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WNBA games and the NCAA women’s basketball tournament aren’t the only avenues Disney has in store to attract advertisers looking to expand its support for women’s sports.
Starting July 10, the entertainment giant will premiere “In the Arena: Serena Williams,” a new eight-part miniseries that chronicles the tennis legend’s long career from the perspectives of both herself and the key people in her life. The show is backed by Morgan Stanley as principal sponsor of the series, with TJ Maxx and Heineken as associate sponsors.
Alice Milligan, chief marketing officer at Morgan Stanley, said she sees an opportunity for sponsorship to bring more attention to women’s sports overall, which she said has seen less investment from advertisers but is expected to be a $1 billion-plus industry, according to a new Deloitte report.
She said the financial-services giant seized the opportunity to demonstrate it has “old-fashioned grit” and a “new world view”, adding: “I can’t think of anyone more gritty or visionary than Serena herself.”
From July 10 through Aug. 28, Morgan Stanley will sponsor elements within the ESPN+ series, including custom vignettes and logo bugs, ESPN social posts that will appear on Instagram and Facebook and promotions for the miniseries that will appear on shows like “First Take,” “Get Up” and “SportsCenter.”
Big sports media has focused a lot of its attention on games dominated by male athletes and owners. But as streaming video shakes up the traditional entertainment economy, some media companies are starting to put a renewed focus on women’s sports, hoping those games will draw bigger audiences and perhaps the revenue that comes with them. Advertisers are spending more than $18 million on ESPN’s 2022 NCAA women’s basketball tournament, playoffs and championships, according to ad-spending tracker Vivvix. Top advertisers include Nissan, Capital One and Unilever’s deodorant Degree.
GroupM, a major media-buying consortium backed by advertising giant WPP, said earlier this year it would pledge to double the amount its clients spend on women’s sports in 2024 and aim to create a marketplace dedicated to the programming genre starting with the industry’s next “upfront” negotiation period. It has already secured interest from advertisers including Adidas, Ally, Coinbase, Discover, Google, Mars, Nationwide, Unilever and NBCUniversal’s Universal Pictures.
“Disney has been in this industry for a long time and we look to our brands to help us continue the mission we’ve had for so many years,” said Mike Denby, senior vice president of sales for Disney Advertising.
The series is directed by Gossam Chopra and co-directed by Lauren Fisher and is co-produced by ESPN, Religion of Sports, Tom Brady’s 199 Productions and Williams and Caroline Currier’s Nine Two Six Productions.
