Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The Supreme Court is considering whether domestic abusers should own guns, moms in the U.K. say that their career development slowed after kids, and a football family buys into women’s soccer. Have a wonderful Wednesday!
– Game on. When Carolyn Tisch Blodgett was 6 years old, her grandfather, Loews Corporation cofounder Bob Tisch, bought a 50% stake in the New York Giants. The 1991 purchase turned out to be a formative one for Tisch Blodgett and her entire family; they began spending Sundays together watching football. Tisch Blodgett even wrote her college admissions essay about bonding through the sport with three generations of women in her family.
As Tisch Blodgett progressed in her own career, she stayed close to sports and fitness; she was Peloton’s head of global marketing between 2016 and 2020. After leaving the fitness company, last year she began working within the Giants representing her family’s ownership interest as a strategic advisor. (The team is co-owned by the Tisch and Mara families.) Spending more time in the sports world helped her identify opportunities outside the NFL, and she now also serves as founder and CEO for Next 3, an investment arm for the Tisch family backing innovation in sports.
Today, Next 3 is leading a minority stake investment in NJ/NY Gotham FC, the New York metropolitan area’s women’s soccer franchise. The size of the investment wasn’t disclosed. As Tisch Blodgett considered possible Next 3 investments, “all roads kept leading us back to women’s soccer,” she says.
New soccer teams have popped up across the country in recent years—from the celebrity-backed Los Angeles team Angel City to a forthcoming Bay Area franchise—but Tisch Blodgett followed her grandfather’s lead and stuck with the New York market. “He had the opportunity to invest in many other teams where he would be the controlling owner, but he said, ‘How could I invest 100% in another team when I have an opportunity to invest 50% in the New York Giants?'” she remembers. “That was really how we felt about Gotham.”
Gotham’s other co-owners and investors include New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Tammy Murphy as well as Sue Bird and Carli Lloyd.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett is leading her family’s investment in New York women’s soccer team Gotham FC. Barnabas Crosby As a co-owner, Tisch Blodgett wants to help Gotham reach new audiences. “Gotham can absolutely be one of the best women’s soccer teams in the country and in the world,” she says. “It can also be one of the best brands in the world.”
Tisch Blodgett’s Peloton experience informs her approach, too. She’d like to help more Gotham players grow into household names, just as Peloton instructors Cody Rigsby and Robin Arzón became stars in their own right. (The team’s roster includes Ali Krieger, who has announced her retirement, and forward Katie Stengel.) And she wants to build a community around the team similar to the following of devotees Peloton developed online.
The New York Liberty’s recent run in the WNBA finals showed Tisch Blodgett what could be possible. “All of a sudden people are walking down the street wearing Liberty shirts and they’re talking about the Liberty in a way that five years ago wouldn’t have happened,” she says.
At the Giants, much of Tisch Blodgett’s work is about modernizing the team. Gotham gives Tisch Blodgett opportunities to test new strategies on a smaller scale before trying them in the NFL. (Gotham plays at New Jersey’s Red Bull Arena, which holds 25,000 people to MetLife’s 82,500.) She and Next 3 are interested in changing patterns in sports media consumption, evolving behavior in the stadium—younger generations are less willing to miss key moments to get up and buy popcorn, for instance—and keeping fans connected with players 24/7, not just during games.
Tisch Blodgett wants Gotham to define her family’s legacy just as the Giants have. “When my family got involved in the Giants, that fundamentally changed our family,” she says. “When I look back, 30 years from now, I hope that for our family and so many other families Gotham will be a life-changing moment, because women’s soccer is part of their lives in a way it hadn’t been before.”
Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
|
