It’s the year of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, of Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky — a year when T-shirts declaring “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” are seemingly everywhere.
This sudden shift in the sports landscape was actually years in the making. And while behind-the-scenes momentum behind the scenes has been far more gradual, industry leaders are hopeful this year of women in the game will help spark further change.
“There’s so much momentum around women’s sports right now and I’m a big believer that all ships rise together, so there’s real opportunity here,” Women Leaders in Sports CEO Patti Phillips said. “We really want to leverage this momentum to create change for good — we need women in the room where decisions are being made.”
Still, Phillips believes that while change is happening, it’s the pace that is lagging. “It has been a slow go and there are a lot of things that aren’t said publicly,” she said. “But if you heard honestly from women about their life working in sports, it’s not good. While there are more men who are allies and who are becoming aware of unconscious bias, there’s still a long way to go. The culture still is not where it should be.”
Mountain West Conference commissioner Gloria Nevarez, the first Hispanic commissioner in NCAA Division I history, agreed. “You see a lot more women in the pipeline but not at the top echelons,” Nevarez said. “I can’t tell you how many times a job opens and the media riffs about a list of potential candidates but they don’t even include a woman. In the job, softer skills — collaboration, building consensus, coming at issues with humility — are an asset, but we aren’t getting in the interview pool and when we do there are inherent historical biases. There’s just a long way to go.”
Still, the younger generation is more optimistic. “I definitely have not faced as many challenges as my peers in the past,” said Jill Schwartz, marketing manager for FAST Studio Streaming Networks, which includes the fledgling Women’s Sports Network.
Added Courtney Stockmal, who directs football and soccer games for Fox Sports, “In the 15 years I’ve been in the industry it has definitely changed.”
NFL Network senior director Sara Ries agreed. “Now there are so many jobs for women,” she said, which was not true when she graduated college in 2005.
And as they ascend the ladder, these younger women are mindful of reaching back. “As you grow in a company and have more of an influence and more of a voice, you can speak up,” NBC Sports senior producer Alexa Pritting said. “Making workplaces more inclusive is such a huge priority for me.” (As lead producer of the Paralympics, Pritting emphasizes diversity efforts toward other underrepresented communities, particularly people with disabilities.)
“Representation matters,” she added. “If you see somebody else doing the job that you want, then you know that it’s available to you.”
More Than Just a Game
This year may be remembered for the achievements of Biles, Ledecky, Clark and Reese, but there’s another woman seeking to be a game-changer at a totally different level. Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign represents the chance to shatter the ultimate glass ceiling. And that, Nevarez and Phillips said, could have an impact that goes beyond politics to the sports and media worlds.
Any time a woman is elevated into any leadership role, it encourages girls and women to pursue their dreams in any and every field. “That would have a ripple effect over generations quicker than anything else could,” Nevarez said.
Colie Edison
Chief Growth Officer, WNBA
KEY STATS: This position was created for Edison, who started in early 2022. She oversees all revenue generating business operations: corporate sponsorships, media partnerships, digital products, business development and bringing in new partners, app upgrades, sports betting and merchandising. Edison is particularly proud of a recent deal adding used car retailer CarMax to the “Changemaker” roster of top sponsors that get more involved in the league.
“This year I’ve seen more demand from the fans and the corporate partnership
side,” she said of the Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese phenomenon. “We can’t keep our merch in stock.”
VARSITY STATUS: Edison joined Bowlero Corp. as VP of marketing in 2013 before becoming chief customer officer in 2017; two years later she began simultaneously working as CEO of the Professional Bowlers Association (the first female CEO in PBA history), where she landed a new partnership with Fox Sports.
“I was as good a bowler as I am a basketball player — for basketball in fourth grade, I was voted MVP, which was Most Valuable Passer, because whenever I got the ball, I would just pass it to somebody else,” said Edison, whose high bowling score is 133. “I have always been in love with the business of sports and how to elevate niche or emerging sports and leagues and bring them to the next level.”
IN HER OWN WORDS: “I grew up watching Knicks games with my father, and I was able to take him to Knicks playoff games as he turned 70 and was going through remission of a cancer treatment, which was the proudest moment of my life. This job didn’t exist when I was starting out but I had my passion for sports and entertainment mixed with my salesmanship and my revenue generating capabilities. I also had this drive to elevate the underdog. And I’ve always been a fan of basketball and female empowerment and encouraging women to strive for what they believe in and to never let anybody else set limitations for them. This league allows me to bring those passions to life in a way that has such a big impact on so many people.”
Gloria Nevarez
Commissioner, Mountain West Conference
KEY STATS: Nevarez became commissioner of the Mountain West in 2023, focusing on revenue and distribution while also keeping the conference united and “maintaining our position in the NCAA ecosystem,” she said.
Nevarez must build consensus among a majority of her constituents, whether they are university board members, athletic directors or coaches. “Right now we are all aligned and rowing in the same direction with a common vision with our most recent contracts,” said Nevarez, who is also president of Women Leaders in Sports.
