Reach-Focused ATHLOS Writing the ‘New Playbook’ for Women’s Sports Leagues

Reach-Focused ATHLOS Writing the ‘New Playbook’ for Women’s Sports Leagues

ATHLOS –a women’s field and track series founded by Alexis Ohanian– held its second event earlier this month (October 10/11). The two-day meet, which took place in New York City, outperformed internal expectations and validated Seven Seven Six’s investment thesis.

“If you keep visibility on the sport in between Olympic cycles, make it easy to consume, hero the athletes, and bring in brands that are mission and vision aligned, there is an opportunity here,” Kayla Green (CMO, ATHLOS) said.

The numbers seem to support that claim. 

“Last year, three million people tuned in across platforms,” Green said. “This year, we’ve already seen a 50% increase. We had four and a half million views in the first week.”

ATHLOS added ION as its domestic linear partner this time around. The network’s premier simulcast, with Bounce, averaged over 400,00 viewers.

For context, NWSL matches on ION were averaging 143,000 fans/game at the midpoint of the 2025 season (-9% YOY).

ATHLOS NYC drew another 25mm+ impressions across social channels with engagement rates between 3% and 4%.

“You can’t build an advertising focused sporting event if it’s hard for potential viewers and future fans to know it exists and find it. The biggest reach blow torch for long-form content remains broadcast TV and for live and delayed sporting events securing distribution there can be a real boon,” Patrick Crakes (founder, Crakes Media) said.

Angel City FC was for much of this decade the model for how to build a successful women’s sports property. Of course, Ohanian was the founding control owner of the NWSL club.

But ACFC debuted more than six years ago. Much has changed within sports and media since.

“Consumption of women’s sports has increased dramatically. The fans are demanding so much more now, and these athletes are really figuring out how to leverage their NIL,” Green said.

Ohanian understood that a new league had an opportunity to build for these developments. He also saw women T&F athletes going viral in the months leading up to the 2024 Olympic Games.

“Alexis lives on the internet. So, he sees a lot of trends before they become clear through early conversations and threads across social media," Green said. “And yet, there was this tension of why these feats and narratives aren’t translating into what parents could regularly watch on TV on the weekends with their kids.”

Particularly, since the individual disciplines tend to be easy for casual viewers to understand (i.e. who runs fastest, jumps furthest) and T&F is the number one participatory sport in U.S. high schools.

To be fair, competitions, like the Wanda Diamond League, can be found on television outside of Olympic years. That said, one must subscribe to FloTrack to see them.

“You begin to put one and one together,” Green said. “If we can sustain visibility on the sport and continue to hero the athlete, it can propel a new brand-centric league to success.”

‘Heroing the athletes’ is a critical tenet of the new women’s sports playbook because the fans have come to demand it.

The data shows supporters “are following athletes first, teams second, then the league third,” Green said.

ATHLOS has three ‘owner-athlete advisors,’ Sha’Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas, and Tara Davis-Woodhall, helping to keep it on track (pun intended) and aligned with its athlete-first ethos.

The emerging property will become a full-fledged league in 2026 with multiple events in different cities. 

“Right now, we have seven disciplines and six athletes competing in each,” Green said. “You can see how we might cluster those athletes into different teams.”

ATHLOS will use a scoring system familiar to T&F fans. It’s the same one the NCAA utilizes (i.e. individual athletes earn points towards the team score). 

It remains uncertain how the challenger property will build fandom for the individual clubs, beyond the athletes assigned to them. But expect the league to look more like F1 (think: tied to popular consumer companies) than the big four leagues (think: city-based). 

“Brands, of course, want to be a part of women's sports. It's a super-hot vertical right now,” Green said. “The reason why they're not investing is because they can't get the scale needed.”

That’s not an issue for ATHLOS, though. It chose to pursue reach (i.e. non-exclusive broadcast deals with several channels/platforms) over guaranteed media revenues, and plans to make up the difference, and more, in sponsorships. 

“This is a product that has demonstrated scale globally and is continuing to grow,” Green said.

The league simply needs to offer up a value proposition that exceeds what non-endemic brands could get from a more established rights owner.

Companies “want not only to have their logo present on a broadcast, but to find ways to activate with the league and solve for unique problems,” Green said.

Like T&F athletes getting paid in a timely manner.

“This year, we brought in Cash App, who has a product that can actually solve for the challenge of fast payments and was looking for a platform to demonstrate how it works to a new audience,” Green said.

Masai Russell and Davis-Woodhall (two Olympic gold medalists) appeared on screen at Icahn Stadium excitedly revealing that they had already been paid their prize money as they entered the post-meet press conference.

Tiffany & Company, Toyota, Instacart, Essentia Water, and Tower 28, were among the high-profile brands that signed on prior to the ATHLOS NYC event. 

“Our partnership list, and related revenues, doubled year over year,” Green said.

And since showcasing the ability to draw sufficient scale in early October, there’s been a surge in partner interest.

These brands are “all recognizing there's something in the zeitgeist around running,” Green said. Marketers also like that they “can do a deal directly with an individual to create content or tell their story via ATHLOS. We set up quite a few of our athletes with brand deals.”

Restrictions prevent that from occurring within more established leagues.

F&B, merchandising, ticket sales, and media rights will also generate some income for ATHLOS.

The audience that showed up in Times Square and on Randalls Island for ATHLOS NYC largely consisted of existing T&F fans and younger locals looking for a premium event experience. 

The endemic enthusiast is “always going to be your first mover,” Green said. “But because we've brought in a musical component, we’re also drawing from the general population interested in cultural moments.”

Some of the people who showed up at ATHLOS NYC last year thought they were attending a Megan Thee Stallion concert! Ciara was the feature performed this year.

But those fans didn’t have to wait until halftime for their favorite artist to take on stage.

“Every discipline at an ATHLOS event is bookended by about 20 minutes of party time,” Green said. “We’re the track and field meet that meets Coachella.”

That makes it feel more like a ‘cultural movement’ than your traditional sporting event.

ATHLOS’ objective in the short term is to maintain the momentum gained this fall through the beginning of the 2026 season (in H2 ‘26).

Athlete storytelling will be key. The league plans to galvanize creators, many of whom are former athletes themselves, to tell stories through their own unique lens.

But so will efforts to continue deepening engagement with the supporter community, much like ACFC did in the early days.

“These are fans that are highly engaged and in run clubs,” Green said. “They're also the people who help to organize watch parties for us.”

ATHLOS is not ready to project it will experience another 50% YOY viewership jump next year. It’s still learning if fans who engage with social content or come to a meet will follow the property to the next event.

However, the belief is that they will. 

“The athletes are our North Star and our fans are our compass. You continue to bring visibility and frequency to the sport, and the audience will come,” Green said. “ATHLOS is the new playbook for a women’s sports league.”