Dive Temporary:
- The Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League (NWSL) has named Unwell Hydration, the beverage model based by “Name Her Daddy” podcaster Alex Cooper, as an official sponsor, per particulars shared with Advertising and marketing Dive.
- The 2025 NWSL Problem Cup in Orlando, Florida, this weekend will see pop-up experiences for Unwell, unique ticket promotions, co-branded merchandise and several other appearances by Cooper, a former soccer participant.
- Unwell can be establishing a fan group known as Unwell FC for monitoring video games all through the 2025 season. This marks the primary partnership for the model, which hit retailer cabinets in the beginning of the yr and is a part of a broader platform designed by Cooper to attach with younger audiences.
Dive Perception:
Cooper has develop into well-known for fostering sturdy connections to Gen Z and younger millennials by way of her “Name Her Daddy” podcast, which lately struck a reported $100 million promoting and distribution take care of SiriusXM. Cooper in 2023 additional expanded her media affect past audio by introducing The Unwell Community, a platform that encompasses content material, dwell occasions and shopper merchandise like Unwell Hydration. The colourful beverage line boasting pure elements and a wholesome dose of nutritional vitamins and electrolytes is broadening its retail presence all through 2025 after preliminary Goal exclusivity.
Cooper’s advertising savvy might present a lift to the NWSL, which has seen surging fandom lately and a subsequent uptick in model curiosity. The 2024 NWSL Championship match, which was offered by Google Pixel, drew viewership 18% greater than the yr prior. The Unwell information landed on the identical time E.l.f. Cosmetics inked a multiyear sponsorship deal because the official make-up and skincare companion of the professional ladies’s soccer league.
Cooper, a former Division I soccer participant who wields 3.4 million Instagram followers, has an ardent built-in following dubbed the Daddy Gang that she might steer towards the NWSL. Unwell can be leaning into the influencer’s community-building abilities with the Unwell FC fan group. In an announcement video concerning the NWSL tie-up, Cooper positioned the deal as her return to a sport she beforehand needed to cease enjoying, proudly proclaiming, “We’re the league sponsor, b—h!”
“As a former school soccer participant, Alex will get the game, the grind, and what it means to be a feminine athlete,” stated NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman in a press assertion. “By way of her large platform, she’s been a champion for ladies’s empowerment, and now, she’s utilizing that affect to amplify the NWSL like by no means earlier than.”
Entrepreneurs and leagues have moved rapidly to capitalize on swelling in curiosity for ladies’s skilled sports activities. WPP company GroupM final yr established a devoted market for ladies’s sports activities content material, doubling annual media spending on the class by way of work with shoppers together with Adobe, Adidas, Unilever and Goal.
