Relationship Building
Speaking & Moderating
Career Development
WNBA
5 min read
•
Published Oct 14, 2026
Shooting your shot: how Shana Sumers turned one conversation into a stage at WNBA All-Star Weekend.
Shana Sumers
Founder, Speaker, Career Coach
•
Shana Sumers, LLC
01
The Work
Shana Sumers spent the first part of the year building a business around speaking, hosting, and coaching athletes, which in practice meant building relationships. So when WNBA All-Star Weekend came to Chicago for the league's 30th anniversary, she treated the biggest week in women's sports in her home city as a working one.
Chicago Sports Tech Week landed on her radar about six weeks before All-Star Weekend. It ran alongside the weekend, and she wanted to be part of it. She also knew something most attendees don't: moderators are one of the last things an event team books. So she reached out with a question instead of a pitch, asking what the organizers were building for that week. When she heard they were still lining up people to lead panels, she mentioned that she moderates and speaks and was happy to help. They stopped and asked if she had heard of Togethxr and The Gist, two of the brands she had been following for years.
That became a panel on storytelling for today's athlete. The same move landed a second gig that week. At a party for Level Sporting Club, Chicago's newest women's sports bar, she ran into friends from Togethxr and asked where she could add value. They were putting on their first All-Star Weekend women's sports bar crawl and needed a host. She told them she was free that day, at that time, and they booked her on the spot.
02
Strategy & Execution
Shana treats relationship building like a strategy, with the same rigor she'd give a campaign. She spent the first part of the year asking friends in sports who else she should meet, then asking those people what they were working on and where they needed help. The homework comes first and the ask comes second, but the ask always comes.
The follow-up is where most people drop off. When someone says "let's keep in touch," Shana sets a calendar reminder for a month out. She keeps notes on every conversation with Granola, and after All-Star she tracked each new contact by how they preferred to connect. The pre-work mattered just as much, so her website, her LinkedIn, her coaching offers, and her business cards were all ready before she ever walked in.
Her craft got built the same deliberate way. She says yes to a wide range of gigs, and plenty of the early ones were free. Day one of All-Star she did a panel and a trivia night. The panel was a walk in the park. The trivia night had almost 20 teams, a packed bar, and a room of competitive WNBA fans to manage. Her rule now is simple. If a gig involves kids or competitive adults, take it, because everything after that feels like a piece of cake.
“A lot of the opportunities I got during All-Star Weekend came from doing my research ahead of time and shamelessly, but intentionally, shooting my shot.”
Shana Sumers
Shana Sumers at WNBA All-Star Weekend, Chicago. Photos courtesy of Shana Sumers.
03
The Outcome
Five days of networking put Shana in rooms with Unrivaled's chief branding officer, a team at Google building programs that need educators, and the person launching a new WNBA fashion line. What she did afterward turned it into work: conversations about speaking and moderating in 2027, and new community partnerships.
60+
New connections made during WNBA All-Star Weekend
5
Days of networking at WNBA All-Star Weekend
38
Follow-up calls booked from those connections
“I'm always asking for something. It's just a question of when. A lot of people think being authentic means they can't ask. Yes, you can. It's how you ask.”
Shana Sumers
Three things to carry forward
03
The event opens the door. Follow-up walks you through it.
All-Star Weekend put Shana in the room. Her tracking, calendar reminders, and notes turned 60+ connections into 38 calls and a pipeline that reaches into 2027. Plenty of people say "let's keep in touch," and the work goes to the person who actually follows through.
01
Find the gap before you make the offer.
Shana knew moderators get booked late because she had booked talent herself. She used that to time her outreach and shape her ask. She asked how the event was coming together, listened for what was missing, and offered exactly that, which is what made the yes easy.
02
Authenticity is preparation.
Shana is always going to ask for something. What keeps it real is the work she does first: research, good questions, a clear sense of her own mission, and an ask she can name out loud. That preparation is why an intern and a CEO get the same energy from her.
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.
“You never know where these things are going to come from. So it's really about staying ready, so you don't have to get ready.”
Shana Sumers
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