Design & Creative
Events
Women in Sports
5 min read
•
Published Jul 22, 2026
How She Creates Sports Summit went from an idea to a sold-out room.
Megan Magiera
Art Director
•
Indiana Sports Corp
01
The Project
Megan Magiera had been thinking about the She Creates Sports Summit for years before she ever pitched it to anyone. She had been to enough creative summits to notice what was missing: women. When women did appear on stage, it was usually alongside men in a supporting role, or tucked into a partnership. A room built specifically to spotlight creative women in sports did not exist. So she decided to build one.
Magiera is the Art Director at Indiana Sports Corp, one of the first and largest sports corporations in the country. The organization manages the bid process for major national events, supports partners through event execution, and owns a growing portfolio of events it produces independently. The She Creates Sports Summit became one of those owned events, which meant Magiera had creative freedom and brand ownership that most event projects don't allow.
The first summit launched in 2025 with a short runway and a deliberately local focus. The goal was to start small, prove the concept, and build toward something bigger. Magiera already had a four-year plan: grow the summit year over year and land it at the Women's Final Four when Indianapolis hosts in 2028.
Hear Megan on leaving the door open for other women in sports
CORE TEAM
Megan as creative and event lead, Ashleigh Newbold on operations, Sarah Myer on scripting and strategy, plus a multi-organization committee.
BIGGEST CONSTRAINT
Whether anyone would show up to something that didn't exist yet. No photos, no testimonials, no proof of concept to sell sponsors or speakers on.
DELIVERABLES
Full event production across two years: venue, speakers, sponsors, programming, workshops, signage, run of show, and catering.
TIMELINE
Year 1: December/January planning start for a March event, roughly 10 weeks. Year 2: extended runway with earlier planning.
02
Strategy & Execution
The first decision Magiera made was who to bring in the room with her. Before anything was booked or budgeted, she took the idea to the Indiana Sports Corp's Chief of Staff and Strategy. The pitch landed because it connected directly to something the organization already believed in: a 2050 vision to make Indianapolis the epicenter of women's sports.
From there, she assembled a small group of women in the organization to pressure-test the concept, then moved into planning. What followed was a quick first year that taught her almost everything she needed to know about building something from scratch.
T
Tori
What do you wish you had known going into year one that you knew by the time year two came around?
M
Megan
How much time everything takes. You get a speaker locked in, and then you need their headshot, their bio, the sponsor for their panel. You're constantly waiting on something. The further in advance you can work, the better. And it's a brand new event, so you're trying to get sponsors and attendees to buy into something that doesn't exist yet. You don't have photos, you don't have testimonials. You have to start smaller and let it grow.
T
Tori
What made your chief of staff say yes immediately? Was it the relationships you'd built, the idea itself, or something else?
M
Megan
It fell into our 2050 vision for Indianapolis to be the epicenter of women's sports, and I knew that. I also came in with reasons behind it, a sense of how it could work, and the support of other people on staff. I think they knew it was worth trying. And Indianapolis has such a strong network of women already. We have Wise Indianapolis, a lot of our staff are board members there. We knew we had the people who would show up, and the support of our partners to back it.
Year one was fast and largely improvised. Planning didn't begin in earnest until December for a March event. Magiera leaned hard on Ashleigh Newbold, a colleague with deep event operations experience, for the logistics she hadn't run before: catering costs, video production, run-of-show. A script appeared on the list of things that needed to exist the week of the event. Sarah Myer took it on.
The lessons from year one were specific and actionable. Lock speakers earlier, because you can't market an event without names. Build in setup time the day before. Create space for people to get out of their seats. In year two, Magiera ran a brainstorming session with her committee, distributed ownership more deliberately, and introduced a full workshop track that became one of the most talked-about changes.
"There's also something to be said about having a safe space for women in sports. A lot of people, either themselves or someone they know, have been subject to some discrimination because they're a woman in sports. I wanted to show that you can grow here, in sports, in the creative field, too."
Megan Magiera
Three things drove the evolution from year one to year two:
1
Speakers from beyond Indianapolis
Year one drew heavily from the local network, which is strong. Year two pushed outward intentionally, bringing in voices from different cities, leagues, and backgrounds. The goal was not just to show what Indianapolis has to offer, but to give Indianapolis something to learn from.
2
Workshops as a design decision
Survey feedback from year one was clear: sitting in a room all day is a lot. Year two added workshops, including yoga, a media day simulation, and a mood board session, giving attendees structured breaks and hands-on creative time. The format shifted from passive to participatory.
3
Distributed leadership
By year two, she had built a committee with members from multiple organizations, distributed ownership of specific workstreams, and leaned on her network to fill gaps, including a friend who designed the logo and a freelancer who created original artwork for the event.
1
Social and digital, led by Donny
Countdown content, game-day graphics, real-time social assets, and the full digital suite. Donny owned this end and managed the external agency producing assets the internal team couldn't get to.
