August 13, 2025 • 33 mins
Sarah Spain has spent nearly two decades shaping the way we talk about sports—from breaking down barriers in early sports radio to co-creating ESPN’s first all-women podcast. Now she’s back with Good Game—a first-of-its-kind, daily podcast spotlighting the stories, stats, and stars driving the explosive growth in the popularity of women’s sports. Sarah joins Laura to talk about her journey to airtime and why telling better stories isn’t just good journalism—it’s part of the game plan for growth.
00:00 Introduction and Early Aspirations
02:26 Realizing a Career in Sports Broadcasting
05:06 Breaking into the Industry
07:37 Finding Her Style and Voice
09:43 The Importance of Humor and Listening
12:29 Challenges and Evolution in Women's Sports Coverage
16:21 Community Building and Engagement
20:24 Commercialization and Brand Engagement
29:12 Closing Thoughts and Future Projects
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I talk about this a lot when I'm talking to
young people coming up in the business, particularly women, because
you always hear the old adage if you can see it,
you can be it, and that was extremely true for me.
Not because I ever felt like I couldn't do it.
It just literally didn't occur to me. I grew up
watching tons of sports, playing three Sports band and Chorus.
Always wanted to be on Saturday Night Live. That was
(00:24):
my dream, was to do comedy and be on Saturday
Night Live.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome back to court Side.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I am joined by the one and only Sarah Spain.
I mean, really, does Sarah Spane need any intro? Hoest
of good game with Sarah Spane. Sarah, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I was thinking getting ready for this, our first time
truly meeting one another. Happened to be on a bus
to a vineyard in the middle of Australia with kangaroos
hopping on the side that around the World Cup.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's a good meet cute, it really was.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
But before we get into all of that, I start
to show every time Sarah with the very simple question
of when did you fall in love with sports?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Gosh, it probably would have to be one of my
earliest memories. According to my family lore, my first word
was ball. I don't know if that's revisionist history for
the sake of a good story, but my family was
super active, and people are always shocked to find out
that my parents don't really care about watching sports. The
only sport we watched growing up was tennis. Our whole
family was really into tennis, and other than that, nary
(01:21):
a football, baseball, basketball game would be on unless my
sister or I was the one putting it on. So
I think the falling in love with playing sport came
really naturally. We were outside all the time, and my
family was always playing tennis or golf or biking or
being outside. But it wasn't until I got to sort
of choose for myself that I wanted to spend all
my time watching the nineties Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan
(01:43):
that it became about more than just playing.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
It was about like ingesting and watching it.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Too, and lifelong Chicago born, raised the whole nine.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, technically born in Cleveland, but thankfully my family got
out of there fast enough that I have no allegiance
to Cleveland teams. You would think that the Cubs would
have been the albatross, but the joy of watching them
win and going to every game and like the relief
of one hundred and.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Eight years was worth it in my opinion. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
You'd have to ask Cleveland fans how they feel about
their various heartbreaks and the Browns and everything else. But
thankfully I experienced the uniqueness of Chicago teams going up
and down. But yeah, we got there when I was
just a couple years old, so I don't remember Cleveland.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
As a Jets fan.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I can commiserate on a lifelong journey of heartbreak. But
when did Sarah Spain, young, playing having fun with it all,
recognize that, hey, this could actually be a career path
that you could pursue, not just through college but then
moving into your time and broadcast.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It was not until my mid twenties.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
And I talk about this a lot when I'm talking
to young people coming up in the business, particularly women,
because you always hear the old adage if you can
see it, you can be it, And that was extremely
true for me. Not because I ever felt like I
couldn't do it. It just literally didn't occur to me. I
grew up watching tons of sports, playing three sports, banned
in chorus, always wanting to be on Saturday Night Live.
(03:03):
That was my dream, was to do comedy and be
on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
But because I's too late. I always say that.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I always say that, I'm like, I'm never shutting the
door on it. I could be on my deathbed and
be like, there's still a chance. But I always wanted
to do that. But because I was doing three sports
and band in Coorse and everything was always at the
same time, I couldn't do all the school plays, so
I did talent show. I took every opportunity to perform
when I could, but it was sort of like us
sports is this very short window, so I'll do it
while I can, and I really love it and I'm
(03:28):
good at it, and then later in life I can
figure out if I really want to do the acting
and comedy thing. So even at Cornell, I took a
handful of classes in it, but again it was impossible
to do track and field and be pursuing that. So
right after college I actually moved to La to just see,
like fail fast.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Do I actually love it in practice or do I
just love the idea?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Of it. Took a bunch of classes, did the Second
City Conservatory, and I ended up taking a TV hosting
boot camp and I was supposed to host a fake
show during that and everyone was doing like interior design
and hgtis kind of stuff, and I was like, my
expertise is basically literature. I was an English major at courtell,
no one's going to watch a show on that. So
I hosted a fake Chicago Bears show just because it
(04:08):
was something I loved and it was a way to
practice throwing, to break and coming back. And the teacher said, oh,
you want to work in sports, and I said, no,
there's no women in sports.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It's basically Aaron Andrews.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
You have to be like a supermodel and then you
get two minutes on the sidelines. I want to be
Kenny Maine. I want to do satire. I want to
be funny. And she said, well, even if it's not
out there, it feels very natural for you. So I
took a class in TV sports reporting at UCLA Extension
and I was like, oh, duh, what have.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I been doing this whole time?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
But also, how come no one suggested it to me again?
Like a three sport athlete. Every present I asked for
was Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Everything I wanted to
do was sports related. But because there was no women.
There was one byline in Chicago in the newspaper that
was a woman, there was none of them on TV,
none of them on the radio.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I just didn't even consider it. So it was mid twenties.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, but it was right on time for you, I
guess talk about your first forays into the early days
of your career. You look back now with an eye
towards the future. What are you leaving behind and what
are you taking with you?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well, I try to again tell young people, it was
a different world sports blogs, where right alongside whatever fun
sports stuff you wanted to read about, you had to
get the wags, you had to get the smoke shows,
you had to get It was all sexualized. It was
so misogynist, it was so one sided. It was definitely
never speaking to women fans. And all the women I
saw getting their start were on these websites or doing
(05:30):
these sort of YouTube type. It was before YouTube was
like a destination, but it was still somewhere to create
like low level early entry content. And because I wasn't
a journalism major, and I wasn't doing the one man
band approach to going to a small town doing local
sports for a couple minutes and working.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
My way up.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I didn't know how to get my foot in the
door once I decided I wanted to be in sports.
So I was working at Fox Sports Net, which was
a precursor to FS one. I was working on a
nightly highlight show, watching games, writing highlights and writing the
copy for the A person would say about the highlight
every night, and started writing for free for a couple blogs,
started doing auditions, and I ended up my first big
(06:08):
kind of break was a fantasy football show and it
was recorded out of Jim Rome's studio, so it was
like these ESPN producers. It was this big studio, but
I had to wear like jerseys with like lace up tops,
and the guy was like, okay, so we need cleavage,
but like whatever you think big cleavage is like more padding.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Higher and bigger.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Because I had to be like, hey, guys, it's Sarah
with your fantasy sports news like Greg Olsen shared a
score like so antithetical to like everything I am, and
like you know me. So when I tell people this,
they you know They're like, that's not you. You want
to make people laugh, Like you kind of hate trying
to be like sexy, but it was the only way
to get a foot in the door, and it was everywhere.
