LOS ANGELES - When the 81st U.S. Women's Open came to Southern California at the Riviera Country Club for the first time this June, Ally Financial showed up with intention. The financial services brand converted a Santa Monica hotspot into the Ally House, an all-inclusive fan experience celebrating women's golf complete with live appearances from Abby Wambach, Julie Foudy, the No Laying Up crew, golf influencer Tisha Alyn, and a whole lot of culture.
We talked with Bridget Sponsky, Executive Director of Brand, Sponsorships and Creative Marketing at Ally, to learn how the company got here and where it's headed.
Abby Wambach and Julie Foudy with the 81st U.S. Women’s Open Trophy at Ally House
Breaking the Cycle
In 2022, Ally made its 50/50 Pledge: a commitment to spend equally on men's and women's sports media within five years. Earlier this year, the brand achieved that goal, a full year ahead of schedule.
But getting there was not a straight line.
"The media just didn't exist to buy," Sponsky said. "There were a lot of barriers we had to break down just to accomplish that pledge in five years. And the five years was purposeful, because we knew we couldn't do it alone."
Ally needed media partners willing to cover women's sports. It needed other brands to come along and invest so that coverage could actually exist. Without brands spending, media companies couldn't justify the coverage. Without coverage, brands had nowhere to spend. It was a cycle that had to be broken from the outside.
"When you really believe in something and see the vision and see the power in it, look what happened in the last five years," Sponsky said.
Betting on Emerging Media
One of the most consequential parts of Ally's strategy was investing early in emerging women's sports media companies, including Just Women's Sports and The Gist, before either platform had reached meaningful scale.
Bridget Sponsky, Executive Brand Director at Ally with Jourdan Ziff from Her Sports
Sponsky said the decision came down to who was building these companies and why.
"A lot of these companies were being built by former athletes. They were being built by women who were in the game and understood the industry. What they were bringing to the table was more coverage for women's sports."
She pointed to the growth in media coverage of women's sports, from roughly 4% of all coverage to somewhere around 20% today, and credited emerging media companies as a major driver of that shift.
For Her Sports, that observation lands close to home.
Abby Wambach and Julie Foudy from Welcome to the Party podcast at Ally House
Impact Over Assets
Now that Ally has hit its 50/50 goal, Sponsky is clear that the work is not done. The brand recently broadcast the first-ever Professional Women's Hockey League game on ION and is a founding partner of the new Detroit PWHL team.
"Why stop now? We have no intention of doing it. We're never done."
But Sponsky also wants to raise the bar for what brand investment actually means in this space. As the market gets more crowded with sponsors entering women's sports, she is pushing for intention over optics.
"We don't want to just see brands coming in with money, although that's great. What is the impact? What's the brand act? What's the action and the activation you're doing around it to really help make a difference and change the game for women's sports?"
The Numbers Speak
The business case for this kind of investment has become impossible to ignore. Ally's women's sports advertising generates 85% higher engagement than its other campaigns. But the number that stopped us? Since the 50/50 Pledge launched in 2022, Ally's brand value has grown by 40%.
"How staggering is that?" Sponsky said. "This is a real purpose platform. When you actually put money where your mouth is and drive with impact versus just assets, it's a change that can happen. It's great for your brand."
The Ally House at Riviera is one event. But the story behind it was years in the making. And if the leadership at this company has anything to say about it, it is nowhere near over.
