Commits to Continuing the Work to Advance Women’s Sports and Support the Fans Who Made It Happen
CHARLOTTE, N.C., April 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) at the moment introduced it has formally met its groundbreaking 50/50 media pledge a full yr forward of schedule, attaining equal promoting spending on males’s and ladies’s sports activities media. The milestone cements Ally as the primary model to set—and obtain—a public, time-bound purpose for equal promoting spend throughout males’s and ladies’s sports activities media.
Originally launched in May of 2022 with a five-year goal, the 50/50 pledge sought to upend a vicious cycle driving vital disparity in media protection and financial prosperity of girls’s sports activities. Since the launch, the ladies’s sports activities {industry} has seen explosive development – with file viewership, game-changing media and sponsorship offers, highest-ever workforce valuations and stronger media illustration.
The dedication additionally delivered measurable enterprise outcomes for Ally that validated the corporate’s strategic, early funding in girls’s sports activities. Since the pledge launched in 2022, Ally’s model worth is up 40% in response to Brand Finance. Women’s sports activities followers are 27% extra prone to say they belief Ally in comparison with basic shoppers and are experiencing file ranges of model consciousness.
“When we launched this pledge in 2022, we saw around a corner and believed women’s sports was the next significant space in sponsorships because of its positive trajectory — passionate fans, incredible athletes, untapped potential. But, it needed partners willing to help make the infrastructure,” mentioned Andrea Brimmer, Ally’s Chief Marketing and Public Relations Officer. “We wanted to build alongside other brands, leagues, teams and media partners to create real visibility, credibility, and economic momentum for women’s sports. Meeting this commitment early isn’t a finish line for Ally — it’s proof that when you invest in building something meaningful, everyone benefits. And we’re not done building.”
Breaking the Cycle, Architecting the Infrastructure
In delivering the pledge, Ally collaborated with media companions, leagues, athletes and different manufacturers to assist architect new methods to place girls’s sports activities within the highlight and deal with the vicious cycle. Since launching the pledge, Ally elevated its promoting spend on girls’s sports activities media greater than 4.6X, transferring from 10% of its whole sports activities media spending to 50% parity at the moment. Key milestones included:
- 2022: Worked with CBS and the NWSL to maneuver the championship to primetime community tv for the primary time, leading to a file 915,000 viewers — a 71% enhance year-over-year.
- 2023: Executed a multimillion-dollar Disney/ESPN deal the place 90% of funding supported girls’s sports activities throughout the ACC, SEC, and NCAA championships.
- 2024: Became an official USGA associate and helped elevate the U.S. Women’s Open purse to a file $12 million — nonetheless the very best in girls’s golf at the moment.
- 2024: Committed early as the primary founding associate of Unrivaled, the skilled girls’s 3-on-3 basketball league.
- 2025: Became the WNBA’s official banking associate and signed No. 1 total decide Paige Bueckers, pairing her with veterans Breanna Stewart and Sydney Colson.
- March 2026: Worked with Scripps Sports and the PWHL to ship the league’s first-ever nationally televised recreation within the United States, accessible to greater than 126 million households.
Ally additionally invested early with rising girls’s sports activities platforms together with Just Women’s Sports, Re-Inc, GOALS, TOGETHXR, The Gist, and others, supporting the expansion of a extra strong media panorama to finest serve girls’s sports activities followers.
“Over the course of this commitment, we partnered closely with Ally to rethink how the sports media marketplace could work — helping unlock inventory where it didn’t previously exist and identifying emerging platforms ahead of traditional benchmarks,” mentioned Martin Blich, Executive Director and U.S. Head of Sports Partnerships & Investment, WPP Media. “Reaching the 50/50 milestone validates a deliberate shift in how investment can be structured and demonstrates how media strategy can drive industry-wide change in women’s sports.”
The Work Continues: Addressing Rising Costs because the Next Challenge
As girls’s sports activities have grown, rising prices are creating sophisticated realities for stakeholders throughout the ecosystem. Brands and leagues are navigating heightened stress for instant income and returns, as followers face new monetary friction. Ticket costs are rising, the viewing panorama is more and more sophisticated, and memorable experiences bolstering lifelong fandom danger turning into accessible solely to these with the deepest pockets.
Ally’s personal Cost of Fandom analysis discovered the typical sports activities fan spends greater than $1,600 yearly on their fandom—with 85% having no devoted financial savings for it.
“Brands and fans who contributed to this movement — who filled every seat in a far-off arena, tuned in at nonprime hours, brought the demand to put games in primetime — are now navigating a landscape that’s grown faster and become more expensive than anyone expected,” mentioned Brimmer. “This is a sign of the explosive growth of the women’s game, so on one hand, I’m proud. But, at the same time, this is a delicate moment. We’re calling on all those who love women’s sports to continue to make the hard decisions to ensure long-term, sustainable growth.”
“At a time when fans are choosing to spend, save and give with more intention than ever—57% of sports fans admit they overspend on their love of sports —they deserve a financial services partner willing to step up and support their love of the game. Ally intends to do just that, ensuring women’s sports fans can still do fandom right as we continue investing in the growth of the entire ecosystem together,” added Brimmer.
About Ally Financial
Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) is a monetary providers firm with the nation’s largest all-digital financial institution and an industry-leading auto financing enterprise, pushed by a mission to “Do It Right” and be a relentless ally for patrons and communities. The firm serves prospects with deposits and securities brokerage and funding advisory providers in addition to auto financing and insurance coverage choices. The firm additionally features a seasoned company finance enterprise that provides capital for fairness sponsors and middle-market corporations. For extra info, please go to www.ally.com.
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Contacts:
Christian Bochicchio
Ally Communications (Media)
[email protected]
SOURCE Ally Financial