It was all the women that were allowed to play
(06:49):
the game had to do that. And eventually I did
manage to get a couple looks from places, and I
ended up moving back to Chicago to cover my teams
and a job with ESPN Radio doing updates. But yeah,
what I would leap behind is that bullshit that women
had to go through, and a lot still kind of do,
although it's very different industry now, but back in the day,
(07:11):
like you could reliably talk to almost every woman who
was starting around that time and they'll tell you they
had to do the Most of my friends are guys,
and like, I'm just a guy trapped in a girl's body,
like bullshit in order to get welcomed in, and you
sort of had to reject anything that might not feel
aligned with sports, which meant anything feminine except for like cleavage.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So how do you find your style and all that
right playcating versus really staying true to yourself? How did
you find the guts and the wherewithal to say, yeah, no,
I'm going back to Chicago. This is Sarah Spain, this
is who I am, and stylistically, I'm going to keep
driving this thing regardless of how long it might take
to break through.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
The key for me has always been humor.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
To be quick and light on your feet, kind of
like I said, be one of the guys when it
comes to jokes, and then also be able to deftly
sort of reject advance or reject misogyny at every turn.
And so for me, the humor helped me get and
stay in spaces. And then when I got back to Chicago,
the first job I did was a startup website called
Mouthpiece Sports. In Chicago, a lot of the teams are
(08:13):
owned by the same people who own the TV stations
that cover sports, so there's a lot of spin. Right
if you're an anchor on one of those stations, you
know that your boss is also the one who owns
the team you're criticizing. So this website was intended to
be a spin free zone where you really got to
hear from the athletes and light and funny, and so
I took all my second city improv stuff. At one
point the Cub's pitcher Carlos Zambrano, destroyed a gatorade cooler
(08:35):
mid game with his bat, and so I did a
whole video of players talking about the gatorade cooler going
to the ir how come it was kind of always
in the wrong place at the wrong time. What are
they going to do if they're not hydrated? I interviewed
the repair man about how long you'd be out for,
like just silly stuff. I did one with Peanut Tillman,
Bear's player, who I miked up, and then I had
him throwing me passes as if I was going to
(08:57):
try to be the Bear's number one wide receiver who
at the time I was Devin Hester, who was a
return man and they were really forcing the idea that
he could be an offensive players well. And just had
Peanut make fun of me and do silly things. And
everybody else who went to that charity event for Peanut
was like, what does it mean to you to have
your teammates come out and support you at this event?
Like blah blah, you know, And I was like, no, no, no,
let's mike you up and have me run routes and
(09:17):
make fun of me for sucking and so I was
bringing a lot of that comedy stuff to it. I
was going to be prepared, I was going to know
my stuff. I was going to be funny, and I
was going to bring content that people wanted.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And it worked.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The people, especially the fans of the teams and on
the message boards, were like, Oh, we finally are getting
to know the guys. We're finally getting to know the personalities.
In some cases, the team started to do a lot
of content similar to mine after that that wasn't happening before.
So I got the message from them that they also
saw the value in it.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Talk about your studious nature, right, because above all else,
the thing that I'm just so enamored with you was like,
you know your shit. I mean, that is an art
and a skill. Where does it come from? And ultimately,
as we're in this really interesting time where we are
at the forefront of calling games your daily show, not
(10:05):
needing to rely on any of those old accouterments to
just do the job.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's funny you mentioned that because people used to ask
me all the time about like teleprompters, and I'm like,
I don't have any, not reading any of it, what
you see is what you get. I would say twofold
one is just my parents are super intellectual, interesting, curious people.
They're lawyers, so you grow up in a house of
two lawyers and you've got to defend your thesis at
every turn, not really in the stereotypical way. We didn't
(10:31):
like argue, and there wasn't a lot of it, but
they're just thoughtful people and they use logic for everything.
So for me it was always like, oh, when you
think or say something, back it up, like know what
you're talking about and do the work.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And then I think the.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Other is I always joke that I was a heptathlete
in track, which is essentially jack of all trades, master
of none. It's like a refusal to stop doing any
of them because you want to do it all. And
that's sort of my approach to life is I've always
wanted to do all the things banned chorus, field, hockey, basket,
all track, all the other stuff. So I think that
curiosity and that desire to do all the things just
(11:05):
allows me to be really kind of smart in a
lot of spaces. And I love synthesizing ideas. I love
pulling from something i've read in like a psychology book
and applying it to something I learned about coaching and
how to kind of take all the pieces of life
and put them together is I think my probably my
best skill set. Also, I think I talk a lot,
(11:27):
but I also know and yeah, I also It's funny.
When I was a kid, I was like, is there
a job where you get paid to talk? My parents
were like, no, shut up, and I'm like, found it,
got it.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
But I listen a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I listen very intently, and particularly when I'm doing stuff
like moderating panels or live events, people are always like, oh,
you're so good at this, what's the secret. I'm like, well,
in improv, you have to listen to every little detail
in order to keep the story going and whatever your
cast member just served up and created. And I feel
that way about moderating panels. It's not about waiting for
them to stop and then ask your next questions like
(11:59):
what did they say?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
How can you build on that? How can you follow up?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
That's kind of just my approach to life is like
taking it all in and then like putting it through
the spin cycle and seeing where all the things kind
of relate to each other.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
It's interesting to think of humor as input and as
much as output, and just the skill set that you
have talk about those transferable skill sets in twenty twenty five,
(12:33):
recognizing that the rules of engagement, rules of the road
over the last few decades, they have to evolve in
that the newsroom, the writer's room, wherever you are, has
to stay fresh. What are the principles that you take
with you now to your daily show and a daily capacity.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, I mean one of the things I'm working on
and trying to figure out is how to get into
the right spaces, and that is going to cause me
to have to evolve in some ways around spaces like
TikTok and how to manage to get in front of
people that don't know the show exists.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yet people who listen love it.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
We need to get more people to know it's there,
and so I'm going to start trying to figure out
how to get into more of those discoverable pages for folks.
But I think the biggest thing for me is even
though I was not a journalism major, I didn't go
get my masters, the approach for me is very journalistic.
It's how do I make sure I have the facts right?
