The Yankees Have A “Sequel” That’s A Marketing First…

While the Yankees season hangs in the ALDS balance, a recent, sightly below the radar business announcement for the club caught my eye, and showed how far sports has come in recent years. It’s a quiet first for one of the most famous franchises in professional sports: free tampons from Sequel, the first tampon company to enter a marketing partnership with a Major League Baseball team.

While it may seem very secondary given the MLB Playoffs, it is historic not just for being a first, but for showing how far we continue to go in brand partnerships tied to sport…not just men’s sports but women’s as well. Some historical perspective we were involved in back in the day,

 In February 1995, the WTA Tour famously rejected a lucrative three-year, $10-million worldwide title sponsorship offer from Tambrands, the maker of Tampax. Tambrands proposed at least $10 million in global title sponsorship, including a $3-million non-refundable payment for 1995 even if the tour later backed out. Despite rumors, Tambrands did not require the organization to become the “Tampax Tour” and allowed it to retain the WTA Tour name. Officials and researchers feared potential public ridicule, bad puns, and damage to the tour’s mainstream image, as well as potential backlash from conservative local tournament sponsors providing $35 million in prize money. While players generally supported the vital funding, the tour ultimately declined the deal due to perceived social stigmas at the time. Tambrands instead pivoted to sponsor the U.S. Open later that year, while the WTA went without a lead sponsor before eventually signing Corel, now a failed computer software company, at less money a year later.

Today, women’s products are mainstream, especially tied to women’s sport, but crossing over into a male demo? Well, we are finally getting there it looks like.

The Yankees’ Sequel deal captures a broader shift in sports marketing that extends beyond the growth of women’s sports. Teams are increasingly recognizing women as a significant part of the audience for men’s sports, and marketing to them accordingly. “Shrink it and Pink it,”  is gone.  Women’s health and awareness of issues and opportunities is still an evolving challenge way away from merch though. Studies around women…and girls…are growing, but still way behind what has been done for male athletes. It’s taking a lot of time, time that is being passed by the level of play, interest, and even injury that elite women athletes are now seeing.

That also translates down to the data around attendees and fans of every sport,,,men or women…these days.

Which is why the Yankees Sequel deal is so noteworthy.

​According to the story on the launch in The Athletic, The Sequel co-founders,  Amanda Calabrese, and Greta Meyer have been chasing an opportunity like this since they were students at Stanford University. Meyer played Division I lacrosse at Stanford, often competing in a white skirt. She and her teammates had a familiar problem: They worried about leaks while they had their period, even when they were using tampons, during competition. Calabrese competed internationally for Team USA in surf lifesaving, a sport that meant spending considerable time competing in a bathing suit.

Initially, they weren’t trying to invent another tampon. They wanted to understand why existing period products weren’t adequately serving athletes and whether there was a better solution. After all the starts and stops and challenges, Calabrese and Meyer launched Sequel in late 2018. Sequel has raised over $8 million in funding, according to Forbes. Mac Venture Capital, led by former Washington, D.C., mayor and Ironman triathlete Adrian Fenty, led Sequel’s seed round.

But Sequel’s strategy was always to start with female athletes and women’s sports teams, build credibility there, and then take that credibility to a broader market: moms, youth athletes, dads and daughters, and girls playing sports and participating in physical activities across the country.

Sequel has similar deals with D.C. United at Audi Field, the Indiana Fever at Gainbridge Fieldhouse and Athletes Unlimited’s six softball venues, but the Yankees involvement is next level.

In sports, we see so much copycatting when someone breaks through with a partnership that seems pretty simple. Let’s see if there is a “Sequel” here.

We bet there probably will be.