The ROAR Podcast: Amina Bulman, Boston Legacy FC

# ROAR Podcast: Amina Bulman
**Guest:** Amina Bulman
**Date:** 2026-06-19
**YouTube URL:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NzcDTu16lk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NzcDTu16lk)

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Adam Grossman (00:01.346)
Welcome to the Roard Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Grossman. With us today is Amina Bullman. Amina, welcome to the program.

Amina Bulman (00:07.862)
Thanks so much for having me, Adam.

Adam Grossman (00:09.55)
Well, it's great to great to have you on the show. you and I connected originally somewhat recently at the Sports Business Journal Awards where we were both judges. So that was very exciting. It was great to meet you and great to talk to you. And you know, one of the things that I really found interesting about our conversation is just your background, your experience, how you got to the role today. You've had a really interesting career today, and that's where we want to start, which is tell us how you got to your role at at the Boston Legacy.

Amina Bulman (00:34.742)
Thanks, Adam, and thanks so much for having me on the podcast today. I took a bit of a circuitous path to my role today. It was certainly not where I thought I would be when I was, you know, graduating college and and putting together my my my five, ten, fifteen year plan, none none of which has none of which has come true, spoiler alert.

Adam Grossman (00:54.018)
I was gonna say on a separate podcast we'll talk about all those plants 'cause I'd be curious to hear what those are.

Amina Bulman (00:56.99)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. but I so going all the way back just 'cause it's context for how I ended up in this world today, but I grew up in Boston. I'm the oldest of three girls. I was always an athlete. I was a rower through high school and college. and sports have always been just incredibly important to me, both as a fan but also as a participant. I think being an athlete has really shaped

my leadership style, how I, you know, relate to my friends and family. So many of my best friends are, you know, former teammates of mine. and so sports has always just played a central role in my life, but I I never imagined that it would be part of my career. Growing up, I didn't know anybody who worked in sports. I didn't really know of roles in sports. It was just not even an industry that was on my radar. I studied political science and economics, thought I was gonna spend my career

working in and around the government. And so right after college I moved down to DC and started working for a big consulting firm in their public sector practice and did that for a couple years and really enjoyed it, but wanted to do something that felt a little bit more entrepreneurial. So left to go help start up the Obama Foundation in its very early days and was working on sort of strategy and operations and building out their civic engagement programming. Again, very, very different.

Adam Grossman (02:17.059)
Ha ha.

Amina Bulman (02:18.815)
Decided after some time there that I wanted to go back and get my MBA. at the time because, you know, I I thought I really wanted to bring some of the like rigor that I loved from the business world, sort of back into the nonprofit world. but graduated from business school right at the start of COVID and of, you know, spring of twenty twenty and got a call from a former mentor of mine who was leaving

consulting firm where we had both worked to go be the president of the then Washington football team. They'd changed their name from Redskins one week before. And he said, Do you want to come with me and help turn around this organization? And I had never I you know I'd I'd been to Patriots games because I grew up in New England, but certainly would not have considered myself to be a diehard fan. I knew absolutely nothing about the business of sports, but he knew that I cared deeply about cultures and teams and how you bring people together to try and accomplish really hard goals and

I just was really drawn to the challenge and the opportunity to learn quickly and really make a difference in the world of professional sports. And so I I took the leap and thought I would be there for for one year. But you know, as as I think many folks in this industry know, sort of the rest is history. You get hooked and you fall in love with the people and the problems and so I've been here ever since. I five years at the commanders and then just about a year ago came back to Boston to help start up the legacy.

Adam Grossman (03:39.633)
I think we wanna there's a lot of things there that we want to get into. But one of the things I thought that was interesting, because this the same with me, is I never thought about working in a career in sports. I I wonder, you know, I this may be a question for both of us, but why neither one of us thought, you know, obviously now our spending our careers or big chunks of our careers in sports. I wonder do you think there is a reason that you never just never thought about it, even though you had sports as a big part of it or big part of your life growing up, or is it just something that just literally just never came across your radar screen?

Amina Bulman (04:07.489)
Part of it is that, you know, especially if you work on the team side, on the club side, it can be a pretty small industry. It can feel pretty insular. And people develop deep expertise in functions of this industry that is not necessarily as transferable as moving between, you know, moving from a marketing role in insurance to a marketing role in financial services. You know, if you deeply know how to sell tickets, that's

Adam Grossman (04:13.592)
Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Grossman (04:33.454)
Yeah.

Amina Bulman (04:34.205)
Yes, there are certain other industries, but like you're sort of looking in sports, meeting and entertainment. And so I just didn't know people coming in and out of those kinds of roles. And I think it's sort of, you know, once you're in, you're in. But if you don't have family or friends who have worked in this industry, it it does feel pretty opaque.

Adam Grossman (04:49.26)
Yeah, that's a good point. And I think it you know, I just I guess from my own experience was more just I didn't it didn't exact kind of like exactly what you're saying. I didn't know anybody who worked in it. I didn't didn't even occur to me that to think about the business side of the sports team while I was playing sports. And it's just interesting that, you know, obviously there are whole programs. I teach in one of the programs now where there's whole programs dedicated to sports management. So it's just interesting now that there's so many ki like I would say ki so many young adults now who think of this as a a career choice for them, which is

Was never on my radar when I was their age.