How do I make sure I'm fair to all the
(13:22):
people I'm covering. One of the things that's hard for
me is it is a big draw to gossip and
be salacious and to try to.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Get people's attention.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
But I want to have a respect for the people
I'm covering in the stories i'm covering, that I do
it right and I do it fairly, and I really
don't like that so much of women's sports coverage, particularly
the WNBA right now, is attacks and cheap shots and
trying to spill tea on stuff that where people don't
have any information. They're literally reading a video and they're like,
I think you could tell from this that Sophie Cunningham
(13:51):
and Caitlin Clark are actually dating, and it's like, can we,
you know, focus on the sports side. So I want
to be fair and I want to be correct. And
that's one thing for our show in particular, Good Game
is the only daily show. It's the only daily podcast,
TV radio, website. The websites that cover women's sports don't
even update every day. So we want to be somewhere
that when you come and we give you the news
of the day, you know it's right.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
It takes a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
We have to make sure we're pronouncing all the names right,
we have to make sure we get all the stats right.
We have to give the context if someone breaks a record.
But this season has five more games than last season,
and the previous record was done in fewer games. Let's
acknowledge that the record is a record, and also this
previous player actually had more points per game than the
current holder, And so that context matters for us to
(14:34):
understand what we're watching now and to appreciate what came before.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So I think all of that is what comes into play.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And then, you know, having been in this business for
twenty years now, which is crazy, I've watched so many
of the societal shifts in how we see women, where
they belong, how they should present, all the other stuff,
that I recognize that one of the things that has
remained from the beginning till now that we still haven't
nailed is just giving enough information for people to care. Yes,
(15:03):
it's better now you could be mask feminine, straight, gay,
a villain, a hero. You can you can multi dimension
in ways you never could before, and that's open things up.
But the desire to only do kind of feature storytelling
or to talk about personality that's so important and let
people know why this game is important. That's what I
always say, star Stak stats and stories. We do that
in the men's game so well, and then the women's game.
(15:25):
We're like, well, here's one player and if you like her,
maybe a watch maybe, But aren't you maybe also going
to watch if I tell you this person has three
assists away from breaking a record, or this person used
to play for this team and this is their first
game back, and are they going to get booed or
is the fan base going to be happy that they're
back and give them around of a plot, Like those
little things are what makes you want to tune in
every game over and over and then start to get
(15:46):
to know enough storylines to want to keep watching.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And we've been terrible at doing that in women's sports.
We do the opening.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Day highlight and we do the championship trophy rays, and
we ignore everything in the middle, and then we ask
why people aren't showing up to watch.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It's because we're just not equipping them right.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
And so I think that realization over time of watching
and wanting to bring that mindset to how I cover things,
not just what's the news, the hot story of the day,
or how do I make this funny or silly or
you know whatever. It's structurally thinking about how to build
a show that gets people to have the information they
need to keep coming back totally.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
One of the things from the business perspective, and I
say it often is women's sports biggest barriers that it's
hard to find and hard to buy, and those things
are inextricably linked because the ancillary and shoulder programming has
not existed. You know, you talked about covering fantasy earlier,
but if you don't know who the athletes are, you
don't know the storyline.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
People not going to place money.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
If you can get people to care enough, yep, to
put skin in the game. Now we're talking about a
different level of depth of engagement, but without the storytelling,
it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I just had a pair of actors on my show
to talk about the WNBA Fantasy League they invited me
into and I just loved that spin on it that
James Rode Rodriguez and to Everett Scott, these guys I
watch in TV and movies are sitting debating, you know,
whether it's worth spending eighty nine dollars on Britney grinder
in an auction league, and so it was really fun
(17:10):
to have them on and to also think about how
even ten years ago you would have been hard pressed
to find people that wanted to come on and really
get into WNBA fantasy talk.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, and the discoverability of it.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
What stories beyond the daily stats scores do you think
we need to see more of and what's your guidance
to the marketplace to ensure that it happens.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
On good game.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
We do a lot of stuff that is the business
or the practice of sports and how it intersects with
the games and leagues we're watching. So NCAA versus House
is a super complicated thing that you think sort of
just spoils down to paying some previous athletes for not
having paid them for name, image and likeness, and then
going forward schools being able to pay student athletes. But
(17:52):
the long term effect of that could be so disastrous
to women's college sports, particularly Olympics sports, and so getting
out ahead and understanding what that looks like, understanding that
there will be a pretty prolonged fight to keep Title
nine as a law in practice, which already is not
very well complied with, but at least has a structure
(18:13):
that really serves women and girls in sport. That that's
going to be even harder to do when teams essentially
become like professional teams with a GM and a salary
cap and they start spending it all on the men
and they ignore the women, and because of roster sized
cuts that are resulting from that their attempt to get
out ahead of future lawsuits, they might just start peeling
away the number of girls and women given scholarships and
(18:34):
given opportunities, which sucks. So stories like that we like
to talk to people who are writing about the history
of women's sport and how we got to the position
we're in, because I think so much of what's frustrating
about watching the people parachuting in to talk about things
like the WNBA now is they have zero understanding that
the game has always been physical, that women are competitive,
(18:57):
that this game is not men's sports light it is
just as knockdown, drag out, And when you don't know
that and then you apply your naivete to conversations, you
do a disservice to the young fans watching and to
the players, particularly the players. The thing that stood out
to me most it was so frustrating was last year,
during Kaitlyn's rookie season, there was a former NBA player
(19:21):
who said that the current WNBA vets should take it
easy on Caitlyn so she had a good rookie season
because it'd be better for business. And I was like,
when did we leave the world of sports? Because you're
not talking about sports anymore, you're talking pro wrestling. It
was so insulting to the idea that these women have
spent just as much blood, sweat and tears and time
on their craft and you think that they would have
(19:41):
a desire to let up on an opponent.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It was maddening.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So I think we do try to give a lot
of history and context around all the different sports. Another
thing we did at the beginning of this year was
a series of one oh one shows introducing all the
new leagues that were coming out this year, Unrivaled Athletes,
Unlimited off women's elite rugby, so that you could get
to know in advance, how can I watch this, who
(20:06):
are some of the people playing, what are the rules
going to be, what are the stakes to this? How
long is the season, what does the playoffs look like?
Because again, there's such a head start for men's professional
sports that have been around centuries, right, and you've got
this built in knowledge that we need to just catch
people up on women's sports existing now and the ones
that are coming up.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Let's talk about the commercialization because obviously so many brands
interested in and around the space, those that have already engaged,
those that are raising their hand curious to engage. One
of the things I constantly caution brands about is this
is a very unforgiving audience, and largely because they've had
to build it on their backs, and so they expect
you to come correct and they expect you to be
(20:44):
able to show up in a way that is certainly
not logo slapping and sponsor badging and all this sort
of thing, but really the proper value exchange not just
for your business and bottom line, but also to grow
the game. And it presents a really unique opportunity. As
someone who's engaging with brands both in your show and
is obviously working in and around it. What's inspired you
and where do you think there's room for improvement.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
I've been really inspired by brands being more thoughtful about
how to empower the women in their ads and use
them in a way that makes them feel and look
like we see them as fans, whether that's male or female.
