One bright afternoon in 2019, Jessica Robertson received a surprising call during a lunch break stroll in Manhattan. It was Alex Morgan, the star striker for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team, who was gearing up for the 2019 FIFA World Cup.
Morgan proposed an opportunity to Robertson that could be risky and a game-changer. She wanted to redefine how women’s sports – from the athletes’ individual stories to overall coverage – are featured in the media.
“She got tired of waiting for others to decide that female athletes and their stories were worth investing in,” said Robertson, who was head of content at the Players’ Tribune, founded by MLB Hall of Famer Derek Jeter. “It was also a passion of mine … she was adamant that she wanted to disrupt the entire media industry and launch her own media company.”
Without hesitation, Robertson joined Morgan on this quest. The two drafted sports superstar athletes: snowboarder Chloe Kim, swimmer Simone Manuel and basketball icon Sue Bird. And in March 2021, the five launched Togethxr – a multidimensional media and commerce platform focused on women in sports. The Sawtelle-based firm has grown from a daring startup into a cultural powerhouse, amplifying women’s sports through evocative storytelling, community building and sheer unapologetic ownership of the narrative around women in sports. Outside of Jeter’s The Players’ Tribune, they join the likes of Uninterrupted (Lebron James) and Thirty Five Ventures (Kevin Durant).
The market was ripe for a shift. Women represent nearly half of all sports participants – at 44% – yet a 2019 Purdue University report showed that they received only 5.4% of overall sports coverage compared to their male counterparts.
That percentage has grown to about 16% – thanks to Togethxr, which has produced a slate of documentaries, docuseries, digital series and podcasts in partnership with major streaming platforms like Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc.
The company has also built a community of nearly 4 million followers across all its social media platforms as of 2024, a 17% jump from the previous year. Most of all, Togethxr is behind the trademarked slogan shared worldwide: “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports.”
There “is a clear captured audience and they are dialed in,” said Miri Rossitto, founder and chief executive of Calabasas-based marketing and brand development COWE Communications. “(Togethxr) acutely understands the mindset, passion, pain and extraordinary circumstances that female athletes face every day.”
It’s paying off. Togethxr’s earnings tripled year over year, scoring $6 million in record revenue in 2024. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company’s total income has been $30 million so far this year.
“They measure success not only in dollars but in connection, community and cultural influence,” said Rossitto.
Togethxr – pronounced “together” – highlights the company’s key mission as stated on its website: “a place where culture, activism and sports converge.”
The early days of Togethxr were scrappy, to say the least, Robertson said. She and Morgan spent those days sitting in a Santa Monica office, sketching out a business plan and overall mission on a whiteboard – down to even “what are the words that we would associate with a company like this one,” said Robertson.
That included equity, equality, progressiveness and social justice, to name a few. And then, it came down to the athletes who represented those qualities.
“There was no question for Alex that those three would be Sue, Chloe and Simone,” said Robertson. “It’s the power of the collective … (Alex) experienced that with her teammates on the national team and their fight for gender equality and pay equity. She wanted to build this company with other female athletes who understood that experience.”
From there, the five came together to finalize “what this company is, what it stood for, what types of stories it would tell, who it was for outside of other female athletes … really building community around the brand and being a home for women’s sports fans,” said Robertson. “Because there really hasn’t been a home for those stories and for the fans to consume those stories.”
They had planned to launch their company before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but were delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And when it finally launched, conversations around pay equity, racism and social justice had reached an “inflection point” that “laid a great foundation for a brand like Togethxr to exist and build from,” Robertson said.
Leaning on her journalistic background, Robertson helped the team craft engaging content and a new model for sports media. Instead of chasing the traditional formula of highlight reels and live rights, she and the Togethxr team focused on building an ecosystem that included in-house studio productions.
They started with an array of content, including a short YouTube documentary series spotlighting athletes in all dimensions – on the court and off, in uniform and at home.
Among the most recent featured stories – posted on TikTok and Instagram – are Erin Matson, the youngest coach in Division One for the University of North Carolina’s field hockey women’s team, and on athletic standouts like Louisiana State University’s women’s basketball guard Flau’jae Johnson.
The stories bolstered their presence and brand, eventually outpacing many legacy sports media brands. Partnerships with Nike, Google, Buick and Geico rolled in, and then came the lightning bolt slogan: Everyone Watches Women’s Sports.
What began as a T-shirt campaign evolved into a social movement. Celebrities wore the shirts, athletes posted photos of themselves wearing them, and women’s sports fans lined up to buy them. Merchandise bearing the slogan–ranging from hoodies to tote bags – generated most of its revenue, a record milestone for the company.
Four years later, Togethxr finds itself at the center of the cultural conversation. They have now produced a slate of major productions, like co-producing the documentary film “Power of the Dream,” which follows a group of WNBA players’ quest to take on team owners and rally behind the support of now-U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock. They also served as executive producers of the documentary on Allyson Felix, the most decorated track and field athlete of all time, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. And they’ve since published their first book, “Play It Forward,” which celebrates the trailblazing women of sport.
“It’s all about the three Cs – (Content, Commerce and Community),” said Paula Hughes, chief digital officer at Togethxr. “People follow us because they love Togethxr. They love the content. They love the shirt. And then they come to our events and they will say, ‘I feel safe, I feel seen.’”
The momentum at Togethxr has attracted heavy hitters. Earlier this year, the company announced that it nabbed new institutional investors. The list included BBG Ventures co-founded by Susan Lyne, Ingeborg Investments founded by Olivia Walton, Present Ventures co-founded by Vansa Chatikavanij, Herean Capital and LEAD’s Locker Room Capital.
Morgan also added to the company’s capital through her investment arm Trybe Ventures. The investment group “will help drive the growth of our company and the women’s sports ecosystem more broadly,” Morgan said.
Golf legend Michelle Wie West announced her investment in the company in May, telling CNBC that “I feel like I’m in a place where I can make a difference.”
As of this month, Angel Reese, the Chicago Sky’s two-time WNBA All-Star, officially joined Togethxr as the newest member of its athletes’ ownership group.
Reese described the move as meaningful and said it was “more than just being part of a platform – it’s about changing the way women in sports are seen and celebrated.”
In April, Nancy Dubuc, former chief executive of Vice Media and A+E Networks, joined as executive chair. In August, Kati Fernandez, who had served as head of content development at ESPN Network, was tapped to be the company’s new chief content officer.
The overall growth in its pool of investors and team highlights the confidence the Togethxr crew has in its future prospects.
Robertson admits that one of their investors once asked her what scared her most about this new venture at the start of the company.
“My first answer was moving to Los Angeles,” Robertson quipped. “My second and most honest answer was: I’m afraid that no one’s going to care. That’s because we’ve been taught time and time again, culturally and commercially, that we don’t value female athletes … but I’m happy that I’ve been proven wildly wrong.”
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