To bring in a knowledgeable women’s soccer voice like multi-time World Cup winner Tobin Heath, you need the right Ally.
E.W. Scripps Company is looking to make ION a destination for National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) coverage on Saturday nights, and to do so it’s teaming up with Ally and RE—INC, a lifestyle brand co-founded by Heath and fellow U.S. women’s national team players Christen Press, Megan Rapinoe and Meghan Klingenberg around equity and inclusion.
With the partnership, Heath and Press’s The RE—CAP Show—a roughly hourlong digital video series entering its third season of commentary and interviews with U.S. and global women’s soccer stars just ahead of the Olympics—will join Ally in sponsoring exclusive segments that will air during ION’s NWSL coverage. Topping out at No. 1 among Apple’s soccer podcasts and collecting more than 30 million views, The RE—CAP Show more than meets ION’s need for storytelling and informed analysis.
During each ION NWSL broadcast, Heath will host an Ally-sponsored Player’s Spotlight segment looking at the league’s top talent. Meanwhile, during more than 30 matches throughout the season, Ally and RE—INC will air trailers for a new branded Money Matters segment of The RE—CAP Show that looks at the business deals and other financial issues associated with a career in women’s sports.
“It’s about connecting groups that are doing the work,” Stephanie Marciano, head of sports and entertainment marketing at Ally, said of the partnership coming together. “EssenceMediacom, our media buying agency, manages that relationship with ION and asked if there was a way that we [could] continue to work with ION in other capacities in the NWSL.”
ION already created a home for its WNBA programming on Friday nights, which contributed to a 24% year-over-year increase in that league’s ratings, and the RE—CAP announcement is the latest step in doing the same for its NWSL Saturday night broadcasts. The news also makes a splash in the first year of the NWSL’s four-year $240 million broadcast deal that places games on ION, CBS Sports, ESPN and Prime Video.
“The ability for us to have such incredible talent within our broadcast—introducing people to the sport, to the people behind the sport, the people who need to be and deserve to be celebrated—was something that made a lot of sense to us,” said Brian Lawlor, president of Scripps Sports, which oversees ION’s NWSL coverage. “We’re excited to help put together that missing piece of distribution and visibility on our platform seen by hundreds of thousands of people every game. The ability for us to showcase the podcast and the brand with the support of Ally has been terrific.”