There's a certain kind of magic, in my opinion, to
watching these fully embodied women take on something that isn't
(21:27):
about what they look like, and they can look beautiful
doing it, but that's not what we're doing. We're doing
points and scores and bottom lines and somebody wins at
the end.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
For such a long time, it was.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
About your little girl all grown up, this infantilization where
they had to be perfect role models that fit into
this idea of what you would want your daughter to
grow up to be.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It was so limiting.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
So I love that brands are letting people be multi dimensional,
including queer, including mask presenting all these different things that
feel much more authentic to the space. Also, I love
that the brands that are getting in because we had
a transition period where we allowed for that multi dimensionality,
can now be back to serving a lot of the
audience without it feeling like we're going to take away
(22:11):
the credibility of sports. In the beginning, when I first
worked at espnW, we had this espnW summit, the very
first one. There was a big New York Times story
about it. And how it was gathering these leaders who
were trying to push forward women's sport, and they were
training with Navy seals and they were doing all this
stuff and then they got their nails done. And guess
what the nails part is what stood out and that's
(22:31):
what got aggregated, and that's what everyone made fun of. Was,
Oh wow, a sports conference where they got their nails
done sounds pretty serious, right. That doesn't happen anymore because
we were allowed to have this period of accepting that
you could be competitive and badass and super super great
at what you did and also want to get your
nails done and also have your makeup on during a game.
(22:51):
And so these brands coming in which are so obvious
for me. When I see a WNBA player play a
full two hours with a face and makeup and it
doesn't move, there's your ad for me, especially now when
everything feels completely artificial.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I don't buy an.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Influencer showing me a before and after. That's just AI
or photoshop at this point. But watching a live game
and seeing a player whose hair or face or lashes
or whatever are holding strong while they sweat through it,
I'm buying that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I mean I'm just trying to be Djna Carrington commuting
to the city, let alone playing a full light basketball.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Just I start walking, my body's like, oh, we're going
to exercise, let me start pouring sweat. I'm like, no, okay,
but yeah, those brands coming in that previously I think
didn't see women's sports as a space for them. And
then I think the other main thing is the data.
You're doing it Sports Innovation Lab, Wasserman. There are all
these places that are finally giving the cold hard facts
(23:46):
to people making decisions.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
So it's not a subjective, charitable decision.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's saying, here's a brand affinity that has grown because
of your affiliation. Here's how women athletes are more likely
to sell product to people than influencers or other folks.
And so that's the biggest difference, right, But your point
is completely right. If you parachute in, you drop something
and try to leave and hope it works without understanding
the space or your audience, without being deeply embedded in it,
(24:11):
it's not going to work. And so if you put
the work in and you do it right, you will
be really, really rewarded for it. And it's been fun
to see which brands are doing that and figuring that out.
I will say that the skims add with the WNBA players.
I don't know how, but they took something that back
in the day would have been shot through the mail
gaze and made me uncomfortable and instead shot it in
(24:32):
a way that felt so empowering and strong on.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
The athletes owned it. Yeah, you could feel the confidence
zooting through going back to the cold heart facts and
making the business case. At the Candline Festival, we had
a company called Genius Sports that does a lot of
first party, third party data for advertisers in terms of
being able to reach and monetize on sports audiences and
now including women's sports audiences. And one of the case
(24:59):
studies that they we're talking about is when CarMax includes
WNBA athletes in their ads, they're delivering one hundred and
eighty five percent more engagement than the average WNBA advertiser
who does not. I don't know what other statistic number
you need to make that business case. You know, you
(25:30):
have the only daily show that's out there right now.
Are there anecdotes or data points that you can provide
of things you've seen over the past year that are
both surprised you, but also validate the decision to go
full throttle at this on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Well, I think the biggest thing for me has just
been how quickly the community formed. And when we were
idating the show, like one of the first things I
said was, I want to create a community.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I don't want people to just listen.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I want them to be thinking of this show as
part of their identity. And unfortunately, the very biggest men's
podcasts and shows oftentimes do that in a toxic way. Right,
I'm not going to name any names, but I didn't
want to ignore the power of creating community because it's
so often toxic. I wanted to try to harness that
(26:20):
but bring it in a way that, especially for women's
sports bands where they sometimes feel like they don't have
that friend they can call up and talk WNBA or
and WSL with that, they could do it here. And
so very early on, like the first or second show,
I was like, what do y'all want to be called?
You're going to have a name, You're going to be something,
You're going to be able to not say, oh I
listened to that, but no, I'm a slice At the
end of every game, you a good game. Good game,
(26:42):
you get your orange slices. So our listeners are slices.
And that community came together so fast they were calling
for merch. I've been on shows that are on for
years and no one's asking me for merch. And this one,
it was like a month and you really dropped the merch.
I saw it in Tampa. I want to say, within
a couple of days it's time as you.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Could order it and it got shipped to you. People
were wearing it to the Final four and they were
rocking it.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah. So I think that's the biggest thing that stands
out to me is how hungry people were for this
and how much they've instantly come together. The other example
is there's a pre professional women's soccer team in Minneapolis,
the Minnesota Aurora FC, and I love what the Aurora
have done and everything they stand for. So when their
founder reached out, I was like, instead of just me
(27:25):
getting involved, let's see if the slices want to be,
you know, putting their skin in the game too. And
so there was a capital raise and in the two
weeks that we announced that you should get involved and
buy a slice. To the end, it went up over
two hundred thousand dollars. It wasn't just our listeners, but
it was two hundred thousand dollars in two weeks, with
slices from all over putting their money in.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
And so I think that's it.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
It's just the buy in, the care, the emails that
we get from people in their eighties who have said
I've been waiting my whole life for this, to people
who listen with their kids in the car, and I
have to apologize to them because we do have some swears.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Just a sidebar.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
I've been meaning to tell you this story, and I
was waiting for this show to tell you. I was
at my niece who's four years old, co ed rec
soccer game, and they lined up, you know, at the
end of the game and the whole good game, and
here's four year old kids. They're slapping five, they're hugging,
like the joy of the game.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yeah, And I just.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Thought of you, and like I could get emotional thinking
about the power of what sport does. And I often
tell people like, sport is not the output, it's the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
It's the vehicle to.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
All of these human interest stories, emotions, connections, things we
navigate as people and the community you're talking about. I
imagine for you comes with a great sense of responsibility
to have to super serve yes, of course, but show
up as your authentic self every day and the fine line.
I'm sure sometimes that can play.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I actually love it though, because I was not my
whole self for so much of my career.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Here I can talk about. You know, early on I.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Had embedded a bunch of Taylor Swift easter eggs throughout
the show, and the person figured out the mystery like
won a prize. So like bringing my whole self and
talking about things that are sort of more stereotypically if
eminine while also being the sporty, spice version of myself
has been really cool.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
I love that. And just to close this out, because
I'd be remiss not to highlight one of your most
recent projects that is off the mic. You've co written
a new book called Runs in the Family, an incredible
true story of football, fatherhood and belonging. I'd love for
you to just quickly give our listeners overview on and
sort of the catalyst for getting involved in this project.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
As I said on my show, I know I mostly
cover women's sports now and I wrote about a man.
So I'm sorry for that, but it is an incredible story.
