Air Date: 10-23-2026
Today we look at the women's sports boom as a power story and explain how women's sports were held back on purpose, from England banning women's soccer for fifty years to colleges spending next to nothing on their women's teams, primarily because the men feared the competition.
Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.
Today we look at the women's sports boom as a power story and explain how women's sports were held back on purpose, from England banning women's soccer for fifty years to colleges spending next to nothing on their women's teams, primarily because the men feared the competition.
For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today include
Women's Sports Now
Political Breakdown
Everyone Watches Women's Sports Pod and Togethxr
Hearsay
Torched with Molly Bloom
and The Ringer WNBA Show
Then, in the additional, Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more in 4 sections;
Section A, Follow the Money, Follow the Boom
Section B, The Culture War, the Backlash, and Who Gets Called a Threat
Section C, The CBA Fight - Labor, Pay, and Power Inside the W
And Section D, How We Got Here - Title IX, Barriers, and Building New Leagues
And now, on to the show.
a new Nielsen came out today. Listen to this. Uh-huh. In 2025, US audiences consumed 46 billion minutes of women's sports, okay? That's a 71% increase from 2022.
And with that, team-level sponsorship revenue reached $76 million across 531 deals, okay? That's sick. Whoa. Whoa, that's a lot of money. Overall sponsorship grew 40% year to year to pass $105 million. Now, what we're talking about today is, oh, the money. What's the money that's going into women's sports? I did some deep investigation, so y- y'all wanna fire off this money gun?
Sure. 'Cause first of all, we're gonna do-
Not yet, I gotta
hear what you got to say. look who's come to visit, ladies. Ooh, I just love it. Sephora, we all know that Sephora's come in, and they've had- Uh-huh ... some naming rights, for Unrivaled, for the Golden State Valkyries. They're an exclusive partner.
Are you guys ready to do this? Yes. With Athletes Unlimited, with their softball league- Mm-hmm ... and with Formula 1. And think about this, e.l.f. is the first with the, with NWSL. Glossier also came in with the NB, WNBA's first official partner. Yep. Also sponsoring- Okay ... the basketball team at the Olympic level, but this is just cosmetics, you guys.
And
this is just the beginning.
We're not even done.
These are just a few.
What about my favorite, Lexie Hull, who's pitching Forte Cosmetics? Yeah. Because when you're out there on the court, think about when you played, were there a lot of lashes and looks? Sachu's out there with a red lip every single week.
I'll tell you right now,
Suz.
These women have to ball on the court. That money is flowing into all areas.
I'ma tell you right now, Suz, I was good and ugly when we played. I didn't have... Listen, I didn't have a care in the world. I was out there ready to get dirty and get- Yeah.
These ladies are not ready to get dirty.
these- Well, I
mean, they, no, they getting dirty They are. They are. They getting dirty. Don't let nobody- She can evolve
from playing physical-
Uh-huh ...
to looking gorgeous out there. Yeah.
Yeah, but she looks- They can look good while they do it, too. I was just saying that I was not interested in it.
That was a choice. I could have tried to. I chose to be a hot mess.
Do you think... Okay, it may have been a choice, Miss Chanel, Face of Beauty over here. Okay. Excuse me very much. Stop
it. Let me get me, let me get a little, 'cause we bring that. Let me get a little something for that. Give me a break. Okay, I love that.
Give me a
break. This girl likes to look pretty, okay? Okay. She
likes to look pretty. Not while I was playing.
But these girls like to look good while they're playing. What do we got, do, what about Dearica Hamby, who, by the way, starts a company called AMNO, and that is because it's Always Me Never Others- Oh, wow
with her daughter, Amiyah.
Wow. Okay.
She's got her kid following the money from a very
early age. I love that. But it's cool that I think that women athletes can embrace the feminine side of things, too- Yes ... while also be... Because I, I feel like for so long it was like you- Great point ... can have one or the other, but you can have it all.
Colly,
you
know
what it feels like- Ooh. Great point. ... to be on the sideline. Yes. You know what it feels like to be on the sideline- Yes ... when it's 100 deg-
We're, they're gonna take you
away. ... it is 100 degrees, and you're sweating, and you're like, "Oh, God, please don't come to me, because I look disgusting." Yeah.
Well, that's why all these companies are now investing in sports ready. I love it. She
is smart. I love it a lot. Sports ready. Love it a lot. Yeah, uh-huh. It makes a lot of s- Since you got anything else? 'Cause I'm ready- I got a lot ... to make it rain, Trick. Make it, make it rain, Trick. Let's go. Hey.
Let's go. All right, hold
on.
let's go health and wellness. Okay.
Keep them dollars coming. By the
way, by the way, guys- What? ... there's a word, it's called Tampax. Oh, my goodness. Oh, God. Women actually menstruate, so Pat and Procter & Gamble- It's crazy
our organs just self-destruct.
Yeah, they...
Every month, they renew themselves.
A multi-year, multi-brand partnership with the WNBA, Secret, Olay, Tampax, and Tide.
I love what Dove does about body positivity. Uh-huh. Yeah. Kylie Kelce was on last week. Yeah.She's got a long-term deal with them.U.S. Soccer and Oura Ring. You know what the Oura Ring is? You sleep in it at night. Yeah. Yeah. I
got it on right now. We both got them on right now. What you mean, "Do I know what it is?"
Hello. Do you wanna take over-
Hello ... for the money or what? All right. What about Gatorade, knowing that body science is a huge part of their initiative? Mm-hmm. By the way, Coca-Cola, people. Coca-Cola's been behind women's sports for a long time. They've been with Field Hockey World Cup- Come on, Coca-Cola
since 1994. Yeah, make it rain on us for Coca-Cola. Fanta, Georgie. Coca-Cola knew it was smart- I'm out ... to get in with women's sports from the get-go. Oh, this is great. So they've been there for a while. And by the way, my kid's very happy to say that Chipotle- Oh, yeah Chipotle ... their first NIL deal with USC women's basketball.
Now it's Ohio State. It's now Florida and Georgia. Hilary Knight from U.S. women's hockey is-
Yeah, keep talking, sis Keep talking. I gotta reload my gun I can't even- I gotta reload my gun ... I don't know Keep talking ... see where all of the money is. What
about travel? What about- Okay ... JetBlue, the official partner- Uh-huh
of the Boston Legacy. Uh-huh. Friend of the show, Elizabeth Banks, and owner of- Ooh ... the Legacy. What about Booking.com? Okay. The official partner- Come on ... with you. I like
LA.
Yeah. By the way, the, sick suitcases, okay? But what about Booking.com? I di- I didn't even look at the graphic. I'm so busy trying to hide from all the money that's coming in- Listen
my direction. Whatever. Trying to hide from the money. But at one point, yes- Suzy never said that before ... Elaine is the official partner of the Liberty. And then let me finish up right here, okay? Oh, I had a really good stat I wanted to tell you.
Okay, tell me. What was it?
16 WNBA players have 10 plus active brand partnerships compared to- Oh, that's fire
13 in the NBA. Ooh.
Wow.
Azzi Fudd and Flau’jae Johnson each entered the WNBA with 22 active endorsement deals. I'm telling you, that's because the money is flowing.
recently a lot of the drama and conversation has focused around Indiana Fever. I wanna talk about Sophie Cunningham in a second. But before- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... we even get there, Caitlin Clark emerged as this, huge star and quickly became an avatar for the right.
why, and, who embraced her, what were they saying, and why do you think that was?
Well, I think that, one, when we're talking about the world of social media, it is a world of avatars. our discourse is, is incredibly fractured. It's, it, it is very rarely all about what we think it's about. When you're talking about anything these days, it seems to be a, an avatar for something else.
And, and Caitlin Clark, if we think about it from a gender standpoint, Caitlin Clark represented something that we hadn't seen before, which was men getting involved in women's sports.
Mm-hmm.
The rise of women's sports not just coming from the importance of, of, of sports to women. I think women have always been interested, especially you go back to Title IX, there was always an interest in, in the empowerment of women to play sports, but specifically basketball Caitlin Clark is extremely important because men have traditionally always found a way to dump all over women's basketball, to find a way to attack it, to, to denigrate it, to make it seem like it's not quite basketball.
And what is the reason for that? It's supposed to look a certain way. And basketball, let's face it, if we're talking about professional basketball especially, how do... What is professional basketball supposed to look like? It's Black guys leaping through the air, right? Mm-hmm. It's an aerial game. It's Black guys leaping through the air, dunking the basketball.
That's how we view that sport. And it had always been that way, and because women's basketball has always been a horizontal game, it's not a vertical game, there was always a reason to, to dump all over it, to be like, "Oh, it's not really basketball. It looks like intramural." And guys would, would have nothing to do with it.
And then Steph Curry came along.
Right.
And then Steph Curry comes along, and Steph Curry is shooting the ball from half court, and Steph Curry is shooting 30-footers routinely. Mm-hmm. And suddenly basketball is no longer just a vertical game. Now it's a horizontal game. And now that you've got basketball being accepted, men's basketball being accepted as a horizontal game, now Caitlin Clark comes along at Iowa, and now women's basketball is a horizontal game, 'cause she's shooting from the same depths that Dame Lillard and Steph Curry and Klay Thompson are shooting from.
Right.
And now that gives men an entry into the sport. Now it looks like something men can say, "Hey, this looks like something I'll watch." and so instead of now making fun of the fact that women don't dunk, now we have somebody, now there's somebody that we can identify with that makes women's basketball accessible.
And when we talk about accessibility, what are we talking about? Now we're talking about money.
Yeah.
And now suddenly we have somebody who can really blow this game up and make it lucrative. Then you add the race piece of it. And if we talk about, if we're just being honest about the different sports Women's college basketball, you could make a very good argument, is essentially ha- has a great component.
It's a, it's a white girl ponytail sport, right? So there's a lot, and especially at Iowa. So you watch- Mm-hmm ... that game and that's the way that it looks. The WNBA is a Black queer sport. Totally different culture.
Yeah.
The WNBA does not look like the NCAA basketball.
Right.
It's a totally different thing.
And so now you, the WNBA is the perfect platform for a culture clash.
And do you think Caitlin Clark, courted this or was this both sides really of the political aisle projecting something onto her?
Well, that's the avatar piece of it. So Caitlin Clark is the avatar for the right. Caitlin Clark is an avatar for a, for, for hostility.
And also the WNBA is the avatar for the, for trans rights. It's also the avatar for Black women. It's also the avatar for, for in a lot of ways progressive politics, especially if you look at the, the progressive politics from that 2020 election.
Mm-hmm.
So you've got these two, you've got these two opposing forces who are in straight opposition to each other at a time when people are actually paying attention.
Right.
So yes, there's, there's no question that both, I don't wanna say both sides are, 'cause it's not. One is an established culture, the other is an emerging player entering the league. So Caitlin Clark, does, did she court this? Well, I think that the, the difficult piece of this is we're all part of this universe, right?
And in being part of it, when you're entering this game- It was very, very clear. We, I don't think people understood exactly how much it was going to rat- ratchet up, but it was very, very clear that there were forces that were pushing Caitlin Clark in the, in the direction of some form of avatar, some form of leadership, some form of representation.
She was going to represent something, and that's where class comes in.
Mm-hmm.
And you saw a lot of the male players in the NBA talk about, and a lot of the male punditry and the, the entire male-generated hetero sports machine that makes up the billion-dollar sports industry, what were they saying about Caitlin Clark?
She's gonna be the one that drives the financial engine. So now she is a part of this whether she wants to be or not, and she hadn't even played her first game yet. Right. So all of this has already been placed upon her in terms of what she's representing. From a business standpoint, she's representing, she's representing money.
Yeah. And let's not forget, when you're representing money, you're representing, the, a lot of the forces that are covering this industry, the rights holders, everyone else, they have a vested interest in the success of this.
Yeah.
But she's also, because of the, the gender piece of it and the racial piece of it, she's also in some ways in direct opposition to the existing culture of the WNBA.
So you already are set up for conflict here, and the question was gonna be, okay, how is she gonna handle this? What's she gonna do about it? Can she just show up and play basketball? Does she wanna just show up and play basketball? Is she going to represent... is she gonna come out in concert with Morgan Wallen, right?
Or is she going to, to do some of these things and, and be a, a flashpoint? And so on the one hand you can say, "Okay, she's just a basketball player." But on the other hand, when you're at her position- Or just like when you're at LeBron James' position or you're at any superstar's position, you're never just what you are because of what you represent to all of these other groups who may have your best interest at heart or may simply be using you to further their own agendas.
Right. Okay, so I, I would say from where I sit, Caitlin Clark has at least outwardly tried not to, specifically engage in talking about politics, which stands in contrast to one of her teammates, Sophie Cunningham. this is another Indiana Fever's player, and she's emerged, I would say, even maybe more of a flashpoint in these culture wars.
and some of this is because of what you were talking about, which is, this narrative around essentially these white girls in this largely Black-dominated league. and, and it started to grow before we saw Cunningham, really courting controversy. There was a June 2025 game against the Connecticut Sun where she pulled Jacy Sheldon down by the neck, and then she made some comments about trans girls in sports in an ESPN profile.
Before we get to that, what was the dust-up about that flagrant foul in 2025, and, what followed it for Cunningham?
Well, I, I think it's important once again to recognize that there is a distinction between, the race, class, and gender construction and the individual personalities involved.
Mm-hmm. And whereas it is completely true that these forces are in play, it's also true that this idea that the WNBA is some avatar or canary in the coal mine for a coming racial conflict in this, in these sports is nonsense. There are plenty of white women in the WNBA who are thriving who are not part of these controversies.
If you look at Paige Bueckers, who's a great player for the Dallas Wings, you look at Sabrina Ionescu, you look at, Breanna Stewart. You look at all of these different players. There are... Kelsey Plum and Cameron Brink. There's all kinds of different white women who are playing in this, in this game.
The question is the combination of the, the Caitlin Clark/Sophie Cunningham thing where they are representing, an, a hostility toward the league. And the choice has been... I, I don't believe if, even if you're Caitlin Clark or especially if you're Caitlin Clark, you can't just play and say, "I just want everyone to get along," because you are being used, because there is...
The, the, the, the federal government right now is a hostile force against- Trans players
Yeah
against this question. Not even trans players 'cause there's not a trans player in the league. Right. About this entire culture war question. They, it is an aggressive thing. And so in that aggression, if you ignore it even though your name is being invoked, and if you ignore it even though you have legislators in Texas who are threatening your league, and you do not address them specifically, "Keep my name out of your mouth," right?
Mm-hmm. Especially, "Leave me out of this." If you don't specifically say that, then you look suspect. It, maybe it's not fair to you, but when is life fair? When you're a superstar. When you're a f- when you are a star, people are looking at you in all kinds of different ways for leadership. they're looking at you for exploitation in terms of the, in terms of money, in terms of what you represent.
so there's a lot there that she can decide to handle however she wants to handle it, but you can't simply say, "I'm not part of it." You are part of it.
in a lot more serious news, the human rights of it all, historically the WNBA has always been on the side of fighting for inclusivity, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ inclusion, and where there's LGBTQIA+, there's the T. And in a world where trans rights-
Mm-hmm ...
and trans humanity is so compromised, just them living in their humanity, I am so...
It's so jarring to see the t- the uproar, the turmoil that has been this past few days and weeks in the WNBA with discussion around it, and it really pains me because in a league that has flipped this on it, in a league that has witnessed having to win and, and be great despite The, the, there i- is a bad faith argument in trans exclusion and this comes when it's a non-factor.
There are only 10 active NCAA athletes that are identify as trans and th- that's a micro level when you get to the elite level. Mm-hmm. And it's a complete non-factor here. Mm. So igniting the entire anti-trans movement is bizarre. It's toxic. It's, it's, it's really, it's ... I, I don't know the words for it. I'm disgusted.
I'm disgusted.
to me, it just, it just really seems like controversy for controversy's sake. For
no reason.
Like what you said, it's not even a thing. It's not- Yeah ... happening. It's not a threat to anything. Even if it was happening, it wouldn't be a threat to anything. It's not a threat. But, but it's actually not even going on.
Mm-hmm. So why we're talking about it in this way and, and being inflammatory about, I don't know, just there's a level of pandering that seems to be going on that just doesn't really make sense to me.
And the language around it is very harmful, 'cause words mean things. I, I have always been a communicator.
My, my degrees are in communication and English, and when you say when you have girls against men- Mm ... that is dangerous language. First of all, keep it the same equal playing field. Second of all, gender identity and sexual, preference are two different things. And the real threat to women's sports is, is other toxicity, like grooming, like sexual abuse.
Like, there's, there's so many different, different issues that are actually prominent that are a, a real threat to girls- Mm ... and women or people who identify as girls and women in sport.
Yes.
And when I look at the landscape of everything, 'cause I know there's gonna be somebody who's like, "Ari doesn't care about women's sports."
I'd give my life to women's sport, let's be very clear. The, the, the safety that they claim is at risk- Yes ... and the protection of women's sports, when you exclude trans kids, trans people, trans women from these spaces- Not only are you putting their lives at risk, but you're, you're showing that it's not as inclusive as the premise that it has been before.
And also, I, I always kinda look at things objectively.
Yeah.
And I'm like, whatever side of this conversation you- you're on, the language around things, I totally agree needs to change. Because just because something makes you uncomfortable doesn't make it a threat. Just because you don't particularly understand something or understand something's place doesn't make it a threat.
When you start to use words like threat or it's dangerous just because you're uncomfortable, you are elevating a level of danger around a particular group of people, and that's not okay. And there should just be more of a invitation to honest discourse and not fear-mongering.
And if you want to subscribe, which is completely untrue, if you want to subscribe against guys playing against girls, if you do go to the elite level, your practice players are guys.