Amina Bulman (05:21.301)
Well, and I actually think one of the few functions where there is more cross pollination with other industries is the data and analytics side, because there is so much that the sports world has to learn from other industries. And it's an area where I think someone like you, Adam, can can really provide outsize value because of your experience in other industries in ways that might just be less applicable than some of the other core functions. And so I

Adam Grossman (05:28.876)
Yeah, that's a good point.

Amina Bulman (05:46.592)
Like when I think about hiring for my team and the skills I'm looking at, data and analytics is actually one of the areas where I say, you know, obviously I want some element of sort of sort sports experience and sports expertise. I'm really open to looking at folks who have built deep experience in data analytics or CRM or what have you in other industries because that is quite transferable to our work.

Adam Grossman (06:05.784)
Well, that's a good segue to the next question, although I appreciate you saying that about data analytics, about me and about our background and happy to talk about but more a little bit later. But y you know, as you mentioned, you came from outside the sports industry. Obviously you had a politics and government background. How did that impact what if any, what was the you know, how do you think that impacts your career going forward, that you had this experience outside of sports prior to having experience inside of sports?

Amina Bulman (06:31.893)
I'm always surprised by how different experiences that I've that I've had sort of show up and inform the way I think about certain kinds of work. in ways that are sometimes completely surprising. But I'll I'll give you a good example. We are at Boston Legacy FC, we are building a new stadium with the city of Boston. It's right right in the heart of the city. And as anyone who's ever been a part of building a new stadium knows, there is an extensive public-private process. It's you know, there's a lot of

media, it is just very much in the public eye. And I I felt like I had a little bit of a taste of that because when I was at the Obama Foundation, we were trying to open the Obama Presidential Center and Library and went through a very similar process and just sort of multi year endeavor. And so like I never I never thought that one would prepare me for the other, but you end up sort of pulling on these different elements of your experience in ways that are are never sort of predictable at the time.

Adam Grossman (07:31.968)
And obviously the Obama library is opening very soon. So it's a long journey. But are there other lessons learned? You know, I again as you mentioned, it's a long journey, maybe took longer than hope you know, obviously people would have anticipated. But is there other things that you've learned from that experience that you've translated into sports?

Amina Bulman (07:35.698)
Yes. I can't wait to go see it.

Amina Bulman (07:53.386)
I think one of the things that I a skill that I've had to learn just because I've jumped from jumped into so many different types of roles and picked up different functions along the way is just the value of curiosity and asking good questions and learning how to add value when you are not a subject matter expert. Because especially in my first few years working in sports, but certainly still now, it is so, so, so rare that I am the person in the room who knows the most or has the the

The most depth of knowledge about a subject matter. And even when I think about how I build my teams, I try to surround myself with people who have really deep subject matter expertise in areas that I don't. And so figuring out how I can unlock value for them, help them solve problems, help them understand what problems need to be solved first and with what level of urgency. Like that's a skill that I think I've been able to pick up because of how diverse my experience has been.

surprise about myself and you know would like to keep developing that.

Adam Grossman (08:55.744)
And how do you do that? I mean that's I I think that's a very laudable skill is to try to help, you know, people who have experiences or you know, like functional experience that you don't have but putting them in a position to be successful. So either now or what what did you learn i in your previous parts of your career that puts you or thinks that's something that you really focus on or able to be successful at?

Amina Bulman (09:18.953)
I I always tell my teens that I have I have two main jobs, well really three main jobs, as it relates to them. One is helping them stay connected and informed across the organization. So if I oversee five different diverse functions, I need to be able to create that connective tissue and set up both the operating model where they can do that, but also just make sure that they're getting the right information at the right times to do their jobs well. The second is

Clearing roadblocks for them and helping them get the resources that they need to be successful. And sometimes that is more money, but sometimes it's not more money, right? Sometimes it's connections to somebody else who has been in their seat, or maybe it's a conversation with an investor who can unlock something, but sort of resourcing and problem solving. And then the third thing that I think I need to do as a leader for all of my teams, and it's related to one and two, is

create the pathways for them to learn the skills to one day be team presidents themselves. Or maybe they don't want to be a team president, they want to be something else. But I do think part of part of my rule is about creating those opportunities for them to take safe risks and try new things and stretch a little bit that they might not even see themselves that they're capable of, but I can sort of set up those opportunities for them to stretch and learn and grow.

Adam Grossman (10:32.78)
Is there a good example recently that you can think about or talk about of doing that for somebody on your team where they were able to stretch themselves?

Amina Bulman (10:40.179)
Yeah, I I have somebody who works on my ticket sales team who wants to be a chief revenue officer someday. And so I had him join me on a sales pitch with a brand that's sort of in the ticketing and resale ecosystem and sort of help him learn how I talk about the brand, what kinds of questions to ask, how to sort of lead with a consultative approach in a potential partnership.

