Girlfriends of Culture

The Most Powerful Women in Sports

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Adweek went far afield for our second annual list of Powerful Women in Sports, selecting leaders from the burgeoning world of esports, the ascendant women’s soccer arena and a brand-new basketball league—plus the mar-tech and artificial-intelligence innovators serving the sports marketing ecosystem. Here, Adweek honors the 35 female executives and influencers who are winning over the next generation of fans and scoring new partnerships with brands.

Katrina Adams
Chairman, president, CEO, United States Tennis Association;
chairman, U.S. Open
The firsts keep stacking up for Adams, the first pro player, the first African American and the youngest person to serve as the top executive of the U.S. Tennis Association. In January, she started a second two-year term, becoming the first person to do so in the organization’s history. The former pro singles and doubles player, who hit her first tennis ball when she was 6 years old, has made inclusiveness and access a priority during her tenure, aiming to further diversify the game. Her outreach effort to Hispanics grew that audience of tennis players by double digits in its first year.

 

Christina Alejandre
General manager, ELeague; vp, esports

Where others failed to make compelling television out of esports, Alejandre succeeded with the launch early last year of ELeague. The property, nominated for a Sports Emmy this spring and airing on TBS, recently broke Twitch records (1 million-plus views), attracting new sponsors Geico, Arby’s and Buffalo Wild Wings. Its event coverage, including partnerships with Blizzard and Capcom, keeps growing. Next: another round of red-hot Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in September. Alejandre, a 15-year industry vet whose gamer bona fides stretch from Atari to Nintendo Switch, knows her crowd, making esports “more digestible to a casual audience,” she says, while staying “authentic to the space and without dumbing down the experience for the passionate community.”

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