And I think it's a bad faith argument, like their biological bed. it's a bad faith argument for somebody to be the mouthpiece for this who played boys high school football. So I just think that, that, there's irony in that. but I'm gonna read some stats right here. Trans people make up approximately 1% of the US population.
Trans people make up less than .002% of college athletes. That's 10 out of every 500,000. Mm. And even fewer Olympians identify as trans, .001%. I have some trans friends who compete, some trans men who compete against other men. There has never been a problem with that. It's just all misconstrued. Mm. It's all misconstrued, and I think that it, it's, it, it's, it's provoking fear so that people can subscribe to an ideology that should not exist.
Yeah. And that's where I stand by it. I think that Cheryl Reeve has always been on the right side of, the correct side of history, and that's why I'm proud of her for being able to boldly speak out exactly how she feels about trans inclusion. But when you want to advocate for, for the LGBT commu- community, don't forget the T.
That's all I'm saying.
Terri, I wanna ask you, as the executive director of the Players Union, I'm wondering, how you center pay equity in your leadership, and you're a lawyer too, right?
Yes, all the things. I'm a lawyer- ... executive director. I have the best job in the world, absolutely.
when it comes to, to pay equity, how, how you center that, how you work on that starts with our mission. Our, the... If you go to the mission statement of the WNBPA, it's all about how we look to protect- And serve our members, the WNBA players, how we look to make sure that their working conditions, which absolutely includes how much they are paid, are right, are proper.
So if we start with our mission statement, we start with our core values, that talks about investment and ensuring that players are valued properly in the workplace, well then I know what my job is. And you, you've heard from Aliyah, you've heard from Alysha, and particularly what Alysha was talking about, I, I think girls and women in sports particularly, but it's probably true across many industries, they're made to feel grateful- Mm-hmm
for what they have. And so some of what Alysha was talking about was just being grateful to have the opportunity, to compete for a roster spot and being grateful for the opportunity to, to secure that roster spot and kinda stick in this league because it's still, though we're growing, it's still the hardest league to make as a professional athlete.
So this is the top of the top, the elite of the elite, right here on this podcast and, and across this league. So for me, I am very hyper-focused on ensuring that their working conditions, and particularly pay, are proper. we did a lot of work to kinda make up the ground that Alysha was talking about, going from that $50,000, and increasing what the minimum is and what the maximum player salary is.
But yet you have seen this growth. I've been in this job for nine seasons. Nine seasons. That's so cool. And year over year, they are topping themselves. And so, what we see this rookie class doing, what we've seen Aliyah do, what we've seen Alysha usher in, this momentum has just kept going. And so we gotta look at, we gotta look at pay again, and we gotta make sure that they are getting, their value and, and particularly in this business model that they have built.
Exactly. Yeah, and I think it's so interesting what you brought up, Alysha, what you brought up, Aliyah, of these misconceptions, right? That women, in every job get told that, that be grateful, be lucky you're even here. Oh, if you take that opportunity, you're actually gonna make less money. you're gonna lose out on other opportunities or, Black women just don't work as hard or they take other jobs.
And we're sitting here on this call, we've got incredibly successful, decorated Black women athletes. Alysha, you've won championships with Seattle and Vegas. Aliyah, you were the unanimous 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year, AP Rookie of the Year, yet again proving all of that wrong. I'm wondering if you both could kinda give us a little taste of what your response is to people who still believe things like that.
Alysha, we'll start with you.
Honestly, like for me, I, I don't pay it any mind. because at the end of the day, the people that are critiquing or have something to say aren't the ones writing my checks or paying my bills. Amen. And so they hold no, like weight in my everyday life. yeah, as, as athletes we're on Twitter, we engage with our fans, we engage with people and, different followers.
So there's a, there's an element that you do see and pay attention, but at the end of the day, you just remind yourself like Bob over here with no picture and- ... sitting on his Twitter all day tweeting me. I'm still over here getting paid to do what I love, to... And I'm still working and accomplishing things that they'll never be able to.
so whether or not he has criticisms and he wants to make fun of it, that's cool. I'm still getting paid to do what I love. and I'm still one of the best players and one of the best players in this league, and that's something that I can hang my hat on every night. So I don't pay it too much mind.
Every now and then- Amen ... I like, yeah, I, chime in and throw a little, a little shot here or there, 'cause I got time some days. Have a
little fun.
Yeah. You gotta have a little fun. But for the most part I just ignore it. and I just continue on, with the focus that we have to continue to grow this league, continue to help it be, sustainable for years to come.
That's incredible. Aliyah, do you take a same approach of not my business?
Yeah, sometimes. Honestly, sometimes I, read them for, comedy purposes- ... because, like- Yeah ... sometimes, sometimes they're really funny. But to me, I look at it and I'm like- Yeah ... there's no way, people can sit here and, say the stuff that they say- Yeah
knowing that, at the end of the day, they're watching us. they're talking all the smack, but they're, like, literally sitting down watching us play. Yeah. Which, at the end of the day, that's... we are s- we're the ones shining. at the end of it you're literally sitting down, like, thinking, "Oh, what can I say today?"
after you've already watched our game, after you've watched us have 20 and 15, after you... what I'm saying? it's literally just insane. And sometimes I look at them like, "Wow, that's a chuckle." But I think something that I also started doing was really, like, using my block button. I feel like I- Yeah
honestly have perfected the use of just clicking the three dots at the right- ... and then I just click block, and I never have to see it again. I, I really... Honestly, I just did it today. Yes. It's such an amazing feeling because- Yeah ... we're out here, doing our job, which is come out here and play basketball and win basketball games, and we're having fun doing it, and I feel like there should be no reason why we let someone else, affect that, someone else affect our happiness coming out on this court every single day.
And so I just, I literally block the haters. That's, that's literally what I do. I
support. I am s- Yeah, more people need to- Yeah, I'm- ... use the
block.
Yeah, I, I am a fan of the block. I've been using the block feature for a long time. And I'm like, "Listen, you're right, freedom of speech, you can say whatever you like, but you will not be saying it on my page."
Well, it's just so, like you said, it's so... I'm on our social media team here, and it's like the amount of people every day in our men- It's like, get a job. What... How do you have this much time? Like, I, I don't even look at our content that much and I make it. Like, how are you having this much time to comment on every single thing?
It, it is- I will never truly understand that, but I am- There's also- ... in all support of blocking anyone and everyone. Okay, we're gonna switch gears a little bit in the vein of The popularity of women's basketball and women's sports, I think if people weren't watching women's basketball and really women's sports in general before this year, they really are now.
but with that popularity becomes a lot of different opinions from people who do not know a thing, as we've talked about. Terri, I'm wondering if you've seen a disparity in the way that the treatment and pay of Black women players has changed in recent years. Have you seen it go up? Have you seen it go down?
Is it still fluctuating? Anything you've noticed?
Well, first of all, if anybody hasn't been watching women's sports over the last few years, shame on them, and they definitely better be watching now. Yes. And particularly watching the women of the W. with respect to pay, I Like I said, I've been in this job nine years, and I, I think though there are some signs that there is hope, that there, that there is progress, I think I still am a little frustrated and a little disappointed with, with what I see, and what the conversations are.
And, and you're right, Lark, this is a, a league of professional women basketball players, top of the top, and, largely Black and brown players. so this is a league in which pay becomes a real focal point. And, I'm ... I, I think my source of frustration and disappointment comes from the fact that folks are still not recognizing what these women are doing on the court and off the court, and how they have really built their brands.
And, for some reason, it seems as though the goalposts seem to move every time, they have achieved, and they have established themselves, and suddenly that's not good enough. There needs to be more. there was a an unfortunate talking point that, that came from the league themselves about, women can make up to, or players can make up to, I think their number was $700,000, in this league.
And I was like, "You know what? That's, that's, that's false. That's misleading. Don't do that. Let's talk about what their salaries are." Compensation, opportunities to, to make additional money, yeah, those exist, but when I talk about moving the goalposts and kinda changing, the metrics and changing, the way women should be valued and the way athletes should be valued, I look to that talking point.
And I say, "Shame on you for doing that," because we know what the salaries are. The max salaries right now, and yes, everybody, I've gotta work on that, but the max salary right now is anywhere from 230 to 240, 250, right? $250,000. That's the max salary. So how do you get to 700,000? You gotta negotiate a time off bonus.
You gotta be the MVP of the regular season. And when you think about that, how many MVPs can there be? Th- there can only be but one. And so let's not, let's not send the message to women generally, and to Black and brown women specifically, let's not send the message that you've, you've got to be perfect In order to make $700,000, and not only that, there can only be one of you.
Let's not do that. Let's value them properly in their salaries the way we l- do for all the other industries. Let's value them in their salaries, and then show them, the additional, opportunities to make more money through bonuses. let's talk about their salary, and let's get that right.
So I've seen it. I'm a little frustrated by it, but it energizes me to work even harder for these women.
So then how did you know when it was time for you to retire? Like, at what point? Mm. Because I talk to a lot of guys in the NFL, and they tell me about a certain, a specific moment where they're like, "Oh, yeah, that's it. I'm done. My head is not here anymore." Did that happen to you?
Yeah. I think that, I think I
Mm, that's a hard one. Hmm. I maybe held on a little longer than I wanted to- Uh-huh ... right? I, I retired at 37, which was a blessing- Yeah ... and I got to say I'm done when I was ready to be done. I, I just honestly, and this is why I fight so hard behind the sa- scenes to change it, I was losing too much money playing.
Oh my God. What do you mean? What do you mean? Really? What do you mean you were losing too much money playing? Like-
For me to play in the NWSL for the salaries and the salary- Mm-hmm ... cap that they were providing-
Mm-hmm ...
and doing that for 10 to 11 months, and giving myself just a day a week to fly all o- over the place to check boxes for endorsement deals- Yeah
and the things I did outside of the game, I could flip a damn coin and make what I made in an entire year's salary. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So for me, I started having children at the end ... not having, I adopted both my children at the end of my career, and then now you have a totally different responsibility and obligation.
it wasn't just about what I wanted, and for the love of the game, and this and that, what we all say that keeps us there for so long. I'm like, "Oh, I gotta provide. I gotta make money." And I was losing money playing. Wow, that is wild. Mm-hmm. And I, some- Yeah ... at some point you have to make a choice, right?
Yeah. And that, after that I was like, wow, now I can go to every event I need to go to. I can speak at everything. I can have shows. I can be on sh- I can- Yeah ... I can just build this life I imagined outside of the game, and plan for the next 40 years of my life, not for the next four months
Throughout my career, whenever I was asked to do something in terms of public speaking, I would always start with the story of how I couldn't play Little League baseball. And invariably, at the end of my speech, I would have two or three older women come up to me and say, "I wanted to be a second basement for the Chicago Cubs," or to express a, an aspiration that they probably have never talked about before.
For Donna, it's the women who've never had the opportunity to participate in competitive sports, or the women who've never been encouraged to pursue their passion, who keep her hard at work. And over the decades, that work of making sure other women in sports aren't held back as athletes has been a challenging path for Donna to pave.
There is a moment, and the moment is when you win a national championship and, or a batting title, or you do something pretty significant, and you're relieved that you did what was expected of you, as opposed to happy about what you did, as opposed to being excited about what you did, and that's when people should move on.
Donna played for the Brakettes for a decade, but eventually something changed. Playing and winning at softball just didn't feel rewarding the way it once did.
When sport becomes a burden, when it's no longer that joyous thing that you do, that's the time to try something else, and that'll give you the same feelings, but with new skill sets, new...
a new environment
So in 1975, she moved on and started a new chapter in her career as the first director of women's athletics at the University of Texas.
when I was hired at the University of Texas as the first director of women's athletics, I thought I was hired because Texas really wanted a number one women's team in the whole world.
Number one. And that may not have been the case at Texas, but it was the case for us, the people who built the women's athletics program.
At the time, the impact of Title IX was just starting to grow. It had started off as a law focused on academics, but when the NCAA asked the Department of Education if the new protections for women applied to athletics, they said yes.
Universities across the country weren't exactly ready for the change.
All hell broke loose. The feeling at the time was that, oh, you're not gonna waste this education on women are gonna get pregnant and then just drop out of their professions. it was just, sexism, pure and simple.
Being one of the first people to run a women's athletic department, Donna had to deal with a lot of men in college sports who were not fans of Title IX.
And, yeah, you felt it. The, the guys were mad at you. That it, they believed that somehow intercollegiate athletics was a zero-sum game. If they gave women the chance to play, the men would lose. Darrell Royal from Texas, who was the president of the American Football Coaches Association, he was quoted in headlines across the country that Title IX and women's sports would be the death of big-time football.
Donna didn't hesitate. She wanted to make every women's team at the University of Texas top 10 in the United States, so she set to work creating one of the best athletics programs in the country. And while she was making her goal a reality, other coaches began to notice.
We had, eight, nine, 10,000 people at our women's basketball games.
And Frank Broyles, who was the athletic director at, at Arkansas, called me one day, and he said, "Donna, I wanna know, how do you get 10,000 people to come to a lady, ladies basketball game?" I said, "Frank, i- it's exactly like, what you do with football. You hire the best coach that you possibly can. You make sure you pay 'em enough money so you could hire 'em.
And then you give 'em the resources they need, and scholarships, and stuff like that, and then 90,000 people come to see football games. It's the same thing for women." it wasn't rocket science. It's just that the boys didn't think that people would be interested in women's sports because they weren't, and they didn't put the same effort into it that they put into opportunities for their sons.
No one would agree to spend on women what they were spending on men.
Equal funding. That was what Donna came back to again and again. If women's collegiate sports received the same amount of money that men's did, the rest would follow. Not just attendance at games, but also media attention, and more chances for women to compete in sports at a high level.
But getting that equal funding was not gonna be easy.
When I first went to Texas, our total athletic budget, including my salary, was $90,000. So I think I... my first salary was 20, 22, something like that. The total amount of money we spent on scholarships was $10,000.
That was in comparison with the men's athletic budget of about $5 million.
According to Donna, the women's budget was barely cutting it, and the same went for the staff who were meant to sculpt those athletes into top performers.
The, the coaches were really full-time physical education teachers, at the institution, and they got maybe a $1,500, check for being a coach, and a relief of one less class to teach in their primary faculty position.
And by the time I left, it was probably... I don't even know what it was, but I'm guessing it was 3 or 4 million, something like that.
That budget would be 8.3 million in today's dollars, a far cry from the original budget, and Donna's ability to secure those funds helped push all of her teams into the top 10 nationwide.
In Donna's eyes, she owed all of this to a single fact.
There were only nine schools in the country that were like Texas with separate men's and women's athletic programs, and those were the most successful programs in the country, and it was clear why they were successful, because they ran their own show, and they were adequately resourced.
They had a chance to develop their own fundraising and relationships with people of wealth and in- influence, who would get mad if the institution didn't treat them well.
Even with those relationships in place, Donna knew that women's athletics as a whole was not getting the support it was entitled to under Title IX, so she pushed harder by mobilizing the students who wanted to play for the University of Texas.
Every year that I was there, I would always have parents or other kids come into my office and, say, "We'd like to start a new women's team, a soccer team, or a rowing team," or something like that. And I had a box under my desk. I would say to them, "The University of Texas has decided not to add women's teams.
That is a violation of Title IX. If you're interested in doing this, you can submit a complaint to the Office of Civil Rights," and I would give them that information. "Or, or, you could hire a lawyer," and I had a stack of lawyers' cards in a box under my desk, and I had copies of the Title IX Investigators Manual that the Office of Civil Rights uses.
And I would say, "Here's what Title IX requires. You should read this and see if, if women are being treated as well as you see men being treated."
so many different forces have collided to allow the women to really understand the business side of basketball. Let's start with the fact that they have increased visibility, off the court as, as corporate sponsors.
I think sponsors, regardless of like the, line item brass tacks popularity of women's basketball players, women sp- athletes compared to men's athletes, I think women's athletes are good spokesmen because, they have positive associations around them. So advertisers like that. And they've always had to look to other sources of income, to be able to make a living because their WNBA salaries usually weren't gonna be enough.
So they've always had, had to like, like whether it's becoming, an influencer, what, like whether it is, do- doing TV deals, whether it's like Napheesa Collier and, and Breanna Stewart founding a whole other league. there's the NIL aspect of it, where a lot of the young players are coming in.
th- this is the first NIL generation that's being b- that's been part of negotiations, and they understand how business works as well. And I think that it's this blow to this dynamic that has always been so prevalent in the entertainment industry, where the people who are good at making people feel things and inspire them are not always good at monetizing them.
They have middlemen and leagues and larger structures, whether it's a, it's whether it's a league, whether it's an ownership group, whether it's agent, whether it's a record label or a big movie or stu- movie studio, to, to sell them to the larger public. And I think that that partnership, it, it has obviously a very long history, i- i- in America, and we've seen that partnership like set the stage for exploitation and for, two-timing people in the middle and for everyone else getting a cut before the talent.
And so much of that, has, has come from not being financially knowledgeable. And I think athletes in the last 15, 20 years, especially women's athletes, have really educated themselves, and they've started to change the blueprint here. They've started to change the game when it comes to people, in those industries, right?
I think, even looking at the, at the writers' strike, I think writers looked at musicians as that's not what to do, and they looked at athletes as, as let this be part of the blueprint of, of our collective organizing. And this is just another step in that. I think that i- this is also...
I think on a political level, it, it was a kinda, it was an important win. I think it was important. I feel good seeing this win. I think it's important for people not only to see the solidarity, but also, in, in the attempts at, at, at weakening the union to see the way- ways that the gears of power, whether it's, media agencies, the larger league, they start working against, the people who are fighting for more, the people who are doing the work.
