Collegiate Women’s Wrestling News – official Kickstarter campaign live now!

RIVER FALLS, WISCONSIN — Gabby & the TW Team have officially launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for their startup year.

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN

Women’s wrestling is at the TIPPING POINT, and we are excited to represent the community well, through our business pursuits. 

Transition Wrestling is the first and only platform of its kind to create content focused on covering collegiate women’s wrestling news. 

At the most basic level, wrestling is just a sport. But the more we know about wrestling the more we know it’s not actually about wrestling. 

At the most basic level, Transition Wrestling exists to report collegiate women’s wrestling news. 

BUT . . . 

We live through the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and the stories we know about others that help shape our own — that means there’s this incredibly large part of our lives that’s based on documentation. 

“If you ask a group of kids who their favorite NBA or NFL player is, they could name off numerous favorites depending on preference & where they’re from. We want to make sure that if we ask female wrestlers who their role-models are, that they recall the story of a female they personally identify with — maybe their home town, their state, their demographics — wrestling at the collegiate level. That’s inspiring and that helps them feel like their big dreams are wildly manageable.” Gabby Lord-Klein

We’ve identified a need that, if met, has the potential to impact many female wrestlers, fans and those connected to the community — now and in the future. 

Our mission is to strengthen the global position of women through stories of effort, excellence and overcoming adversity – a concept we’re rooted in called transitional excellence. Our opportunity right now is to help shape the future of women’s wrestling as understood by the experiences of women wrestlers.

WHY FOR THE SPORT

We’re in the fastest growing sport in the United States. 

In 2019, more than 50 collegiate programs will offer women scholarships. Plus, 18 states have now sanctioned girl’s wrestling at the interscholastic level. Demographics from the 2019 women’s collegiate national tournaments suggest that states with sanctioned girls wrestling provide more women an opportunity to leverage higher education as a means to achieve relative social and economic success than states without sanctioned wrestling.

• Collegiate women have earned the right for focused coverage – something that no one else does. We’ll address this gap by providing tournament coverage, series, interviews and other extended content.
• Media coverage at the collegiate level exposes girl wrestlers (and soon-to-be girl wrestlers) to the superstar role models they can look up to in college. We’ll provide female wrestlers stories of women they can identify with.
• Women’s collegiate wrestling is a prep platform for future Team USA representatives. Right now we see the greats, but we didn’t see their years of drastic growth. Not all of the leaders in our sport will go on to wrestle for Team USA. We need wholesome narratives that show the importance of the leaders that push and shape the women who represent us at the highest level. It’s the diverse team dynamics that make a program uniquely remarkable.

The wrestling community is filled with stories of the sport bringing otherwise unimaginable experiences and opportunities to a widely diverse population. Life is much larger than sport, but sport can be the vehicle that leads us to opportunities. 

FOUNDER’S STATEMENT

Transition Wrestling is a small business with the potential to inform and entertain an audience on a national platform. 

You know that feeling when where you’re so excited you could be sick but also just want to run around? Same. I am so excited to share this vision with the world — nervous and maybe nauseous, but just overwhelmingly excited to get to work; to get past the ‘securing funding’ part so we can just do what we’re here to do. 

At this point in my life, that same fire and energy I felt when I set goals and committed myself to the pursuit of a national championship, that’s what I feel about the process, mission and vision of Transition Wrestling. Except that it feels more centered, more whole, more real. It’s that something worth showing up for every day and working on through the exhaustion, doubts and fears. I feel small compared to the team required, but entirely capable of bringing it together. 

The growth of Transition Wrestling will reflect our growth as a team. There is an endless amount to learn, and our pursuit and enjoyment of the experience is what will provide fans the quality and connection they crave. We’re striving to be our best so that we can provide our audience with content that reflects our continued efforts.   

We will be a workplace where team members excel in their areas of interest, expertise and pay attention to the interconnectedness of their responsibilities as people. We value conceptual thought, curiosity and a willingness to act.

BUDGET

We are campaigning to raise $125,000 that would primarily go toward staffing a team of women from the wrestling community with expertise in journalism/reporting, digital media, design, marketing, research and other interdisciplinary fields. 

• $70,000 – staffing
• $25,000 – administration, processing fees & taxes
• $12,000 – freelancers
• $10,000 – travel
• $8,000 – web development & other production needs

Our major roadblock right now is that this project requires immediate full-time attention, but we don’t have the funds to staff a team. 

RUNNING THIS CAMPAIGN

This campaign alone has involved women from Wisconsin, Missouri, California, Nevada, Idaho, Washington and the support of many others. 

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN

We are hopeful that you will support our efforts by sharing this campaign and/or backing if you have the resources to invest in the future of our sport!