She’s Got Next: Megan Hughes Allison

By Amy Moritz

Since a love of sports was first generated by competitive gymnastics and her hometown Kansas City pro teams, Megan Hughes Allison has carried her passion for games into big-time board rooms and high-profile brand campaigns. For more than 16 years, she occupied leadership positions with Genesco Sports Enterprises, a sports marketing and consulting firm that advises, negotiates, and activates sports strategies for corporate clients, and helped household names like PepsiCo, Advance Auto Parts, Anheuser-Busch, and others navigate and grow their business through sports industry investments. Now President of Underdog Venture Team, she’s bringing her expertise to a new generation of brand builders and building a future in a realm she cares deeply about.

The following conversation is edited for space and clarity.

What role has sports played in your life?

I think it has played an important role in three areas in my life, which aren’t unique or special. One is just personally being a fan of sports. It goes all the way back to growing up in Kansas City and being able to go to the Kansas City Kings games with my dad, which was the NBA team before they moved to Sacramento, being a fan of the Royals and watching them win the World Series in the 1980s, and then, obviously, being a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs and the run that we’ve had with the Super Bowl. Then, it was being a gymnast and that journey of being a competitive athlete. I started competing when I was seven years old and did club gymnastics, competitive gymnastics, through high school. Being an athlete, having to manage your schedules and personal life, and all of that just built the discipline we talk about all the time.

Being an athlete creates just a sense of confidence and discipline, and it prepared me for what was next. And you know that’s the professional journey of sports, which I’ve loved. I’ve been able to grow in a profession and a career that I’m really passionate about. I’m excited about the business of sport. I can be a fan, but at the same time drive business and help brands grow and build amazing campaigns around sport and entertainment, and I love it.

Do you have to find a balance between being a fan of sports and working on the business side of sports?

One hundred percent. Oftentimes, when I’m interviewing someone for a job, the question is: why do you want to work in sports, or why do you want to work here? If their first answer is because ‘I’m a fan,’ or ‘I love sports,’ that’s great, but sometimes it’s a little bit of a red flag, because you do have to be able to separate fandom from being a strategic unbiased professional in the business. Being a fan obviously elevates the experience of working in sports, but you know, at the end of the day, it’s business and you’re making decisions based on objectives not related to fandom. If I was driving all of my clients’ business towards my fandom, then everybody would just be sponsors of the Chiefs.

Can you describe your career trajectory? Because you didn’t start off in college wanting to go into sports marketing.

Because I had been a competitive gymnast and I had spent time with an orthopedic surgeon or in sports therapy for rehab, I got really interested in medicine and sports medicine specifically. So, I went to Hampton University as a biology major because I wanted to be a sports med doctor. I always tell the story, and I laugh, but I think it was Christmas break of my freshman year where I got to shadow an orthopedic surgeon. He took me into a couple of different procedures – a total hip replacement, a total knee replacement, and then just a little tendon in a thumb release – and I got lightheaded and pretty much nearly passed out in all of them. So, it was very obvious that that probably was not going to be my career journey.

I shifted my degree and eventually, when I graduated, I moved to Chicago and just through my network and meeting new people in the Chicago market, I was introduced to the opportunity to dance for the Chicago Bulls. It was during their heyday when they were winning championships with Michael [Jordan] and Scottie [Pippen] and Dennis Rodman and Steve Kerr. And it changed my life. I have two championship rings. I traveled the world dancing for the Bulls. I sat courtside for pretty much every game during their championship run.

But, more importantly, it unlocked this amazing network of people who gave me opportunities in the sports industry on the business side. I started in event planning, supporting charity golf tournaments or celebrity charity fundraisers and basketball tournaments which then introduced me to a group of investors that were bringing back the old ABA, which was the American Basketball Association – Dr. J. [Julius Erving], George Gervin, Billy Keller. They brought me on to help start their Kansas City franchise, as well as help build the blueprint and game plan for expanding franchises into other markets. That led me to Dallas. I was helping with their Dallas franchise, and the only person I knew when I moved to Dallas was really Donnie Nelson with the Dallas Mavericks. Working with him is how I met Genesco Sports Enterprises, and I spent the next 15 years of my career at Genesco, working on amazing brands like Pepsico and UPS and Atrium Health. It was just a really exciting time.

How did you end up at underdog ventures?