And the way that the PA, y- I think we can do a postmortem at some point on the things that they could have done better. I don't think that they were perfect, but I think in large part, they created tailwinds, and they stood against the headwinds as best as, as they could have. And they nailed the important stuff to me, and I think that they were pretty solid by the end of this negotiation to be able to get to a place where they are going to get 20% of revenue share when just two weeks ago they were at 15%.
They've moved 5% in the last... And, and they moved 5% down, too. I think at, at the end of the day, like we were around that 25, 26 range for the players and, and the WNBA was at 15, and they met in the middle. But the thing is, like entities like the WNBA aren't always used to having to meet in the middle.
You have to organize to even get to a place where you can be strong enough to enter the room and really get what you deserve or closer to what you deserve. And I think at a time when so much of our politics and culture has been moving backwards, like you think about the fact that women's sports, women's basketball is skyrocketing in value, at the, at the very same time that a lot of the forces that have allowed for women and young women to, to, be able to, thrive and, and, and have freedom are also under attack.
Like the Heritage Foundation, which is the... Which, which was also, created the blueprint for Project 2025, which is underway right now, released a report very recently called Saving the American Family Foundation, for, I think like the next 20... 250 years or something. And it's a whole strategy to basically de-incentivize women from attending college, for, for pursuing careers.
It's encouraging... And these are things are fine that, these like, like whatever life you wanna live is fine as long as it's a life that you actually wanna live and you're not being co-coerced into it. But encouraging, young motherhood, restriction, restricting a-access to contraception, IVP, like curtailing divorce options in 2026, like eliminating, legal same-sex marriage.
Like, all of these things are happening at the same time that women's sports and women's basketball in particular are at their, the, their most popular that they've ever been. I, I don't think that those two things are disconnected. Like I... But I do, I do see the contradiction in all of it, and I do see why there are so many forces, that are, are fighting over the story of women's basketball and, a-and, who is, who's important and trying to, wade into the culture wars because I think everybody that's involved politically with it understands the importance of, of storytelling and symbolism, and that's part of the reason why, women's basketball, especially on the right wing, has been vilified so much over the last two years because they understand how powerful, a force it can be symbolically and financially.
let's, let's talk about Rickea Jackson, Rickea Jackson has been going through something that you hope that nobody ever has to go through, with her ex-boyfriend, James Pierce, who's a NFL player, who has been charged at this point with a number of things, aggravated stalking, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, allegedly following her in a car, ramming his car into, i- into her car as she tried to, make a getaway to the police station to get, get help.
And she's somebody who has said that she has, felt truly, in, in a police report, she said that she felt fearful for, for her life. She has made seven 911 calls, and this is somebody who is, i- in a, in a different financial position. And I, and I think that I, I don't like, I don't know what's in Rickea Jackson's head, but I think that she is somebody who is-- has said that she's willing to testify against Pierce, which is not something that you often see in domestic violence cases.
And it, I don't-- it's probably not a coincidence that she Is someone who is in a financial and, and maybe even emotional place to testify against him when, she is somebody who is, part of that 20- 24 draft class, who gets a, is somebody who gets a lot of endorsement deals, somebody who played for Unrivaled, came back to Unrivaled, and is smothered with cheers.
there's an emotional aspect to it. Like Paige Bueckers said, it's reminds reporters that it's... this, this court, this is a safe space for a lot of us. this, this space is important. This space is really, really important. it, it is just like all of these things are connected. All of these things are connected, and that's why this is so important, Because it's not just about financial power, it's about empowerment and what you're able to do when you ha- when you have, security. And ultimately, look, if women's sports weren't powerful or important, this many people would not care about how they're defined or going out of their way to demean them, This many people wouldn't be fighting over, trying to project political views onto players like Caitlin Clark, despite having no evidence and, in fact, having evidence to the contrary, and, and in statements that she said herself about, the league and empowerment and, and, and, and the respect that she has for the Black women in the league.
even despite the things that she said, there are so many people who want to put words in her mouth and, and, and, turn her into this, this victim and, and separate her from the league at large because They understand the power that is in, being organized collectively. It's why, Alysa Liu wins gold after quitting figure skating at 16 years old and coming back on her own terms.
and, and her journey, her behavior, her identity, and her authenticity, expanding beyond what it means to be elite in a sport that has historically been, defined by, the skinny ice princess trope. It's a- a- and, having, an anti-grindset mindset to all of it. those things have implications culturally, politically for people.
We've just heard clips starting with
Women's Sports Now tracking how women's sports viewing time in 2025 was up 71% since 2022, while beauty, health, and food brands pour sponsorship dollars in.
Political Breakdown unpacked why Caitlin Clark can't simply play basketball once she represents money, white femininity, and a league the federal government and Texas legislators treat as hostile.
Everyone Watches Women's Sports Pod and Togethxr rejected dangerous anti-trans language, pointing out that elite women already practice against male players and that the real threats are abuse and grooming, not trans inclusion.
Hearsay challenged the idea that WNBA players should accept being undervalued, arguing the goalposts keep moving even as players build their own brands and grow the league's popularity.
Women's Sports Now also recounted how Ashlyn Harris left pro soccer at 37 because capped salaries meant playing cost her money once she had a family to provide for.
Torched with Molly Bloom explained how the University of Texas's first women's athletics director, hired in 1975, fought for equal funding and pushed all her teams into the national top ten.
And The Ringer WNBA Show connected the WNBA's landmark 20% revenue-share win to building real power while the government is targeting women's freedoms.
And those were just the top takes, there's lots more in the deeper dives sections,
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I ask a discussion question sometimes to kick things off. I asked in a previous episode about people's experience with the time tax. Here's a voice message we received.
Hi, Jay and the Best of the Left team. My name's Iona, and I'm from California. you asked for experiences with the time tax, and as someone who's been disabled since birth, I've done a lot of paperwork. When I was younger, though, we were hopeful that I would be able to manage a desk job, so I went through college and then grad school to, hopefully get that started, and then my health crashed, so badly that I needed years to recover from it.
so in the end, I ended up using the Total and Permanent Disability Discharge Program to deal with my federal loans, and it was a nightmare. Just the form itself, not the program requirements, which required, certain disabilities and certain ways that you were disabled prior to getting your loans, but the form itself was sent back to me six times for small errors, like using a middle initial in one space but not using it everywhere, or putting an X instead of a check mark.
My doctor had to fill it out twice because she didn't list my condition the way that the literal, phrase the program used did, and she had to sign it three times because it required a manual or wet signature, which I'd never heard of before. And this all had a time limit, so I had to physically drive over an hour once to get this done in less than a year after my fourth open heart surgery.
forty thousand dollars, which is what the loans were, is a life-destroying amount to me, but it's fractions of pennies on-- to the federal government. During the pandemic, when Biden's administration was pushing for people to use these programs, I literally got a piece of mail going, "Hey, do you know you qualify for this?"
And I still barely got the form through in the six months requirement that you have from start to finish. And if I had had, like, a disability that made it more difficult to do the form, I don't think I literally could have done it. I'm lucky I'm not blind or that I don't have problems, like, with dyslexia.
And so that's my story about dealing with a form from hell, and when you're disabled, you deal with a lot of these forms, but that was definitely the worst one.
Thanks so much for sharing that, Iona. my partner has a rare disease that doesn't create the sort of disability you're describing, but she has had more than her fair share of dealing with doctors and insurance companies. She has long fantasized about wanting there to be a sort of advocacy and Liaison organization to help bridge the gap between the people dealing with the physical ramifications of their condition and the paperwork and bureaucracy required to secure their treatment.
The irony of having support for people with disabling conditions be dependent on their ability to fill out and submit incredibly intense and detailed paperwork in hyper-specific ways is a bitter pill to swallow indeed.
Now, here's today's question:
Everyone alive has been fed propaganda about why women's sports either don't exist or aren't as popular as men's. If you can pin it down, how has the propaganda about women's sports affected your thinking?
For me, I think about how people love an easy answer that sounds plausible and that they don't have any motivation to think any harder about. The idea that women's sports simply aren't profitable enough to sustain themselves is one of those bullshit ideas that was planted a long time ago and did its work.
The combination of the general lack of women's sports, the explanation that it simply wasn't profitable, and the assumption, stated as fact, that people didn't want to watch women play sports worked on me by making professional women's sports something that didn't exist in my mind as a concept. It wasn't something to be supported or opposed. It just wasn't.
There's a woman featured in our show today who describes what it was like to live in the UK and want to play soccer. She explained that the idea of playing professionally or playing in the World Cup wasn't something she longed for, because it seemed so outside the realm of possibility that she simply didn't consider it.
That's sort of what I mean. Women's sports didn't exist on television, in advertisements or billboards, in pop culture, on the radio I listened to, in the fandom communities, or in the conversations at school or at work. Growing up, the absolute lack of women's sports in the zeitgeist meant that it felt natural to me. It didn't feel like oppression or like an injustice. It just felt like the natural way things are, and explanations for something that feels natural land easily. When someone says, "Well, there just aren't women's sports because people don't want to watch women's sports," it's the easiest pill in the world to swallow.
Eventually, I grew up enough and heard that women want to play sports but don't have opportunities, or that people do want to watch women's sports, and I watched as the WNBA was formed and ridiculed. Then things started to shift. Then it didn't feel natural, and it did start to feel like an injustice.
I'm not surprised that we're seeing the boom in popularity we're seeing now. It was really only a matter of time before that bullshit propaganda wore off entirely.
So, that was my experience, what about you?
If you follow us on social media, you may get our questions in advance, as Christopher did, who writes,
"Right, growing up, I never considered women's sports as worthy of attention. About 25 years ago, I was working with a big ol' former college football player and one day he said he was going to see a University of Virginia women's basketball game. 'Really?,' I asked, 'Women's basketball?' He replied to the effect of, 'Yeah, they play basketball like it was meant to be played.' I can point to that point in time and say that is the moment when I began the process of thinking about women's sports having the ability to be unique and special, entirely different, and possibly even better, than men's sports.
One day, remembering that long ago conversation about the University of Virginia women's basketball game, I Googled the question, 'Is there any other sport besides basketball where the women's play is very different than the men's?' Turns out women's and men's soccer and ice hockey have even a greater gender difference than women's and men's basketball. And when I read the analysis of the differences in rules and game play? 'No wonder my three favorite Olympic team sports are women's basketball, women's soccer, and women's ice hockey. Huh, who knew?'"
Thanks, Christopher. That sounds about right: going from it being a nonexistent thought to a positive thought, skipping right past all the misogyny a lot of people have to work through. That just goes to show the effect of normalization, and for most listeners of this show, it will have been the normalization of women's sports not existing.
If you'd like to share your thoughts, there's a link to leave a voice message in the show notes, or connect with us on socials or by email. All details are in the link in bio in the show notes.
Now, my thoughts on today's topic.
Every objection to women playing sports, getting paid for it, or being watched doing it is people rationalizing their feelings of discomfort that they don't understand.
Here's a different example that makes the point. I worked with a guy many years ago who I didn't know well, but I knew that he liked to listen to electronic, sort of techno music at work. I had an album from a band I liked and thought he might enjoy. Because of the era it was, I burned him a copy of the CD, brought it in, and gave it to him, explaining that I thought he might like it. Just a friendly gesture to someone I didn't know well.
A day or two later, I actually happened to overhear a conversation he was having with another employee, describing the album I had given him, making fun of it because the band had a male vocalist. He also made clear that it was weird in a homophobic way that I would like a band with a male vocalist.
I never asked him about it, so I don't know if he thinks it's gay for men to sing or if it's okay for men to sing as long as it's only women listening. Regardless, that has always been one of the starkest examples in my memory of someone clearly dealing with their own discomfort about sexuality and gender roles, and externalizing their discomfort as a statement of what he took to be objective fact, that men shouldn't be interested in listening to other men singing.
And I don't even know where he got that idea from, because I've never heard from any corner of the manosphere or from any misogynist, in any context, that men and boys should be ashamed of listening to male singers. My best guess is that the cultural habit of sorting everything into masculine and feminine, plus the fear patriarchy installs in boys about ever crossing that line, added up to a better-safe-than-sorry rule for him, female vocalists only.
Beyond those rationalizations, deeper than believing consciously that he shouldn't listen to male singers or the thought that another man may look down on him if he did, beneath all of that, my bet is that there is a physical discomfort he feels while either listening to a male vocalist or maybe even thinking about men singing.
I don't mean it in the sense that he may be closeted and gay himself, uncomfortable with that. I mean that he had the idea that singing, or at the very least listening to music sung by members of one gender or the other, is itself a gendered act. That men should only listen to women sing, because listening to men sing, he believes, is a feminine act. It has been coded as feminine for him to listen to a man sing and that feels uncomfortable for him. And the real kicker is that it won’t feel like a restriction to him that he wishes he weren’t constrained by, it’ll feel like a genuine personal preference. He’ll think that he just doesn’t like to listen to male singers so he doesn’t like their music. And he’ll be right about not liking it but wrong about why and wrong to think he’s not being artificially constrained by an irrational belief. He’s in a cage that’s invisible to him so he feels free.
In the last few decades, psychologists have made some good advances in understanding how the mind works. It's been well established now that the nervous system senses inputs and reacts in milliseconds, which is much faster than the length of time it takes to consciously understand the thing your nervous system has already reacted to. Think about a gut feeling or intuition. That's when there's a feeling in your body that you don't know how to explain yet. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt put it this way. Intuition comes first and reasoning comes second, working more like a lawyer than a judge. Meaning, the immediate interpretation of a feeling seems to us like a rational conclusion but is actually an argument being made from one perspective based on incomplete information.
What we often think is that we have a thought and that the thought makes us have a feeling, but the process mostly runs in the other direction. We have the feeling first, and then the thoughts that are generated are actually an attempt to explain the feeling. It's a theory the mind comes up with but it’s just its best guess and needs to be tested and challenged like a hypothesis to find out if it’s correct.
The body is a notoriously unreliable narrator. It has no consciousness or critical thinking itself, so it's not that bright. The chances it was correct are actually pretty small and it's wired to be biased in favor of overprotection because, in a life-and-death situation, it's better to think you see a tiger in the bushes and be wrong 99 times out of 100 than to have a more accurate interpretation but be less vigilant when there's a tiger around. Our bodies are good at reacting and giving us signals intended to protect us but accuracy is not actually the best protection, so unless you need to run for your life, it’s better to treat your bodily instincts with a healthy dose of doubt.
Getting back to sports, the fact that men and women have separate leagues makes it the most natural thing in the world to see sports through gender roles and think of particular athletics as being coded as either male or female. The fact that women's sports have been kept out of the mainstream, often actively barred, helped establish our major sports as being coded masculine because only men were playing the sports visibly.
So then, when women begin to play a sport that is perceived to be coded as masculine, it creates a feeling of discomfort because the established gender roles are being subverted. That discomfort comes first. The explanations people give for why they don't like women's sports, why other people shouldn't like women's sports, or why women shouldn't play sports at all, are rationalizations for the visceral discomfort that they feel.
Let's look at another example, field hockey. In Europe and in other countries around the world, men play field hockey, and no one thinks it's strange. The Netherlands has pro leagues for men and for women, and India has won eight Olympic gold medals in the men's game. Men there are not uncomfortable watching other men play field hockey. Fathers are not uncomfortable about the idea of their sons playing field hockey.
In the United States, field hockey became established in the culture as a women's game and I don't need research to tell me that many American men and fathers would feel a sense of discomfort at the idea of men in general or their sons in particular playing field hockey.
It is the clearest example I can think of for how gender coding of a sport is both entirely arbitrary and also powerful.
And what about those specific arguments that men make against women's basketball? For instance, they argued that it wasn't really basketball because women don't dunk. There are two theories about why.
I argue that the people who oppose women's basketball do it because they feel viscerally uncomfortable with gender roles being subverted, and they see basketball as being coded as masculine. Therefore, women playing basketball is uncomfortable.
They argue that they don't like women's basketball because the women aren't good enough or exciting enough. Based on these two theories, how would these people react to a woman who could dunk?
Their theory says that a woman who can dunk would be welcomed with open arms. My theory says that dunking would be considered even more masculine-coded than basketball in general, and so people would react with even more discomfort. Well, we don't have to guess because Brittney Griner could dunk in college, went on to be a WNBA and Olympic superstar, and endured years of people insisting she must be a man. It started in sixth grade, and it followed her all the way to the pros.
The science already tells us that the thoughts we have are often reactions to feelings we're having in our body. They're rationalizations and guesses about what those feelings mean. They should therefore be treated with a great deal of suspicion.
But when you can put these people's rationalizations to a direct test like this, it makes it obvious for everyone to see. The same sports culture that complains women can't dunk had no welcome for the one who could, because she made them more uncomfortable, not less.
When people make arguments that ultimately drive toward keeping people in their assigned gender roles, they think they're either making a rational argument based on facts or expressing a genuine personal preference. But what they're really doing is identifying something that makes them personally uncomfortable for irrational reasons and asking everyone to conform for them, so they don't have to feel that discomfort.
With women's sports, men aren't the only ones who feel that discomfort. Women have also grown up in the same patriarchal society and had the same thoughts about gender roles imbued in them. But women, on the whole, got comfortable with the idea of women playing sports a long time before most men did, including millions of women who'd never buy a ticket themselves. The men who haven't gotten there yet are just louder about it. And that is some grade-A male fragility.
Demanding others act in a way that protects your feelings is not tough or manly or masculine or strong or any other word that you would like to apply to what it means to be a man. But men do it because they don't think that's what's happening. They think they've made rational arguments, but that's not how the science says minds usually work. What they really did was feel uncomfortable and then rationalize those feelings into something that felt real and reasoned.