VARSITY STATUS: In her previous role as commissioner of the West Coast Conference, Nevarez became the first Hispanic-American to lead an NCAA Division I conference. She had previously worked at senior levels in the administration of the Pac-12 Conference and at the University of Oklahoma, the University of California, Berkeley and San Jose State University. She attended the University of Massachusetts on a student-athlete scholarship for basketball and then earned a law degree from Berkeley.
IN HER OWN WORDS: “While in law school I did an externship with the school’s athletic compliance folks and it was the first time I had really thought about how you can use a legal background. I went into labor litigation, thinking I could get into pro sports that way, but I came sniffing back around colleges and became San Jose State’s first full-time compliance person. I took a 50% pay cut. My parents said, ‘What are you doing?’ But I got to build a program from scratch. I wasn’t thinking about becoming a commissioner, I was just so thrilled to be in sports and in such a new field. I didn’t really have aspirations of leadership until I got to the WCC the first time and started serving on national committees and saw a pathway.”
Patti Phillips
CEO, Women Leaders in Sports
KEY STATS: Since Phillips took over in 2010, Women Leaders in Sports has experienced triple-digit growth in membership while attendance at its national convention has grown by 250%. She oversees the organization’s leadership events and programs, including podcasts for career advancement for women.
“We prepare and position women to work and lead in sports,”Phillips said, adding that the organization is seeking to “leverage the momentum happening right now around women’s sports. Everyone is into women’s sports right now, which is awesome. But no one’s talking about women working and leading in sports and that’s where we come in.”
Phillips also created and leads the Women Leaders Performance Institute, a development program for all business industries, designed through the lens of sports.
VARSITY STATUS: Phillips took over as CEO in 2010 when the organization was the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators. She led the shift to focus on advancing women into leadership positions; she eventually helped rebrand the organization in 2017 as Women Leaders in College Sports before expanding its purview with the current title last year. She said 80% of the group’s members are still in the collegiate space, but they now work with the NFL and their women’s program, with the LPGA and with several NWSL teams.
Phillips made her name coaching basketball and volleyball at Ottawa University in Kansas, remaking a losing basketball program into a nationally ranked one. Then she worked for the NCAA as the CHAMPS/Life Skills program coordinator. She was also color analyst for collegiate women’s basketball and volleyball. Phillips spent 11 years as executive director of the Women’s Intersport Network in Kansas City, a nonprofit focusing on leadership development in girls and women through participation in sports.
IN HER OWN WORDS: The NACWAA was an advocacy group that was writing letters saying, “we don’t like this or that,” but it had lost the energy and focus for what was needed so I wasn’t interested in the job initially. But I saw potential in women coming together to have a voice, so we rebuilt with the idea of women helping women so we changed our mission statement from an advocacy organization to a leadership organization. We’ve become a career leadership and career strategy organization. We advocate by advancing leaders.
Alexa Pritting
Senior Producer, NBC Sports
KEY STATS: Pritting oversees the network’s coverage of the Paralympic Games and produces NBC’s Olympics figure skating and gymnastics broadcasts. She is also a producer on many national and world championships, such as the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She has won four Sports Emmy Awards.
VARSITY STATUS: A competitive figure skater in high school, Pritting later studied broadcast journalism at Syracuse University. After briefly working at ESPN as a figure-skating researcher, she joined NBC for the 2008 Torino Winter Olympics. This year marks her 10th Olympics and sixth Paralympics. She has been overseeing Paralympics coverage since 2017.
IN HER OWN WORDS: “This is just a dream job and it keeps growing and getting better. When I went to Syracuse, I was a little burned out from figure skating and looking for a fresh start where no one knew me as that figure-skating girl. But then when the 2008 NBC Torino Olympic internship came around, Molly Solomon, who’s now my boss, asked if I knew about any of the sports being covered. I actually thought, ‘Should I say it?’ But I did tell them. My initial intent was to get as far away as possible and then it sucked me back in. But I loved it and wanted to go to as many Olympics as I could. It will never cease to be exciting. And overseeing the Paralympic productions has been invigorating. It still has so much potential and I want to apply everything I’ve learned at the Olympics to growing the Paralympics. There is just so much we need to do still on that property.”
Sara Ries
Senior Director, NFL Network
KEY STATS: Since ascending to senior director in 2022, Ries has taken on more responsibilities for big-picture planning. “I’m doing more on the creative side of planning larger events, like the remotes we put together for international games and relaunching Good Morning Football, which was previously in New York, for the West Coast,” she said.
But her proudest achievement has been her contributions to the new NFL Media studio in Inglewood, California. “We really got a chance to design a studio from the ground up, laying out sets and stages,” Ries said.
VARSITY STATUS: Ries joined NFL Network in 2006 after one year as an anchor/reporter for KQTV St. Joseph, Missouri (known as KQ2), after graduating from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School. She’d been inspired in high school by a local sports reporter who spoke to her class. “I thought, ‘This is not a real job,’ ” she recalled. “I thought I’d have to be in a cubicle 9 to 5.”
While she initially presumed she’d pursue a career in front of the camera, her time at KQTV — “putting on makeup in five minutes in the van, pulling the camera, getting a four-minute hit and being done for the night” — quickly lost its appeal.
