You searched for new era cap – Page 17 of 31 – The Martin Group

A Western New York native, Bridget Niland has excelled as an athlete, an advocate and an administrator. Currently serving as Dean of the College of Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at Niagara University, Bridget is a graduate of the University at Buffalo Law School. She served in several management roles at the NCAA’s national office, returning to Daemen College in Buffalo where she became a tenured sports management professor and led the school’s transition to NCAA Division II membership as its director of athletics. Over the course of her running career, she captained the University at Buffalo’s track and cross-country teams, won the Buffalo Marathon twice and finished in the top 5 of the Marine Corps Marathon.

The following conversation is edited for space and clarity.

When you think back to your elite running experiences, how has that shaped the way you approach your work in sports?

There’s just so much to my running career that really has been the foundation of everything else. Running became like a trusted friend that I could always rely on.

And in all honesty, how I got into running was different. I came from a very athletic basketball family, and I’m the youngest of seven. When you’re the youngest, you always feel like everybody above you has something they’re great at, and you’re thinking, “what am I going to be good at?” I tried to be good at all the things that they were good at, and I wasn’t. My father was an amazing coach – and an amazing father – and sometimes he gave it to you straight. I remember one day I had gone out for a run to train for field hockey and basketball, and when I came back, I asked him how far I ran. I had run nine miles, and he looks at me, he goes, “I gotta tell you, kid, you’re just not that good of a basketball player, and so I really think you’re onto something here with running.”

At the time, those words were a little hurtful. Here is this guy who’s known for basketball, my brothers all play basketball and I tried to. I didn’t immediately switch to running, but I did really like running and it became this trusted friend that no matter what was going on in my family life or my personal life or my work life, I could always rely on running. It gave me this sense of comfort, of constant security, of competence, and also this feeling of whatever I’m dealing with in my life, whether it’s something difficult at work or at home, it can’t be as bad as hill repeats, right? It can’t be as bad as training for the Boston Marathon during a snowstorm. I keep reminding myself of what I have physically pushed myself to the brink of doing and I think that gives you that sense of grounding. That sense of OK, bring it.

Have you seen an evolution of women’s voices at the table when it comes to decision-making in the sports world?

I was born the same year as Title IX, so whether it was playing sports or sports leadership, like a lot of Gen Xers, I was sandwiched between these two major generations that have been bringing about large cultural change. Unlike the Baby Boomer women before me, when I came into athletic leadership, I didn’t know what it was like to not be included. The Boomers definitely passed on to me the notion of “you can do it,” which was positive, but also shared, “remember, you’re lucky to be here.”

So when I got to those leadership tables, I behaved like I belonged there, which could be shocking to the men, but more so to the women, because I think some were like, “Hey kid don’t ruin this for us.”

I wanted to be very respectful of the women who trail-blazed for me, because I wouldn’t even be at the table without them. But I also felt this pressure to play by their playbook. And then I had this group of women younger than me, the millennials, that were like, “You know, we aren’t just lucky to be here. We belong here, keep pushing.” And I value both of those generations. I have really learned a ton from both of them.

Title IX gets a lot of play for increasing athletic participation opportunities. What’s really not recognized as much about Title IX is that it not only kicked open the door for female athletic opportunities; it also kicked open the door for female athletic leadership opportunities. I’ve seen that change, and that’s been cool to watch.

In college, I was an intern for the Buffalo Bills and got to work with Gretchen Geitter, who recently retired from the Bills as their Vice President of Community Relations. Watching Gretchen’s career evolve has been amazing. She was someone we all looked up to. A woman just a bit younger than me is Allison Wagner, who was also at UB Law School. She was Vice President of Legal at the NHL for 13 years and now is Senior Counsel at the NFL. I mean, Gretchen and Allison kicked open that door, because when I interned at the Bills, there weren’t any females in vice president roles.

In 2024 there has been more coverage and conversation about the growing popularity and investment in women’s sports. How do you feel that that is going to have an impact for women on that business and leadership side of the sports ledger?

I want to be positive, but I don’t think it’s simple, because there are some societal forces that need to change in the United States. You can do anything sports wise – if you come from a certain income bracket. We really need to highlight the fact that Title IX has not worked for every single female. For example, you’ve got to have money to play travel soccer, which you need to do in order to succeed in and keep playing soccer.Title IX didn’t work for every kid, and although we’ve seen tremendous growth in some areas, we’ve seen a significant contraction in others because sports have gotten too expensive.

We also need to recognize that while female participation has increased, female leadership hasn’t increased as significantly. I think the reason is that we are not a country that has embraced supporting women in every phase of our lives.

I shifted out of my role at the NCAA because I wanted to be a mom and because I wanted to make sure that I was at least carrying some of the elder care responsibilities that existed in my family at the time. I don’t know if I ended up doing either of those things well. Most nights I hit the pillow thinking I was shortchanging someone, but I also didn’t feel like I had any right to complain because so many women carry much more than I do.