But in the end, they don't just try to restrict what women can do. They voluntarily restrict what they themselves can do. They decide voluntarily that they are not allowed to like women's sports. Some even decide voluntarily that they're not allowed to like music when it's sung by a man. Why narrow your options like that?
But these categories are arbitrary, the way field hockey is for girls in the U.S. and played by men in the rest of the world. And these arbitrary rules are learned which means they can all also be unlearned.
And it’s not an act of altruism for people to change their thinking about what gets coded as masculine or feminine and to loosen their adherence to the idea that people should stick to their gender roles. They’ll benefit by feeling better themselves. The discomfort they feel is real and the best way to soothe it is to recognize it’s based on nonsense and all their rationalizations explaining their feelings are nonsense too.
And the unlearning is already happening, that’s a lot of what the women’s sports boom is about. At least some of the new fans are people a subtle discomfort would have kept away if the work of normalizing women's sports hadn't been done over the last few decades. Some have probably felt an old discomfort fade. Normalization does work that rational arguments can’t because the arguments against weren’t rational in the first place.
In case you’re interested, the album I tried to give to that dude at work 20 years ago was Empires by VNV Nation. The most faminging,
“Through my eyes, stare into me.
I bear my heart for all to see,
But I’m guessing that dude at work didn’t hear those lyrics because he probably didn’t get all the way to track 7, feeling like there was some deep, unexamined truth that made that music off limits to him.
And now, we'll continue to dive deeper on 4 topics today. First up;
Section A, Follow the Money, Follow the Boom
Followed by Section B, The Culture War, the Backlash, and Who Gets Called a Threat
Section C, The CBA Fight - Labor, Pay, and Power Inside the W
And Section D, How We Got Here - Title IX, Barriers, and Building New Leagues
you reported that WNBA teams, their values are up 59% in one year. So what actually changed?
Well, this is, as this is a multi-year story, right? we had values up the year before 180%, where you saw that massive increase again, which had been building, the, the, the, the groundwork had been laid through 2022, 2023. It's more than a moment, right? this is, this is, this is a movement, and now, it's not stopping.
revenue, revenue is up roughly 60%, over, over last year, '24 verse '25.
You see the synergy amongst the NBA and the WNBA in creating a pathway for business. How have the Valkyries accomplished this?
Yeah, c- certainly they are, they are well on their way to being the first billion-dollar franchise, in women's sports.
The Valkyries are worth about 150% more than the most valuable NWSL team, which is the richest soccer league in the world. So, the Valkyries, in some ways like the Warriors, are, are on a to- totally different level, in, in terms of their business. the Warriors, I think are 35, 40%, generate 35, 40% more revenue than the Knicks and, and the Valkyries are even higher than that, compared to, the Indiana Fever, who rank second in the league in terms of revenue.
so they... it's unbelievable. they paid $50 million and, and that's spread out over 10 years for this franchise. so this is a unbelievable, dunk, home run, to use mixed sports analogies- ... of an investment already, for the Warriors' ownership group. so they, it, it helped. Listen, the Chase Center, that is an ATM machine.
but the- ... the, the Warriors ownership group, Joe Lacob, Peter Guber, that, they, they recognized that there was a good opport- they were going to have a team at some point.
Now, many fans call it the, quote, "Caitlin Clark effect." Does your research support that, or is it a bit more complex than that?
There's no denying the impact that Caitlin Clark had. the Indiana Fever were averaging 1,000 fans per ga- 1,200 fans per game, a- a few not too long ago, and now selling out, every single game, and then obviously a huge hit on the road. but she missed most, significant part of the season last year.
Indiana Fever, merchandise was up 60% with Caitlin Clark, out, o- on top of a massive 2024 number that they put up. and I think you have to look at the investment that is coming into this league. We- we've had a lot of, obviously, it's trending towards more NBA owners, that are moving in, but you have owners that are investing in new practice facilities, and the independents leading the way, arguably, the independent clubs.
NiJaree Canady left Stanford Mm-hmm She now plays for Texas Tech, and, fun, really fun player. this is a girl that's maybe the best pitcher in baseball. When she left Stanford, it was really, really crazy, because she had taken them to your... She was a really, when she entered the transfer portal, everyone was excited, everybody wanted her.
Her agents were asking for, $400,000. She ends up getting a million- Woof ... at Texas Tech. Mm-hmm. And the way Gerry Glasco recru- recruited her was, like, he, he di- everyone was focused on her pitching. He really focused on her hitting. He's, he, hand-wrote how she was gonna hit, what sh- what the lineup would be, where she was gonna hit, how many home runs she was gonna have, all this stuff.
And they also, she's from Topeka, Kansas, so they used Patrick Mahomes in the recruiting tactic. Oh, snap. He's calling her, he called her from Italy during her recruiting process. Here he is, this went really viral, where he's, watching her while he's shooting a commercial. He's watching her in the World Series.
Wow, that's crazy.
He's a huge fan of hers. And so she is the first million-dollar player in softball. She got $1.05 million, 50,000 of that went to her living, and $24 went to her jersey.
That is so insane.
Yo, what? That's so crazy.
So wild.
Yeah, we've really seen, the Red Raiders are one, for example, the investment in women's sports- Yeah
and especially with softball. We showed it on the show last week about the investment in the locker rooms. Those are shiny, shiny locker rooms- Yeah ... for those women playing softball.
Yeah, they're shiny locker rooms because they got some shiny players and- Yeah,
NiJaree.
Yeah, man. NiJaree, I'm telling you, she's a game changer, first of all.
If a player leaves a team and goes to another team and that team is instantly good- Mm-hmm ... that's what a game-changer means. If people say game managers and game changers, and you heard these terms, the game changer changes the game, and that's exactly what-
NiJaree ...
that's what she is, man. Okay, so listen.
Smart lady. NiJaree has a ton, you guys. I like to follow the money, so we're gonna follow the money for NiJaree, and she has a lot of sponsorships. The deal was facil- facilitated by the Matador Club with significant tr- contributions from Tracy and John Sellars. But then she has deals with Adidas, MLB, Playbook Week- Play Ball Weekend, St.
Jude Research Hospital, Mamba Sports Academy, and the Players Collective. there's a lot of people pitching in that want a part of-
NiJaree ...
boom. Okay? There's a lot of people that have pitched in, and I love to see it because you can start to see, like, whenever there's that first person, and when it happens with a first person, you know that it's gonna keep on following.
I remember the first time, like, when Paige Bueckers was blowing up, or Angel Reese, and all these players, and now we see NIL deals in women's college basketball left and right, it's not even a thing. Mm-hmm. So you just need that first person to bust through the door. There's also Jordy Bahl who's getting the bag where the money resides.
She has an NIL valuation of 104- Mm-hmm ... which is not bad. I'm not mad at. She has deals with Ford, Lincoln, Midwest Bank, EA Sports. these are real people. these are real companies now getting behind these players. And speaking of who's still in there, I was just curious because somebody in our meeting had said that Stanford leads d- division one programs in the most championships, right?
So Stanford has 136, but some teams that are in there, so with this softball run- Mm-hmm ... this is a tight race. Mm-hmm. UCLA has 125 D1 w- NCAA championships, and these stats are as of Jan- what is it? January 25th, 2025. Okay. I'm making sure that people... January 25th, 2025, Stanford number one with 136, UCLA 125, USC- Mm-hmm
at 113. And then I was just curious, I was like, "Where's UConn?"
Yeah, where's UConn?
Where's UConn?
12.
12. Okay, we have more than that. Okay. We had 25.
Okay.
And 18 of them are from basketball. Yeah,
it's crazy. Wow,
really? Yeah, 18 from basketball. So we, you know what I'm saying? We're not, we don't really, softball, I think, we were, we were solid this year at softball.
Yeah. We're solid every year in hockey, but we gotta get it, we gotta pick it up, all right, UConn? We gotta pick it up. We're losing real bad in the real race.
We are seeing across the board investment in women's sports. We've seen it here on, with the Miller Lite studio, we see it from Sephora- Yeah ... and from Toyota, et cetera.
But look at this, you guys. Money is coming to women's sports across the board. Glossier, like I said, e.l.f. has always been a part of it. Mm-hmm. They're now investing in the- Ally ... NWSL. Ally. And we're seeing this across- All of sports. It's not just the WNBA. It's, it's in soccer, it's in- Yeah ... softball, what have you.
The money is flowing in.
Yeah. And it, and it's, elevating it. I just ca- Every time you say Ally, I can't stop thinking about the floor in the regionals during the, before the NCAA championship. Oh, yeah. their floor was so sick. obviously the Dream floor- ... is my new favorite. Let's go. And I know that you'll, you might stab me if I don't say that.
But I thought the Ally floor was, like,
pretty sick. No, but to that point, I think that a lot of people, when you talk about the companies investing, it's just obviously because now there's, people realize there really is a return on investment. Mm-hmm. For a while there, women's sports had to, show the numbers, show why, show the following, show the social following, show the people, the viewership.
But now I think it's like we don't, what's understood ain't gotta be explained. the companies- Right ... get it, and- Yeah ... the money's following, and you see
the difference. People are investing. Just recently, the Liberty sold some shares for 450 million. That was the valuation- Mm-hmm. Yeah ... of that money coming in for a team that just won its first championship last year.
What have you noticed as the positive changes that have been happening in sports- Mm-hmm
for women specifically?
Well, yeah, investment. And as much as we don't like to have to depend on the rich people with the money to get things going, a lot of times that's the difference. And in women's sports, for such a long time, there was this expectation of immediate return on investment or any loss was, some sort of- referendum on the product itself.
And in men's sports, there's so much time for them to be treated like a startup. There's a belief in the potential long term, and so losses are an expected part of starting a new league or starting a new team, and in women's sports, that wasn't allowed. And now we're seeing the kind of investment that's required over the long term to give time for growth and marketing and sponsorships and all these things to pick up.
And, and we're seeing that across the WNBA, NWSL, PWHL, Unrivaled, all these different spaces, which is awesome. And then the other thing that I think is really important, as someone who, like you said, has been in the media space for so long, at ESPN in particular, I worked across so many different spaces; radio, podcast, television, writing, men's predominantly, women's predominantly.
And then 13 years of radio, which is kinda playing the hits and trying to get more women's stories covered. And one thing I noticed is in men's sports, we do such a good job of giving people a connective tissue between games and events to tell them to come back. Here's the stories, stars, stakes, and stats that you need to care, not just about the game you just watched, but to come back next week and watch again.
And in women's sports, far too often it was, "New season's here. We'll check back in at the end. A championship won. We'll check back in next year." And all those things that happened in between weren't really talked about enough for fans to know and care. And so part of the reason for Good Game with Sarah Spain is so that every single day people can wake up and hear the news and stories and all the things going on, and they get great interviews and conversations.
But I think it's a no-brainer Mm ... but something we haven't really been able or people in charge haven't been willing to do in the media space.
Yeah, and you bring up so many great points, starting with the fact of continuously covering players, the story lines throughout the course of the season. But as someone, as you mentioned, that does wear many hats in sports- Mm-hmm
you talk about the men's and women's side, I'm curious to know, personally, how does that overlap work for you in terms of Good Game with Sarah Spain and your iHeartRadio podcast, but also your work with ESPN- Yeah ... to overlap in the different roles that you have?
So right now it's great because I'm just working for ESPNW, which is the women's sports, and then iHeart is all women's sports.
But for years there was this balance of working for ESPNW and trying to get those stories into the mainstream spaces. And that's the fascinating part about being the hi- behind the scenes at all these different elements. You, you see in radio, it's a little bit more old school. You have time, you have two to three hours, you have a community that you create, and you have time to have conversation.
But they do really push for play the big stories, talk about the things people are most interested in, and I had to work to really get some of the women's stories told. On Around the Horn, I found that there were great producers, Antonie Realey, who were really interested in highlighting women's sports, even in these small little chunks whenever possible.
I think the main thing that's really changed the game is the gatekeepers, whether that's program directors, newspaper editors, producers. They're the ones who ultimately decide what people are interested in. They try to read the audience, and for such a long time, that has been predominantly middle-aged cis white men who go to the same four major men's pro sports and check the news every morning.
NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB. Those are all the things we're checking. Mm. And then occasionally there might be a tennis or golf thing that steps in. What we found happened in the last couple years, and particularly with Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese, was all of a sudden they had a new tab to check. Is there any big news in that space right now?
Because people were clamoring for it. And once that door was opened- Kaiser
Absolutely massive number because they just told people, this is what you're watching for. This up and coming star who's the top scorer in the country, and this superstar who's leading the way for player of the year at the time. And I think that's been the biggest thing, is not just get the rights packages, but then incorporate it into your other shows.
Incorporate it into spaces where fans are watching and might find a storyline compelling and then go looking for it. And, I think ESPN is rightly criticized sometimes for not doing enough, and yet they're also miles ahead of everyone else in terms of the amount of women's... hours of women's sports that they have.
I think for me, part of the reason for Good Game with Sarah Spain and starting this iHeart podcast was to fill those spaces. if every day you turn on SportsCenter or First Take or Around the Horn and you don't see the storylines- Mm-hmm ... it's hard to keep up. And so to have literally the only place, whether it's TV, radio, podcast or even web, where every single day when you turn it on, I'm gonna tell you what the storylines and the biggest news is, that to me is so behi- we're decades behind where we should have that for women's sports when you can get that in any number of places for men.
So I think combining shoulder programming with the pre and post-game shows and complimentary podcasts and stories and feature storytelling is really the future and where we have to keep pushing.
It is. And a big part of that when you look at the sports coverage is the voices behind the sports coverage.
Mm-hmm. I know partly why when I was transitioning out of playing soccer into covering, it was because those voices I felt needed to be present for women as well. Mm-hmm. On the men's side, you talk about ESPN specifically, the deals that we've seen for a Stephen A. Smith- Mm-hmm ... five-year deal, $100 million.
Pat McAfee- Mm-hmm ... five years as well. The names go on and on. The women that are analysts, that are voices like yourself, that have shows, that have a consistent voice- Mm-hmm ... in sports coverage is slowly changing. But I'm interested your thoughts on just the investment in- Yeah ... really getting those full-time consistent female voices that have the passion, the v- the v- the volume, the experience.
Not just talking women's sports- Yeah ... but talking sports in general- For sure ... that are changing in the industry.
it's been night and day since when I started. I literally didn't even wanna get into sports. It was basically I thought women who look like supermodels on the sideline. perfect hair, perfect everything, and they didn't have a lot of room to have personality.
It was, "Here's what I talked to the coach about. Here's the injury." And I thought, that's not really me. I'm full of opinions. I got a lot to say about a lot of things. And I gave it a shot, by accident, and realized it was this intersection of so many things I cared about, and I just had to decide to do it my own way.
I did Second City improv conservatory. I brought all the comedy and the sort of extemporaneous thought and the back and forth and all that to the space in a way that I thought was missing for women being allowed to be that way. And what it used to be was a lot of hosts facilitating men's opinions. We were sideline reporters or we were hosts.
And now the breadth of it is on display. Everything in the media from color commentary, play-by-play Analysts, opinionists, all the way up to owners and GMs and everything else in the ownership space, in the front office space. I think the thing that still needs to be expanded a little bit is physical examples and representations of every kind.
I think there's a lot where women of color, but we still have this expectation of beauty and perfection that men don't have, frankly. You can look like anyone, and you can find a job if you know your stuff, and I think women still are ... My hair is fake. My lashes are fake. most everything else is real. I, my teeth are real.
Everything's real. We have
it
in-house. We don't need to get into every single detail. But I have to work so hard to keep up with stuff that's not that important to me- Mm ... because otherwise I don't get a space to, to share my knowledge and my talent. And I think that that's still a barrier in a lot of ways, is women and the expectations for them to be everything the men have to be in terms of prepared and knowledgeable, and then on top of that have all the right clothes and everything else.
So I would love to see some more representations of women
I've been writing a ton, as everybody has, about the growth of women's sports from a, you know, from a ratings standpoint, attendance standpoint, and just r- really just a, a financial standpoint.
But then y- you, you took a, a different tact. Why don't you walk us through that?
Yeah, John. For so many years, media companies focused their coverage on men's sports, because that's what made sense from a business perspective. when it came to rights, you'd see big networks shell out for men's sports in a way that they wouldn't for women's.
When it came to publishers, there would be desks, many reporters assigned to covering men's sports, and maybe you'd have one reporter covering women's sports. That is completely turned on its head, and part of it is the momentum of the Caitlin Clark era last year. But I think broadly speaking, women's sports are having a moment that transcends just basketball and soccer.
you're seeing the rise of new leagues like LOVB for volleyball, like, the new professional women's hockey league. And a res- the result of that is that audiences are coming to these media companies. They are also bringing advertiser interest. So what I've seen in the past, six months or so is more than a dozen new efforts by publishers to start or expand their women's sports coverage verticals.
it's just astonishing, John. some of these companies, I'm like, "How did you not even have that to begin with?" but it's amazing now, because for the first time I feel like the coverage is actually starting to get to parity.
What exactly are they c- are they covering? Is it going and, and, and covering the games themselves?
Or, h- how are they setting this up?
Everyone's got a different approach. So some companies, like the Associated Press, they said in March, "We're gonna double down on women's sports." One of the things they did is they put a dedicated reporter on the New York Liberty. They also said that they're going to do dedicated coverage of Unrivaled, that 3-on-3 basketball league that you mentioned.
Then you have other companies that are taking a different business lens. CNBC, for example, had a whole new women's sports event at the NCAA championship earlier this month. they're partnering with Deep Blue Sport and Entertainment, which Axios partnered with last year, to live stream their Business of Women's Sports Summit.
