Thayer Lavielle says she is never afraid of a blank page, something she has proven over the last 6 years, by leading the development of The Collective, a women-focussed division of Wasserman, designed to bridge gaps in gender equity in sport and music through community, insights, events, tools and services.
Since 2019, that “blank page” has grown to include The Collective Think Tank, The Goal Post and the Collective Marketplace.
Thayer has negotiated over $250m worth of deals across talent, brand, property and venues and has extensive experience with leading female-focussed brands including L’Oreal and Lancome.
The Collective are partners for the ISC Women’s Sport Business Summit, at the National Gallery in London on September 25th.
Thayer on “plodding mode”.💭:
“Sport is an interesting eco-system to be a part of because not every sport is going to be the most exciting sport and not every game is going to be the most exciting game. So, early on in the start of The Collective, we started the Think Tank, with different universities from around the world.
Interestingly, so many people can name tons of national team players and this holds true across the UK as well, we did a subsequent study in the UK. People knew all the Lionesses, but could not tell us who they played for, when their games are, and they are not going to them.
So, it becomes this plodding mode about having to make sure that we are consistently leaning in to the day-in and day out of the eco-system to create really unique fan experiences and continue to generate more excitement and revenue
Thayer on facing challenges 💡:
“There are clients that we have worked with that came to us with really unique requirements to create change for them. For example, we worked with a client that is a City and they came to us and asked..how can you make our city THE destination for girls and women to thrive through sport. Now that’s a really interesting and cool challenge to be a part of.
So, how do you strategically take stock of everything that goes on there? That’s everything from are your greenways lit? Do women feel safe? What kind of professional sports teams do you have? What kind of feeder system do you have for youth girls? How long are they engaged? It’s this robust way to look at change and engagement for girls and women.”
Thayer on ISO and Duo Fans🏟️:
“A PHd student came to us with a study of the NBA in 2019 looking at their fans and it came back and said that 28% of their fan base was actually watching alone (ISO Fans). They brought this to us in 2023, so we ran it again in 2024 and it was 18%.
But it still left us wondering how we can deal with this and we decided to break fandom down into sectors and there you get “Duo fans” who like to go with one friend and “social fans” who show up alone but get to be part of a group at the game.
We felt this was great research to publish because it can help leagues and teams all over the world to understand their fan base better and engage them differently.”