And I think just having him ride alongside me gave him a little bit of a taste of what this might look like and gave him a sort of just a a model or an example of what this kind of work might look like.

Adam Grossman (11:18.53)
Yeah, and I I know we fast forward a little bit to your role at the legacy. I want to dive into that in more detail. But you know, I obviously you came to the commanders or what are now the commanders obviously, as you mentioned, were the Washington football team at the time. Can you talk about how you you know, I obviously you mentioned I believe you you were referencing Jason Wright, maybe reached out to you, is scheduled to be our podcast guest next week. So good connected tissue for that. But what, you know.

Amina Bulman (11:40.789)
good.

Adam Grossman (11:46.316)
Why you know, obviously he reached out to you and it was an interesting opportunity, but what was compelling to you to to kinda leap in with the the Washington football team at the time, given where the team was at when you joined in the first place?

Amina Bulman (11:58.21)
Well, I'm so glad you have Jason on next week because you can you can quiz him on all of the things I'm gonna tell you about. But I mean the first thing really was the opportunity to work with Jason. I think there are leaders who who invest in you early in your career who you will run through walls for. And Jason was my very first boss out of college. I've known him since I was 22. and I give him a huge amount of credit for my own career trajectory. And he was just somebody who, you know, given the chance to work with him, I I will always say yes.

Adam Grossman (12:01.87)
Cool.

Amina Bulman (12:26.019)
so that was certainly a big part of it. And just the, you know, I think I think when you're when you're considering an opportunity that is both high reward but also high risk, knowing that you are able to do it alongside of a leader who you really trust makes a big difference. I also saw this opportunity as a huge chance for me to really learn. learn both about the industry of sports, but also learn about the fundamental dynamics of a business in transition.

This was an organization that was fundamentally rebranding after 90 years, that had a ton of opportunity on the commercial side, that had a lot of opportunity on the fan experience side, and that was in the hunt for a potential new stadium. And that, like, I got all of the most interesting problems in sports rolled into one opportunity, and in many ways it felt like a just a crash course or sort of my my real life MBA.

not only in sports, but just in in sort of business more broadly and how you shepherd an organization through a time of transition. And I've always been really curious about that and it sort of gave me a front row seat to all of those dynamics.

Adam Grossman (13:35.299)
And that goes or how do you shepherd an organization like that in a transition? In particular, you know, obviously you let a lot of the branding and rebranding work that happened, which is a very I'm from that area. I know about the original brand. It's something that was very just as a fan, it's something that was very important to me. But so you were dealing with a lot there. So how did you you know, what did you learn from that experience given how public and visible all that, particularly the rebrand was?

Amina Bulman (13:59.648)
Yeah, well, you make a lot of mistakes along the way. You do the best you I I think this is true for any any sort of leader navigating through uncertainty, but you you make the best decisions you can with the information that you have, and you never have the amount of information that you want to have to feel really confident in those decisions. And so I think I got a lot more comfortable operating in ambiguity and doing my best to obviously, you know, craft

a data driven strategy, but also knowing that there were some things I was never going to know and I was, you know, we were gonna have to sort of commit to an approach and learn what we could along the way. I mean, I give so much credit to the team that joined Jason and myself in those early months and early years because

Every person who joined that organization knew that they were joining an organization in transition and knew that it would be a rough ride and there would be ups and downs. And all of those individuals showed a real commitment to putting the team before themselves and building something greater than themselves. And I really do think like one of the core elements to helping an organization navigate that kind of change is building a team that brings a level of selflessness and and thoughtfulness to the work.

and that sort of allows everyone to stay oriented around like the North Star of what's best for the organization and like keep the main thing the main thing, which I think can be really challenging when there's just so much going on.

Adam Grossman (15:33.946)
And that that's a great point. And then from you know you obviously ha a again, I know I keep asking this 'cause I think it's these are you have very direct real world experiences on core challenges that are important to people who are in senior positions or looking to be in senior positions, but more specifically and granularly, how how did you deal with the ambiguity? How are you able to keep the main thing, the main when all of this is happening around you?

Amina Bulman (15:56.646)
well I'll take the I'll take the rebrand specifically as an example, because that was a project that had a huge amount of complexity. I think really importantly, a lot of just emotions involved. Like deep, deep feelings and sentiment from fans, from investors, from staff, from players. There were a lot of stakeholders.

Adam Grossman (16:12.45)
Yes. Exactly.

Adam Grossman (16:22.476)
Yeah, and all sides. It wasn't like necessarily clear, right one, but yeah. Yeah.