We need to be doing more so that every woman, whatever version of themselves that they want to be, we are fully supporting them. We don’t provide support to people who are taking care of their parents, which are predominantly women, and we don’t provide support to people who want to raise families. We put both in a box and say, figure it out. And so women are still confounded with choices that men don’t have to make.

Buffalo likes to pride itself on being a sports town, but it lacks any professional women’s team sports on a big scale. Why hasn’t the region fully embraced women’s sports?

The conversation always starts with the question, “Is it a good investment?” And the challenge is getting men to appreciate the level of game that women are playing, because men have more disposable time to watch sports and spend money on them. For example, more women are playing golf but it’s still not nearly as many men who play golf. Why? Because golf takes all day. If women are seen as the central elder caregivers and childcare providers and just general care people, the result can be that we have less disposable time to be sports fans, and thus less influence on the market and investment.

The younger generations are sharing family duties more, which I think will then spill over to sharing elder care more, which could be that huge shift in time for women allowing them to play an even bigger role in sports markets and investment.

One of my favorite quotes that I used a lot when I was working with Project Play of WNY for the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation, is from John F Kennedy when he signed the Sports Broadcasting Act in 1961 warning us about becoming a country full of sport spectators rather than participants.

Sometimes, I worry that Buffalo is being held back as a participant athletic town because we’ve had to make tradeoffs to support our professional sports teams that other regions haven’t had to do. Other regions have money to support both spectators and participants. Here we had to choose. So, we will not be getting a big, massive indoor athletic complex that is publicly accessible for youth sports. We chose the new Bills stadium which means that our kids are going to continue to have to drive six and seven hours to compete in indoor track or swimming at a top-level facility. I worry that we’ve become a community of sports spectators, and we’re losing the ability to be sports participants, which can have long-term negative consequences for our region. This is a different take on the sports market in our region and one I gained through my work at Project Play WNY.

What’s your advice for women who want to work in sport industry?

My advice to them is make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. You will likely encounter challenges that you will need to work through which may quickly what you love about sports. Stay determined, steady and focused. Develop a thick skin. Use the experiences and the strength that you built physically as an athlete to sustain you mentally as a leader.

You searched for new era cap – Page 17 of 31 – The Martin Group

A former Division I women’s lacrosse player at Georgetown University, Kristen Bandos has helped build a pro league from scratch. As Vice President, Partnership Marketing at the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) she is connecting brands to the sport, to athletes, and raising the profile of the game in the United States and globally.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about the Premier Lacrosse League and your role there.

The PLL is a men’s professional lacrosse league comprised of eight teams of the best lacrosse players in the world. We are a single entity structure, so our front office, which I’m part of, manages all aspects of the league and teams. We operate on a hybrid home/tour-based model, with 14 events from early June to mid-September. I am the VP of Partnership Marketing and my role falls within the larger business development team. My team manages the execution of marketing strategy and revenue development of the PLL’s 30+ sponsorship portfolio.

This is my fourth season with the PLL. I started ahead of the 2021 season, and it’s been an incredible journey since then, having a part in building the league and facilitating what it’s going to look like for many years to come.

When I came to the league, I saw what our co-founders Mike and Paul Rabil were building, and immediately connected with the mission and values that they had been instilling here since day one. It was a no-brainer for me to take the opportunity and join this team and be able to build the league with them.

A lot of what I do on a day-to-day level is navigate the relationships with each of our respective partners and build out sponsorship strategies that connect with our audience and positively impact our partners’ KPIs. We want to make sure that we are consistently overdelivering against their expectations and supporting their ever-evolving marketing strategy. We work to see how we can continue to bring our fans the best experience from our partners as well as support the investment they’re making in our players. We’re activating those brands across our business to grow and scale their investment for the success of the league, and sport, for years to come.

Lacrosse has an active and invested fan base in the US. How do you help sponsors make that connection between their marketing goals and the PLL?

A lot of what we do, especially when we are either pitching or bringing on sponsors, is to elevate the great history and stories in the sport. Lacrosse is the oldest sport in North America, and now, the sport is growing on a global level – Lacrosse is returning to the Olympic stage on home soil for the LA 2028 games. A milestone moment for the growth of the sport that will bring more eyes and fans of lacrosse on sports’ most iconic stage, and we’re working hard to capture that attention and momentum.

We are always thinking about how we can connect more people to the sport because once people watch the game, they tend to fall in love with it. We are continually looking to share the stories surrounding our league, whether it’s at the national level through our partnership with ESPN or being able to tell the individual stories of our players and build their brands as athletes. Our mission is to trailblaze the future of professional sports that is player and fan focused, and I think every day, from the top down, our entire team is facilitating that. How are we thinking creatively or differently so that we are building this league to be a top five sports league in the US? We know the passion and the interest from the fanbase is there. When the league was launched in 2018, there were an estimated 13 million lacrosse fans in the US. Today, data from MRI Simmons shows that the fanbase has grown to 45 million. It’s on us to continue to share that story as well as think creatively about how we can continue to honor the game and showcase our players while we’re building this at the league level.