Sports Illustrated is creating its own sporting event. Which is similar to the Ryder Cup called the SI Women's Games. They're sponsoring, or sorry, they're partnering with Scripps and ION to broadcast it. everybody is doing something totally different. But what's notable to me, John, is last year, ratings were unprecedented.
if you think about March Madness and the women's, NCAA Championship finale. In 2025, we know that some of that momentum will slow because of Caitlin Clark moving on to the WNBA. But what's notable is the media companies don't think that the business opportunity is slowing, and that's clearly why they're investing.
You know better than anyone, John, the economic environment right now for publishing is tough. So for media companies to allocate any kind of resources to new coverage means that they must see a business return.
Yeah, and, and everything that you described there is... does speak to what we've all heard. like, there, there are companies and brands that are really falling over themselves to get involved in, in women's sports.
and, and not, not just with advertising. you, you, you see it in, s- in some of these financial houses in, in, in New York. with the Celtics going for, more than $6 billion, the Commanders down here going for, the, the, a- almost the same amount, there's a lot of traditional men's sports that are, that, that are at a ceiling.
And so the opportunity that they see is to come in, and it's not quite bottom-feeding 'cause, 'cause the, the people, the, the, women's sports are, are growing, but they, they think that they can get in, not at the, the seed stage but, early on and, and g- grow with these leagues. and I hear that from ownership.
I hear it from brands. It is a, a unique trend that has been happening for a, a, a couple of years, and we're now seeing, as you reported, from, from, publications that, that, that, that's totally in response to it, where they, they decide that they want to get out with, sections and with events that just cover this mu- much more intently than it has been.
Yeah, and two thoughts on that. One, women's sports as an asset class is really interesting to follow because obviously you're seeing s- teams sell at record rates. you're seeing really impactful investors come in. I think about Bob Iger and Willow Bay, buying up a sports team, a women's soccer team in Los Angeles.
The other piece of it that's so interesting is, John, women's sports have become such a hot asset class, one, to your point, because it's not reached its ceiling, but two, because it's a trend that's being set by really popular and influential people. It's not just former athletes and random PE firms.
You have people like Bob Iger and Willow Bay who are coming in and buying up teams. I think the other thing is brands are recognizing that- Their core audience of people who will purchase their goods is increasingly women, and it's increasingly women who are business decision-makers. And if you look at who are women business decision-makers, they tend to have been former athletes.
There's a study that, is spoken widely of in the women's sports community that over 90% of women in the C-suite played sports either at the high school or college level. That alone is what makes the women's sports phenomenon so lucrative to brands, and if brands care, then the publishers care.
Yeah, Sarah, the problem that I have with this story is I'm, I always am looking out for the red flags, like, what could possibly derail this story?
And it's been an, an upward march, for, for at least a couple of years, uh, out there. And that, and, and now it's becoming a, a lot more public. And I guess if I had to stretch for, for a red flag, what if people aren't watching? What if these, these au- these, TV or, or social audiences don't grow? we did, we did see that big fall-off at, at ESPN from, Caitlin Clark, last year to, to Paige Bueckers this year.
And I know it's, it's up from, two years previously, but, it's, in any media environment, a 54%, drop is, it, it's, it's not something to be cheered. I guess that could be a red flag, but, but I, I even say that half-heartedly.
Yeah, I think it's a virtuous circle, right? The more investment in teams, the more investment from high-profile people, the more investment from brands, then the better the product is gonna be and more people are gonna wanna continue to watch.
So I think it's less so what if the viewership pulls out, and it's more so what if people stop thinking of women's sports as being a hot investment? And I just don't see that happening. The one red flag that I will give you, that I paid a lot of attention to, I look a lot of times at how do you engage young women in sport and in what types of sport?
And there is one interesting trend in women's sports around which types of events get elevated for brand sponsorship and get a lot of attention. if you look at NIL, I did an analysis of this. The vast majority of people who get big NIL deals are either basketball players or they're women who do sports like gymnastics or track and field.
And so there's a question of can women sports that are not as, just being candid, sexualized or not as, mainstream as basketball, sports like volleyball or sports like women's hockey or women's softball, can those sports gain the same type of momentum as what we're seeing in soccer and basketball?
That's my big question, what if and possible red flag.
How do you get started thinking about hiring commentators, studio hosts, what kinda music you want, how the graphics are gonna look, all of that?
Well, for us, it really started with, with a small group getting together and asking those questions, and thinking, "What, what would we like to see?
What, what should fill the space? What should our voice look like?" and it also, really began with, with study of what the audience was, was hoping to see, or what the audience liked most out of their WNBA coverage. So we sat down about, a year plus ago, and got in a room, kinda threw some words up against the whiteboard, and started to think about what we would want as viewers.
we compared that to what we were hearing from our research team. What does the audience want? how can we best serve those needs and those fans? but for us, you hit the nail on the head. We really started thinking about our storytellers, our announce team. Who, who should be representing NBC on air?
And, and we really felt like it was important to, have a diverse cast, essentially. So we really wanted people who could offer really interesting commentary, really diverse commentary. I think you see that with people like Maria Taylor and LaChina Robinson, people who have been part of the fabric of the league.
And then also finding new voices with, with again, the spirit of diversity. So you have somebody like Cheryl Miller, who was with the league in those early years, and somebody like Sue Bird, who's more recently retired. So for us, it was really important to find, the right mix of people. it really started with this idea of earning trust.
Who will immediately be deemed credible by the audience? And then we really looked for people who were thoughtful. we understood the importance of finding people who- We're not about hot takes, but we're about nuance and depth and discussion. and I think we really found that in spades with our team.
then Tina Charles retired. We added Tina- Mm-hmm ... to the mix, which was, was an amazing thing for us to be able to do in the latter half of the season. But again, for us, it really came back to this idea of, earning trust and serving the fans and, and that began with understanding what the fans want and, and again, filling out what our voice might be in that space.
And then to your question about the music and the graphics, we really thought about where and how we might want to be arm in arm with our NBA coverage and where we might want to deviate. And I think we, we have a ton of respect for our NBA coverage and our NBA colleagues, and also recognize that our fan base is different, and this game is different.
And so we really thought critically about where we might want to be similar and where we might want to deviate, and I actually think music and the use of Round Ball Rock is a really interesting example. Mm-hmm. you asked about whether or not I watched the early years. I went back to see how they approached music and Round Ball Rock.
and I wanted to see, what might be interesting or informational about how we approached music back in 1997 and how we might- Mm-hmm ... approach it today. Same with the logo concept. How did we approach it then, and how should we approach it today? And I think where we landed is that, we are, sort of brother-sister properties, and we like that, and we look for gears or opportunities where we might express ourselves differently.
So Round Ball Rock is one example where we're actually utilizing and leaning heavily into a remix version of that.
For those who don't immediately know Round Ball Rock, all I have to say is da, da, da, da, da, na, na, na, and John Tesh, and also if you haven't seen the SNL sketch where they're singing along with the words, "Gimme, gimme, gimme the basketball, gimme," yeah.
Go watch it now when you're done listening. I wanna hear about the responsibilities that you have. What does a senior VP and coordinating producer do when it comes to the WNBA and NBC?
For me, it was really building our team and our identity, and so that, that occupied a large portion of last year.
and then this year the focus, of course, has been on operationalizing that and guiding our team through how we're going to operationalize this vision week in and week out. additionally, I also produce games. I probably produce two-thirds of our game coverage, including the, the playoffs and looking ahead to the finals.
So, th- I wear two hats in season. I'm wearing sort of the, the s- the CP, coordinating producer hat, but also the producer hat come, come game time.
What's the biggest challenge of producing live events in the year 2026?
The biggest challenge, I think we have high expectations. We all have very high expectations, and we all believe in this product and want it to be excellent.
I think one thing we're seeing is the challenge associated with this incredible new media landscape where you have, if you're the WNBA, six national broadcast partners, plus your local partners. So there's now a ton of coverage of this league, and we all have different flavors. We all do things a little bit differently.
We all have a distinct point of view. So I have a ton of empathy for the teams and the fact that- Mm-hmm ... every week they might be dealing with three different broadcasters who have three different ways of doing business and doing their show or, or hoping to do their show. so that has been one thing as we do our first lap around the track that, that we've really tried to keep in mind.
This is new for everybody. This, this media landscape did not exist last year, and I think that's been a real learning for, for all of us. our expectations are high, which probably sometimes means our demands are also high. we know that the product can be excellent, and yet to do that sometimes that requires access, that might require time in a venue, where you don't necessarily have the time that you'd want.
so I think that's been one of the challenges this year and, and maybe one of the challenges of broadcasting in general in 2026. fans are savvy. Audiences know- Mm-hmm ... what good television looks like, and it's our responsibility, and I think for us it's an incredible opportunity to bring that to them.
but that doesn't come without some tension at times or some challenges at times.
you mentioned wanting broadcast talent that understands nuance and isn't into the hot takes. Take me behind the scenes when you're trying to get into discussion topics, feature packages, the content you're gonna put out there during pre, post, and halftime, especially during a particularly fraught time for the W.
Yeah, I think, f- first I'll say Alexa Marama is our, our studio producer, and she's done a phenomenal job of navigating that. We have an incredibly strong research and editorial department that we lean on. I think we always start with, what do we know and what does the audience need to know?
And then what's additive? How can we add to the conversation in a way that we want to? One thing I can say, Zora Stephenson, for example, Maria Taylor- They want to be in a space where they are expressing what the audience needs with certainty and nuance. And so we spend a lot of time on the front end with our editorial team thinking about the facts, understanding what do we know, what can and should we say, and then what might we want to say on top of that.
Yeah, and part of that is you have to prep for, in this season, some things that were Unexpected for the average game, but could be expected because of precursors in this league, whether that's what happens if there's someone wearing a shirt representing a certain kind of mindset, what happens if there's a former NBA player trying to stir things up by showing up court side, right?
These things that have been disruptive to games or things thrown onto the court, right? There have been multiple instances throughout this season of things that you might have to prep your talent for, your camera people for. Do we cut away? Do we stay on it? Do we talk about it? Do we ignore it? like we've established what we do with a streaker or a runner on the field.
We cut away and maybe the broadcaster says a, a funny quip and moves on. But in the W there's been a number of things you've had to prep your, your staff for. how did it go for you, and how did that feel for you to have to add that to the mix of all the other things that might go on during a live event?
Yeah, you're right. We, we have had to think through those, those moments, those what ifs. I think for us, one of the north stars, especially from a game coverage point of view, has been if and when something impacts the game, we have a duty to talk about it.
Mm-hmm.
w- our job first and foremost is to document the game.
So if something is interfering with or disrupting the game itself, we have, we have the duty and the obligation to, to report that. I will say, we've been really informed by our experiences in other sports, like Olympic sports.
Mm-hmm.
Certainly what's happening in the WNBA, it's unique in some ways, but there ca- you can find some parallels with other sporting events, and the Olympics are one where we tend to see things that are being talked about in society at large find their way to the playing fields.
Mm-hmm. And when you have a global sporting event like the Olympics, you will find yourself in the sports at the center of some of those discussions. So for us, I think we have looked to some of the ways we've covered different, topics in Olympic sports and use that as a foundation. I think it comes back to information and, and really being editorially sound, and then asking the question, what do our viewers need to appreciate what's happening right now?
So that's context. And then again, how, how might we want to add to this conversation? you are asking your, your team to stretch in those editorial ways, and that has been useful in, in our coverage of the W this season.
Next, Section B, The Culture War, the Backlash, and Who Gets Called a Threat
we gotta start by talking about the elephant in the room. It's the state of the league today. It's what everybody's talking about. I would describe it myself, and please feel free to contradict me, as one of incredible success, breakthrough success, but also great unease. The hoops has never been better, but the attention, as expressed through the mainstream media and particularly the right-wing media, has been a lot of relentless racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, in a, in a bizarre reactionary fandom as expressed through two players on the Indiana Fever, the great Caitlin Clark and the less great Sophie Cunningham. I wanted to ask you just then first and foremost, what's your big picture take as to the current state of the league? My take is that the league, in all of its heightened visibility, has never been more vulnerable. Mm. I wrote that, on my own blog that we have a backlash, and our- the US is a country of backlash where there's social progress and then, people who aren't k- aren't okay with people who don't look like them or love like them or what have you, when those people are gaining equal rights and moving towards, some progress, then there's this, corrective e- efforts, from all points in our society, from the top down, from governments, down, to, okay, we've gotta, get things back into a, a, a place where we like them, which is hierarchies where we know who's on top in, in this society, we know who's on the bottom. And so I feel that the league is very vulnerable right now, and it's very disappointing and disconcerting to see that here we are in this 30th anniversary celebratory season, but there doesn't seem to be much joy- Mm-hmm ... because of the attacks that you mentioned. and if we look at the demographics of the WNBA, mostly Black, largely queer, and that demo- those demographics are the reasons the WNBA struggled for so long to find any mainstream, stability. And now that it has, now the attacks come. And in my view, it's oh, it was always going to be like this. If a league of women who are taller than the average man, many in our society, many of them Black, a lot of them queer, are going to succeed, of course there's gonna be backlash. And it's, it's sad, but it's the reality and our, historical and social trends, very much show that. Mm. Yeah, ve- very well put. is there a space, is it even possible in this political climate for the WNBA to have a broad national audience while keeping those reactionary forces at bay? Or is this really an either/or, not because of any choice by the WNBA, but just of the realities of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia in our society? I guess I'm asking you is does the United States have it in its heart to accept women's basketball on a national basis with all of the, the joy and attention it deserves? That is such a tough question, and I think it's one the league has been asking since the beginning- Mm ... that the players from the beginning have, have been asking. And it seemed at the outset when the league began, just so much attention, it was just a ground-shifting moment that, "Oh, wow." you see interviews, and people are actually saying, "Finally, equality is here, for women." And we can see that, the deep dive, to years of suppression of the league showing that that's absolutely not true, and then here we are in 2026. so I, I feel that mainstream, that the league can and should thrive in the mainstream. And my hope would be that people who are there for reasons other than the joy of competition and watching some of the best basketball players in the world compete, and from around the world, it's such a beautifully diverse league. if they're not there for that reason, I'm hoping they'll get bored and move on to the next thing that they want to attack and, make a, mountain out of a molehill. it's Banned Book Week, Mm-hmm. So we, we, we see it from all, all, all directions. and if it doesn't seem... If it's starting to seem that that's not the case, that there's just going to be a new fan base that is, open with why they're there and, vocally expressing hate, there's a very big difference between yelling boo for somebody shooting a free throw, or s- telling them they suck or your team's trash or whatever. That's within the, the, the, the guideline of fandom. but when you're hurling slurs at people, or making threats, that crosses the line of decency and it violates, arena rules, and should just be completely disallowed with zero tolerance. And that's the, that's what the WNBA needs to do, to be very firm that this will not be tolerated. And no matter what people think in their heads, they can go to the games and watch a player they like, but that doesn't give them the right to abuse the pla- other players or people around them in the stands. Now, you just partially answered this question, but I just wanna ask it very directly. Kathy Engelberg- out as commissioner, and no one seemed that upset about it. That seemed to be one thing that was uniting everybody. but this is despite the league's financial success and growth and the incredible vibe at, let's say, most WNBA arenas and, the, the, the, the growth of bars that cater to WNBA games. there's been so much mainstreaming of the WNBA that's been positive over the last couple years, and yet Cathy Engelbert, people are like, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." What, what, what did she do wrong, in your mind? There's a lot that she did wrong, but I will absolutely say there is so much that she did right. Mm-hmm. And the league would not be where it is today if she hadn't, been the right person at the right time with the right corporate connections, the right inroads in the business world to really get the sponsorships, not just for the league, but then they're noticing the league and the individual players, and putting those players in front of mainstream audiences, such as the commercial with, Paige Bueckers and A'ja Wilson for Secret deodorant. Who better to sell deodorant to other women than professional athletes- Yeah ... who are sweating constantly? And so Engelbert, from day one, I was at that conference, when she was announced and came in as commissioner, and she's done everything she's said. And I've heard people say, "Well, the league was on track to reach this point with or without her," and I don't believe that's true, and I don't think that, discrediting what she's done on the business side is fair or helpful to the conversation. what she did wrong though was not make the distinction between fan abuse of players and rivalries. She's had multiple opportunities to speak out and say, absolutely players sh- should not be having to hear, people call them the N-word or blow up their DMs with hateful messages. and, and there's a difference between rivalries and, and, and disliking an opposing team, and, coming after individuals, with threats and hate speech. And she's been given multiple opportunities to do that, and everything has been a, a delayed reaction after her silence draws an outrage, and the players, got tired of it. Napheesa Collier during CBA negotiations, spoke out and s- and called it the worst leadership in the world, and so who knows what was going on at those negotiating tables. Mm. so I, I think that the divide between the business and wanting a commissioner who values the players as human beings first, is where Engelbert went wrong and didn't really understand how serious that is, which is hard for me to wrap my head around considering the 2020 season played in the bubble devoted to social justice.
I remember in entertainment there were definite, very clear gatekeepers who back in the day would explicitly say We can't cast you 'cause you're not white or Black.
Mm-hmm.
I'm like, I actually really appreciate the candor because then it shows me that the traditional way of getting my foot in the door isn't gonna work, and I'm gonna have to strategize in a different way. Did you have those gatekeepers who said things like, "Women's sports don't rate," or, or was it more dynamic than, than a straightforward conversation?