Amina Bulman (16:25.235)
All sides. Yeah, exactly. yeah, different sentiment on all sides. And and frankly, not not a ton of great data on that that let us say like with certainty, here's where everybody stands. And you know, there is a monolithic opinion from this group of stakeholders. And by the way, like those opinions were changing by the day. And you know, 2020 feels so long ago actually in so many ways, but like placing ourselves in that moment.

you know, George Floyd and COVID and like it was a very sort of specific time in corporate America in particular where where brands were thinking about the role they played sort of in society and the leadership role that they played. And so all of that I think weighed very heavily on us as we were thinking about how to shepherd this organization, which again was ninety years old, sort of had a huge amount of history and gravitas and

And legacy and you know, just generations of investment from, you know, from fans, from owners, from staff, from players. and so you asked sort of like how to navigate with amb with you know through ambiguity. I think our solution was to to try to do that with a high degree of care and of input. and you know, one of the things that there there are many things that did not

Go perfectly, but one of the things that I'm very proud of that we did and that I brought to Boston Legacy when I led the rebrand here was to really deeply engage fans and have them feel a part of the process and understand at really a values level what they wanted to see in this organization and how we could build a brand and an entity that they were proud, proud of, proud to wear on their chests, proud to bring their kids to games.

because the you know, business challenges with that level of complexity, ambiguity, emotion can't be solved by sitting at your desk and thinking about it. They have to be solved sort of in community and they have to be solved by bringing a lot of perspectives into the fold. And that doesn't mean it doesn't mean we were gonna leave the name up to direct democracy and you know, people were just gonna vote on a slate, but it did mean a real sense of obligation to the people who had built.

Amina Bulman (18:50.463)
brand who had built the organization and who really felt represented by it to do right by them in the next iteration.

Adam Grossman (18:57.026)
Well, how do you then right. As you just mentioned, it's not direct democracy. So how do you get all these different stakeholders to buy in and feel heard and feel listened to?

Amina Bulman (19:05.683)
Yeah. Part of it is about like setting the appropriate expectations. And I think sometimes we did this well and sometimes we didn't. and you know, we spent a lot of time with fans understanding what mattered to them, and how that could show up in sort of the values of the brand and the pillars. And, you know, a name is so much more than a name. It's not like

Adam Grossman (19:09.132)
Yeah.

Amina Bulman (19:30.826)
you know, there's there's ten names and you sort of pick which one sounds right. You really need to think through what stands behind that name and the brand that you build around it and what opportunities are there for storytelling and emotional resonance and connection. and so I think we did that work. I think what was more challenging was just the the complexities of people falling in love with a a a single moniker or a word, right? I like

I like the sound of this, I like the sound of this, I like this because it sounds like the old brand, I like this, because it doesn't sound like the old brand. And then when you add in the layers of trademark law and legal clearances, like there it just becomes a a complex, a complex challenge that no one party has sort of full visibility into. and so a lot of what we tried to do was make the complex simple.

And sometimes that was effective and sometimes making the complex simple, you lost some of the the texture and depth that made this process challenging and worthy and hard. and so that was that was just a balance that we tried to strike. And I think sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

Adam Grossman (20:47.894)
And then, you know, I we sp spent a lot of time in the rebrand, but then one of things that's interesting from your career journey perspective is, you know, obviously you had several different roles beyond just doing the rebrand and you were promoted it. So, you know, what were some of the other roles that you had with the team and how did that your role evolve from where you first were to by the time you left the organization?

Amina Bulman (21:10.465)
So I started out as chief of staff, which I think I think chief of staff is w one of the best jobs that anyone can ever have because you really get sort of this right hand seat to how the decision makers operate. But at the time there were very few chiefs of staff working in professional sports. I think it's become a lot more common, but at the time I think I was the only one in the NFL and people like thought I worked in HR. Like nobody knew what a chief of staff was or what a chief of staff was supposed to do.

Adam Grossman (21:16.718)
Yeah.

Amina Bulman (21:39.414)
and that was sort of surprising to me because it's so common in many other industries, that that sort of that role and that function. and so I I loved that because that helped me sort of get the lay of the land of the business and where sort of the big rocks were that needed to move forward. And then as my role expanded, I took on a lot more of the sort of external facing elements of the organization. So comms, our community efforts, which I was very comfortable with having, you know, recently worked on that at the Obama Foundation and having spent a lot of time in nonprofits and started my own nonprofit.

And so that sort of felt second nature to me in many ways. And then I think sort of as an outgrowth of the work that I'd been doing in community and with fans, working on the rebrand sort of was a natural next step. that sort of combined the the sort of strategic planning of the chief of staff role and the external engagement of the sort of additional functions that I'd taken on. And then I think also just by by nature of the the work I'd done in the past, particularly at McKinsey,

we sort of added on sort of data and analytics and some of the sort of commercial strategy work to complement that. which I really loved because again it sort of gave me a little bit of each part of the business and I I think a real focus on how those knit together in a way that could meaningfully move the business forward.

Adam Grossman (22:57.044)
And you know, outside of the rebrand, you mentioned some of the projects that you worked on. Are are there any ones that we haven't talked about that have really bubbled to the surface in terms of here are some of the things that I'm really proud of or really excited about that that we were able to accomplish while you know, obviously part of the football team and now commanders.