2
Parade and championship assets, led by two designers and the creative director
Win-scenario content including parade look and feel, championship graphics, and print.
This workstream ran at the same time as digital. They couldn't afford to wait and see if
they'd need it.
3
Project management, a first day on the job
The Seahawks had hired a project manager two weeks before the Super Bowl. Her first
assignment was tracking roughly 100 deliverables across five people. It worked.
T
Tori
What do you wish you had known going into year one that you knew by the time year two came around?
M
Megan
How much time everything takes. You get a speaker locked in, and then you need their headshot, their bio, the sponsor for their panel. You're constantly waiting on something. The further in advance you can work, the better. And it's a brand new event, so you're trying to get sponsors and attendees to buy into something that doesn't exist yet. You don't have photos, you don't have testimonials. You have to start smaller and let it grow.
T
Tori
What do you wish you had known going into year one that you knew by the time year two came around?
M
Megan
How much time everything takes. You get a speaker locked in, and then you need their headshot, their bio, the sponsor for their panel. You're constantly waiting on something. The further in advance you can work, the better. And it's a brand new event, so you're trying to get sponsors and attendees to buy into something that doesn't exist yet. You don't have photos, you don't have testimonials. You have to start smaller and let it grow.
03
The Outcome
Two years in, She Creates Sports Summit has grown every metric that matters. Attendance is up, sponsors are returning, and the workshop format introduced in year two has already become a defining feature of the event. But Magiera measures success as much by what she sees in the room as by the numbers.
375
Total attendees across year one and year two
18
Sponsors in year two
59
Speakers, panelists, and workshop leaders across two years
T
Tori
What do you wish you had known going into year one that you knew by the time year two came around?
M
Megan
How much time everything takes. You get a speaker locked in, and then you need their headshot, their bio, the sponsor for their panel. You're constantly waiting on something. The further in advance you can work, the better. And it's a brand new event, so you're trying to get sponsors and attendees to buy into something that doesn't exist yet. You don't have photos, you don't have testimonials. You have to start smaller and let it grow.
T
Tori
When you look back at what you and your team have built over two years, what are you most proud of?
M
Megan
It's the people who showed up for me. Not just to support the event, but because they want to see women in sports succeed, because they want to support creatives. People not just in Indianapolis, but connections I've made from other jobs, other cities, who keep showing up. That's what means the most. Having a group of people who all want to work toward the same cause and support each other.
T
Tori
What would you tell someone who's trying to build something like this from nothing?
M
Megan
Get your ideas out of your head. Talk about them, share them, work through them out loud. My friends were probably tired of hearing about this summit before it ever existed. But that process helped me figure out what it actually was. And then find people who don't just believe in the idea but trust in you to lead it. The hardest part is accepting that you can't do it all on your own and actually leaning on the people you know you have.
Three things to carry forward
01
Alignment is your first pitch, not your last.
Megan had to get buy-in before anything could move. So she came prepared. She knew Indiana Sports Corp’s 2050 vision to make Indianapolis the epicenter of women’s sports, and she built her case around it rather than around the idea itself. The summit wasn’t a favor she was asking for. It was a logical next step for an organization that already believed what she believed.
02
Let the event teach you. Don't wait until you have it figured out.
Year one was imperfect. The runway was short, the script was an afterthought, setup happened the night before. Magiera ran it anyway, gathered the feedback, and used every lesson to build year two. The summit is better because she launched it before it was ready. A perfect event that never happens teaches you nothing.
03
Your network is the infrastructure.
Magiera didn't hire a company to build the summit. She called the people she trusted. A colleague ran operations. A friend provided logo feedback. A freelancer created original art. Her committee filled in the rest. The event exists because of relationships built over years, not resources assembled in a moment. That kind of infrastructure takes time to grow, which is exactly why you start planting seeds before you think you need them.
01
Process is the method to the madness, and it's a blind spot in sports.
Donny came up through an agency before she ever worked in the NFL. That experience gave her the habit of building strategy before touching a design file: kickoffs with data teams, alignment on voice and narrative before anything visual exists. That's what lets you build a campaign that holds up seasons later, not just one that looks good this week.
02
Build the relationships before you need them.
Donny describes herself as a seed planter. She builds relationships with teammates, freelancers, and collaborators all year, not just when a deadline appears. That's what made it possible to assemble a Super Bowl caliber production team in a matter of days. You cannot manufacture that kind of trust in the middle of a crisis.
03
You have to advocate for the vision. No one is going to hand it to you.
The Seahawks gave Donny a sandbox. But she had to decide what to build in it. That meant going to her VP and asking directly for more budget so she could push the work further. The organization's openness to creative is real, but it only activates for the people who show up with conviction and a track record to back it up.
Connect with
Megan Magiera
Megan Magiera is the Art Director at Indiana Sports Corp, one of the largest and first sports corporations in the US. She leads creative across a portfolio of national events and owns the She Creates Sports Summit, an annual gathering she built from the ground up to spotlight women in sports and creative fields.
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