Going for the goal

Darcy McFarlane (BSBA ’16) is a force on the soccer field even when she’s off of it.

At Nike, McFarlane helped develop and launch the Phantom Luna before the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. It is the most researched and innovative cleat produced in Nike’s history led by a team of women.

Just a few months after Phantom’s release, McFarlane saw the shoes on the feet of the young girls she coaches part time. Just a decade ago, when McFarlane was her players’ age and was the captain of the storied UNC Women’s Soccer team during its 2016 Final Four run, female athletes were an afterthought for many sports apparel companies.

“When you do global marketing, you don’t always see the tangible outcome of what you’re doing,” says McFarlane. “But to go out to practice at night and see them on the feet of girls, that’s the coolest thing.”

“If you’re an athlete who also really cares about what you’re going to get academically out of UNC, I can’t think of a better place than UNC Kenan-Flagler,” says McFarlane.

Changing the game

It’s just the latest coolest thing for McFarlane.

Since joining Nike in 2021, she has helped market and develop content for Nike fitness apps, including pioneering workouts tailored toward adaptive athletes, those with mobility restrictions and people with disabilities. She was the digital marketing lead for women’s running, including the release of the Pegasus 41 shoe and led marketing campaigns to grow Nike’s female athlete consumer base while also promoting gender equity in sports.

She was named the global brand marketing lead for men’s football (soccer) in 2024 and Forbes named her to its 2024 list of the top 30 Under 30 sports professionals.

As TV viewership of women’s sports continues to rise and with the women’s elite sports industry estimated to be worth $1.3 billion, McFarlane is part of a new generation of student-athletes-turned-sports-business professionals changing the game.

“The appetite for something like the Phantom Luna, something led by insights from female athletes, is so huge that we’re just scratching the surface of providing the products and storytelling that the world is now ready for,” says McFarlane. “Being a part of that is really special. To be behind a product that benefits female soccer players and to tell stories that lead with our female athletes in ways that we haven’t done before, to inspire young girls and let them see how much of a big deal women’s sports are, that’s what I love the most.”

McFarlane’s role at Nike is informed by her success as an athlete, but equally by her time in UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Undergraduate Business Program.

She came to Carolina with an eye toward playing soccer professionally after graduation. She accomplished that as a midfielder for the Celtic Football Club in Glasgow, Scotland, before moving to Östersunds DFF in Östersund, Sweden.

After graduation, McFarlane signed with the Celtic Football Club in Glasgow, Scotland, before turning to a career in marketing. 

Though soccer was her first love, at UNC she honed a talent for brand and product marketing that is seamlessly guiding her career.

She spent her first year at Carolina exploring her academic options before enrolling in the Business School, following in the footsteps of her mother, Marilou McFarlane (BSBA ’83), who ran cross country at Carolina and grew up in Chapel Hill. Her sister, Kelly McFarlane (BS ’14), was also a midfielder and captain for UNC Women’s Soccer. Her father, Craig McFarlane, played football for the University of California, Davis. Her parents met when they were both in advertising.

The Business School proved to be a perfect fit. McFarlane was a brand development and marketing intern in high school for her mother’s startup, Vivo Girls Sports, and at UNC she embraced business as a career. Classes inspired and stayed with her, including those taught by Wendell Gilland, an operations professor, and Steve Jones (BA ’74),  former strategy professor and dean, exposing her to different areas of business.

McFarlane managed a schedule packed with soccer and the demands of a Spanish minor while landing internships at Sportsboard and Microsoft. The summer before her junior year, she went on a six-week study abroad program in Santiago, Chile through the Business School, while also training there for the upcoming soccer season.

Even after tearing her ACL junior year, she remained committed to both soccer and her studies. She graduated a semester early, landing a product marketing internship at Microsoft, a position she learned about through a UNC Kenan-Flagler alumnus. After playing professional soccer abroad, she joined Microsoft as a marketing manager in 2018 before moving to Nike.

“If you’re an athlete who also really cares about what you’re going to get academically out of UNC, I can’t think of a better place than UNC Kenan-Flagler,” says McFarlane. “UNC Kenan-Flagler provides such a breadth of opportunities in business. It opens doors for you to go deeper into any area you find interesting and then lets you figure out what path you want to take. It provided a community of people who were interested in business but came from all different backgrounds and with different interests.

“I pull a lot from that in the work I do now. Along with being on the soccer field, my time at UNC Kenan-Flagler was an incredibly formative experience in my life.”

Unstoppable

In a 2016 Daily Tar Heel profile of McFarlane, teammate Hanna Gardner (BS ’16) praised her friend’s seemingly boundless energy, determination and leadership skills. “The way she does it all,” said Gardner, “is like a myth.”

That is very much something a close friend would say but not hyperbolic then or today. After three years of technology product marketing at Microsoft, the transition to Nike gave McFarlane the chance to work on projects every day she’s deeply passionate about and speak to consumers whose experiences resonate with her. She carried respect as an athlete when she entered the industry. Now she’s thriving in the industry because of her forward-thinking vision as a marketer.

McFarlane with her mom and fellow UNC Kenan-Flagler alum Marilou McFarlane (BSBA ’83)

She is back on the soccer field as an assistant coach with the Thorns FC Academy, the elite youth team affiliated with Portland Thorns FC. She is a mentor for Women in Sports Tech (WiST), the nonprofit founded by her mother which drives growth opportunities for young women interested in careers in sports and technology and supports a more inclusive cultures in those industries. She’s paired with a WiST fellow each summer and mentors them through their internship. Several UNC Kenan-Flagler students have landed internships through a WiST Fellowship.

Her position at Nike is only part of McFarlane’s next chapter. In August 2024, she married Ryan Macri (BSBA ’18), Nike’s director of men’s digital marketing-North America, fellow UNC Kenan-Flagler alum and a former UNC lacrosse captain. They often run together, and their pre-wedding festivities included an early morning run with their wedding party.

While other student-athletes have walked so McFarlane can run, she’s running now so athletes coming after her can run even faster and farther.

“There are ways you can inspire people through technology and empower them to be able to do a lot of things better than before,” says McFarlane. “And then there’s sports as a vehicle to do that, which has inspired and empowered me. What I’m really proud of is being a part of the purpose and mission of Nike, making sports accessible to more people and making more people feel confident and empowered to embrace competition and play sports, whatever sport that may be.”