(Note: This story originally was published by Bpifrance's Big Media and is translated and republished here with permission)
Aurélie Bresson is the founder of Les Sportives, the first media group devoted exclusively to women's sports in France. Speaking to Big Media, the entrepreneur looks back on her sporting and entrepreneurial career, before discussing the challenges that await her on the eve of the first-ever parity Olympic Games.
Bresson has played a lot of sports in her life and has turned her life into a sport. In fact, the Besançon-born entrepreneur already has a fine list of achievements to her credit: Knight of the National Order of Merit, designated Champion of Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and national winner of the Talents des Cités 2023 competition (France Télévisions Prize).
She devotes her energy to promoting and raising the profile of women's sports. A combative leader, she has decided to apply her sporting ethic to her entrepreneurial project, Les Sportives.
Invisible Female Athletes
In 2016, Bresson created Les Sportives magazine from scratch, “on my own, with my own funds, without any support, and all on the side of my job,” she said.
An expert in communications and the media, Bresson has worked for major sports organizations such as the Tour de France and UFOLEP (Union Française des Œuvres Laïques d'Education Physique). When she launched her magazine, her employer at the time, the Union Nationale du Sport Scolaire (UNSS), was the first to be surprised.
“They couldn't understand how I'd had the time to do all this,” she said.
Despite the adversity she faced, Bresson never gave up. “Many people told me I was too young, that I wasn't from Paris, that women's sport didn't interest anyone or that paper in the digital age was madness,” she said. "But I believed in it so much deep down that I gave it my all, even if it was risky."
A temperament inherited, she said, from her experience as a former gymnast. "I know I'm going to slip, but I'm going to get back up every time and see things through to the end," she added.
The creation of Les Sportives magazine, which today constitutes a media and publishing group in its own right, was inspired in particular by her long association with professional handball players, whom she met during her studies in Info Comm at the Besançon-Vesoul IUT.
"They didn't have a student life like the others. I discovered extraordinary women who make sacrifices for their careers. But unfortunately, we didn't talk about them," she said.
When Bresson searched online for sportswomen, the first search engine results systematically came up with sports cars. The creation of the magazine was a response to this under-representation of sportswomen and women's sports in society.
"There are women managers and referees, but we don't see enough of them," she said. "To create the magazine was for me to be a megaphone for all women...You've got your platform, your leverage, you've got to make it your own to speak out."
The magazine has grown and diversified: podcasts, webinars, and now a publishing house, Les Sportives has established itself as a major online medium, with over a million monthly impressions.
Handball Inspiration
Les Sportives has now expanded into books, with a publishing house dedicated to women's sports and the lives of sportswomen.
Noting that until now, the only existing books on the subject have been about the most high-profile athletes, Bresson wants to give a voice to less visible sportswomen.
In early 2023, she asked her friend and former handball player Alice Lévêque, now a micro nutrition specialist, to write her first book. A year later, she turned to another French handballer, Allison Pineau, to take up the pen.
What seemed crazy was that there was hardly any content dedicated to sportswomen in bookshops, according to Bresson. So to continue diversifying content and storytelling methods, she launched the “Engagements” collection to feature more deliberately engaged and political works, such as the issue of menstruation in sports.
These efforts were given a boost when Bresson joined a regional business incubator with the support of the local economic development agency, BGE.
"Entrepreneurship is like sports," she said. "It's hours of work behind the scenes, hours of training, paperwork, calculations, and structuring. For me, entrepreneurs are doers, people who get their hands dirty and have to manage everything, like an athlete manages her body, her training, her nutrition, her planning, her mind."
The success of Les Sportives has brought increasing visibility and prominence to Bresson. She recently won the Talents des Cités competition run by Bpifrance, which has given her efforts another boost.
Olympic Challenges
This year's Olympic Games, the first in history to be focused on gender parity, are crucial in many ways for Bresson, who was one of the digital experts on the Paris 2024 bid committee.
She has been decorated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with the Champion of Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion award. She is only the second French personality in 17 years to receive this award from the world's highest sporting body, which honors six laureates each year on six continents.
In addition, the entrepreneur also had the honor of carrying the Olympic Flame in her home region of Doubs.
Despite these awards, Bresson seems to be just getting started. After the Olympics, her expansion plans include publishing new books, such as the biographies of former rugby woman Jessy Trémoulière (best female rugby player of the 2010-2020 decade) and referee Manuela Nicolosi, or the re-edition of Service volé by Isabelle Demongeot (former professional tennis woman who was one of the first to speak out publicly about sexist and sexual violence in sport).
Bresson is also considering new formats such as TV programs and international expansion.
“Now we're going to have to build for what comes after,” she said. "For the moment, we're at cruising speed, but work will resume as soon as the Paralympics are over. We'll have to get going again, keep up the good work, and show that women's sport has its rightful place."