You speak a lot about honoring the heritage of lacrosse in Native American culture. How have you been able to engage the Native American community in respectful and meaningful ways?

Indigenous and First Nations communities in North America have played different versions of the game for thousands of years as a cultural and religious tradition — these communities see the game as a gift from the creator, and playing these games are viewed as spiritual and physical medicine for the entire community. As the modern game continues to grow, we want to ensure new and old fans are aware of and respect the game’s Indigenous roots. We honor the heritage of lacrosse by continuing to build and deepen relationships with the Indigenous and First Nations communities, leverage our media platforms and partnerships to amplify Indigenous voices, accurate histories, and their contemporary priorities.

A lot of what we’ve done is work with Indigenous cultures to hear their perspective on the game. We offer Indigenous land acknowledgments at each of our games, understanding that we were playing on Indigenous land, and in the front office, we bring in guest speakers regularly to educate our staff, players, and coaches. From a partnership perspective, we collaborated with Native artists and the team at Champion to develop a merchandise capsule with distinct aesthetic styles, hailing from Indigenous communities across North America.

As a former Division I lacrosse player at Georgetown, your college experience certainly helps with your current job at the PLL. But what else from your time as D-I athlete has been has helped you as move into the business side of the sport?

I continue to mentor student-athletes, as well as former athletes who are in graduate school. I always harp on the fact that there are these innate skills that you’ve likely unknowingly learned or built as an athlete, that translate seamlessly into the sports industry or corporate world as a whole. When I was a student-athlete, I had mentors who told me, ‘You have no idea how much you’re learning now and how that’s going to help you in the corporate world.’ And I don’t think I fully grasped that until more recently in my career.

There are a few examples of skills that I think translate pretty much one-to-one from the lacrosse field to the front office, especially in my role at the PLL. The first one is your ability to stay composed under pressure, especially working in the world of live events. Things are going to go wrong, problems will come up, or new opportunities will appear that you need to digest and react to quickly. How are you staying composed, understanding the problem that needs to be solved, and working hand-in-hand with the larger team to execute it? I always think back to lacrosse — there’s two minutes left in the game and you’re the one that has to get the ball to score. You’ve got to be composed. You have to be confident that you’re prepared for that moment and that your team has trust in you.

Another example, which is really a no-brainer, is a team mentality. I think from the top down at the PLL, there is buy-in on the mission and values of building the future of professional sports. There is a team effort whether it’s getting ready for a game day or developing strategy for the next three years. We’re always thinking about how we can bring in other team members, or how something will impact the larger group — from the players to our fans to our sponsors.

Finally, one thing that maybe isn’t always top of mind, but I tell student-athletes this all the time — they are innately built to fail publicly. As an athlete, you don’t win every game. I think there is something to being that person that’s supposed to score the winning goal, and you missed, and you don’t win that game. I’ve never been part of a team that is so creative, smart, thought provoking, and challenging as the team I work with at the PLL. That leads to you sharing ideas that maybe aren’t going to be picked or pitching an idea or a campaign that you thought was going to perform at a level and it didn’t. It doesn’t become a roadblock. It becomes a question of how you react to it, understand what went wrong and plan for the future. I think a lot of that has come from my days on the field and being able to learn those skills from losses.

When you hear the phrase, women in sports, what do you think of what comes to mind?

I think of the different stages of my life as a woman in sports. From the early days of female lacrosse players I was able to watch, and it motivated me to pick up my stick and build my game. I remember going to Northwestern’s championship game during the height of their dynasty and being enthralled with the level they were playing at. It motivated me at an early age to commit myself to the game and strive for success at the collegiate level.

I think of my favorite sports commentators, Holly Rowe and Doris Burke who are just absolute trailblazers. I adore the attitudes they have and the overall performance they bring in covering so many different aspects of the industry.

And I think now in my career, how I get to work with so many women in leadership capacities who are not only elevating the sports industry as a whole but also women’s sports. I think we have this moment of visibility. I feel like I’ve been shouting from the rooftops for years about how women’s sports sponsorships are such an incredible unlock for brands. And it’s been really rewarding to play a small part in the growth and coverage of the women’s lacrosse game as well through Unleashed, the PLL’s women’s lacrosse content and training arm. Earlier this year, we worked with Ticketmaster to put on our first ever women’s lacrosse exhibition in the US, the Unleashed All-Star Game, and recently included some of the best women’s lacrosse pros in the world in the PLL’s All-Star Skills Competition, presented by Better Mortgage. Working with like-minded partners, willing to invest in women’s sports, and the sport of lacrosse as a whole, is certainly rewarding on a personal and professional level.