That's actually the perfect example because it also told you the product is not the problem, as in- Yeah ... my talent isn't the thing keeping me from this. It's the expectation, right? And so I think the story of women's sports and what I've really been trying to talk to people about and share over the last couple of years as e- excitement has increased and people have gotten involved, is that it's not because the product is so fundamentally different now, it's because there had been intentional holding back of women's sports for such a long time, and you need all of that context when you're discussing it to understand why it's changing now.
I'll give you just a couple examples. One is professional women's soccer in England was banned- For decades and decades and decades, because a professional women's game that was the day before a men's game got more attention, fan interest, and attendance- Oh my God ... and it angered the men at the top of the soccer federation, so they banned women from playing professional soccer.
Now, they were able to play in various leagues. It was always deemed semi-professional or not professional- Mm-hmm ... up until I think it was 1970. And when you think about the impact that decades of intentionally holding women back- Yeah ... can mean for who grows up thinking there's a future there, who grows up thinking it's societally, endorsed, who is putting money and investment and time and energy into the space.
So now when we see that these women's soccer leagues across the pond are thriving, attendance is soaring, investment is huge, you have to take into account that they were so intentionally held back for so long- Yep ... that this isn't just "Oh, we finally figured out that women can play, too." It's that they've literally been allowed to create and start to build a foundation and grow it.
Up until the 1990s, there were still heads of sport federations using pseudoscience to keep women out of sport. The head of the International Ski Jumping Federation was still saying in 1990 that women should not ski jump because their uteruses will fall out.
Jesus.
I am certain you have heard this because uteruses falling out has been used to keep us from running marathons, riding horses, ski jumping.
the idea that women are a protected species that should be kept at home in order to incubate future generations- Yeah ... and not put at risk their baby-making parts is, a through line throughout so much of the history of sport, is it's always been used to keep women from moving their bodies and feeling empowered in their bodies, too.
I spoke to the head of the Afghanistan women's national soccer team at the World Cup in 2023 in Australia, and she and her teammates had been airlifted out of Afghanistan as soon as the Taliban took over. They immediately took the educated women and the women in sport. Not even their families came with them.
They got them out as soon as possible because they believed them to be at the greatest danger because of what an embodied woman- Mm-hmm ... who is in control of her body and what she does with it means to, the ideals of, the Taliban. So that's just an example for you of the ways in which it's so complicated.
Yeah. It's not just as simple as we'd rather watch men do that. It's what does it mean to put women in their place or in their lane in society? And when you add up all the different ways... men's stadiums are taxpayer funded. Yeah. Right? And we never talk about that. Yeah. We're like, "Oh, women, figure it out."
And it's like, well, we're not getting political benefits. the- when the mayor goes up and tells you how much he loves the men's team, they're using that often to cur favor politically and socially. And- Right ... women's sports has never been a part of that conversation until very recently.
So I just think all of that matters when you talk about it because the product has so long been blamed- For what is actually a result of a patriarchal system- Mm-hmm ... and society that has so often told us, like, where we belong and what we're allowed to do.
With that incredible background, and by the way, I had not heard the ridiculous uterus falling out nonsense, and-
I've never heard of a uterus falling out, and I feel like if they did, there would be some secondhand uterus market.
For
sure. And I've never-
Especially nowadays ...
seen a uterus available-
Yeah ...
to replace the original that fell out. Or some surgery to put it back in. It just feels like that's probably not likely.
I think this is my next movie, is just about, about that. What would you say is the biggest or, or several of the biggest differences between working in sports media then versus now?
what's it like today?
What I often say is that the basement is the same, but the ceiling is higher than ever. And by that, I mean that women can now be play-by-play, color, owners, GMs, like, all the jobs at the top are far more open to women than they ever were before. But the beginning of getting into the industry, you are still more likely than not going to be sexually harassed, more likely than not to be condescended- Hmm
to be told you don't know what you're talking about, for people to presume that you are there to meet men or sleep with athletes, or because you think it's like- Is this today? Yeah.
Jesus.
Yeah, yeah. but when you push through that and fight through that, there's so much more on the other side. There are so many more women working in every space also, that it's not as novel to see a woman or hear from a woman, and then the reactions are much more measured because it just is, is absurd at this point to see a woman on TV talking sports and be like, "What's she doing here?"
Yeah. Whereas when I started, it literally was a reaction to existing was so negative. And now, you just have to say something they disagree with, or talk about male-female dynamics and sexual assault, domestic violence, all of those serious issues, and then you will get right back to the death threats of the olden days.
That's insane. Also, I feel I f- I feel like this is, this is, this is so crazy because I- Mm ... I'm seeing now the, the dichotomy of, it sounds like either you're a lesbian, as if that's a bad thing, or you're just there to meet men.
Mm-hmm. Yes, or you're a... Or, if you're in a Ben Affleck movie, you're a lesbian waiting to meet a man who will make you not be a lesbian anymore.
Right.
And that's a fascinating part of all of this, too, is there was a lot of homophobia at the root of judgment of and predisposed ideas about women's sport. And so whether that's coaches who have literally two different closets where they keep their regular clothes and then the clothes they use to recruit that won't give away that they're queer-
Uh-huh
or there's athletes who for so long had to be really inauthentic in their presentation because sponsors or leagues would tell them they wouldn't be accepted as they are. that, I think, is one of the biggest things that has allowed for women's sport to become what it is now, which isn't just of interest as sport, but a real cultural, influencer.
These female athletes are some of the most influential in terms of social media, fashion, all the other stuff. It's because they're allowed to be multidimensional. At one point, it was really either your little girl all grown up, what a great role model. She's never done anything wrong, and she would never even swear.
Or how hot is she? Everybody wants to sleep with her. Mm-hmm. Those were your two options, oversexualized or completely infantilized. And also, always straight, girl next door, white was really what we elevated. Yeah. And now women athletes are allowed to be so many different things, masc-presenting, queer, straight, villains, heroes, funny, serious, all the other stuff.
And once people are allowed to be authentically themselves and society has started just accepting more versions of people- It has allowed for people to really connect with them.
Yep.
And then they wanna watch them, root for them, follow them, buy their stuff, all those things.
The, so there was World War II So many men were drafted to war, baseball, America's favorite pastime, basically the most able-bodied men were away, so Major League Baseball execs brought women in and created the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
Amazing. A League of Their Own, Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Rosie O'Donnell, is based on this particular moment. So I'm, I'm curious if, given your expertise, if you have a take on why that moment maybe didn't last?
It wasn't intended to last. Mm. It was intended to be a thing that they were allowed to do because the circumstances had prevented men from playing.
And, and that has been a through line so often. There are certainly leagues and teams that tried and failed and weren't financially viable, but often what you see is, a real desire from people in power to take away opportunity.
If we jump from there and fast-forwarded to Title IX in 1972, and I guess for, for people who don't know, Title IX prohibits, sex-based discrimination in education and programs that receive federal funding, so that means school sports.
So Title IX dramatically boosted female athletic participation in schools and colleges. what do you think the lasting impact of that has, has been?
Massive.
Yeah.
Massive. You can never underestimate the impact of Title IX on women's and girls' sports in the United States. It's why when the Olympics roll around, oftentimes the women for Team USA would place third in the medal count across every country, including the men.
Yeah. that's how dominant our women's teams are. and it is because there has been a necessity. Now, I wanna let you know that sadly, compliance for Title IX, despite it being a law-
Yeah ...
is horrific.
Right.
And currently women and girls still have one million fewer opportunities at the high school level than boys
So it's still something that needs a lot of work, but-
Yeah ...
it vastly changed the landscape, and you hear from women who say they're daughters of Title IX, meaning they grew up seeing and knowing that their mother played or was allowed to play, and it meant that it was not a question of whether they would, but it was what sport.
Yeah. And then with each generation that passes, both boys and girls are raised understanding that sport is for everybody. Yeah. And that wasn't the case back in the 1970s. Yeah. so it's, it's had a massive impact, and US ends up then establishing, whether it's professional leagues or pay equity fights or other things, that inspire fights around the globe, and other countries' investment in their programs- has to rise in order to be able to compete in any way with the US on a global scale.
Now, Section C, The CBA Fight - Labor, Pay, and Power Inside the W
You brought up going overseas to play, and I think a lot of people aren't aware of how much that affects the dynamics of the league because it's like we're all going to separate countries during the off-season.
It's not the NBA where they're playing pickup together, and Jimmy Butler's inviting everybody over to his house for- Right that doesn't happen because it's like my homegirl is in Russia, or my homegirl's in China. we can't really link up like that.
We can't link up like that. We on Zoom. We on FaceTime.
Right. Yeah. What's the importance of these off-season leagues? Because this is a new thing relatively. You're playing in Athletes Unlimited, so speak a little to that.
Yeah, so I've been playing in Athletes Unlimited for four years. I'm about to start my fifth season, and I know you guys all probably know Unrivaled, which started last year, which has been amazing.
It's been an opportunity for us to just stay home during the off-season and still play basketball, work on our craft, and ultimately build relationships with other players that we typically wouldn't have the opportunity to because we're all jetting off to different countries or doing coaching jobs or at home with their families and things like that.
Also, I was talking to Mariah about this earlier It's showing fans that, we all really are, like, a big, giant family, and I think that's also something that had been missing in the WNBA, which is why when all these new fans came to watch and saw how hard and physical our game was, they were like, "Do all these girls hate each other?
Like, why are they playing like this? Why are they playing so hard?" And that was not the case at all. We just are really passionate about this game, and we're still fighting for the equity, that, and equality that we rightfully deserve as women athletes. So we come out there and leave it all on the floor every single night.
But then when the game's over and the season ends, everybody just goes their separate ways, and you have to reconvene six months later after being a superstar on whatever team you were on. Now you have 12 superstars feeling really good about themselves, trying to come into one place and win a championship after we haven't seen each other in six months, and that's just a hard way to win.
It's a hard way to build an organization and long-term success. I think Athletes Unlimited... Athletes Unlimited is a network of women's sports leagues. We have basketball. We have volleyball. We have softball. And basketball was the last league added to the family of sports, and basically, they just went all in on women's sports before it was the cool thing to do, before anybody else was doing it.
Th- our first season was in 2022, and every single year, it's just grown a little bit more, a little bit more. We've gotten more talented players every single year. It's a 40-player roster, and there's one winner at the end. I won't get into the details of the leaderboard and the rules. It's a little bit complicated.
I will probably have a episode dedicated to just Athletes Unlimited one day just so everybody can get on the same page with it. But we have a mixture of veterans. We have a mixture of rookies. We have some people that just have played strictly overseas. W- we have a beautiful mix of players, and to be able to have the opportunity stateside, families and friends can come watch us, it's been amazing, and it's been career-changing for me and career-changing for a lot of other players as well, and have you...
You came to a game, yeah.
No, I didn't come to a game.
Oh, no, you didn't come to a game. I came to Nashville. She came to Nashville. Mariah hasn't come to a game yet, but-
Or there was no game or something. No, we didn't have games yet.
Mm-hmm. But Mariah will be coming. She will be pulling up. For sure. So then if you guys have a chance to make it to Nashville, it's all through February.
You guys will have a great time, I promise. It's really fun.
Why Nashville? what's the women's sports landscape like in Nashville?
They are thirsty for a women's basketball team. oh my gosh, so they actually came to us asking if we wanted to relocate Athletes Unlimited to Nashville. We played our first season in Las Vegas, played two seasons in Dallas, and after our second year in Dallas, we felt like we needed to be in a marketplace that was more supportive of women's basketball.
Not saying that Dallas was the worst place ever, but, we were competing against some universities. The Dallas Wings were there. The Mavericks were in season during our season, so we didn't feel like we got the whole city behind us. Now here comes Nashville, and when I tell you the whole city is behind us, the whole city is behind us.
I was just there for a few days right before I came here, and the love, the support, the investment that Nashville has shown for us From year one to year two has been absolutely unbelievable. They put in a bid for a WNBA team, the Tennessee Summit. They want that bad, but they love sports. I know Nashville's known for music, it's music city, but, that is a big sports town, so we're really excited to be the only professional women's basketball team in Nashville.
We're hoping that in the future a W team can get there, but they love us there. they love us down.
We've been talking about the expansion teams a lot, me and Lexie, and the cities, and who would be first to win a championship and whatnot. Do you think Nashville needs to be up on that list?
I think so.
We were talking to some of the investors and leadership in Nashville, and we were just talking like, "There's no teams in the south, just the dream." And it's very weird why there are no WNBA teams in the south. I think Florida needs one. I think bring one... the Charlotte Sting was a, a team. The Orlando Miracle was a team.
The Miami Sol was a team. the teams have been there. We need to bring one of those back, but I think having a team in Nashville would be amazing. The, the support that we've had the last two seasons, I'm really excited for this season. Like They are definitely investing in women's sports in a big way, and I'm just really grateful that we made that leap to go to Nashville because it was very...
It was like uncharted territory. There's no women's pro teams there, so we were like, "Is this really?" they do music. They do country music. we don't wanna go there. But they've been actually the most amazing thing, and we're really excited for season two in Nashville.
Yeah. Looking into the new teams and all of the places that I feel like need teams and want teams, I trust the fans because the fans in each of those cities are like, "We want a team, we want a team."
It's ownership I'm more worried about, that the people who choose to become owners of WNBA teams are people who want to actually be invested in the WNBA. Yeah. And that brings me to our CBA conversation. Could you give a little bit of background, because you are directly involved in these conversations, about the collective bargaining agreement and what that means?
Yeah. So for those that don't know what the collective bargaining agreement, it's basically, the law of the WNBA as far as salaries, housing, health benefits, transportation, like every little minute detail about what goes on in our league is covered in the CBA. So this year we had the opportunity to opt out of the one that we negotiated in 2020.
I was in the league during that CBA negotiation period, but I was not as involved in it as I am in this CBA negotiation period. At that time, the 2020 CBA was, to us, it was transformational. we had benefits for mothers that we didn't have before, health benefits. Salaries did increase in a large way, but we put that opt-out clause in because we trusted the product that we were gonna put out was gonna promote the growth of the league and in a big way, and I think even these last two years has surpassed any type of growth that we could have even imagined, which has been amazing.
So our choice to opt out is because mainly, we want our salaries to grow with the league, the league's growth, and right now we are capped out at a fixed percentage. No matter how much the league makes, we only get a very small, tiny fixed percentage of the overall revenue of the league. Actually, it's not even the overall revenue.
It's only some of the revenue So that is one of our biggest talking points with our new CBA is that we want to have the opportunity for our salaries to grow with the league's growth, and that has just been something that we've been very stuck on, unfortunately. But I think in recent weeks, the conversations have gone into a positive direction, and I think now a lot of people are truly understanding what we're asking for.
We're not asking to make $20 million a year. We're not asking to make $50 million like Shay and LeBron and Luka. we know we're not Shay, LeBron, and Luka. We know we're not the NBA, but we deserve to have a bigger piece of the pie that we have just blood, sweat, and tears into this pie, and it just keeps growing and growing and growing, and our slice just keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and that's something that needs to change.
when we look at how we got here, though, a- and I think that's one of the reasons I'm so sad about how this has gone, because I think it is such a big deal that we're getting a million dollar salaries. It's not a get on our knees and thank the owners type of thing. It's something players have earned, right?
Yeah.
But it is a huge deal. And, I feel like we're, we're almost not getting a chance to celebrate that, right? Because no matter what, comes out, people know so much that it's gonna feel like the players settled for something, a little bit. But when you're researching Court Queens, so Court Queens, it's a mixture of a coffee table book and a history book, or I guess that's what coffee table books are.
But it's got beautiful pictures throughout, and so much reporting and writing. She wrote it with Jordan Robinson, who I love, one of my favorite people in this industry, and, you two are my dream team. but what did you learn about kind of the history that puts a million dollar pers- salaries in perspective?
That is such a good question. I, I think the biggest thing to me is just how long people have been trying to profit off women's basketball. That, you know- Mm ... you think of this story that it, it, for so long it's women are just fighting for any chance. They, aren't getting paid at all. They're just doing whatever they can do to have any chance to play.
But people have seen this as a potential Profit generating sport for a really, really long time, that if you look back, like way back to the, the '20s, the '30s, the '40s, you have barnstorming teams, you have investors coming in thinking that they can really make money here. You, some of this is wrapped into kind of gimmicky things to get it to make money.
Yeah. Like one of the early chapters is a barnstorming team called the All American Redheads, where the idea was they all had to dye their hair the same shade of red because they were sponsored Yeah ... yeah, by someone who was in the ha- help-- was invested in Clairol, and they had, had hair dye. But they were legit ballers.
Yeah. They wanted to play, and that was how they did it, and they made a lot of money as a barnstorming team for decades before you had organized college ball, before you had talk about pro leagues. That, that was legitimate business. And same with you had, all of these AAU teams that we think of, obviously AAU as, as kids and amateurs now.
But in the, the '30s, the '40s, the '50s, it was, usually, town factory teams, and these were women with jobs who had gone into factories and during World War II and kept their jobs, and they were playing for these factory teams, and they went all over the country. there was legitimate money here, and you see that kind of interest from outside of, how can we make money off of this?
It starts early, and it really keeps going at every twist and turn here. you look at college ball, and when you have the AIAW, the original women's college sports organization, starting to get its foothold, you then see the NCAA really start to take notice of women in college sports when it's like, well, there might be money at stake here.
These games are now on TV for women's college basketball. Should the NCAA be involved in this? And, it's a lot more complicated than that, but that really is the through line- Yeah ... of so many people. How can we make money? There's money to be made here, and a lot of it isn't going to the players.
But there is acknowledgement of the fact that people wanna watch this. These games are really good. These players are really cool. And there is money to be made here, even if it's not going to the players. And so that just was really interesting to me that, we think about, when we think about Women's basketball and labor, you're thinking about, the origins of the WNBA and the ABL at the same time.
