Helping women make moves on (and off) the court
Turning Bumble’s first national sports partnership into a platform for connection across women’s basketball.
As women’s basketball entered a new era of cultural momentum, Bumble saw an opportunity to show up in a way no other dating app had, or could.
While interest in the WNBA was surging, more than one in four fans reported feeling isolated from other fans. For a brand built around meaningful connection, that gave us a clear role to play.
Through partnerships with the WNBA and New York Liberty, we created a platform designed to bring people together around a shared love of the game—nationally and locally, online and IRL.
Bumble became the WNBA’s first official dating app partner, later extending the partnership locally as the New York Liberty’s first official dating app partner.
From partnership to platform
Under “Helping women make moves on (and off) the court,” we built a flexible creative system that could stretch across some of the biggest moments in women’s basketball.
At WNBA All-Star Weekend, Bumble hosted the Orange Carpet and popped up at WNBA Live with an immersive fan experience, original content, merchandise and programming centered around “Game-Changing Connections.”
The partnership then went local with the New York Liberty, expanding across the Ultimate WNBA Date Night, a full Barclays Center takeover for “Title Night,” an influencer suite, community watch party and—after the Liberty won their first championship—a Bumble × Liberty float in the championship parade.
Make “connection” the experience
Rather than simply sponsoring women’s basketball, we used the partnership to give fans more ways to experience it together.
The Ultimate WNBA Date Night generated 29K+ entries in one week, compared to ~1,200 for a previous sweepstakes. Campaign content drove 940K views, while the WNBA × Liberty collaboration post delivered a 2.76% organic engagement rate against a 1% benchmark.
At WNBA Live, more than 20K fans came through the experience, with 6,350 pieces of merch distributed and the photobooth activated 2,769 times.
Impact
+17% brand awareness
+29% brand consideration
+54% perceived brand value
+175% new & re-engaged customers
+210% net buzz among WNBA fans
The partnership earned coverage across Sports Business Journal, Adweek, The Gist, Vibe and Sports Illustrated.
Led creative development and direction across the WNBA and New York Liberty partnerships, overseeing the creative system and its expression across experiential, content, social, CRM, merchandise and partnership activations. Directed internal creatives and external partners while collaborating across marketing, social, experiential and partnership teams.
The whole creative crew:
Creative Director: Martin Sanchez
Senior Art Director: Katy Roughton
Copywriters: Georgia Healey, Salwa Rogers
Design Director: James Hannaford
Designers: Misha Hunt, Hanna Norland
Executive Producer: Allaire Johnson
Production: Cole Collective
Video Lead: Laura Rankin
Editors: John Hughes, Sarah Nouri