I wrote about him for ESPN a handful of years ago.
We did an E sixty feature and a long form
piece and it went super viral. It's just an incredible story.
This Skydlan mccull is, now the running backs coach for
the Las Vegas Raiders. Previously was at USC Notre Dame.
(29:53):
The Chiefs won a Super Bowl there and he was adopted.
Grew up in Youngstown post steel mill claps, so had
a really rough child hood where his adoptive father also
left his mom dated some unsavory dudes. Football kind of
got him out of there, and he goes on this
journey of trying to make it as a player and
then after an injury, getting into coaching, has four sons,
never knows anything about his background, and in his forties
(30:14):
he's able to get his birth certificate, finds his mom
and discovers that his birth dad has actually been in
his life for almost thirty years, but neither of them
know that they're related.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
It's this unbelievable story.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
You would never think it was true when I tell
the story, and I forget to say that it's a
true story. People don't react and then I go, oh,
it's a true story, and they're like what, I think,
it's like fiction. And a lot of the book I
wove in a lot of psychology and science. I want
you to read the book and hear his story, and
I also want you to read the book and see
your own self and your own family and understand that
(30:46):
what we get through nature and nurture, some of it
is irrefutable. You can't turn away from your blood and
your DNA, but a lot of it is a choice
to carry on or say it ends with you. Whether
that's generational trauma, whether that's family systems, messaging that doesn't
serve you or your children or the rest of your family.
You can even heal backwards. You can even go to
family members that came before you and tell them this
(31:08):
isn't helping us, this isn't serving us. We need to
reassess how we're approaching things. And that's everything from messaging
that his adoptive mom get that you don't talk about things.
If you just bury it, the painal go away, which
obviously doesn't work. And so for him to unearth a
lot of difficulty in his family by going searching for
his birth parents, but also him choosing to be a
(31:29):
healer that wants to help generations before and after him
change the way they do things. I think so many
people can get something out of it beyond just the
big crazy twist.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Was there anything you got out of it that you
were surprised by?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I think probably the last decade ever since I really
got more into psychology and neuroplasticity and the way our
brains work and why people have certain pathologies and are
the way they are, I've just been more and more
indebted to my parents, who I think did the best job,
and I'm like marveling all the time at how they
didn't screw me up. I've got plenty of issues done
to them are from my parents. I think I've been
(32:05):
even more effusive in my praise of them from interacting
with and reading so much about folks who have had
a lot of struggles that they have to overcome. I
just really realize that I have a tremendous amount of
privilege in terms of both mental health and in terms
of my background, that I have not had to overcome
barriers put in my way by other people or by
the choices of other people, and it's really helped me
(32:27):
be so much more understanding and empathetic to people who
do struggle with stuff. I think I used to pat
myself on the back a lot, and now I realize
a lot of it was not my doing. Yes, I've
worked hard and tried to make good choices, but so
much of it was just having this great path set
for me. And so I'm much more empathetic and patient
and want to hear the stories of people who have
(32:47):
struggles so that I can be a better person in
that room, advocating for them or understanding them.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
So powerful.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Well, I am so grateful that you are the host
of Good Game with Sarah Spain, and that you are
the first and leading the way. I think there's so
much so many can learn, not just about what you're
sharing on the MIC, but your journey to it and
what you're doing to move it forward.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Thank you so much for opening up this opportunity for me.
It's been so rewarding.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I'm your host, Laura Crenti, founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz,
and this show is produced by Ryan Martz along with
associate producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman. Court Side is
an Iheartwomen's sports production and partnership with Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(33:33):
wherever you get your podcasts. Want more, follow, rate, and
review court Side wherever you get your podcasts, and stay
in the game by following us on social media at
iHeart Women's Sports. And don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter.
In the show notes, thanks for listening. We'll see you
next time. Court Side
I talk about this a lot when I'm talking to
young people coming up in the business, particularly women, because
you always hear the old adage if you can see it,
you can be it, and that was extremely true for me.
Not because I ever felt like I couldn't do it.
It just literally didn't occur to me. I grew up
watching tons of sports, playing three Sports band and Chorus.
Always wanted to be on Saturday Night Live. That was
(00:24):
my dream, was to do comedy and be on Saturday
Night Live.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome back to court Side.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I am joined by the one and only Sarah Spain.
I mean, really, does Sarah Spane need any intro? Hoest
of good game with Sarah Spane. Sarah, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I was thinking getting ready for this, our first time
truly meeting one another. Happened to be on a bus
to a vineyard in the middle of Australia with kangaroos
hopping on the side that around the World Cup.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's a good meet cute, it really was.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
But before we get into all of that, I start
to show every time Sarah with the very simple question
of when did you fall in love with sports?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Gosh, it probably would have to be one of my
earliest memories. According to my family lore, my first word
was ball. I don't know if that's revisionist history for
the sake of a good story, but my family was
super active, and people are always shocked to find out
that my parents don't really care about watching sports. The
only sport we watched growing up was tennis. Our whole
family was really into tennis, and other than that, nary
(01:21):
a football, baseball, basketball game would be on unless my
sister or I was the one putting it on. So
I think the falling in love with playing sport came
really naturally. We were outside all the time, and my
family was always playing tennis or golf or biking or
being outside. But it wasn't until I got to sort
of choose for myself that I wanted to spend all
my time watching the nineties Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan
(01:43):
that it became about more than just playing.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
It was about like ingesting and watching it.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Too, and lifelong Chicago born, raised the whole nine.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, technically born in Cleveland, but thankfully my family got
out of there fast enough that I have no allegiance
to Cleveland teams. You would think that the Cubs would
have been the albatross, but the joy of watching them
win and going to every game and like the relief
of one hundred and.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Eight years was worth it in my opinion. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
You'd have to ask Cleveland fans how they feel about
their various heartbreaks and the Browns and everything else. But
thankfully I experienced the uniqueness of Chicago teams going up
and down. But yeah, we got there when I was
just a couple years old, so I don't remember Cleveland.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
As a Jets fan.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I can commiserate on a lifelong journey of heartbreak. But
when did Sarah Spain, young, playing having fun with it all,
recognize that, hey, this could actually be a career path
that you could pursue, not just through college but then
moving into your time and broadcast.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It was not until my mid twenties.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
And I talk about this a lot when I'm talking
to young people coming up in the business, particularly women,
because you always hear the old adage if you can
see it, you can be it, And that was extremely
true for me. Not because I ever felt like I
couldn't do it. It just literally didn't occur to me. I
grew up watching tons of sports, playing three sports, banned
in chorus, always wanting to be on Saturday Night Live.
