chief Revenue Officer of our new fledgling team of the Boston legacy, we wish you much continued success, much continued success, and what a pleasure, again, it is to have you today on the transaction report.

Amina Bulman (56:18.382)
Thank you so much, Steve.

Steve (56:20.141)
Okay, just we're gonna upload.