Amina Bulman (23:15.519)
So many. one that I am particularly proud of is how we rebuilt the foundation and our community engagement efforts. And you know, there are so many fans of professional sports who will never set foot in a stadium. And how we as people who work at those teams think about those folks as fans and their experience and how they engage with the club. is is I think not talked about enough. Like we tend to focus on fans who are in venues, but

Certainly both from a monetization perspective, but also from a branding community perspective. Those are incredibly valuable fans. And I think the work we did to rebuild our community efforts and sort of our civic engagement efforts, for lack of a better word, really helped us build a level of depth and trust in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area that enabled a bunch of the other maybe flashier projects that we were able to do. and I'll give an example. We opened up our stadium as a

safe distance polling polling site during COVID. and first of all, like just great for residents of Prince George's County to be able to have a safe place to vote. But also for many of the folks who came through on election day, it was their first time ever being inside an NFL stadium. and that I think just creates like an opportunity and experience that I'm proud to have been a part of.

Adam Grossman (24:37.166)
Yeah, it's amazing. I mean from a data capture, I don't it's probably that's just naturally where my name brain goes, but like you get did you get I mean, right, because that's some of the things we work on now is expanding the fan universe beyond what's happening in the venue. Was that something you were able to do? I mean, I know that for people seeing the stadium for the first time is really amazing. I didn't even think of that. I'm glad you brought that up. But from a data ca are were you able to convert them into maybe more

Amina Bulman (24:43.017)
Yeah, Adam, you're like, did you did you get the Wi Fi? Did you get their emails?

Adam Grossman (25:04.076)
substantial commanders, you know, football team fans at that point.

Amina Bulman (25:08.191)
You know, I don't think we did. That's that's maybe a maybe a missed opportunity. but we certainly I think we reached a new audience because we partnered with folks like the police department and the Secretary of State's office to get the word out. And so just from a brand awareness perspective, I think even if we didn't w we might not have captured all of that data, but I think certainly reached new audiences.

Adam Grossman (25:28.674)
Yeah, and I I I want to get into now the the the bot you know your current role at the Boston Legacy, but how did that happen? Right, how did you how were you approached? What was the decision point to leave the commanders? What was the decision point to go to Boston Legacy? You know, you mentioned you're from Boston, you're obviously and we'll talk about your commitment to women's sports, but what was the you know, when did you get the call, what was it like, and how did you decide to make the the move to Boston?

Amina Bulman (25:53.246)
I had been talking to the founders of the club for actually quite a while. And you know, I knew I wanted to come back to Boston at some point. We had three little kids. I was really excited about building something from the ground up. I felt like I'd just been through this massive transformation project and felt like, you know, I I wanted to have a chance to sort of, you know, start from the other end of the business cycle and

I saw so much opportunity in women's sports, both commercially and then from a sort of community and brand building perspective. And obviously, you I was an athlete as well, and so have experienced firsthand sort of the impact that team sports can have for women and leadership roles well beyond their playing days. so all of those sort of converged at the right time. and then you know, Boston Legacy FC started out as Boss Nation, and so I'd been talking to the founders about.

about rebrands and sort of what that process looks like. And turns out there are not that many people who have rebranded professional sports teams and so yeah.

Adam Grossman (26:58.798)
Well that's that was gonna be my next question. That was obviously there are some similarities between what was happening with the football team and Boss Nation, the legacy. how much you can talk about that and what were you talking to the owners about even before you came on.

Amina Bulman (27:14.143)
Well, I think, you know, in some ways these rebrands were similar, in some ways they they were they could not have been more different. obviously ninety year club versus a less than one year old club. in many ways the I think in many ways the Boston Legacy FC rebrand was easier because sentiment was so consistent, and far less sort of nuanced and complex. On the other hand,

Adam Grossman (27:18.498)
Yeah. That's a good thing.

Amina Bulman (27:44.726)
The bar gets raised higher when there's unified sentiment around a brand. And so I think the stakes felt high because you only get one chance to rebrand. You can't rebrand twice. and so that was one of the first things that I tackled when I got into this job. And it actually was the perfect onboarding project because it let me spend a lot of time. I mentioned earlier that one of the things that

I'm so glad we did the commanders that I brought over to the legacy was deep fan research, stakeholder interviews. And so through that process of qualitative, quantitative surveying, focus groups, conversations with investors, I felt like I really got to know our fans and what they wanted from this brand. and that created a really firm foundation both for the new brand that we wanted to build, but also the club that we wanted to build more broadly. And

how I wanted us to engage with our season ticket members and, you know, what it looked like when we would show up for partners and and all of that. And so, in many ways we're sort of the perfect perfect first project to tackle in my first month.

Adam Grossman (28:54.7)
And what did you learn? I mean I I know I like what did you learn that the different stakeholders were looking for in a in a brand and the way that you were gonna engage with the community?

Amina Bulman (29:04.435)
I think what I heard from our fans was really was really about values and experience. Fans wanted to feel like this club represented them and was inclusive and welcoming. that it was fun and joyful, and that it felt like a community. and I think we sort of like throw the word community around pretty casually, but there are so few places in our world today where you can go and be

literally in community with other people who you do not know and share common goals and a common experience. And I think those kinds of places and those kinds of experience are incredibly valuable and worth investing in. And people said it in different ways. Like I want that feeling of sitting side by side with somebody who I don't know and knowing that we share something. And so community was was al always going to be a big part of the brand. but that became increasingly

clear to me. and it also became increasingly clear that this was not going to be a one and done that we would, you know, yes, we would come up with a new name, but that's sort of only the very start of the work of bringing the brand to life.

