Five Years Ago, We Called It

By Jessica Robertson, TOGETHXR Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer

At 3 a.m., things can feel either audacious or inevitable.

Five years ago, inside an Airbnb in Santa Monica, it felt like both.

We were about to press “launch” on a company built around a belief the market hadn’t fully priced in yet: women athletes are not a niche. They are a multiplier.

On March 2, 2021, TOGETHXR went live.

It was a quiet, long time coming. We were a small team, some meeting one another in person for the first time, choosing to build something ambitious in the middle of uncertainty.

TOGETHXR didn’t begin in that Airbnb. It began years prior, when Alex Morgan, frustrated with the lack of investment in women’s sports – in particular, female athletes and their stories – decided to build a media company. 

It also began with conviction. A conviction shared by fellow Olympians, champions, and TOGETHXR athlete cofounders: Sue Bird, Chloe Kim, and Simone Manuel.

Each of them represented something undeniable. Not just athletic dominance but cultural force.

Alex embodied global scale and commercial power. Sue represented leadership and longevity. Chloe carried generational brilliance. And Simone represented barrier-breaking transformation. This wasn’t just symbolism. This was about intentional representation and structural change, the four of them expanding who feels seen, invited, empowered, and invested in.

Together, they were the thesis: women athletes are culture drivers.

We had planned to launch earlier, just ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Four Olympians launching a media company dedicated to women athletes and their stories felt perfectly-timed.

Then COVID hit. Sports shut down. Production halted. The world paused. At first, the delay felt like momentum lost but in hindsight, it was alignment.

Because while the world was paused, it was also awakening. Conversations about racial justice, equity, economic disparity, and media bias were global. And women athletes were not sitting quietly within those conversations. They were leading them. As they always have.

The extra time gave us clarity. It gave culture time. It gave us space to sharpen not just what we were building, but why.

We weren’t just launching a media company about women’s sports. We were building a platform around the cultural and economic power of women athletes, as competitors, yes, but also as founders, investors, creators, activists, and leaders.

Even the name took time.

We wrestled with many. Tested dozens. Abandoned and returned to a few.

And then, one afternoon, I played with words in a blank doc: “Together.”

To. Get. Her. 

TOGETHXR.

The “X” wasn’t decorative. It was directional. 

It represented collectives. Multipliers. The intersection of identities. The reality that today’s athlete is a multi-hyphenate by default. It captured a deeply held belief that when women move together, impact compounds. It had been Alex’s vision that the collective community of women athletes, and the communities surrounding them, somehow be embedded in the name itself.

Five years later, the compounding is undeniable.

In 2022, a year that marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the NWSL Championship averaged 915,000 viewers on CBS, setting a then-record as the most-watched match in league history. In 2023, nearly 10 million people tuned in to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship, making it the most-watched women’s college basketball game ever, while 92,003 fans packed a Nebraska volleyball match to set the world record for attendance at a women’s sporting event. In 2024, the world’s first purpose-built stadium dedicated exclusively to a professional women’s sports team opened in Kansas City. In 2025, global revenue in women’s sports was projected to surpass $2.35 billion after exceeding the $1 billion mark for the first time in 2024. And in 2026, the records kept coming, as 7.7 million viewers watched the women’s hockey gold medal game between the United States and Canada at the Winter Olympics, making it the most-watched women’s hockey game on record.

That isn’t a trend line. That’s an inflection point.

It’s, once again, alignment.

Women’s sports have never been behind. Culture was. Infrastructure was. Capital, coverage, distribution, belief. What we are witnessing now is a correction. An ecosystem recalibrating to reality.

Over the last five years, TOGETHXR has grown alongside that recalibration.

We’ve built one of the fastest-growing women’s sports media brands, with content generating more than 1 billion cumulative views across digital and social platforms. Our community has grown into the millions, maintaining a global audience of more than 4 million followers, and remaining TikTok’s leading women’s sports brand with over 2.5 million followers.

We’ve partnered with global blue-chip brands who understand that investing in women athletes is simply a smart strategy, from Aflac, Nike, and TJ Maxx, to EA Sports, CoverGirl, Gatorade, L’Oréal, LEGO, and more. We’ve developed original franchises, expanded into commerce, and created IP that lives beyond a single season or tournament.

And we launched what has become a unifying anthem of this era: “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports™.”

It reframed the narrative from asking for attention to asserting reality. The data backs it up. The culture confirms it.

I’m proud of many things: our wildly creative and passionate team; the stories we’ve told with the trust we’ve been offered to tell them; the impact those stories have had; the deeply loyal and engaged global community we’ve built. I’m also proud of the growth. Some of it can be measured: impressions, views, engagement, revenue.

Some growth, however, is best measured in mindset. Brands are no longer asking whether women’s sports are viable. They’re asking how to invest meaningfully. Investors aren’t cautiously experimenting. They’re competing for entry. Athletes aren’t waiting for permission. They’re building ownership. We are a testament to that.

Five years ago, we were betting on inevitability. We were betting that if you center women athletes, not as an alternative, not as an afterthought, but as the main event, the market would respond.

And it has.

Anniversaries are wonderful excuses to celebrate the journey to date but also a perfect prompt to look to the future. We’re nowhere near finished. TOGETHXR was never just about visibility. It’s about narrative control. It’s about economic equity. It’s about addressing all of the social and cultural and political isms that exist within women’s sports. It’s about building systems where excellence is enough.

Five years in, I feel less nostalgic than I do energized. Culture didn’t gift women’s sports this moment. It finally recognized it. 

We know that when women move together, the future isn’t incremental. It’s exponential. 

It multiplies.

It’s inevitable. 

Try to keep up.