How the Philadelphia Eagles got more girls into flag football with a secret weapon: a sports bra

Jen Kavanagh never imagined working in sports, even though it always sounded fun.

“I never really thought this would be an opportunity for me,” she says. “I believed you had to play sports or study sports management and get a great internship.”

But when the Philadelphia Eagles looked for a new marketing director in 2018, “they wanted someone with media DNA,” she says, someone who understood content development and community and knew how to use technology platforms most effectively.

Kavanagh, who had worked in digital media and brand building for a decade and a half, primarily in reality television, was ultimately the right choice: “It wasn't so much that the person in the role came from sports as that was important . “They understood the nature of the environment we were working in.”

Because of her own non-traditional path to a career in the sports world, Kavanagh encourages women who want to find a similar role to stay open-minded and flexible.

“Not all career paths are linear! There are all kinds of doors and paths to a dream job,” she says, adding that she is increasingly seeing first-hand the benefits of employees with diverse professional experience: “Because they come from different backgrounds, they are really capable of it. “immediately make interesting contributions.”

Jen Kavanagh at the NFL Honors.

Courtesy of the Philadelphia Eagles

As senior vice president of marketing and media, Kavanagh, among other things, leads the development of the Eagles brand; oversees original content (such as streaming series and podcasts); and operates the team’s digital platforms. She also oversees Community Relations, the department responsible for the creation of Eagles Girls Flag Football – a league dedicated to lowering the barriers to girls' entry into the game.

The Eagles started the league with 16 teams in the spring of 2022 and will return with 92 teams just two years later this season. As part of the thriving league, Kavanagh and her team are also helping to remove another barrier to girls' access to the sport. According to research, girls who didn't have access to sports bras were more likely to quit sports or not join a team at all. Therefore, the organization provides free sports bras to all female athletes.

Below, Kavanagh talks to PEOPLE about the booming flag football league, as well as the advice she gives to young women looking to break into the industry and how sports is actually similar to reality TV.

What exactly does your job entail? It sounds like a lot of moving parts.

That's true, but they all work together and that's the good thing. Several groups that I oversee work together to achieve the ultimate goal of growing our fan base and deepening our engagement with our fan base – not just here in Philadelphia, not just on game day, but around the world.

One of those is the Eagles entertainment team – it consists of all of our content, our production and our social networks. So they're the ones who create the original series that you see on YouTube and that people fall in love with because we bring them [fans] within the team, in the locker room and in meetings and give them the access they are looking for to feel as connected as possible.

I think that sometimes people tend to look at sports and see a single dimension of it, which is that sports teams are all about winning championships. But you also have to stand for something that goes beyond the end result. Therefore, your values ​​are almost as important as your commitment to winning championships.

And whether it's supporting girls and their ambitions in sports, caring for the environment with our Go Green program, or devoting our efforts to the autism community, all of these things are important because people are not one-dimensional . We are sports fans and we are fans of “fill in the blanks.” That's why we take the opportunity to connect with people about their values ​​and other shared interests, just as we do with football. We really want to be as multidimensional as possible.

And that's what I'm talking about right now [my background in] Reality shows, let's face it, sports is a reality show in many ways, right? It's about competition. It's about passion. It's about creating memories, it's about creating generational bonds. It's entertainment. It's about relationships and music and fashion and food.

And Taylor Swift.

I think it's great that you brought this up because watch the Kelce documentary, Jason Kelce and Kylie Kelce. If I had $1 for every person who wasn't a sports fan, wasn't an Eagles fan, and in most cases a woman who reached out to me to tell me how much they loved this documentary and now follow Jason and Kylie. And that's really because their stories are so relatable. It's not that different [from reality TV] at the end of the day.

I believe Eagles fans are some of the most passionate of fans. How do you use this passion for good?

Moving here [from New York City]One of my earliest memories was walking through Center City and being overwhelmed by the fact that the Eagles were all around me. It was in every market I went to, it was in every restaurant window, it was in every Wawa.