The history of the W has had so many labor ups and downs. But realizing that it's a much bigger picture than that, that there has always been some money being made here, was just really fascinating. It, it was, really, really cool for me and Jordan to get to go through that research together and learn so much.
That's such a
good point, and also in history, and listen, this is something we've talked about on Burn It All Down time and time again, with our historians, is you-- what you see, yes, you see people initially trying to make money off of it, but then there's another sector that comes in, and every single time women's basketball or women's sports in general has a huge surge of popularity and starts to make money, there are entities that are threatened by that and try to- Yeah
taper it down. Because- Yeah ... in high school, like when, when women's basketball would start to rival the men's crowds, there would be backlash immediately. and, you've certainly-- you've seen that, with soccer as well when the women started, attracting big crowds, it was banned, in England.
So I think that's, for me, something that I'm also wary about during these negotiations. I'm not saying that the owners are, and definitely not every owner is trying to sabotage the league, but I do think that there is a lot of, "We can't give them too much too soon." And instead of e- are we gonna lean into this growth and, and hit the gas pedal, or are we gonna say, "Whoa, this is too fast," and act scared?
And maybe, the thought of women's basketball growing at this rate, getting to a point where maybe within this contract you could see a WNBA team worth a billion dollars, in the next six, seven years. That is not a ridiculous thing given how quickly these, valuations are skyrocketing.
And I have to think that that makes some pe- NBA owners who, teams just became worth a billion dollars in the past couple decade, decade or so, That makes them nervous
Yeah. It's just such a complete change in th- the mindset of how this is supposed to work, and, there was a headline we had from earlier this year, where the Valkyries had been sponsored by Sephora, and then Sephora became the men's fragrance partner of the Warriors, and it was one of the first times you had a, women's sponsorship, not just for the W team, but specifically for women, th- then realizing, oh, there might be an NBA opportunity here too, and you had the Valkyries and Warriors, chief revenue officers both talking about how this was such a cool opportunity and something they never would have thought of, et cetera.
And it just... That one was one that stood out to me and has been in the back of my head. So
I hadn't known that. I had missed that. Thank you. I'm gonna bring that up all the time.
it's so cool, but it's also just gosh, that could have been happening for decades. There are so many opportunities for synergies like that, which is such a g- gross business-y buzzword, but it really is just, it, such a different mindset of how you could be thinking about you have both teams here that could be l- legitimate profit generating machines rather than treating it as the men's team, and then here are the women getting scraps that, should be grateful to play here at all, and grateful for whatever sponsors they can get.
that y- yeah, it just is- Yeah ... such a difference in how teams historically have been operated, and obviously, like you said, th- there's a range here. Some owners that have been frankly very smart about how they maneuver their teams and position them to get as many sponsorships and see them as a true, investment vehicle rather than a, a drag or a social- Yeah
cause. but yeah, it just, it requires, I think, a real change in how you think about the structure of the team and what it means and why you own it, frankly.
And Finally, Section D, How We Got Here - Title IX, Barriers, and Building New Leagues
Back in Donna Lopiano's era, it was likely Brianna Pinto wouldn't have been able to pursue sports at all. Today, Briana is a professional soccer player, but she used to just be a kid playing soccer in North Carolina.
I come from a soccer family. both my parents are UNC alum. My dad played soccer at University of North Carolina.
My mom played softball at Carolina, and so I'm a Tar Heel through and through.
It was Briana's childhood dream to play soccer at the University of North Carolina, just like her dad.
After the game, as a kid, I would wait by the fence for players to come and sign, autographs, and I was "I wanna be one of those girls so bad."
In some ways, Briana's experience pursuing the sport she loves has been similar to Donna's. She started off playing with the boys.
From a race and gender standpoint, it was evident that I was a minority in both categories on the soccer field. So when I was playing with the boys team, I was, one of two or three people of color, and I was obviously the only girl on the team.
And for me, I wanted to prove that I belonged out there, and I was worthy of every opportunity that my teammates were getting.
But instead of being told she couldn't play with the boys, Briana received encouragement and support. Playing on the men's team showed her what she was made of.
It contributed to, my confidence on the field.
I believed that I could do anything. I would attack the goal, and I'd do it with flair and with confidence, and I think that was contagious in a way because a lot of the moms on the boys team that I was with, they were, my biggest fans. They were so, happy to see a girl on the field beating up on the boys, and just their support and the way they showed up for me and encouraged me is what helped me chase my dream.
And like Donna, Briana also had the opportunity to travel through her sport, fulfilling a lifelong dream to see the world.
I've gotten to travel to 23 countries. I've played in two th- two Youth World Cups. I've met some of my best friends I'll ever have in my lifetime. I've worked with some of the best coaches in the world.
I've played on so many amazing fields, and I've had fun while I've been doing all of it.
Briana kept putting in the work, and in 2018, she got a full ride to UNC on a soccer scholarship, something that would've been unthinkable with the average women's sports budget in the '70s and the '80s.
To represent the university all these years later and get to interact with the fans who wanna be in the position you're in, it's just so special.
She knows that Title IX has had a huge impact on making these opportunities available to her.
I'd say at a young age I was pretty aware of it, I think because Carolina has done such an amazing job investing in their women's sports team. S- y- they highlighted how Title IX changed the course of women's sports f- for years, and I think that's so unique to Carolina, and was a reason why I was so invested in Title IX, because it gave me opportunities that I otherwise wouldn't have had.
So I'm reaping the benefits of the hard work of so many women that came before me.
Title IX has been one of the many steps elevating Brianna's own hard work and talent to make her dreams of playing for UNC a reality, and when she finally saw her dream realized, it felt as sweet as she had hoped.
One of the coolest moments for me personally in my collegiate career was my first game as a Tar Heel.
It was a lifelong dream of mine, again, like I said, to represent the University of North Carolina, and Anson Dorrance has created a dynasty in our program, and he's seen the growth of the women's game since its inception. And I played, my first game, I scored my first collegiate goal, which was a free kick that I bent to the back post, and it happened to be Anson's 1,000th win.
So just to be, representing the university that I've known and loved for years, to be a part of a dynasty in women's collegiate soccer, and to be a beneficiary of all the investment that comes with implementing Title IX, I- I think it was a moment that encapsul- encapsulates, what it means to be a female athlete in this generation.
Beyond the ability to play for a team she loved, her experience at UNC was incredible. The stadium she played soccer in was second to none, and the locker room...
It's so cool. We had surround sound speakers so that we could blast music before the games. Our lockers were massive. We had, cleat dryers in there.
We had a chandelier in our bathroom. Our video room, where we did, film before and after games, was incredible.
UNC's facilities are an outlier. Bathroom chandeliers are not common, but they do show how far women's collegiate athletes have come since Title IX took effect in the '70s. And with schools like UNC setting such a high bar, what's become clear is just how many other institutions are failing to meet that bar.
Last year at the NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments in Texas, photos and videos surfaced of the differences between the men's and women's weight rooms, food, and swag bags. The women's weight room consisted of a small rack of dumbbells and a stack of yoga mats. The men's weight room was huge and included power racks with Olympic bars and weights.
Sedona Prince, a basketball player at the University of Oregon, took to social media to show the differences. Her account shed light on a situation that could have easily been underestimated if not for the ability to show her followers this gap between the men's and women's resources.
Now, when pictures of our weight room got released versus the men's, the NCAA came out with a statement saying that it wasn't money, it was space that was a problem.
Let me show y'all something else. Here's our practice court, right? And then here's that weight room, and then here's all this extra space. If you aren't upset about this problem, then you're a part of it.
The issue went viral, with fans of women's basketball expressing outrage on social media, and one of the people following that story was Donna Lopiano.
After last year's Final Four, where through the, the sharing of, of videos, it was so obvious that men and women were unequally treated. and it made Sedona Prince of the University of Oregon a heroine in terms of sharing that. and I, I, I just think, Congress is very unhappy with the NCAA. The NCAA is incompetent
Donna believes that the NCAA needs to step up and take responsibility when issues like this arise, and go beyond just doing damage control
What's needed more than anything else is an enlightened leader of a national governance organization like the NCAA saying, in order to be a member of the NCAA, in order to participate in March Madness and the Final Four, every school in our, in our association has to be in compliance with Title IX, and we're gonna check every three years.
That's what's needed to make major, a major dent in the discrimination that's going on right now.
Brianna Pinto also saw the posts about the disparities between men's and women's facilities at the tournament.
I'm so glad that they went to social media to rally support and demand better standards, and I think it falls on the NCAA because they're the ones hosting the tournament.
And if they're not providing the best resources for both their men and women, then it's evident that, they don't care. And I think that's not good enough, especially when the NCAA generates millions and millions of dollars a year across all of their sports.
After graduating, Brianna was ranked third overall in the 2021 National Women's Soccer League draft, and then selected to play professionally for Gotham FC.
Her exposure to the inconsistent funding for women's sports in college didn't prepare her for the less regulated world of the National Women's Soccer League. In her first year with Gotham FC, she got a taste of what Sedona Prince had been posting about. There was a stark contrast between the facilities she had at UNC versus what she had in the NWSL, and that wasn't all.
My first year of professional soccer was hard, and the reason I say it was hard was because we uncovered a lot of the abuse that happens in the NWSL and just in the sport as a whole. And nine of 10 coaches, that were previously employed last year departed for various reasons.
The abuse Brianna mentioned included occurrences of sexual misconduct, harassment, and racial profiling across the NWSL.
At Gotham FC, general manager Alyse LaHue was fired for reasons that the NWSL has chosen to keep confidential. We reached out to Gotham FC and the NWSL for comment, but have not heard back at the time of this recording
It was just alarming to see how widespread the issue of abuse was across the league.
it made me just wary of my surroundings and just making sure that I'm mindful of my interactions with people in, in positions of authority. because the hard part about being a professional is that your coaches and your, front office staff, they determine your livelihood. If you don't get the opportunity to play, you won't meet your performance, bonuses, you, will probably struggle to maintain confidence, and, you just have to fight it out every single day and make sure that you show up and give 100% of your effort.
And I think, when you're being paid below minimum wage, like I think 75% of the, of the league was making $22,000 last year, that's hard, that's hard to come by
On May 18th, 2022, a year into Briana's professional career, something momentous happened for women's soccer. After decades of unequal pay, both the women's and men's US soccer team agreed to two collective bargaining agreements, or CBAs, which will ensure equal pay for the women's soccer team.
I'm just gonna read What I consider really the, the heart of your article, so our listeners hear exactly how you wrote it, and then I'll ask you to expand, or expound, your choice- ... on that. It says, "While the Trump administration has talked a big game about protecting women's sports by writing executive orders that bar transgender women and girls from participating in school athletics, they also severely stunted at least one avenue for Title IX enforcement when they gutted the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which is the entity responsible for investigating violations."
And, and here's the payoff, "The administration directed said department to prioritize Title IX investigations regarding transgender athletes, of which there are few, over those looking into unequal treatment of women athletes compared with men, of which there are many." ... so why don't you pick it up from, from there, and maybe talk about what's being cut in terms of, the usual form of Title IX enforcement?
Yeah, so that's a really interesting, interesting part of all of this is Title IX is a super complicated law, right? Because it's written so broadly, it has many, many different arms, many different ways to, be in compliance, many different enforcement mechanisms. And one of the big ones is, yes, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, those are the folks who typically, if there was a complaint from a student, if there was a complaint from a school that, our team is not being treated equally, our tre- our team doesn't have, the trainers that they need, our team is being given, poor practice facilities, those are the people that would typically from the federal level look into those invest- look into those, do a broad investigation, and, and then tell the school, "Okay, well, you need to get into compliance.
This is how you're going to do it. Here's a plan, XYZ, and here's how to follow it. Otherwise, you'll lose your federal funding." And to, no one wants to lose federal funding, of course, so this is a way that, we can keep Title IX going, but it requires people. It requires, the staff.
And, this was one of the huge, cuts that happened during the big DOGE layoffs, was, they decimated these offices. I believe they were reduced, by at least 50% throughout the country. and as I've been looking into this over the last couple of years, yes, even those investigations that were already ongoing, people were stopped hearing from- Wow
from the investigators. now this is, at Stephen F. Austin, they're going a different route. They're using the judicial system. s- and, but there again, we run into this, okay, there is a different administration in, in town. this is Texas as well. This is a very conservative court system.
This is a, a Trump-appointed judge. and so we do have folks who are saying, "Well, perhaps Title IX is not worth enforcing in this way," right? and so y- you're, you're in a really sticky situation all over the place when it comes to, the, the different ways that this administration and this political climate, frankly, has, started to use the term protecting women's sports, when, if you talk to any college athlete, they will tell you there are issues at every school in terms of, Title IX being not in compliance, things that they could use, marketing budgets they could have, better game times, better training, better facilities.
All of those things, are true, and yet, the avenues for, trying to get those schools into compliance are really, really shrinking under this administration.
You mentioned the Heritage Foundation briefly before, and in your article, the line after the ones I just read, says, "I- if the recent report by the Heritage Foundation, which calls Title IX a failed experiment, is an indication of where the Trump administration and the GOP are headed next, Title IX could very well be on the chopping block altogether."
So why did the Heritage Foundation, which of course gave us Project 2025, call Title IX a failed experiment? Is this just in the larger portfolio of things that they consider DEI, that they think are special rights for, allegedly persecuted, marginalized groups? Or what is that from their perspective?
I think it, it falls in line with that for sure. it is an extremely, disturbing report for anyone who cares about gender equity, or inclusion, especially in terms of, of women's sports and, and athletes. It's, essentially the argument there is that, giving women and girls these opportunities to play sports has been unnatural and has led to unnatural, women basically out in the world, and this is why we have so many issues with, gender roles right now, women not staying home, not having children.
it's basically as bad as you think. it's very, very similar to the arguments that were being made against women being allowed to do sports, at the beginning of the 20th century. It's, it's very regressive, but also very in line with, some of those things that have come out of 2025 and these executive orders from the Trump administration, saying there are only two sexes and this is immutable and this is, what a woman is and this is what a man is.
And, it's, it's, it's l- very disturbing, and I know that, for some people women's sports might not be top of mind, but I do think it's a very important political issue when we're talking about, culture and progress, on t- in terms of gender equity.
On the culture that surrounds that way of thinking- Mm
listener writes, "Did you catch how many times yesterday Senator Mike Schmidt mocked special prosecutor Jack Smith for attending a WNBA game?" And the listener adds- Mm ... "Protect women's sports indeed." Now, I did not see that part of the hearing. I was, ... focused on the parts where they were grilling Smith about prosecuting Trump, regarding January 6th.
But-
Yes ...
is that a real thing? Were you aware of it?
Yes. Well, yes, exactly. And, this is not, this is not abnormal, right? For the, for th- this administration, for the people on the right who are, who are talking about this, protect w- women's sports from, from one side of their mouth. On the other side, they are often, mocking it, right?
Or, or saying racist things or, homophobic things out of the other side of their mouths, right? and so it's a very interesting time that we're in where women's sports, on the professional level have, have made huge strides, in recent years. I started covering this 12 years ago, and it was a completely different world.
and so there's been a ton of cultural progress in, in one way but of course, Backlash is, is intense, whenever there is progress like that. And I will say, it was not that long ago that, ve- it was very mainstream to be making jokes about WNBA players, about, people who watched women's sports being pathetic, or, it was very lame, or why would we ever watch this, these kinds of things when, we have men's sports that we can watch that are much higher quality and better.
I do think a lot of that has gotten, has gotten better, but, it's clearly not out of the system. and when you have, huge foundations like The Heritage Foundation going on about how, oh, actually, women's sports is going to turn these women into, big, scary people, and that's what, we gotta get the genie back in the bottle, we are talking about something that's actually very important.
​
I think we're seeing investment off of the field, off of the court, where people are realizing that this is an opportunity, not only on the business end, but also just in that we're seeing the rise of the parity in sports themselves.
I think if you look, for example, at the NCAA tournament this year, we're seeing rising parity in the league, or across the NCAA, and that is turning into more local and national interest. and then we're also just seeing larger media properties like ESPN, seeing this as a valuable part of their, their assets, and so we're seeing more investment in making women's sports more accessible as well.
You talk about parity. There doesn't seem to be interest parity between the men's tournament and the women's tournament this year. It seems that there's a lot more excitement, a lot more interest in the women's tournament. Why do you think that is?
Some of it is just purely logistical, I think, in some ways.
it's the norm in women's basketball for players to stay for an entire four years. So, for example, if you have a really exciting freshman for example, Paige Bueckers four years ago or Caitlin Clark four years ago, they stay at those programs for their entire college career. So, you get attached to them and those jerseys.
You get, local fan bases get attached to these players. And so I think the iconography of women's college basketball has more opportunity to grow or surrounding players themselves than perhaps we see in the men's game with the more one and done structure.
S- since, 2022, the women's tournament has had, 68 teams, just like the men's tournament.
do you think that has had any effect on the quality of play?
Absolutely. I'm a big believer that more programming, raises parity throughout. I think you see this not only in college sports but also in professional sports. so I think if you give the greater opportunities, if you treat it like that premier event that it deserves to be treated as, and you give more schools an opportunity to participate in it, that encourages those schools to then invest in their programs, recruit a little bit deeper.
It encourages players to maybe, not chase certain schools and maybe stay closer to home. and so those, those greater opportunities to play on the big stage or to, to do, go to the big dance I do think makes a huge impact in seeing higher talent levels further to the fringes of the sport.
It also seems like the women's game has evolved, over the years.