At NFL Network, she was drawn to the energy and excitement of the control room. “I wanted to be calling the shots,” she said. After three years as a production assistant, she rose to senior associate director and then, in 2014, she became a director. Ries was promoted to her current title in 2022.
IN HER OWN WORDS: “As a senior director, I get to do more hiring and make more decisions about the people coming into our building. As you come up the ladder, you have more of a voice and can say, ‘Maybe we aren’t casting our net wide enough.’ I think we’re doing a better job at being very concerted in our efforts now. That’s been a big push in our production department. When you bring those voices into the room, women and minorities who weren’t getting the chance but who are super-qualified, that feels awesome.”
Jill Schwartz
Marketing Manager, FAST Studios Streaming Networks
KEY STATS: Schwartz’s portfolio at FAST Studios includes the Women’s Sports Network (the first 24/7 streaming network dedicated to women’s sports); Team USA TV, the official Team USA free ad-supported TV (FAST) channel; and Racing America.
She designs all marketing materials, including presentations, sales one-sheets, channel key art, tune-in graphics, CTV billboard campaigns and additional branding assets, and works with the sales team to execute request for proposal (RFP) decks for brand partnerships. As lead designer in deck proposals she helped land high-profile sponsors in 2023, including Michelob Ultra, Frito-Lay and State Farm. “We’re really seeing the growth of these leagues,” Schwartz said. “We now have 17 league partners with the Women’s Sports Network, which is really exciting.”
VARSITY STATUS: Since graduating from Emerson College, Schwartz has worked in marketing, publicity and creative services at Allied Global Marketing, DistroTV and B2+: The Custom Content Company.
IN HER OWN WORDS: “I always wanted to find the center between art and business, and marketing is kind of that sweet spot. I love to do art on the side, and I just felt like it was a really creative industry to get into. I didn’t follow a ton of sports growing up, but jumping into the FAST space, I became more of a fan and it has been quite a journey. Working for a start-up means having a really hands-on job and wearing a dozen hats, learning about everything from channel development to content production. Launching our first signature studio show, which is kind of the women’s version of SportsCenter, was incredibly exciting and I was on set every day watching the production, which was led by a women-driven team of producers, hosts and editors. It really became a groundbreaking initiative.”
Becky Somerville
Senior Director of Production, FanDuel TV
KEY STATS: Somerville joined FanDuel TV (formerly TVG) in 2017 as senior producer, which led to her current job. She oversees horse-racing content for FanDuel TV, running the production of content and managing teams both behind and in front of the camera.
VARSITY STATUS: Somerville grew up loving horses. “I started out watching horse racing on TV with my mom,” she said. “Then a racetrack opened in Minnesota, not far from where I lived, and I went out there and completely caught the bug. I wanted to be a jockey but got too big so I went to the racetrack industry program at the University of Arizona.”
While working as an assistant trainer at Santa Anita Park, she was given a shot as on-air talent for HRTV. Knowing that life on the back side of the track was limited and led to burnout, she seized the chance. She later moved into production and worked as both producer and talent for several years.
IN HER OWN WORDS: “My former boss at HRTV saw potential in me. They had done a feature on me when I was an assistant trainer and she loved the way that I looked on camera. I would never have seen it — when I was in school, I was nervous giving speeches, you would hear my voice tremble, but you just take a leap of faith. I like being on the production side more. But I had no idea how TV was put together and had to learn everything from scratch. But I have a rounded experience and can see the race from the viewer’s side, the industry side and the gambler’s side, and felt like I was the one who could pull it all together. I still do get to go to the big races and I can still go and pet horse noses any time I want.”
Courtney Stockmal
Lead Director, Fox NFL Kickoff, Fox Sports
KEY STATS: In recent years, Stockmal has been the director for Fox NFL Kickoff, Fox’s Super Bowl pregame and postgame, the FIFA Women’s World Cup and World Cup, plus MLB on Fox, Fox College Football and other shows.
“One of my proudest moments in the last five years was being part of the Super Bowl pregame show in Miami in 2020,” Stockmal said. “But the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was one of the most difficult projects we could ever do — trying to do television in the Middle East with a crew that spoke a different language, had a different religion and outlook, while we were moving an entire American production halfway across the world. But our team just knocked it out of the park.”
Stockmal also cited her work with virtual-reality sets for recent soccer tournaments as a rewarding project; she produced 200 hours of live programming over 30 days. “The only real things were the talent and the desk that they sat at,” she said. “Everything else was completely created on a computer screen and it’s never been done before.”
VARSITY STATUS: Stockmal joined Fox Sports in 2013 and, as an associate director, worked on the 2015 World Series, Super Bowl and World Cup. While working at Fox Sports, Stockmal has also freelanced as an associate director for The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Entertainment Tonight. She also worked on the 2016 and 2020 Olympics for NBC.
IN HER OWN WORDS: “I was an elite swimmer growing up and I knew I wanted to do something in sports, maybe medicine or psychology. My dad married a local news anchor and in high school she took me to work and I got to see behind the scenes of how TV worked. My eyes lit up and it was like the angels were singing, I had found what I needed to do.”
