October 31, 2023
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Agent Erin Kane talks Caitlin Clark, Napheesa Collier, future of WNBA
By The Next
Howard and agent Erin Kane of Excel Sports discuss her newest client, Caitlin Clark, how that came about, the StateFarm partnership and more
It’s time for another Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast episode. Women’s basketball agent Erin Kane of Excel Sports, represents everyone from Napheesa Collier to Arike Ogunbowale, NaLyssa Smith to Maddy Siegrist. Kane joined host Howard Megdal to discuss the news that she’s added Caitlin Clark to the Excel galaxy of stars, and not only what that means for Clark but what the innovative ways Clark, Collier and other Excel stars are approaching their brands on and off the court are resonating across the sports landscape.
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Erin Kane talks about her newest client, Caitlin Clark and how that came about:
“I’m on an incredible team of people at Excel that is working with Caitlin. So Alan Zucker is one of our partners at Excel. He’s the, I will say, preeminent sports marketer for many, many years and is among his clients Peyton and Eli Manning and just really incredible talents, and he’s done a brilliant job for them. And Caitlin is so special, and everybody can see it. I mean, that’s part of what makes her so amazing and interesting and transcendent. And so, I think the conversations from our team are initiated with Alan. Like she’s doing this herself, her play, her way of dealing with media, her approach to her community service, and all the things she’s already doing, through and surrounded by her family, were just incredible.
But I do think the benefit of signing with someone, or a company like Excel, and someone like Alan and me, and the team and Colin Garrity, the team we have around her is that it provides a little bit more access and guidance to some other things that might not happen just organically. And so I think the plan always has been and even in the press release, and starting with that seeing, we see her as on a par with these just incredibly transcendent elite athletes of all time. And so being able to provide kind of additional access to that, and some of the resources and even this business has existed for many decades. And so understanding like the best practices and how to continue to keep her on the incredible path that she’s on, and support and amplify all the things she’s already doing.”
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Erin Kane talks about Caitlin Clark’s partnership with StateFarm:
“StateFarm advertising in sports they’re one of the blue chip brands and we certainly see that alignment with Caitlin is making a ton of sense. So it is exciting. And the ads are always really well done and very funny. And the khaki pants it’s a very cute idea. And the other thing is we look at this with all of our clients is helping bring them to life for people beyond the uniform, right, like more than the uniform. What is it? What does it mean to be behind the scenes to be a Division One student-athlete pursuing a professional career and having a family and doing work in the community. And so I know the khaki pants are kind of uniform, but it’s a different kind of uniform. So we love it, we just think the creative form from StateFarm, we thought was really funny and charming. And we loved it for her.”
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