You're seeing more, three-point shots. You're seeing, more physical play. you're seeing more on-court taunting, getting more like the men's, men's game used to be. do you think that's a factor too in the, in the rise of the popularity?
Absolutely. basketball is a personality driven sport.
It's one of the most personality driven sports that we have in this country. And again, once you get to know these players and they get to know each other and the women's college game is a little bit more based in traditional post play. You do see players drive to the rim. You see big blocks, maybe like a, a past era of what we saw in the men's game, and it does, it, it drives competition.
We're seeing these players be encouraged to express themselves, and this is a big deal, right? as you do see more, investment into the sport, these are high stakes, and you're seeing players respond to that as well.
You talk about more investment into the sport. in 2021, the, the picture of the, the women's, weight room at the, NCAA tournament compared to the men's weight room went viral.
the NCAA wouldn't, until then, wouldn't allow the term March Madness to be used for the women's, tournament. do you think you're gonna see colleges and schools put more money into women's programs now?
I would like to think so. as we know, college athletics is in a state of flux every year right now.
I do think NIL opportunities have changed the commercial viability of women's sports dramatically. I think a lot of that is being done outside of traditional avenues. I think we see a lot of brands investing in these players. We're seeing a reach on social media that has an impact for these players.
I would like to think that that will be followed by further in traditional investment from athletic departments, but I think there is so much in flux just with NCAA sports in general that it's a lot of wait and see. But I do think, again, when you see- are seeing the output and you're seeing the exponential growth of not only popularity, but just the quality of play, I would like to think that that's encouraging to see more traditional resources, absolutely.
We talk about the exponential growth. What do you see as the future in the next few years or even beyond for women's sports?
Oh my gosh. I think what we're seeing in terms of television numbers will only go up. I think we're seeing obviously a rising tide, I think, in sports in general, and people are really excited about new properties, and I think it's underrated just how young women's sports are in terms of traditional leagues or in that, like we said, that traditional March Madness for, for the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament is so new.
You're going to see allegiances get built, lifelong fandoms. You're going to see people respond to women's sports less like something they're being introduced to and more like something that they've always had in their lives, and I think that's just going to continue to grow up this, in this equity space versus what's been pretty overpowered by men's sports traditionally.
Pam Baker knows how powerful it is for young women to see themselves represented in leadership. That's why she founded the Women's Coaching Alliance to ensure more women have the representation as coaches as they build careers in sports.
By creating a community of women who aspire one another and inspire each other, the alliance is helping develop female leaders through youth sports coaching. Because the future of women's coaching isn't just about getting more women on the sidelines, it's about making sure that they can envision a path to the top You put first what I think is so important in sports, which is female coaches, because there is a dearth of female coaches.
Why?
What I heard from women when we would ask them, "Would you coach?" Now, these were incredibly talented women academically and athletically. Again and again, they would say, "No, no, no, I'm pretty sure I'm not qualified. I either didn't play that long, I didn't play at an elite enough level." And I think as women, we often hold ourselves to I have to have it all figured out before I'm willing to step in, and that's the paradigm that we're working to change, is we get these young women to step into coaching before they feel fully ready, provide them with lots of support, but really shift this thinking.
Our argument is that you start with courage, and confidence is on the other side.
What does that say to the little girls when they're looking at the bench full of coaches and they're all men?
There is a see it to be it factor, and we know. We hear it from them. They have their period, and that's affecting how they play, or they don't have a sports bra, or they don't have one that fits.
It's really uncomfortable when you're 11, 12, 13 years old to say that to an adult man, and it's totally different to be able to say it to a woman.
Pam, what makes somebody a great coach?
They are curious. They are interested in understanding different perspectives from different people. They are observant.
One of our big values is learning and growth, and that is really key because most of these young women haven't ever coached before, and so they're not gonna get it all right, and that's the point. They learn from the experience, and they grow from it.
In basketball, one of my favorite people in sports is involved with Women's Coaching Alliance, and that is Steve Kerr.
What was Steve's advice?
Steve focused a lot on really solidifying your values. We learned from those and thought about what was really important to him in building the culture. And it's not just the players. It's the staff, the trainers. What really struck me is the intentionality of every detail of what he does, and it's the mark of a great leader.
At the end of the day, when you consider a job well done, what is your greatest hope for this?
My greatest hope is for these young women to see what others see in them, hold up that mirror of the things that somebody else is seeing and believe it and acknowledge it, and not think it's about bragging or being full of myself, but to really live in that space of, yeah, I did do something hard.
I did do something important. I made an impact on somebody else, and that matters. It's about showing up in all of the amazingness of who you are, and you deserve to own that.
The Women's World Cup has a culture completely of its own. Obviously, Men's World Cup is, huge and, and been around longer, but the Women's World Cup has a very distinct and strong culture, its own energy. Yeah. I think just women's sports in general has a very different energy about it. And I'm gonna read this, 'cause I heard you describe the difference between men's and women's sports- Hm
as cortisol versus dopamine.
Yeah.
And I'm just gonna pause there for a moment 'cause it's just stopped me dead in my tracks. 'Cause we all talk about, like-
Uh-huh ...
why we like women's sports, and why people like it, and why, people keep coming back to it in a different way. Can you just explain in your words what you meant by that, what you mean by that?
I think if- when I go and watch a Men's Premier League game, and it's fueled, full of, it's high octane, high cortisol-driven experience, which I love, too. Mm-hmm. Don't mind that. Sometimes it can go over the edge and be quite dangerous. I think the women's game is, it's about a feeling. Nice and for everybody to enjoy and to get along.
And yes, it's, it's without the animosity. It's without that threat of danger, that sometimes can sit within the men's game because it's largely been a more exclusive, homogenized group that have attended.
Mm-hmm.
And while I think there are, we are breaking the traditions of that, I think about, the, the, the audience of the Premier League, and there's a fair amount of women that are attending.
But I think- I think it is completely different, and I think sometimes we spend so much time, I talk about it even recently, "Oh, let's just copy and paste everything." No, they're two separate- Mm ... situations. We can enjoy both of them for what they are.
Mm-hmm.
But trying to make them the same, I think destroys the experience.
Do you think women's sports fans, actively know that that's what they're showing up to? they know the difference, versus they just know this thing feels like that, so they're just gonna go there? Or they know that this other thing has felt Not even in the worst ways, but just hasn't felt that, that good or welcoming or open.
Do you think they know the difference, or they're just orienting towards something that feels good?
Well, I think, I think they do know the difference, but I also think if I'm talking about, like I did before, the World Cup, 1930, you record, that's been almost 100 years of building a culture around the game, which largely exclude, excluded women.
Mm-hmm.
Do you know what I mean? You could go back to the history of time in women's football and, and
The, the English FA banned women from playing, and the rest of the world and the governing bodies around the world followed suit. It's not appropriate for women to play.
Mm-hmm. So we were denied, one, the development of our own sport, but we were excluded from that too because you've gotta be at home and make dinner and do all of those things- Mm-hmm ... that are largely considered female. so I think it's taking a while for us to establish what that looks like, and I, and give ourself the permission to say, "Look, it's okay that it's not the same."
Yeah. So I think the early days of the women's game is let's try and replicate. Yeah. Let's try and replicate. Whereas I think now, in women's sport, there is a much greater sentiment of, "Look, let's do it the way that works for us, and, and embrace that."
Do you think there's like a defiance in that? 'Cause I agree, I think we've gone through of "Oh, okay, we'll try to do it exactly like you did," and then it's "Well, we're never gonna let you in that way."
And it's like, "Okay, we'll try to do the..." And now I feel like there's a bit of that in there. Do you see that in the fan culture of just "No, we're not, we're not doing that"?
Yeah, I do. And I think, like I said, I think it's okay for both. Mm-hmm. I think it's like- Of course,
yeah ...
an acknowledgement of it, yes.
Do I still think you go into men's games, whether it's kids, women, men go into the game, we should try and create a safe space for people to go.
Yeah.
and I think in the women's game, how we interact, how we socialize, how we enjoy the experience, it's gonna be different too. Mm-hmm. I, I, I can think of so many different examples of situations, especially here in the US, I think how you bring together people around women's sport is building a fandom that the rest of the world can follow from.
But I, I equally think that when I think about going across MLS games and you see the differences between domestic MLS games and domestic NWSL games in terms of fandom- Mm-hmm ... again, like polar opposites.
Yeah. And enough space
for both. But equally enjoyable. It's great. Yeah. Yeah, equally enjoyable.
Yeah.
It's, it's more of something that we all love,
which is sports. And I think the more we, the more we get towards "Do what works for us, and it's okay that it works over there." Mm-hmm. And instead of replicating. Drives me mad.
No, totally. I know. I'm like, well, it's... Yeah. But you're never gonna win that way anyways- Mm
of just copying, and you're never gonna be as successful as someone who did it-
Yeah ...
did it in the first, in the first place. I wanna go back to those first World Cup memories. Mm. What was the, what was the world around women's football, at that time? Maybe not when you were 10, but, getting a little bit older, having the experience of having Men's World Cups be so big.
I imagine those would, those early memories would be, like, building blocks around your future now.
In my world, it was visualizing being one of them, 'cause never had a female doing it.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
I didn't even contemplate at 10 that- One, I don't have testicles, so I was never gonna be- ... Diego Maradona.
Yeah. But the... all I looked at was obstacle and barrier 'cause I thought, he, he's the player I adore the most. I'm never, ever going to be in that world, so I'd h- I just had to aspire to it in my head. It was never anything- Mm-hmm ... that was real. Mm-hmm. It was only years later in the United States going, "Oh my goodness, women play at high level, and they sell out stadiums, and there really is an- a, a world, for women to develop."
But you also have to remember, this is in an age that social media w- didn't exist. Like-
Mm-hmm ...
I had a flip phone in 1997, and it was only allowed to do text message. the- it was, didn't have internet.
Access.
So-
Yeah ...
it was a world that just... Yeah, you didn't dream about it because it was n- it was never possible.
The road back to professional women's baseball goes back decades, with the dreams of generations of women littered along the way, and the landscape can feel a little bleak at times. As of 2026, no high school or college in the United States offers a girls baseball program. As of 2024, around 1,300 girls played high school baseball with boys on co-ed teams, but only nine women were rostered on men's baseball teams in the NCAA system, leaving thousands of players with nowhere to go.
Now, there have been ways to fill that gap: college softball, co-ed minor league baseball, international baseball tournaments, and even the growing popularity of sports-tainment baseball, like the Savannah Bananas. But the basic premise that women should have the space and ability to play professional baseball over the years without having to jump into ill-fitting hoops has proven more resistant than one might think, and even that history is a little hazy.
The WPBL states that they are the fifth professional women's baseball league to hold an inaugural season in the US, and the first since 1998, which represents the near century-old meandering road the sport has taken to a fully professional environment for women. We do know the first women's pro baseball league was founded in 1943, and even casual baseball fans know some of the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which played through 1954.
Over 600 women competed in the AAGPBL, whose founding came from the desire to keep the sport of baseball going while so many men's players were away due to World War II. Many of the women who played in the AAGPBL came from softball, quickly converting their style of play into a product that garnered over 900,000 fans in attendance over the course of the league's existence.
And some of those stories of the AAGPBL have been told, in the popular '90s film A League of Their Own. And the follow-up TV streaming series, which grew the legend of the Rockford Peaches, who won four titles along the 14 other teams that played during that time period. But the AAGPBL was created as a short-term solution to the lack of men's baseball, without ever really intending to create long-term careers on the field for women.
The return and reprioritization of men's sports after World War II resulted in wavering support for the AAGPBL, and many of those players actually decided to go back to softball. Only five teams remain at the time of the league's closure in 1954, leaving those professional opportunities wanting for women's players for years to come.
After the AAGPBL shuttered its doors, the number of other amateur, semi-pro, and short-lived professional leagues made their way through the US sports ecosystem, but they were varied, and it's difficult for everyone to exactly agree on a number.
But notable entries include the National Girls Baseball League from 1944 to 1954, which was differentiated from the AAGPBL in its continued use of a softball-style underhand pitch. There was the International Girls Baseball League, a winter league that lasted less than a season between 1952 and 1953.
And then after a gap, there was Ladies League Baseball, a startup inspired by the popular 1992 film, A League of Their Own, which played its first season in 1997, but folded only 12 games into its second season in 1998. And as far as we know, for opportunities for a just a women's league, that's about it.
While softball has continued to rise in popularity, especially at the NCAA level, women's baseball has been on the back burner ever since. Girls who shined in the most elite Little League and other amateur levels frequently had nowhere to go after they got older, with very few resources dedicated to keeping them involved in the sport at all.
That is, of course, until the WPBL's founding in 2024, when Baseball for All founder Justine Siegal and Canadian Baseball League team owner Keith Stein decided to take matters into their own hands. Through Baseball for All, Siegel had been a long time advocate for girls in baseball, rejecting the idea that baseball is just for boys and softball is for girls.
She and Stein felt the timing was right to finally put together a women's pro baseball venture, emboldened by the larger wave of support for women's sports in general since around 2020, seeing the success of the WNBA and the NWSL, and yes, the nascent Athletes Unlimited Softball League, which ironically received Major League Baseball backing in 2025.
The WPBL is a completely independent venture, with startup costs reportedly coming in between five and 30 million dollars. As the league launched its single site inaugural season with just four teams in Springfield, Illinois this summer, every team plays seven-inning games, with baseball standard overhand pitching on an MLB regulation-sized field.
Players can hit using metal, composite, or wooden bats, with three available defensive trips to the mound. Other than some of those tweaks, this is baseball the way every US fan already knows it. Standardized, same as MLB, no caveats, no changes. And the WPBL also has had the opportunity to right other issues that plagued the AAGPBL.
Like MLB at the time, that league was segregated by race, denying Black athletes the opportunities to achieve the same dreams as their white counterparts. And of course, the uniforms have changed quite a bit since 1943. But in a sports ecosystem with so few opportunities for players, who was going to make up the talent of the WPBL at such a crucial point in its history?
The league turned to an open tryout, in which over 600 players worked out in Washington, DC. 150 of those players advanced through each round to become eligible to be drafted to one of the WPBL's four ball clubs And those players came from all over. There are 60 players currently rostered in the league representing 11 different countries who have been keeping their skills sharp through a mixture of national baseball teams, since folded international leagues, amateur organizations, some NCAA baseball, and even again, the growing world of sportstainment.
And interestingly enough, 25% of the WPBL's rostered players are former Baseball For All alumni, showcasing Siegal's impact long before the first professional pitch was thrown. And the love of baseball has taken many of these players through many different cities, teams, and leagues. Take WPBL number one overall pick Kelsey Whitmore, for example, whose journey to the big leagues has taken a commitment far beyond your normal star pipeline.
Getting her start in Little League baseball, Whitmore has represented the US multiple times at the Women's Baseball World Cup, while also going on to play college softball at Cal Fullerton. Since leaving college, Whitmore has played for various co-ed teams in multiple baseball leagues, like the Sonoma Stompers of the Pacific Association, the Staten Island Ferry Hawks of the Atlantic League, and the Oakland Ballers in the Pioneer League.
She's also made a name for herself as a member of the wildly popular baseballtainment organization, the Savannah Bananas, which represents another way for top women's talent to make a living as professional baseball players. And multiple other WPBL standouts have similar stories. Mo'Ne Davis and her 70 mile per hour fastball became a household name at the 2014 Little League World Series as the first girl to both win a game and pitch a shutout.
And she's gone on to play for the barnstorming Indianapolis Clowns in the sportstainment space. Ashton Lansdell and Anai Benitez have also built personal brands playing what's known as Banana Ball. As even baseball with a goofy performative twist provides an important through line when competitive opportunities are few and far between.
You've also got stars of the international game getting a shot at stardom in Springfield, like Japanese pitcher Ayami Sato, who at the age of 36 actually consulted on the founding of the league itself before being drafted to the LA Queens. Sato has won six gold medals at the Women's Baseball World Cup, having played in the now defunct Japanese Women's Baseball League until 2019, and participating in the primarily men's Canadian Baseball League in 2025.
Every single one of these players has a story, but this opportunity is completely different, and it's working. The WPBL announced a media partnership with ESPN Select and Scripps before the season began, selling out the first night of play with scores of sold-out merch both in person and online. And with the world watching, there's pressure to get it right, while also reveling in the possibility of a robust ecosystem for professional baseball for women in the US, this time on their terms.
Like Maybelle Blair said herself, "The doors are opening up, but we gotta get our foot there and kick the heck out of that door." So in just a few weeks, the WPBL will crown an inaugural champion, and players, yes, will be looking for new opportunities again. But this time, there's the promise that they will have a baseball home every summer.
That may be starting small, but that's the promise of something new in Springfield and beyond.
That's going to be it for today.
Be sure to check out our link in bio right in the show notes for all the ways to follow us on social platforms, contact us, and support everything Best of the Left, including membership and one-time donations.
The additional sections of the show included clips from;
Chiney Today
Women's Sports Now
Front Office Sports
The Varsity
Good Game with Sarah Spain
Edge of Sports
Here We Go Again With Kal Penn
Adspeak
Burn It All Down
Torched with Molly Bloom
The Brian Lehrer Show
PBS NewsHour
A Touch More
and Just Women's Sports
Further details are in the show notes.
Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon and Erin for their production work for the show. Thanks to Ben, our Swiss Army Knife fixer behind the scenes. And thanks to those of you who already support the show by becoming a member, purchasing gift memberships, or making one-time donations.
You'll find the link to support us in the show notes along with links to join our Patreon and Discord communities for free where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on all the social media platforms as I have relaunched our social media strategy!
So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay! And this has been the Best of the Left podcast, coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft.com.
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