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She Bet on Women's Sports a Decade Ago, Now the Industry's Catching Up
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. If there was any doubt before, there's none now. Fans are showing up, networks are paying up and brands are lining up. But long before "Everyone watches women's sports" went from a merch slogan to a movement, Sanja Komljenovic bet her entire business plan on it. At 30, Komljenovic was tired. She had already spent more than five years with the Los Angeles Clippers and almost three as the global digital marketing lead for Nike Basketball. She was done trying to prove that a woman can make it to the top of a man's world. So she left, and in 2015, before the media surge around women's sports would rapidly ascend, she started her own creative agency. Since then, ONA—which means "her" in Komljenovic's native Bosnian—has built a client roster that includes the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), the United States Women's National Soccer Team (USWNST), the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the San Antonio Spurs, New York Liberty, Nike, Jordan Brand, Foot Locker, Nordstrom, Converse, JD Sports, Amazon, Meta, Ulta Beauty and Oakley. "I was really passionate about bringing, not just women along the journey with me, but anyone who's been left out of a space," Komljenovic told Newsweek. "'Ona' means 'her' but at the end of the day, it truly—much like feminism—just means inclusivity." At 40, Komljenovic shows no signs of fatigue. She is sharp and her vision clear. There is no question that she can't snap an answer to. Off the top of her head, she can rattle of the brands and athletes that are doing sports marketing right (Nika Mühl, Michaela Edenfield, Ulta's work with HBCU dance teams, Oakley in the women's flag football space, Revolve and pretty much any female athlete, the list goes on). Women's sports have hit the mainstream, but Sanja Komljenovic said there are still major "untapped opportunities" for brands. Women's sports have hit the mainstream, but Sanja Komljenovic said there are still major "untapped opportunities" for brands. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Antar Hanif She can lay out exactly why brands are flubbing their approach to female athletes ("We treat them like male athletes or we treat them like influencers, and I don't think women athletes are either of those things") and why leagues need to stop trying to manage their players in the wake of controversy ("It's more about denouncing what's wrong and letting the players be themselves"). That straight-forwardness is a hallmark not only of her marketing insights, but also of her leadership. Her hiring could seem a little unconventional. She recruits freelancers as extra hands on projects instead of conducting interviews with prospective employees. She pays as much attention to soft skills as she does to creative capabilities. And she puts reputation above all else. "It's not about the gig you're currently in, it's about the next gig," she said. "If you don't do a good job now because it feels not important or not big enough or not interesting enough to you, then you're probably not going to get a recommendation for something else." "To be completely transparent," Komljenovic added, "I would rather not hire than hire the wrong person." But she wasn't always this self-assured. Early on in her entrepreneurial journey, Komljenovic often felt that her company's shortcomings reflected poorly on her leadership skills. With time, she realized that those growing pains happen to every company. The way she perceived herself and those around her suddenly changed. And she learned that her greatest blessings often came disguised as adversity. "The biggest growth in leadership happens when you're able to take a step back, and that only happens for me when I have lulls in the business," Komljenovic said. "[I'm] able to take a step back and really think about what's broken and what needs to be fixed, and what kind of skill sets I need to adopt and grow into in order to be able to do that." It's a view she unknowingly shares with Cathy Engelbert, the commissioner of the WNBA. During Engelbert's fireside chat at Newsweek's Women's Global Impact forum, the commissioner told the crowd, "I always say, 'In the midst of a crisis, your weaknesses get amplified, but it's also a chance to fix some things.'" When the pandemic shuttered sport stadiums in 2020, the WBNA was sitting at the margins. Somehow, the next year, Engelbert helped the league rake in $75 million, the largest-ever capital raise of any women's professional sports league. "Everything went well but definitely not as predicted," she reflected. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert (right) speaks with Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Cunningham (left) for a fireside chat during the Women's Global Impact forum on Tuesday, August 5, at One World Trade Center in New York City. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert (right) speaks with Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Cunningham (left) for a fireside chat during the Women's Global Impact forum on Tuesday, August 5, at One World Trade Center in New York City. Weston Kloefkorn | For Newsweek Both Komljenovic and Engelbert also recognize that success can be a double-edged sword. On stage, Engelbert joked that she knew the WNBA had officially become a legitimate sports media entertainment property when she was flooded with negative messages from fans. "I used get about 40 emails a year from fans complaining. Now, I get 4,000 a week," she laughed. "There's no more apathy. Apathy is the death of a brand." In Komljenovic's view, that can be a good thing too. Using the example of Gatorade's "Let Her Cook" campaign, Komljenovic argued if a brand knows its target consumer, no controversy can break the bond between women's sports and the fans. The Gatorade campaign faced blowback after some interpreted the phrase as an offensive reference to sexist domestic roles, but Komljenovic believes only outsiders would have seen the ad that way. "In this case, a little bit of outrage is good, because you're getting the wrong side kind of riled up, while the other side—that is interested, is invested [in the sport]—loves the tagline and totally gets what it means," she said. "The minute you start trying to please everyone, 'Hey, this person doesn't get it,' is the minute you're going to start losing the plot, and it's just not going to be as sharp or as good," she added. Women's sports have hit the mainstream, but Komljenovic said there are still major "untapped opportunities" for brands. She said there are "pockets you wouldn't think of" in women's college sports that brands could still own at this point in time. In working with some of these college athletes, Komljenovic discovered that even if these women don't have huge followings, they have "crazy engagement." "They have almost as many likes on a post as they do followers. It's pretty substantial and extremely interesting because it's my belief that that is more important than [your] following," she said. "It means that you have an engaged audience. It means that people care about what you have to say. It means that people are highly attuned to what you're doing." Naming softball and volleyball as examples, she said, "Some of these sports aren't getting as much visibility, and some of this talent isn't getting used on the regular." "You could get one of the really big [athletes in this category]," Komljenovic said, "and really make a dent in the marketplace."
