One 12 months since Seattle Reign FC was bought again to Seattle-based homeowners, the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League crew is settling right into a refreshed model. However because the Reign fights to remain within the operating for the nationwide championship this November, it’s additionally enjoying an extended branding sport—for the hearts and minds of Seattleites and the love of sports activities followers all around the globe.
This spring, Seattle Reign FC labored with advertising and marketing agency Redscout on a model refresh forward of the 2025 season that’s led to new sponsorship offers with Alaska Airways, BDO, Glowing Ice, Sheraton, and Umpqua Financial institution. Healthcare firm MultiCare additionally renewed its sponsorship of the crew, whereas Starbucks, Gatorade, and Seattle Reproductive Companions have ongoing partnership offers.
Nonetheless, there’s one essential empty sponsorship slot: The one on the entrance of the crew’s jersey. That slot—typically thought of a main sponsorship, and infrequently negotiated to be multi-year offers—is commonly the most costly, giving a crew the largest increase to their backside line.
Bringing the queen residence
Seattle Reign FC was based in 2012 as considered one of eight inaugural members of the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League. The league have performed below two totally different names, three totally different homeowners, and in 4 totally different stadiums since starting play in 2013.
The back-and-forth of the enterprise facet—a few of which is predicted on the earth {of professional} sports activities—hasn’t stymied the Reign’s success on the sector. Although they’ve but to scoop up a championship title, the Reign has made it to the ultimate match thrice and brought residence three NWSL shields—a trophy awarded to the crew with the most effective report on the finish of the common season. In 2022, the crew additionally received The Ladies’s Cup, an invitational match in Louisville, Ky.
When the crew was purchased from its Seattle-based founders by the French membership Olympique Lyonnais in 2019 for about $3.5 million, the title modified to OL Reign and the queen brand was changed by a lion. The crew additionally started enjoying in Tacoma, Washington, a metropolis about 40 minutes south of Seattle alongside the Puget Sound. 5 years later, Olympique Lyonnais bought the crew for a whopping $58 million to Sounders FC, Seattle’s Main League Soccer crew, and funding agency Carlyle. The sale was finalized in June 2024, solidifying the crew’s return to Seattle.
“We had been benefactors of the fact that we had been bringing the crew again from a global proprietor,” mentioned Courtney Carter, chief income officer for Seattle Reign FC and Seattle Sounders FC. The message, she defined, was: “We’re staying in Seattle. The Reign isn’t transferring. It’s gonna be this deeply-rooted Seattle soccer possession that actually cares about leveling up.”
The imaginative and prescient for the Reign’s new model positioning started to crystallize when planning for Megan Rapinoe’s retirement match in August 2024. The Olympic gold medalist and two-time World Cup champion performed for the Reign since its founding, and the crew was planning to retire her quantity 15 jersey in honor of the soccer legend’s contributions. The crew wished to make the second particular for the franchise’s greatest star—bringing in the suitable companions, guaranteeing followers felt a part of the second, and paying tribute to Rapinoe’s expertise and management. Google Pixel sponsored the match in a partnership that received a Cynopsis Sports activities Media Award in June.
The crew employed Redscout to revitalize the model within the three-month break between seasons. Ashley Shaffer, chief advertising and marketing officer at Redscout, shared a fractional CMO function with Carter and Sounders’ chief integration officer Taylor Graham as they labored to form a brand new model persona, visible id, and manifesto—all with out shedding any of the legacy that gamers and followers beloved in regards to the crew.
“This fan base had caught with them via thick and skinny, and it was time to get them again [to feeling] like they had been being supported and seen, in order that they might really feel proud carrying that crest once more,” Shaffer mentioned. “That was the large imaginative and prescient.”
The which means of the queen
Shortly after the Carlyle-Sounders’ buy of the crew, the Reign hosted an appreciation occasion for its season ticket holders on the Queen Anne Beer Corridor in Seattle to grasp how linked followers felt to the queen brand. A printout of the crown was positioned on a desk with markers, inviting followers to jot down down what they felt the queen represented.
The response was overwhelmingly optimistic. Followers described the queen with phrases like, “assured,” “robust,” “genuine,” “inclusive,” and “badass.” If it hadn’t been clear earlier than, the occasion strengthened that the rebrand wanted to give attention to the queen brand, mentioned Maya Mendoza-Exstrom, the Reign’s chief enterprise officer.
“The problem of the second,” she defined, “is that this league is so totally different than it was in 2012 when the queen first appeared.”
To do this, Redscout labored with the Reign to revamp the feel and appear of the crew’s pictures, branding, social presence, and web site.
Altering a sports activities crew’s branding is like strolling a tightrope, mentioned Derek Aframe, government vice chairman at sports activities advertising and marketing agency Octagon. The purpose, he mentioned, is to respect the die-hard followers whereas evolving to new followers.
“In the event you go too far with a brand new id, then you definitely run the danger of all of the fairness you’ve constructed up,” Aframe mentioned.
That philosophy is seen within the delicate modifications that Redscout made to the Reign’s queen brand. The brand new brand infuses the visible id of the crew with the identical focal factors members beloved: confidence, grit, energy, inclusivity, and legacy.
Shaffer’s crew tweaked the colour palette, constructed out a design system for social media, and opted for a extra portrait-like, framed pictures fashion to introduce gamers in lieu of the stark, backlit photographs which have change into a little bit of a cliché in sports activities imagery, she mentioned.
Redscout additionally labored with the Reign on a brand new uniform design, referred to as the Rise equipment, which faucets into the identical language used for Rapinoe’s retirement match. The brand new visuals, jersey, and anthem goal to sign that the Reign franchise is on the rise.
Courting sponsors
The brand new look resonated with Alaska Airways, mentioned Eric Edge, vp of name and advertising and marketing. Calling it a complementary partnership for 2 manufacturers embracing Seattle, Edge famous that the clear, seamless visuals had been additionally a part of the equation when his firm was contemplating the deal.
Alaska Airways is the presenting sponsor for worldwide name ups, which means that the Alaska Airways will seem on content material related to Reign crew members who’re referred to as as much as play for his or her nationwide groups—like Jess Fishlock, who made historical past earlier this month by scoring the primary purpose for Wales in a global match through the Ladies’s Euro 2025.
“We additionally beloved the way in which Reign FC elevates their athletes via considerate visuals and makes it straightforward for different manufacturers to shine,” he mentioned. “We will’t wait to supply thrilling experiences to the Seattle group whereas highlighting the significance of ladies’s sports activities.”
The Reign is searching for extra sponsors that may preserve the crew anchored within the Emerald Metropolis for the long term. Extra particularly, the crew is searching for a sponsor to be splashed on the entrance of jerseys to cement the model refresh. The Reign is at present the one crew within the league with no front-of-kit sponsor. Octagon’s Aframe estimated that front-of-kit sponsorship offers vary from $1 million to $2 million per 12 months.
“That spot represents some of the worthwhile and significant actual property alternatives in media and sports activities,” Carter mentioned. “Curiosity is excessive, conversations are accelerating, and we’re in lively talks with a number of world-class manufacturers. The window is open—however not for lengthy.”
