This story is the latest in our series on women leaders in sports and sports marketing. Read the rest of the profiles here.
Basketball executive Kerry Tatlock’s title might say NBA, but her heart says WNBA.
A New York Liberty season ticket holder, Tatlock got her start in the sport working for the W and is now EVP of global marketing partnerships and media at the NBA, a job that spans the W, G League, NBA 2K League, and USA Basketball. She’s spent almost two decades in the league office, and said witnessing the growth of the W firsthand has been among her proudest moments.
“I was a fan of basketball and a fan of sports, generally, but it was really the women’s game and the women’s side of the sport that drew me, and so it was very natural for me to start at the WNBA,” Tatlock told Marketing Brew. “Once I was here, I was given the opportunity to work across all leagues…I did want to impact and continue to work on behalf of the women’s game, but I felt like maybe moving into this seat and position and group would help me make the biggest impact.”
Three years into her role as EVP, Tatlock is now largely focused on fostering relationships with league-wide partners around the world while also cultivating a positive culture on her team closer to home.
Mamba Startup mentality
Tatlock didn’t cut her teeth in leagues with basketball. Instead, she got her start in women’s soccer in 1997, working with the players who would go on to become the famous 99ers, the 1999 Women’s World Cup champions. Tatlock was working at a small sports marketing company when she was introduced to the players, who at the time were looking for “off-field” marketing representation, she said.
After their World Cup win, she helped put on a victory tour of indoor soccer games to further boost their profiles.
“That was really the moment that I felt like, ‘Okay, I get it, I’m so moved,’” Tatlock said. “I was just really intrigued by the power of sport, and how sport and community intersect, and the impact it can have on society.”
She went on to serve as VP of television and new media for the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), the NWSL’s predecessor that folded in 2003 after three seasons. Tatlock said that role taught her to operate with a startup mentality that would come in handy when she joined the W after the WUSA dissolved, and even once she was elevated to the NBA across properties. Once, Tatlock and Mark Tatum, the NBA’s deputy commissioner and chief operating officer, had to sprint to a meeting in London because the roads were closed for the London Marathon, Tatum recalled.
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“Let’s just say she was not wearing ideal footwear for running, but she still did it,” he said in an email. “We still laugh about that story—that’s Kerry. We can always count on her to get things across the finish line.”
Getting Tatlock to make the switch from the W to the NBA more broadly “took some convincing,” Tatum told us—but she was ultimately swayed by the potential to work with multi-property partners of the leagues in addition to WNBA-specific partners, Tatum said.
New York or nowhere everywhere
About six years into her time at the NBA, Tatlock spent a year in London managing the league’s partnerships in Europe and growing its international profile during the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Helping the NBA grow its audience internationally has been another one of her proudest achievements, Tatlock said.
After the Olympics, she spent a few years working on the international side of the business, and her current role is focused on global media and partnerships that have included bringing in newer sponsors like Emirates, SoFi, and Skims and maintaining longstanding relationships with brands like American Express, State Farm, and Kia.
She does it from the NBA’s New York City headquarters, which in a sense lands her back where she belongs: A born-and-raised New Yorker, Tatlock was a Knicks fan growing up, and she now takes her young daughters to Liberty games.
When she’s not working on global media and sponsorship deals, Tatlock is focused on company culture. According to the NBA’s most recent social impact report, 44.6% of its employees around the world identify as women, including 35.6% of those at global VP level or above. All three of the units Tatlock oversees—business development and media, global partnership solutions, and marketing partnerships—are led by women, she said, which she considers to be another point of pride.
“The business is essential, but the people are what really makes the success,” she said. “If the people aren’t happy, and if we’re not doing well in that dimension, we just won’t be as successful, so I really try to think about what are the things that we should be doing differently, what can we be doing better, [and] making sure that we have all the right voices around the table.”
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