(03:03):
That was my dream, was to do comedy and be
on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
But because I's too late. I always say that.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I always say that, I'm like, I'm never shutting the
door on it. I could be on my deathbed and
be like, there's still a chance. But I always wanted
to do that. But because I was doing three sports
and band in Coorse and everything was always at the
same time, I couldn't do all the school plays, so
I did talent show. I took every opportunity to perform
when I could, but it was sort of like us
sports is this very short window, so I'll do it
while I can, and I really love it and I'm
(03:28):
good at it, and then later in life I can
figure out if I really want to do the acting
and comedy thing. So even at Cornell, I took a
handful of classes in it, but again it was impossible
to do track and field and be pursuing that. So
right after college I actually moved to La to just see,
like fail fast.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Do I actually love it in practice or do I
just love the idea?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Of it. Took a bunch of classes, did the Second
City Conservatory, and I ended up taking a TV hosting
boot camp and I was supposed to host a fake
show during that and everyone was doing like interior design
and hgtis kind of stuff, and I was like, my
expertise is basically literature. I was an English major at courtell,
no one's going to watch a show on that. So
I hosted a fake Chicago Bears show just because it
(04:08):
was something I loved and it was a way to
practice throwing, to break and coming back. And the teacher said, oh,
you want to work in sports, and I said, no,
there's no women in sports.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It's basically Aaron Andrews.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
You have to be like a supermodel and then you
get two minutes on the sidelines. I want to be
Kenny Maine. I want to do satire. I want to
be funny. And she said, well, even if it's not
out there, it feels very natural for you. So I
took a class in TV sports reporting at UCLA Extension
and I was like, oh, duh, what have.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I been doing this whole time?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
But also, how come no one suggested it to me again?
Like a three sport athlete. Every present I asked for
was Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Everything I wanted to
do was sports related. But because there was no women.
There was one byline in Chicago in the newspaper that
was a woman, there was none of them on TV,
none of them on the radio.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I just didn't even consider it. So it was mid twenties.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, but it was right on time for you, I
guess talk about your first forays into the early days
of your career. You look back now with an eye
towards the future. What are you leaving behind and what
are you taking with you?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well, I try to again tell young people, it was
a different world sports blogs, where right alongside whatever fun
sports stuff you wanted to read about, you had to
get the wags, you had to get the smoke shows,
you had to get It was all sexualized. It was
so misogynist, it was so one sided. It was definitely
never speaking to women fans. And all the women I
saw getting their start were on these websites or doing
(05:30):
these sort of YouTube type. It was before YouTube was
like a destination, but it was still somewhere to create
like low level early entry content. And because I wasn't
a journalism major, and I wasn't doing the one man
band approach to going to a small town doing local
sports for a couple minutes and working.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
My way up.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I didn't know how to get my foot in the
door once I decided I wanted to be in sports.
So I was working at Fox Sports Net, which was
a precursor to FS one. I was working on a
nightly highlight show, watching games, writing highlights and writing the
copy for the A person would say about the highlight
every night, and started writing for free for a couple blogs,
started doing auditions, and I ended up my first big
(06:08):
kind of break was a fantasy football show and it
was recorded out of Jim Rome's studio, so it was
like these ESPN producers. It was this big studio, but
I had to wear like jerseys with like lace up tops,
and the guy was like, okay, so we need cleavage,
but like whatever you think big cleavage is like more padding.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Higher and bigger.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Because I had to be like, hey, guys, it's Sarah
with your fantasy sports news like Greg Olsen shared a
score like so antithetical to like everything I am, and
like you know me. So when I tell people this,
they you know They're like, that's not you. You want
to make people laugh, Like you kind of hate trying
to be like sexy, but it was the only way
to get a foot in the door, and it was everywhere.
It was all the women that were allowed to play
(06:49):
the game had to do that. And eventually I did
manage to get a couple looks from places, and I
ended up moving back to Chicago to cover my teams
and a job with ESPN Radio doing updates. But yeah,
what I would leap behind is that bullshit that women
had to go through, and a lot still kind of do,
although it's very different industry now, but back in the day,
(07:11):
like you could reliably talk to almost every woman who
was starting around that time and they'll tell you they
had to do the Most of my friends are guys,
and like, I'm just a guy trapped in a girl's body,
like bullshit in order to get welcomed in, and you
sort of had to reject anything that might not feel
aligned with sports, which meant anything feminine except for like cleavage.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So how do you find your style and all that
right playcating versus really staying true to yourself? How did
you find the guts and the wherewithal to say, yeah, no,
I'm going back to Chicago. This is Sarah Spain, this
is who I am, and stylistically, I'm going to keep
driving this thing regardless of how long it might take
to break through.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
The key for me has always been humor.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
To be quick and light on your feet, kind of
like I said, be one of the guys when it
comes to jokes, and then also be able to deftly
sort of reject advance or reject misogyny at every turn.
And so for me, the humor helped me get and
stay in spaces. And then when I got back to Chicago,
the first job I did was a startup website called
Mouthpiece Sports. In Chicago, a lot of the teams are
(08:13):
owned by the same people who own the TV stations
that cover sports, so there's a lot of spin. Right
if you're an anchor on one of those stations, you
know that your boss is also the one who owns
the team you're criticizing. So this website was intended to
be a spin free zone where you really got to
hear from the athletes and light and funny, and so
I took all my second city improv stuff. At one
point the Cub's pitcher Carlos Zambrano, destroyed a gatorade cooler
(08:35):
mid game with his bat, and so I did a
whole video of players talking about the gatorade cooler going
to the ir how come it was kind of always
in the wrong place at the wrong time. What are
they going to do if they're not hydrated? I interviewed
the repair man about how long you'd be out for,
like just silly stuff. I did one with Peanut Tillman,
Bear's player, who I miked up, and then I had
him throwing me passes as if I was going to
(08:57):
try to be the Bear's number one wide receiver who
at the time I was Devin Hester, who was a
return man and they were really forcing the idea that
he could be an offensive players well. And just had
Peanut make fun of me and do silly things. And
everybody else who went to that charity event for Peanut
was like, what does it mean to you to have
your teammates come out and support you at this event?
Like blah blah, you know, And I was like, no, no, no,
let's mike you up and have me run routes and
(09:17):
make fun of me for sucking and so I was
bringing a lot of that comedy stuff to it. I
was going to be prepared, I was going to know
my stuff. I was going to be funny, and I
was going to bring content that people wanted.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And it worked.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The people, especially the fans of the teams and on
the message boards, were like, Oh, we finally are getting
to know the guys. We're finally getting to know the personalities.
In some cases, the team started to do a lot
of content similar to mine after that that wasn't happening before.
So I got the message from them that they also
saw the value in it.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Talk about your studious nature, right, because above all else,
the thing that I'm just so enamored with you was like,
you know your shit. I mean, that is an art
and a skill. Where does it come from? And ultimately,
as we're in this really interesting time where we are
at the forefront of calling games your daily show, not
(10:05):
needing to rely on any of those old accouterments to
just do the job.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's funny you mentioned that because people used to ask
me all the time about like teleprompters, and I'm like,
I don't have any, not reading any of it, what
you see is what you get. I would say twofold
one is just my parents are super intellectual, interesting, curious people.
