When Emerge Sports Management entered the athlete management scene at the beginning of July, Emerge Business Development Head JENNY FORBES knew she was starting a role that matched her unique skill set and experience. After 10 years with UK Athletics, now British Athletics, she worked for a sports marketing agency before joining British Swimming, where she handled the organization's principal partner sponsorship with British Gas. After working her way up to head of sponsorship, Forbes left British Swimming to become a sports marketing consultant at the beginning of '15. An introduction to JONATHAN WILSON through 100and10% resulted in the two deciding to start Emerge. The female-focused agency's first roster of clients includes England women's national team football player JORDAN NOBBS, judoka NEKODA DAVIS and paracanoeist EMMA WIGGS. Forbes said the agency's ambition is to have its list of clients grow to about a dozen by the end of the year. She spoke with SBD Global about the agency's goals, athlete support and shrinking the gap between male and female commercial representation.
On starting the new agency ...
Jenny Forbes: The important thing for me was that this was a genuine proposition. It wasn’t a PR stunt. I’m not saying that anyone has done this, but it wasn’t a, "We’re going to focus on women," and it be fronted by men. That was very important for me, that it was led by women -- really focusing on women and what women want and need and understand. And to have a bit of an insight across the sports that I’ve worked in. Both sports that I’ve worked in commercially have been 50-50 split in terms of participation and from an elite performance perspective in athletics and swimming, and yet in both cases, the profile of the female athlete has been lower. I was in athletics at the time of DENISE LEWIS, PAULA RADCLIFFE, KELLY HOLMES, those kind of athletes. But commercially, I would say that the male athletes always did better, and exactly the same in swimming. Working alongside REBECCA ADLINGTON but then balancing that with TOM DALEY, it’s very different commercially. I knew that there was a passion within me that understood that there was a gap in promoting women in sport and also in the commercial recognition of what people should be getting. So it was all about being a genuine profile-raiser and the commitment to helping people commercially.
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| Jenny Forbes |
On supporting athletes in an evolving industry ...
Forbes: In terms of this role, and the reason why I’m so passionate about it, is because of the commercial change within sport, particularly within Olympic and Paralympic sport, where it’s not been professional in the past and commercial opportunities have been small and quite niche, it’s kind of exploded. Women’s football has taken off beyond belief. And one of our athletes is actually vice captain of England ladies [Nobbs]. Even though that’s the case, it’s still so far behind where men’s sport is commercially. Setting aside that, and looking at the duty of care to athletes, that was quite a fundamental thing for me as well. Having worked in the industry for such a long time and having seen some poor examples of athlete management, I felt this was something I could really develop a career around, which was genuinely caring for athletes. I’ve heard so many times about management and coaching teams and the team behind the athlete being athlete-centric but then all of that just being lip service to the athlete. I was being very clear on the fact that any athlete that I work with, any commercial opportunity that comes with that, any PR, any media, is always putting the athlete first. And if that means that the commercial success comes later down the line because the need of the athlete and their performance program now outweigh anything that can come commercially, that’s what I need to do. I guess from a female perspective, there is also an understanding that there is a different career pathway in some cases. There are different pressures, like coming back into the sport after having children. That’s something that has not always been recognized and considered as a challenge for women in sport. My experience over the last 15-16 years has been that, to provide any athlete with genuine support means that you have to understand what their end goal is. And I believe that this model does that. It doesn’t pay lip-service to being athlete-centric.
On the growth in female representation ...
Forbes: I think that it is changing and there are some amazing positive steps that have been taken, especially in terms of media. There has been a huge commitment from the likes of Sky Sports, BT Sport, even the BBC in terms of really pushing female exposure within sport. Whether we like it or not, it will be a slow burner. There have been significant changes, but it’s still a slow burner. We’re coming from a male-dominated industry, both in terms of playing, administration and commercially. So, we know that there’s a long way to go. That’s where being such positive change is, in terms of broadcast, committing such a huge amount to the coverage of the female sport. It’s certainly a step in the right direction, but there’s a long way to go. A lot of that is based around a shift in the number of women in positions of authority, positions within national governing bodies on boards, which I know is changing a huge amount. That shift will keep tipping. Hopefully, we’ll see a huge difference over the next five to 10 years where the gap in commercial opportunities between men and women’s sport is narrowing.
On long-term goals ...
Forbes: The important thing for us is to work with a base of athletes to begin with and show some real results. And from that, that depends on the individual athletes. If we are heavily under pressure to raise commercial funds for some athletes to really help kickstart their journey towards whatever their end goal is, then for us to do that and stay really focused on that is very important. If it’s to raise their profile, then we want to be doing that within the first two to three months of working with them. The big goal for us is to be seen as a credible, successful, genuine management company that is doing the best for the athlete that we are working with. Again, it’s not about filling our box with X number of people and the more we have on the more successful we are. It’s about delivering quality service and all of our athletes being pleased with the support that they are given.
On brands taking risks ...
Forbes: I guess this comes from my experience with working with national governing bodies. You get to know those athletes that really need commercial support and can do a very good job compared to those athletes who are already in the public eye and already have a huge profile and brands sort of jumping on the bandwagon. I understand why they do that. But I believe that brands make a brave decision in partnering with women in sport. There’s a decision process that goes through their mind like, “This is the market that we want to be targeting.” I think if they could just push themselves a little bit outside their comfort zone and say, “We’re going to work with an athlete that’s going to be huge in the future. And we’re going to really help and support them on that journey.” I’m sure that that’s what brands do with their own employees. If there’s to be a synergy with the sponsorship that brands are taking, compared with how they run their business, then maybe there is more of a connection that they can make through some riskier partnerships -- partnerships with a story.
On helping athletes transition ...
Forbes: We’d like to think that Emerge is going to be an evolving beast, if you like. I’m actually speaking to somebody at the moment who is quite far down in their career and I guess some people could see that as, “Well that’s not somebody emerging onto the scene.” But the reason for us wanting to work with somebody like this lady is because we want to help her emerge into the next phase of her career. Duty of care and athlete transition in and out of a sporting career is as important to us as what they do while they’re at the peak of their career. And again, that might be from me being a mom of three and wanting to make sure that everyone’s looked after well. It is important and I think that an agent’s role in that duty of care within an athlete’s transition in and out of sport is very important.
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