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Ladies have at all times confronted strain to satisfy slim and sometimes conflicting societal expectations. For feminine athletes, that strain presents a paradox — being sturdy on the court docket whereas nonetheless being seen as “female” off of it.
“Rising up, I felt like for those who had been good at sports activities, folks would label you a tomboy or say you were not girly sufficient,” says UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd.
Now, Fudd helps change that narrative. She’s on the heart of a daring partnership between UConn Athletics and status magnificence model Madison Reed that challenges outdated expectations and redefines what confidence can seem like.
Based by UConn alum and seasoned entrepreneur Amy Errett, Madison Reed is deepening its funding in girls’s basketball by way of its Workforce ColorWonder marketing campaign, increasing its roster for the 2025–26 season, and launching new initiatives with model ambassadors like Fudd and Paige Bueckers.
“This motion of athletes being celebrated for his or her confidence and wonder remains to be new,” Errett says. “When folks consider Madison Reed, I would like them to consider the aspiration to really feel assured — on their phrases.”
Highlighting what issues
Madison Reed was born out of a private drawback ready to be solved. Founder Amy Errett noticed her mates battling greying hair and annoyed by the cruel substances in conventional dyes. She got down to create a greater different — one which delivered salon-quality outcomes with cleaner formulation and higher accessibility.
Her first focus was the at-home market, which makes up roughly half of the ladies’s hair dye business.
“It by no means works if someone buys one factor from you and does not come again,” Errett explains. “It is like males and shaving. Ladies often have a daily cadence for coloring their hair.”
After discovering early traction, she expanded Madison Reed’s attain by way of partnerships with Ulta, Walmart and Amazon.
Ultimately, Errett set her sights on the opposite half of the market: salons. After a whole bunch of stylists reached out asking to purchase Madison Reed’s colour tubes, she had a realization — why not rent their very own cosmetologists?
What started as a product-focused enterprise advanced into one which additionally presents companies, with Madison Reed now working nearly 100 shops. Whereas the service is beauty, the model’s success is rooted in what’s behind it: high-quality substances and a deep dedication to care, from offering entry to worker medical advantages to providing prospects a 100% money-back assure.
“Customer support is a misplaced artwork,” Errett says. “While you present up on your prospects, they keep loyal. And we have seen that.”
Equally necessary is how the firm treats its workers — one thing Errett believes is usually ignored within the business.
“We do not simply rent primarily based on whether or not somebody’s an excellent stylist, controller, marketer or information analyst,” she explains. “We additionally rent for the ‘how,’ which is tradition.”
Madison Reed is grounded in 5 core values — Love, Pleasure, Braveness, Belief and Duty — displayed in each hair colour bar.
“So long as our cosmetologists are pleased, and we give them profession paths, we have now a military,” Errett says.
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Athletes and aesthetics
As girls’s sports activities exploded, Errett noticed a possibility for Madison Reed to be one of many first magnificence manufacturers to enter the house.
“Feminine athletes embody every part we stand for,” she says.
A UConn alum and member of the UConn Basis’s Board of Administrators, Errett noticed the college as a pure match for the model’s first partnership, particularly with its powerhouse girls’s basketball program, that includes stars like Azzi Fudd and WNBA No. 1 choose Paige Bueckers.
“Partnering with a model like Madison Reed is unbelievable,” says Fudd. “It was based by a girl, and its mission to advertise confidence in girls aligns with the values of ladies’s sports activities.”
The partnership goes past photograph ops and Instagram collabs. Madison Reed has secured naming rights for UConn’s Gampel Pavilion and XL Heart, changing into the primary female-founded and alumni-founded model to take action.
“One factor about NIL partnerships is that a number of them haven’t got aligned objectives,” Errett says. “The one approach this works is that if each the athletes and the college profit.”
On this association, Madison Reed can host photoshoots on the UConn court docket, providing the college added publicity whereas simplifying logistics for everybody concerned.
Fairness helps create empowerment
For the athletes, the deal is cut up 50/50 between money and fairness, with franchising rights included for gamers who might need to open their very own retailer sooner or later.
“Speaking with Amy about fairness and potential franchise alternatives acquired me excited,” says Fudd. “It confirmed she’s not keen on only a transactional deal. She genuinely desires to empower girls in sports activities, and she or he’s keen to share her data and be a mentor nevertheless she will.”
Bueckers’ partnership prolonged past her time at UConn and into the WNBA, together with her colour line, “Uconnic Blonde,” whereas Fudd is exploring a for-credit internship with the corporate to realize hands-on expertise in entrepreneurship and advertising and marketing whereas pursuing her MBA.
Fudd could also be younger, however she’s already earned a seat on the desk with a number of the most elite athletes and entrepreneurs in sports activities. One among them is Steph Curry, whom she first met as one of many inaugural feminine attendees at his camp in 2018. He later invited her to a enterprise summit, the place she noticed a very totally different aspect of the NBA star.
“I solely knew him as a basketball participant, so that have opened my eyes,” Fudd says. “Watching him performed a task in why I made a decision to pursue my MBA. I need to perceive my enterprise and never simply depend on folks I rent for assist.”
Conclusion
Madison Reed kicked off the second yr of its partnership on the 2025 ESPYs by internet hosting the UConn staff at its Los Angeles-area Hair Colour Bar for a personal “Get Prepared With Me” occasion. Gamers and coaches loved skilled styling, together with colour, gloss, therapies and blowouts earlier than the present.
“For a very long time, feminine athletes weren’t provided model offers in any respect — not to mention magnificence offers,” says Errett. “Now, they’re being acknowledged not only for their expertise, however for his or her confidence, magnificence and the inspiration they convey to younger followers and oldsters. Seeing somebody like Azzi celebrated for who she is — inside and outside — alongside so many different achieved girls… how superb is that?”