Adam Grossman (30:17.934)
That was gonna be my next question. How how do you build community for something that hasn't existed before, right? Obviously this is a new c new organization. There's a there is an entrenched, obviously, sports culture in Boston, the Boston area. But how do you build community? Think about those things when they haven't existed before. That's much different than the obviously what happened with the football team. Yeah.

Amina Bulman (30:36.703)
It's really tricky. It is really, really tricky. and we tried a bunch of different things to just give folks a sense like they were, you know, to to help folks feel like they were part something. Part of that is building online community, right? Engaging through social media, helping people sort of become part of your digital ecosystem, finding ways for them to engage with you online. Part of it is creating in-person events where folks can come and meet the team and you know, meet the business side team, meet our GM, learn more about plans for the club.

Adam Grossman (30:48.941)
Yeah, yeah.

Amina Bulman (31:07.423)
I think a big part of what makes people feel like they are part of a community is they have insider access to information or they're they sort of have privileged access to information because they are a part of this cohort. And so we tried to create that feeling of both insider access but also ownership over the future. So like we took a lot of fan input on, you know, what we wanted the experience to look like, what the music should should be like, things that mattered to them,

And that we could incorporate into the game day experience and like actually actioned on them in a way that that I think people started to see that positive feedback.

Adam Grossman (31:40.812)
And that you mentioned this before and obviously I'm biased towards this, but what on the quantitative side, when you're building community, launching the brand from scratch, what are some of the you know, you mentioned surveys, but are there other quantitative sources and there are are there other data points that you looked at while you're looking to, you know, launch the brand, but also obviously launch the team more broadly?

Amina Bulman (31:58.336)
Yeah, definitely. and I think one of the challenges for us and for any new organization is there's so much that you could look at. And I actually found the biggest challenge was getting really disciplined around what questions we wanted to ask and why. and that's that's an ongoing challenge that I that I have, but

You know, as as an executive at a sports team, you have access to so much information at your fingertips, but there's a real difference between information and insight. And I I really try to be disciplined and I'm not always very good at it, but thinking about okay, what information do I need to make this decision? Or if I get this information, how might it change?

Adam Grossman (32:32.395)
Exactly.

Amina Bulman (32:47.175)
what we're doing as a club as opposed to let me just gather information for information's sake because then I think you just get a lot of noise. and so you asked sort of like what you know what beyond surveys, but like the the core question that I wanted to ask and that we're still asking every day and the answer is evolving is like who is our fan? Like demographically, psychographically, what are their behaviors like

As a new club, you have no idea who your fan is gonna be. And they sort of, you know, what it looks like in month one looks is different in month six is different than year two because your fan is not a static, a s a static profile. And it's sort of, you know, the different profiles of fans that you have and how they sort of come together and create an identity is like a really

living, shifting, breathing entity. and so I feel like that's that is a question that I am constantly asking myself. Who is my fan, who's my fan, who's my fan, and how do I best serve them? Because like the the answers to those questions have implications for my team on the partnership side, on the ticketing side, on the community side. and if you don't understand that core question, it's it's really hard to stay focused when there's a million things that you could do.

Adam Grossman (33:55.576)
Yeah.

Adam Grossman (34:06.808)
So yeah, what are you doing to understand the core question and how has the t you know, the e even have as you've been there, how has the evolution of of fans or what has been the evolution of the fan and the fan profile?

Amina Bulman (34:18.725)
the fan profile has certainly evolved in in ways that were both predictable and in some ways unpredictable. Part of that is because we are playing actually in two different states this year, in two very different types of communities. And so whether we are we are constantly being kept on our toes by the realities of being a part of a startup.

Adam Grossman (34:24.28)
Right.

Adam Grossman (34:29.858)
Yeah, right.

Adam Grossman (34:38.656)
You can I was gonna say for some for people who don't know, can you t explain your current stadium?

Amina Bulman (34:43.615)
Yeah, yeah. So I mentioned earlier that we're we are currently in the process of building a new stadium for the club, but also for Boston Public Schools. It will be one of the first dual use stadiums in the country where White Stadium, which is right in the heart of of Franklin Park, right in Boston, will be a Boston Legacy FC venue on game days and on non-game days will be a Boston public schools venue. And so that got me very excited about having this sort of community that's really a sort of or this

venue is really sort of a civic and community asset as well as being a state of the art venue for women's sports. but it is not built yet. So we are spending our first stadium our first season playing at two different venues. We're playing half of our games at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, where the Patriots and the New England Revolution play. And half of our games at Centerville Bank Stadium in Rhode Island, which is home of Rhode Island FC and is a brand new soccer specific stadium. It's beautiful. but

Two very different venues. One is sixty-five thousand people, the other is ten thousand five hundred. obviously in very sort of different communities, different towns. and so understanding what it looks like for us to move from one venue to the other and back again because we're flip-flopping back and forth, implications for ticket pricing, how we market, how we build our brand.

has sort of become my my primary focus over the course of the past couple months. because in some ways it does feel like we're actually running two separate races at the same time.

