Laura Correnti, Pro Athletes and Giant Spoon Launch Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment

Award-winning media executive Laura Correnti, a council of professional athletes and integrated advertising agency Giant Spoon team up to launch Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment, based in New York City.

Deep Blue exists to identify, create, and influence business models and growth opportunities in emerging markets in sports and entertainment, including the firm's first vertical of focus: women's sports.

Deep Blue’s team will include media, marketing and advertising practitioners working alongside active and retired professional athletes to ensure brands have first-person perspective when building their women’s sport-focused marketing strategies and brand messaging. Laura will be responsible for the stewardship of client business as well as media and partnership investment strategy while its Athlete Advisory Council offers consultation around strategic insights and conceptual ideation. 

Leveraging the firm’s passion and understanding of women’s sports, access to key stakeholders across business, media and sport industries, and institutional knowledge of the media and marketing landscape, Deep Blue is designed to become the leading agency of record for brands in women’s sports — providing strategic guidance and, together with Giant Spoon, executional services across media, creative and experiential. Laura will continue to serve as Partner at Giant Spoon.

Deep Blue will provide agency services including platform development and brand strategy, media investment, brand partnerships, ad campaign and content development, experiential marketing, league and club asset media value analysis and ancillary media / content strategy development, athlete / influencer partnerships, brand and thought leadership communications strategy, analytics and measurement framework development, and beyond.

Heading into an Olympics year, Deep Blue plans to introduce production capabilities in partnership with endemic creators, collaborators and distributors for brand-supported short and long form content as well as originals in 2024. 

Building on recent thought leadership and programming efforts, Deep Blue will host the second annual Business of Women’s Sports Summit in Spring 2024 and plans to have a presence at next year’s Cannes Lions Festival and 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. 

Deep Blue intends to launch proprietary research with the goal of qualifying and quantifying investment in women's sports to demonstrate both brand returns as well as social and economic gains that can be realised by investing intentionally and strategically in this space.

Deep Blue will announce its leadership team in the coming weeks and launch with advisory support from the cofounders of KB2 Sports – Kristin Bernert and Karen Bryant, who will also co-chair the Deep Blue Athlete Advisory Council. The council will support the firm’s clients with insights and conceptual ideation; Founding members of the council include Rennae Stubbs, ESPN commentator and former professional tennis player, professional golfer and media influencer Shasta Averyhardt, former Australian Cricket player and international cricket commentator Mel Jones OAM, Olympian and former professional soccer player turned broadcaster, influencer, and entrepreneur Melissa Ortiz, and more to be announced.

Deep Blue is building an international affiliate network to support brand marketers investing in women’s sports globally. The firm’s first affiliate partner is Game On, led by former Australian Cricket player and international Cricket Commentator, Mel Jones OAM, and Emma Staples, based in Australia. With over 50 years of sport engagement in sports administration, playing, government, media, community and high performance, Game On founders Mel and Emma use storytelling through content production, gender reviews, research and consultancy to help reimagine sport in Australia and globally. Game On will support Deep Blue clients with global sports insights, international sports diplomacy strategy, and production capabilities. Mel will also participate on Deep Blue’s Athlete Advisory Council. 

“Teaming up with Deep Blue excites us to no end and provides an elite cohort of women across sport and business that has a razor sharp focus on what women’s sport specifically needs as well as the capabilities of challenging the current system and decision makers,” said Mel and Emma on the launch of partnership.

“Laura is a captain no matter the field, court, or boardroom. Deep Blue blends Laura’s knowledge of the game with her deep understanding of business, people, and creativity. We’re excited for Deep Blue to help Giant Spoon clients expand how people experience their brands in sports,” said Trevor Guthrie, cofounder of Giant Spoon. 

The firm’s name was inspired by the largest shark recorded in the world - who happens to be a female and whose name is Deep Blue. Like Deep Blue herself, the firm is motivated to never stop moving, always swimming forward with intention to explore possibility and opportunity in the sports and entertainment industry.