And that wasn't the case in my previous world – the shows that I worked on, I didn't see the presence of those shows everywhere I was in my daily life. So I immediately understood how important the team is to the community and that it really is part of the city's DNA.

The first thing you feel is this deep sense of responsibility: This really means something to a lot of people and has for many, many generations, so I can't screw this up.

Secondly, I felt like this was a marketer's dream come true. You get to a place and a situation where there is a group of people who are so incredibly passionate about what you do; It's kind of up to you to lose it.

And then over time you learn that you have a responsibility to always be considerate of the fans, who are the lifeblood of what you do, but you also have to be prepared to be with them on the journey through peaks and valleys go. Whether you win or lose, there will be a sentiment that our fans will actively express. The enemy is really apathy, not excitement.

These are all things I learned to accept early on; Even if they are mad at us, that passion will still be expressed differently, and the absence of it would be much, much worse.

A Fly:FWD panel event.

Philadelphia Eagles

In general, how do you go about keeping fans engaged year-round? Is there a big difference between in-season and off-season?

Storytelling around the team is an ongoing activity that never stops. It just depends on what we tell stories about. During the season things are more focused on game day and things related to the season itself. The offseason gives us an opportunity to take a closer look at who players are when they aren't wearing their helmets. Where do they go in the off season? What are you doing? What opportunities do we have to showcase their personalities and tell more stories about things that are happening in our community?

People are surprised to learn that in many ways the offseason can be busier for our teams than the season itself, because then we reflect on the season before: what really worked, what do we want to change? What did we learn? Then you need to start building and planning. So once we get to the season, it's something of a turnkey operation as all the work and planning has already been done beforehand.

Tell me about the Eagles Girls Flag Football League – how did the league come about and why is it important to you?

I give great credit to the community relations team who have long led our youth football initiatives. They observed what was happening in girls sports here in the community and had conversations with local athletic directors.

We realized there was a need and an opportunity. We had an opportunity to create more opportunities for girls to play the sport, to create this opportunity for girls to play flag football, and we will help as organizers with the goal of ultimately sanctioning the sport.

The interest was so great that we found ourselves in a situation where we were almost two years ahead of schedule in terms of the number of teams registered.

As part of the initiative, the organization will distribute 30,000 sports bras to girls in need in the Philadelphia area. Why?

During the league launch process, we realized there was this barrier to entry. We've created all these opportunities for girls to play, but those opportunities don't really exist if there's a barrier between the girl and the opportunity. And we learned specifically that the hurdle was access to sports bras, and it was really an overwhelming moment.

It's easy to assume that the equipment children need to play is plentiful and available, but when you look at the equipment, in the case of a boy versus a girl, it's different. Sports bras were not considered essential equipment; So when you start your season and pick up your jersey, it doesn't include the thing you need to play confidently and competitively.

Aside from being a need that existed in the community, it was also a need that was not easy to talk about. It wasn't particularly comfortable to discuss this as a need, so we realized we also needed to help destigmatize this issue.

To create the FLY:FWD sports bras, we're working with an existing partner called Operation Warm, an incredible nonprofit that also makes coats and gloves for children in need.

Fly:Fwd sports bras.

Philadelphia Eagles

What impact has it had?

The feedback was incredible. I could see firsthand the impact this had. When we have our jamboree in the spring and the girls all come to pick up their uniforms, you can really see the confidence level increase dramatically.

Once we knew we had a good model for this and that we were making a difference in the community, we thought: How can we take this beyond Philadelphia? Because the goal is to ensure that 100% of girls who want to play sports in the country and around the world have access to it.

This began discussions with other professional sports teams. Now that we had a model, we can say: If you want to do this, we've made it pretty much turnkey for you. So get on board and do this in your community.

Are there aspects of your job that you particularly love?

So many, but I would say the best part of my job is giving people access to experiences that money can't buy. We as an organization regularly have the opportunity to create experiences for people that are simple for us, but ended up being the best day of that person's life or a day they will never forget.

It's amazing to me that I can take a family onto the field at a game to watch the pre-game warm-up and they write me back and say it was the best moment we've ever had as a family . And that blows me away.