I met our founder, Dan Mannix at an SBJ Game Changers reception, and we were just chatting about the industry, more specifically about how many companies or agencies in our industry were run by women or women of color. And there just are not many companies, even still, that are run by women or women of color. He had this vision of starting an agency that would give that opportunity to create a more diverse group of leaders at the top and offer equity for those leaders which was really important to me. I’ve had such a great career at Genesco. I’ve done a lot of fun, exciting, impactful projects. But there wasn’t an opportunity for equity, and for where I was in my career that was really important. It also was an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone – from brand consulting strategy, negotiating big partnerships, activating these big platforms to now focusing on more niche and emerging properties, which is aligned with the underdog name of our company. Working with the challenger brands or the challenger positioning within a big brand to help them show up differently in the space, that was just really exciting for me.

What excites you about the sports branding and marketing space right now?

I think what’s exciting is that the ecosystem is shifting beyond the traditional. There are so many emerging properties with Unrivaled Basketball or World Sevens Soccer, which is a new tournament that just launched in May. Those kinds of emerging properties are creating a pathway for a new approach to sponsorships. We’re so beyond the logo placement and branding on a uniform or venue. It’s now deep integration into these properties and reaching fans differently. It’s just fun to think outside of the box.

There’s still a lot of opportunity out there. There are new brands coming into the sport. There are young founders in our ecosystem that are creating new technologies, new fan engagements, and new athlete performance products. There’s unlimited growth in the sports and entertainment industry.

Do you have a favorite example of an outside-the-box sponsorship?

I really love what Unrivaled has done as a property, and the brands that have partnered with Unrivaled are very intentional about being in that space for female athletes. So, the way that Sephora has approached their partnership with Unrivaled, it’s very authentic, and it’s meaningful. I think there’s an opportunity for a lot of brands to do that. When you see someone like Sephora come in, it opens up that category. Now you’re seeing more beauty brands in the space, and they are able to reach this unique audience that does have a passion for sports.

What assumptions are maybe getting in the way of some brands taking advantage of the growing market and popularity of women’s sports?

Brands are being asked, “Why aren’t you in women’s sports yet? Why aren’t you spending in women’s sports?” And I think we need to get away from that. It’s sports and it’s sports with these amazing, highly skilled female athletes, and the reason why a brand should look at it is because they have an audience that you may not be reaching with your traditional sponsorships with the NBA or NFL. There’s a really unique, passionate audience that is supporting these athletes and these properties. I think we need to get away from the assumption of you just have to have a women’s sports property in your portfolio to check the box and instead look at how engaging with this audience is going to truly benefit your brand and your objectives and maybe unlock a new customer that you had ignored to date.

If a brand came to us and said, “give us a women’s sports strategy,” we’re going to do it, just like I would do a strategy against any property. I’m going to map it against your objectives and who you’re trying to reach, and what you’re trying to accomplish. It may not be that it’s important for your brand. But I think that brands looking at their KPIs differently is important as well. It’s not always about just the reach or the number of impressions. There could be some other unique KPIs or objectives that you’re going to reach with the audience of a women’s sports property or team.

I’m going to make the assumption that you’ve been the only woman or woman of color in the room. How have you approached that?

So that is certainly not an assumption. Probably 99.9% of the time, I’m the only woman of color in the room, particularly because I spent such a good part of my career running Pepsi Motorsports. I was in a lot of NASCAR rooms, and that was early in my career. For me, it’s about being smart, showing up in the room, knowing what I’m talking about, knowing what I want to accomplish, and recognizing that they may be seeing me as this young Black woman in the room. But that can’t matter to me at the moment. I just have to prove myself, do my job, and move on. I feel like if I kept getting caught up in that space of being the only Black woman in the room, it will shake my confidence.

What advice do you have for women who want to work in the sports industry?

Like I said earlier, you’ve got to show up and be smart, know what you’re talking about, be educated, be informed, and be true to yourself. I don’t think it benefits us to show up and feel entitled about it, like, “I should have an opportunity, because I’m a Black woman,” or “I should have an opportunity, because I’m a woman: We’re really smart. I sit in rooms with women or I’m on calls or with my Underdog team, and I’m sitting in these conversations thinking, “Wow, there’s really intelligent, smart people driving our business forward.” If you want to be in this industry, show up that way. Know the industry, know the business, know the players, and then be confident when you walk in the room.

Ready for more She’s Got Next? Find the whole series here.

Ready for more She's Got Next? Find the whole series here.