That’s where Red Stars president Karen Leetzow and CMO Kay Bradley come in.
The team for the job
Leetzow served as general counsel at Nascar for more than two decades before spending three and a half years at U.S. Soccer as its chief legal officer. After seeing soccer’s governing body through struggles over its collective bargaining agreement and equal pay for men’s and women’s players—as well as an NWSL abuse scandal that directly involved the Red Stars—she joined the club and began using her skills as a negotiator to make the Red Stars’ case to legislators.
She pointed out that 87% of teams in the four largest professional men’s sports in the United States have received public funding for stadiums totaling roughly $35 billion since 1970. She spoke about the growth potential of women’s sports in the U.S.—which Deloitte predicts will grow to nearly $1.28 billion in value this year, up 300% from just three years ago—and how teams and leagues should be rewarded with investment based on the numbers.
But because the history of women’s soccer is riddled with teams playing matches on poorly converted baseball fields and injuring players in the process, Leetzow also found herself negotiating with the NWSL players association and Red Star and Bay FC players. She reminded them that the Cubs grounds crew has prepared Wrigley for concerts, college football games and the National Hockey League’s Winter Classic, but Leetzow also made the argument a bit more personal.
“We did it by focusing on this league needing more brand awareness,” Leetzow said. “We have some of the best players in the world, in Chicago’s backyard—[U.S. women’s national team callups] Mal Swanson and Alyssa Naeher are just amazing—and they’re playing out in Bridgeview and people can’t get there.”
In March, the Red Stars hired Bradley, former U.S. Soccer marketing vp, as CMO. Supplementing Havas Chicago’s work on the Wrigley Field sports marketing campaign with the team’s own photographers and videographers, her team has cut together various content around the project and helped organize the fan festival outside Wrigley on Gallagher Way just before match time.
“We’re going to be a force to be reckoned with in Chicago,” Bradley said. “We’re taking this opportunity right out of the gate this summer to plant a flag and to say, ‘Hey, things are going to be different … and we’re going to be a team that Chicago’s going to want to rally around.’”