They're lawyers, so you grow up in a house of
two lawyers and you've got to defend your thesis at
every turn, not really in the stereotypical way. We didn't
(10:31):
like argue, and there wasn't a lot of it, but
they're just thoughtful people and they use logic for everything.
So for me it was always like, oh, when you
think or say something, back it up, like know what
you're talking about and do the work.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And then I think the.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Other is I always joke that I was a heptathlete
in track, which is essentially jack of all trades, master
of none. It's like a refusal to stop doing any
of them because you want to do it all. And
that's sort of my approach to life is I've always
wanted to do all the things banned chorus, field, hockey, basket,
all track, all the other stuff. So I think that
curiosity and that desire to do all the things just
(11:05):
allows me to be really kind of smart in a
lot of spaces. And I love synthesizing ideas. I love
pulling from something i've read in like a psychology book
and applying it to something I learned about coaching and
how to kind of take all the pieces of life
and put them together is I think my probably my
best skill set. Also, I think I talk a lot,
(11:27):
but I also know and yeah, I also It's funny.
When I was a kid, I was like, is there
a job where you get paid to talk? My parents
were like, no, shut up, and I'm like, found it,
got it.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
But I listen a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I listen very intently, and particularly when I'm doing stuff
like moderating panels or live events, people are always like, oh,
you're so good at this, what's the secret. I'm like, well,
in improv, you have to listen to every little detail
in order to keep the story going and whatever your
cast member just served up and created. And I feel
that way about moderating panels. It's not about waiting for
them to stop and then ask your next questions like
(11:59):
what did they say?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
How can you build on that? How can you follow up?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
That's kind of just my approach to life is like
taking it all in and then like putting it through
the spin cycle and seeing where all the things kind
of relate to each other.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
It's interesting to think of humor as input and as
much as output, and just the skill set that you
have talk about those transferable skill sets in twenty twenty five,
(12:33):
recognizing that the rules of engagement, rules of the road
over the last few decades, they have to evolve in
that the newsroom, the writer's room, wherever you are, has
to stay fresh. What are the principles that you take
with you now to your daily show and a daily capacity.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, I mean one of the things I'm working on
and trying to figure out is how to get into
the right spaces, and that is going to cause me
to have to evolve in some ways around spaces like
TikTok and how to manage to get in front of
people that don't know the show exists.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yet people who listen love it.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
We need to get more people to know it's there,
and so I'm going to start trying to figure out
how to get into more of those discoverable pages for folks.
But I think the biggest thing for me is even
though I was not a journalism major, I didn't go
get my masters, the approach for me is very journalistic.
It's how do I make sure I have the facts right?
How do I make sure I'm fair to all the
(13:22):
people I'm covering. One of the things that's hard for
me is it is a big draw to gossip and
be salacious and to try to.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Get people's attention.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
But I want to have a respect for the people
I'm covering in the stories i'm covering, that I do
it right and I do it fairly, and I really
don't like that so much of women's sports coverage, particularly
the WNBA right now, is attacks and cheap shots and
trying to spill tea on stuff that where people don't
have any information. They're literally reading a video and they're like,
I think you could tell from this that Sophie Cunningham
(13:51):
and Caitlin Clark are actually dating, and it's like, can we,
you know, focus on the sports side. So I want
to be fair and I want to be correct. And
that's one thing for our show in particular, Good Game
is the only daily show. It's the only daily podcast,
TV radio, website. The websites that cover women's sports don't
even update every day. So we want to be somewhere
that when you come and we give you the news
of the day, you know it's right.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
It takes a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
We have to make sure we're pronouncing all the names right,
we have to make sure we get all the stats right.
We have to give the context if someone breaks a record.
But this season has five more games than last season,
and the previous record was done in fewer games. Let's
acknowledge that the record is a record, and also this
previous player actually had more points per game than the
current holder, And so that context matters for us to
(14:34):
understand what we're watching now and to appreciate what came before.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So I think all of that is what comes into play.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And then, you know, having been in this business for
twenty years now, which is crazy, I've watched so many
of the societal shifts in how we see women, where
they belong, how they should present, all the other stuff,
that I recognize that one of the things that has
remained from the beginning till now that we still haven't
nailed is just giving enough information for people to care. Yes,
(15:03):
it's better now you could be mask feminine, straight, gay,
a villain, a hero. You can you can multi dimension
in ways you never could before, and that's open things up.
But the desire to only do kind of feature storytelling
or to talk about personality that's so important and let
people know why this game is important. That's what I
always say, star Stak stats and stories. We do that
in the men's game so well, and then the women's game.
(15:25):
We're like, well, here's one player and if you like her,
maybe a watch maybe, But aren't you maybe also going
to watch if I tell you this person has three
assists away from breaking a record, or this person used
to play for this team and this is their first
game back, and are they going to get booed or
is the fan base going to be happy that they're
back and give them around of a plot, Like those
little things are what makes you want to tune in
every game over and over and then start to get
(15:46):
to know enough storylines to want to keep watching.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And we've been terrible at doing that in women's sports.
We do the opening.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Day highlight and we do the championship trophy rays, and
we ignore everything in the middle, and then we ask
why people aren't showing up to watch.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It's because we're just not equipping them right.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
And so I think that realization over time of watching
and wanting to bring that mindset to how I cover things,
not just what's the news, the hot story of the day,
or how do I make this funny or silly or
you know whatever. It's structurally thinking about how to build
a show that gets people to have the information they
need to keep coming back totally.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
One of the things from the business perspective, and I
say it often is women's sports biggest barriers that it's
hard to find and hard to buy, and those things
are inextricably linked because the ancillary and shoulder programming has
not existed. You know, you talked about covering fantasy earlier,
but if you don't know who the athletes are, you
don't know the storyline.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
People not going to place money.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
If you can get people to care enough, yep, to
put skin in the game. Now we're talking about a
different level of depth of engagement, but without the storytelling,
it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I just had a pair of actors on my show
to talk about the WNBA Fantasy League they invited me
into and I just loved that spin on it that
James Rode Rodriguez and to Everett Scott, these guys I
watch in TV and movies are sitting debating, you know,
whether it's worth spending eighty nine dollars on Britney grinder
in an auction league, and so it was really fun
(17:10):
to have them on and to also think about how
even ten years ago you would have been hard pressed
to find people that wanted to come on and really
get into WNBA fantasy talk.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, and the discoverability of it.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
What stories beyond the daily stats scores do you think
we need to see more of and what's your guidance
to the marketplace to ensure that it happens.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
On good game.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
We do a lot of stuff that is the business
or the practice of sports and how it intersects with
the games and leagues we're watching. So NCAA versus House
is a super complicated thing that you think sort of
just spoils down to paying some previous athletes for not
having paid them for name, image and likeness, and then
going forward schools being able to pay student athletes. But
(17:52):
the long term effect of that could be so disastrous
to women's college sports, particularly Olympics sports, and so getting
out ahead and understanding what that looks like, understanding that
there will be a pretty prolonged fight to keep Title
nine as a law in practice, which already is not
very well complied with, but at least has a structure
(18:13):
that really serves women and girls in sport. That that's
going to be even harder to do when teams essentially
become like professional teams with a GM and a salary
cap and they start spending it all on the men
and they ignore the women, and because of roster sized
cuts that are resulting from that their attempt to get
out ahead of future lawsuits, they might just start peeling
away the number of girls and women given scholarships and
(18:34):
given opportunities, which sucks. So stories like that we like
to talk to people who are writing about the history
of women's sport and how we got to the position
we're in, because I think so much of what's frustrating
about watching the people parachuting in to talk about things
like the WNBA now is they have zero understanding that
the game has always been physical, that women are competitive,
(18:57):
that this game is not men's sports light it is
just as knockdown, drag out, And when you don't know
that and then you apply your naivete to conversations, you
do a disservice to the young fans watching and to
the players, particularly the players. The thing that stood out
to me most it was so frustrating was last year,
during Kaitlyn's rookie season, there was a former NBA player
(19:21):
who said that the current WNBA vets should take it
easy on Caitlyn so she had a good rookie season
because it'd be better for business. And I was like,
when did we leave the world of sports? Because you're
not talking about sports anymore, you're talking pro wrestling. It
was so insulting to the idea that these women have
spent just as much blood, sweat and tears and time
on their craft and you think that they would have
(19:41):
a desire to let up on an opponent.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It was maddening.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So I think we do try to give a lot
of history and context around all the different sports. Another
thing we did at the beginning of this year was
a series of one oh one shows introducing all the
new leagues that were coming out this year, Unrivaled Athletes,
Unlimited off women's elite rugby, so that you could get
to know in advance, how can I watch this, who
(20:06):
are some of the people playing, what are the rules
going to be, what are the stakes to this? How
long is the season, what does the playoffs look like?
