Ally further solidified the company’s commitment to women’s sports by announcing new partnerships with the WNBA and Paige Bueckers.
Ally Bank‘s commitment to women’s sports now extends to pro basketball in a major way.
The company announced a deal with the WNBA on Friday, making it the league’s official bank and a Changemaker partner while also inking UConn champion point guard Paige Bueckers to a personal endorsement deal. Ally joins WNBA Changemaker companies like Google, Nike, AT&T, Deloitte, and CarMax that “are deeply invested in driving positive change for the WNBA, women’s sports, and women in society,” per an explanation of the collective on the league’s website.
As part of the deal, Ally, which had been a Las Vegas Aces team sponsor the last two years, will be the presenting partner of the league’s Rivalry Week series in August, where matchups will include Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever taking on Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky, the New York Liberty battling the Minnesota Lynx in a 2024 Finals rematch, and the expansion Golden State Valkyries playing the Los Angeles Sparks. The partnership will also see Ally focusing on increasing fan engagement opportunities.
“I’ve admired how Ally has activated with other sports, and we were thinking innovatively on how we could work together,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told Boardroom. “Ally and its 50-50 pledge is really changing the game.”
That pledge Ally took on in 2022 equally divided its sports sponsorship spending on men and women at a time when women’s sports were severely underfunded and underrepresented. Around the time when Engelbert took over as commissioner in 2019, women’s sports accounted for 1% of all corporate sponsorship dollars, 5% of all media coverage, and less than 6% of Fortune 500 companies invested in women’s sports. Now, after key partnership deals with the NWSL, Unrivaled, the USGA, and ABC/ESPN, the WNBA is Ally’s latest significant commitment.
“The opportunity is now to catch the W while they’re in this meteoric rise,” Ally Chief Marketing Officer Andrea Brimmer told Boardroom. “And to be in their orbit is something we think is going to be highly accretive to our business. And then to be able to sign a deal with Paige and have her as an ambassador and an Ally customer is something we’re really excited about.”
Fresh off leading UConn to a national championship on Sunday, Bueckers is expected to be taken first overall in Monday’s WNBA Draft by the Dallas Wings. She joins Ally during a period of strong growth for the company, with Brimmer touting its increased valuation as females account for 65% of everyone who visits company storefronts, and customers who are women’s sports fans are six times more likely to open an Ally account than the average consumer.
“Clearly, we trust that the more brands invest — not just the WNBA, but all professional women’s sports — leagues will be able to roll that through to the players,” Brimmer said. “The entirety of the pledge was based on this thesis of the vicious cycle, which is without the right kind of broadcast rights and without the right kind of investment of brands in leagues, you’re not going to see the sustainable growth.”
Subscribe for the biggest stories in the business of sports and entertainment, daily.
The growth of women’s professional sports has been undeniable now that funding has increased, helping lead to a new 11-year, $2.2 billion WNBA media rights deal that kicks in next year. And significant new WNBA brand partnerships like Ally, Engelbert said, will help the league’s economic model so it can fund better player pay and benefits while boosting league partners’ values along the way.
“We like to think that we’re one of the primary architects of this movement in women’s sports from a brand perspective,” Brimmer said. “And we have really been deeds, not words when it comes to our investment, and we’ve seen it be a real difference maker in our business.”