Adam Grossman (36:20.066)
Yeah, so how do you navigate again, kind of a natural follow-up question, but how do you navigate all these when you're playing at different stadiums, when you're building out different parts of the fan base, knowing that eventually you're gonna come back to this third stadium that's not even part of it and a different community, how are how are you navigating all of those things?

Amina Bulman (36:36.807)
One is just trying to gather as much information as we can and and some of that looks like working with, you know, our agency partners on the media side to understand how fans are responding to our content online, to our paid media. like literally how are people responding to our messaging. some of it is old school hand to hand grassroots marketing, going out and meeting people at events and at watch parties and

Asking them what matters to them, asking them what they get excited about. and then some of it is like building building trusted partnerships with folks who know both of these regions very well and who know these communities very well. when you're building a new brand, you sort of lean on partners to borrow their brand equity as you establish your own presence. And so finding trusted partners who can

vouch us as being good neighbors in the community, as being a fun experience, as being just sort of a a trustworthy entity worth investing your time and money into, has gone a long way in terms of us even just being able to connect with potential fans.

Adam Grossman (37:49.995)
And one of the questions I have for you kind of or somewhat around this is, you know, obviously this this is your first season. So, you know, and besides the idiosyncratic factor of having all these different stadium developments, are there things that have gone as expected, different than expected, or what has it been like to be at on the ground floor of a launch and how is it different than when before you got started?

Amina Bulman (38:12.533)
This is going to sound so obvious that I hesitate to even say it out loud. But you know, when I was working in the NFL and I told people I worked for the commanders, everybody knew what that was. Everybody knows what the NFL is. most people can name most NFL teams. It is so much just a part of the water we drink. And while women's sports are on an absolute rocket ship.

Adam Grossman (38:26.03)
Exactly.

Adam Grossman (38:39.256)
Yeah.

Amina Bulman (38:39.417)
And anybody who's paying attention in the sports industry knows that. there is a there is just a large pool of people out there who don't even know that there is a professional women's soccer league. And so I I think I underestimated the very basic work of just communicating to, you know, a city like Boston that is sports crazy.

Just that women's sports exist, that we have a women's professional soccer team, and you know, here's where you can watch them play and here's how you can buy tickets. and you know, that that's one of the main differences of going from a 90-year-old brand to a zero-year-old brand is like turns out over 90 years a lot of people learn who you are. And you have to concentrate a lot of that brand building and awareness generation.

You know, especially when you are you are trying within the course of about six months to launch a brand and then get people to show up at games. Like you have to move people through that marketing funnel quite rapidly while still building authentic connections with them.

Adam Grossman (39:46.583)
And you know, one of the things we did want to cover in terms of building the brand and building the team is the actual stadium itself. And the, you know, you obviously mentioned that with the commanders, that was one of the or you know, that football team. that was one of the reasons you joined. There's a similar opportunity here. So what have you learned about the stadium if you know the stadium development process, mixed use development process? What are you guys thinking about in terms, you know, obviously you mentioned having a lasting impact, but given the way that the stadium is being built.

what what do you think about from mixed use development and how does that impact as you're going from zero to one in in the Boston area?

Amina Bulman (40:20.339)
I think mixed use development it just is the future of sports venues and and we have an opportunity actually to do that twice at Boston Legacy. We have our stadium that we're building, which I'll I'll chat about in a minute, and then also we're building a training facility in Brockton, Massachusetts, south of Boston, that will primarily be a dedicated facility for our athletes, but we'll also have fields available for community use and for you know, youth soccer camps and clinics and

I would love to see over time that that the infrastructure for our training facility actually evolves more broadly into into more of sort of a traditional mixed-use facility. that could include, you know, a women's health clinic. Maybe it includes you know, infrastructure for a women's sports academy or the training facilities required for another professional women's sports team. I think the more that

women's sports can think creatively about diverse sources of revenue that creates a stickiness and just sort of like viability for lack of a better word, that that will create like a level of longevity and staying power beyond this given moment.

Adam Grossman (41:35.266)
And then you mentioned obviously the stadium itself. hap happy talk about but it also within that context, you mentioned that mixed use is the future of sports and stadium development. Why do you think that's the case?

Amina Bulman (41:47.318)
I mean I I come from the NFL where we build these massive stadiums that get used eight days a year and then otherwise sit at Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. and I think, you know, obviously anybody who's operating a venue in in the NFL or otherwise is is thinking about just how do you program it more often, whether that's through concerts, whether it's through other types of live events, but

Adam Grossman (41:54.856)
Yeah. Right, yeah.

