Sports fans are typically accustomed to seeing their teams front-and-center for about half a year, give or take.
For Molly Higgins and Kathryn Kai-ling Frederick, their work for the Los Angeles Rams is 12 months a year, frequently well beyond standard working hours as they work to continue reintegrating the NFL franchise into Southern California. This work includes fostering roots throughout various L.A. communities – the newest of which might be the temporary practice facility located in Woodland Hills.
“We’re going to be the only professional sports organization with our roots right here, and it’s such a huge valley and (with) so many potential fans, we’re really going to start digging into, ‘How do we make the Rams a sense of pride for Woodland Hills and the greater San Fernando Valley?’” explains Higgins, who is executive vice president of community impact and engagement for the Rams. “I do think (team owner) Stan Kroenke and (team president) Kevin Demoff were very intentional about selecting Woodland Hills as kind of our final home, our destination, our practice facility. There’s always a lot of thought put into all of our all of our moves.”
Kroenke and the Rams made good on about two years of speculation this fall when it began hosting in-season team practices at a temporary facility, which was largely constructed within the parking lot of a former Anthem Inc. building. Work converting the site began in January and wrapped up in time for the season.
Though the Rams declined to reveal the financial investment into the practice facility, the organization has dropped $650 million alone on real estate in the area, buying up the largely vacant Promenade mall, the Anthem property and the Village at Topanga mall – all of which are adjoining – in 2023. While the Village is continuing on as an outdoor retail center, the essential vacancy of the other sites – and prior Promenade owner Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield having secured permits for a sports-oriented development there – fueled chatter that the team would unite its team operations in Thousand Oaks and business operations in Agoura Hills under one roof in Woodland Hills.
Although team officials say they’re not at a point to divulge anything specific, the Rams have confirmed that is indeed the long-term plan. And similar to the organization’s investment in SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park in Inglewood, those officials view the centralized business operation as a spark for the areas surrounding Woodland Hills.
“I think that it is something that continues to draft on what we’ve done really well,” says Frederick, the team’s chief marketing officer, on its outreach elsewhere in the other valley regions. “I think spending as much time in both Ventura (County) and the Conejo Valley has been a source of investment. Our players live here, our team works out here and it is an area of real opportunity for us, and I see that year on year on year.”
Increasing community engagement, fandom
Although they do not necessarily work hand-in-hand at all times, Higgins and Frederick do represent two generations of Rams executive leadership.
Higgins has spent 23 seasons with the team, beginning her tenure there as a full-time intern when the team was in St. Louis. When the NFL agreed to let the team return to L.A. in 2016, Higgins said she began a back-and-forth commute to get started on the community engagement angle.
Meanwhile, Frederick was the global chief marketing officer at Beverly Hills entertainment giant Live Nation prior to joining the Rams in 2021 – ahead of its Super Bowl victory at SoFi, only the second instance of a home championship win in the league’s history.
She had no prior experience in sports, but had become “literally obsessed” with learning how to build fandom in a blossoming sports market like L.A.
Higgins highlights that move as emblematic of Demoff’s approach to running the operation. When he took the reins in 2009, Higgins was the only woman on the executive team. Now, she says that team has essentially perfect parity.
“Kevin is someone who doesn’t see gender, he doesn’t see color: he sees talent, and he goes and seeks talent like he’s a collector of talent,” Higgins adds. “Being able to go and get somebody who is the chief marketing officer of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, I think that’s an example of, ‘It didn’t matter that she didn’t have sports experience. She knew how to market, so we wanted her.’ A lot of people that are now part of our leadership team were leaders in different industries, not necessarily sports. And I think that’s what makes us so special, because we think differently.”
Frederick highlights this business composition as “a beautiful tapestry,” one that importantly reflects more and more how the different communities of central L.A. and the Valley look and think.
“When Kevin presented the opportunity to me, this was one of the biggest selling points,” she continues, “an ownership team and a leadership team that philosophically was committed not to (just) the idea of diversity, but to what the richness of a team can unlock from a capability, from a perspective, from a skill set.”
A long, local history
The Rams’ history in L.A. is of course bisected. The franchise first played in L.A. in 1946, after relocating from Cleveland. In 1995, the team moved to St. Louis. And in 2015, the team to much fanfare returned to L.A., where it now shares home turf with the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium. (The Rams hold the unique distinction of being the only NFL franchise to win league championships representing three different cities.)
While many historic Rams fans remain in Southern California, the team acknowledges they have work to do to grow in a region whose population maintains a largely fragmented fan base. One success story there, Higgins said, is the Rams Rookie Club, which essentially enrolls all of the team’s drafted and undrafted rookies into community-centric programs and outreach. Provoking that interest when the players are young, she said, instills more of a genuine community connection as each players matures.
“We have a deep belief that we’re a civic entity, and we exist because of our fans, and so we want to be out in the community, giving back to that community,” Higgins adds. “It’s not about just winning football games on the field, but it’s winning in the community and making that impact and we’re super proud of that program.”
Much of the outreach of course includes children and schools. Sports teams have historically targeted underserved communities with donations and service projects and that’s no different here.
The Rams famously constructed a football field on Hermosa Beach for the purposes of this year’s NFL Draft. To pay it forward, the team in September used that field to install a permanent one at Nickerson Gardens in Watts, the largest public housing development in the city. With the Rams Rookie Club, players are expanding on the traditional adage that sports can “be a way out” and also highlighting the fact that they went to college and earned degrees – another “way out.”
And, as Frederick highlights, the science of fandom indicates that most lifelong team fans make that emotional commitment at ages 5-11.
“That’s when those core memories, those multi-generational memories, are truly inked. Those become the fabric of your identity,” she says. “I do think that’s where a lot of our focus is because, with a 21-year hiatus, you’re missing a generation in there. But it also is a true place where we have impact to demonstrate.”
In a similarly unifying spirit, the team seems to see what will ultimately be its two-part operation as a unifying force between the two main spheres of L.A.’s city lines, which in various ways have competed for attention and resources throughout the decades.
“We’re in a unique position where Inglewood is home, and now Woodland Hills is home as well,” Higgins says. “And we’ve really been so intentional about building up the Inglewood community through our relationships with the school district, schools and nonprofits and really the greater South L.A. area, and now it’s a new opportunity to do something similar in Woodland Hills.”