Amina Bulman (42:14.677)
Both from a a revenue generation perspective, but also like I I I think of it from also sort of a a a brand perspective. How do you turn a venue not into just like a building where a team performs, but a community and cultural and civic asset that builds goodwill for both the entity and the club that plays there? And just there's so many benefits. in addition to the obvious financial benefits of like

having smoother revenue curves and more predictable, you know, more predictable revenue streams. It's like increased utilization just has like so many downstream benefits for every part of the business. and so I think all all smart venue operators are just thinking about how do I how do I get this venue full, you know, utilized as many days as possible and as full as possible on as many of those days as I can.

Adam Grossman (43:04.972)
And are you guys thinking about the real estate around the venue or are you mostly focused about

Amina Bulman (43:10.419)
We are. So we are going to have a space directly adjacent to White Stadium that we're calling the Grove, which will be a twenty-five twenty-five hundred person, basically indoor outdoor space. It's it will have a full service restaurant, that can either be seated or belly up on game day. So on on game days, the grove will be sort of a pre-game.

Tailgating area, pregame activation area, but on non-game days, it can be a farmer's market. It can host corporate events. We could put an ice skating rink or do movie nights there. And so that is a space that Boston Legacy FC will own and operate 365 days a year. And I think creates exactly those kinds of opportunities for diverse revenue streams that we've talked about, while also becoming, you know, sort of that civic and community hub. White Stadium is going be incredible. It will also only be a a

legacy stadium twenty days a year. And so the Grove really gives us that space to bring the brand to life and to create that diversity and richness of programming all year round.

Adam Grossman (44:20.28)
Do you see any differences the answer can definitely be no, between mixed use development and real estate around women's sports versus men's sports? You know, obviously there was the opportunity with the commanders, and are there unique opportunities that either women's sports generally or the Boston Legacies specifically have because it's a women's sports and it's oriented around women's sports as an anchor?

Amina Bulman (44:43.337)
It's a good question and not one that I've thought a lot about. I mean, off the top of my head, I would say, there are certainly tenants and partners who might be a more natural fit for a women's sports facility just by nature of the, you know, the demographics of their you know, their their clients and customers. and I can see a really powerful business case built around like a mixed use venue specifically targeted at

women, which to be clear, different than women's sports than fans of women. W not all women are fans of women's sports and not all women's sports fans are men. Yeah. but I I I that is true and many fans of women's sports are women. And so if you can create a mixed use venue with that customer in mind, I think that could be really powerful and offer a different opportunity for different types of brands than what currently exists around men's sports. But I think the underlying

Adam Grossman (45:14.134)
Exactly. Okay. That's what the data says, yeah.

Amina Bulman (45:40.873)
economics are are sort of fundamentally the same.

Adam Grossman (45:44.291)
Lat last question for you is around women's sports more broadly. You know, you're somebody who is operating with a women's sports team, you're in the you know, obviously inside the sports industry, specifically working for a women's sports team. You said women's sports is a rocket ship. You know, from your perspective, what does the rocket ship look like and how, you know, I guess to stretch this metaphor, how does it go to the moon or whatever planet you want to go to that so it continues this growth on an ongoing basis?

Amina Bulman (46:10.925)
yeah, I'm I am all in, obviously. but in terms of the things that need to happen to make the rocket ship keep flying, to further send the metaphor. one is just continued investment from from leagues, from owners, from brands, because you do just need to keep the sort of flywheel going of fan experience, player experience. You need the best players and the best environments with the best fan experience. Like that

you can't fake your way out of that. Like that needs to be true for momentum to continue to grow. I think, you know, the women's sports ecosystem needs to continue to be able to attract like great talent on both the business side and on the athlete side. and then I think the the last thing that needs to happen is sort of this like

Embedding of women's sports into broader culture. We need to convert casual fans. Fans of women's sports are some of the most passionate fans I know. We need more of them, but we particularly need those casual fans because that's how you go from being sort of in niche interest to really being a part of popular culture. And when I think about the gap between where women's sports are right now and men's sports, that's where the gap is. It's not in the diehards, it's in those casual fans. And so how we become

discoverable for fans and and just become something that you know when I walk around Boston wearing a Boston legacy FC hat everyone sort of knows who who we are. that that's my goal and I think what will be required for sustained growth.

Adam Grossman (47:52.578)
And then ha last question, how do you think you how are you pursuing it and how should potentially women's sports more broadly cons could consider converting the casual fan into a women's sports fan?

Amina Bulman (48:03.145)
My goal right now in year one is just get as many people as possible to experience the product. As many people as possible. And ideally that's coming to a game, but it also can be watching or streaming one of our games. It can be engaging with us on social media. But I just need more eyeballs on our product because I'm convinced that if you see our athletes play and you see the caliber of talent and the quality of play, you will be hooked.

And so that is like my personal thesis that I am operating under and my north star for year one for us.

Adam Grossman (48:36.546)
Well, glad we got the start and continue the space kind of conversation. That's a great place to end. Amina, thank you for joining us. It was great to have you as a guest.

Amina Bulman (48:39.228)
Exactly.

Amina Bulman (48:46.316)
Thank you, Adam. This was a lot of fun.