Because again, there's such a head start for men's professional
sports that have been around centuries, right, and you've got
this built in knowledge that we need to just catch
people up on women's sports existing now and the ones
that are coming up.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Let's talk about the commercialization because obviously so many brands
interested in and around the space, those that have already engaged,
those that are raising their hand curious to engage. One
of the things I constantly caution brands about is this
is a very unforgiving audience, and largely because they've had
to build it on their backs, and so they expect
you to come correct and they expect you to be
(20:44):
able to show up in a way that is certainly
not logo slapping and sponsor badging and all this sort
of thing, but really the proper value exchange not just
for your business and bottom line, but also to grow
the game. And it presents a really unique opportunity. As
someone who's engaging with brands both in your show and
is obviously working in and around it. What's inspired you
and where do you think there's room for improvement.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
I've been really inspired by brands being more thoughtful about
how to empower the women in their ads and use
them in a way that makes them feel and look
like we see them as fans, whether that's male or female.
There's a certain kind of magic, in my opinion, to
watching these fully embodied women take on something that isn't
(21:27):
about what they look like, and they can look beautiful
doing it, but that's not what we're doing. We're doing
points and scores and bottom lines and somebody wins at
the end.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
For such a long time, it was.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
About your little girl all grown up, this infantilization where
they had to be perfect role models that fit into
this idea of what you would want your daughter to
grow up to be.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It was so limiting.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
So I love that brands are letting people be multi dimensional,
including queer, including mask presenting all these different things that
feel much more authentic to the space. Also, I love
that the brands that are getting in because we had
a transition period where we allowed for that multi dimensionality,
can now be back to serving a lot of the
audience without it feeling like we're going to take away
(22:11):
the credibility of sports. In the beginning, when I first
worked at espnW, we had this espnW summit, the very
first one. There was a big New York Times story
about it. And how it was gathering these leaders who
were trying to push forward women's sport, and they were
training with Navy seals and they were doing all this
stuff and then they got their nails done. And guess
what the nails part is what stood out and that's
(22:31):
what got aggregated, and that's what everyone made fun of. Was,
Oh wow, a sports conference where they got their nails
done sounds pretty serious, right. That doesn't happen anymore because
we were allowed to have this period of accepting that
you could be competitive and badass and super super great
at what you did and also want to get your
nails done and also have your makeup on during a game.
(22:51):
And so these brands coming in which are so obvious
for me. When I see a WNBA player play a
full two hours with a face and makeup and it
doesn't move, there's your ad for me, especially now when
everything feels completely artificial.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I don't buy an.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Influencer showing me a before and after. That's just AI
or photoshop at this point. But watching a live game
and seeing a player whose hair or face or lashes
or whatever are holding strong while they sweat through it,
I'm buying that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I mean I'm just trying to be Djna Carrington commuting
to the city, let alone playing a full light basketball.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Just I start walking, my body's like, oh, we're going
to exercise, let me start pouring sweat. I'm like, no, okay,
but yeah, those brands coming in that previously I think
didn't see women's sports as a space for them. And
then I think the other main thing is the data.
You're doing it Sports Innovation Lab, Wasserman. There are all
these places that are finally giving the cold hard facts
(23:46):
to people making decisions.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
So it's not a subjective, charitable decision.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's saying, here's a brand affinity that has grown because
of your affiliation. Here's how women athletes are more likely
to sell product to people than influencers or other folks.
And so that's the biggest difference, right, But your point
is completely right. If you parachute in, you drop something
and try to leave and hope it works without understanding
the space or your audience, without being deeply embedded in it,
(24:11):
it's not going to work. And so if you put
the work in and you do it right, you will
be really, really rewarded for it. And it's been fun
to see which brands are doing that and figuring that out.
I will say that the skims add with the WNBA players.
I don't know how, but they took something that back
in the day would have been shot through the mail
gaze and made me uncomfortable and instead shot it in
(24:32):
a way that felt so empowering and strong on.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
The athletes owned it. Yeah, you could feel the confidence
zooting through going back to the cold heart facts and
making the business case. At the Candline Festival, we had
a company called Genius Sports that does a lot of
first party, third party data for advertisers in terms of
being able to reach and monetize on sports audiences and
now including women's sports audiences. And one of the case
(24:59):
studies that they we're talking about is when CarMax includes
WNBA athletes in their ads, they're delivering one hundred and
eighty five percent more engagement than the average WNBA advertiser
who does not. I don't know what other statistic number
you need to make that business case. You know, you
(25:30):
have the only daily show that's out there right now.
Are there anecdotes or data points that you can provide
of things you've seen over the past year that are
both surprised you, but also validate the decision to go
full throttle at this on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Well, I think the biggest thing for me has just
been how quickly the community formed. And when we were
idating the show, like one of the first things I
said was, I want to create a community.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I don't want people to just listen.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I want them to be thinking of this show as
part of their identity. And unfortunately, the very biggest men's
podcasts and shows oftentimes do that in a toxic way. Right,
I'm not going to name any names, but I didn't
want to ignore the power of creating community because it's
so often toxic. I wanted to try to harness that
(26:20):
but bring it in a way that, especially for women's
sports bands where they sometimes feel like they don't have
that friend they can call up and talk WNBA or
and WSL with that, they could do it here. And
so very early on, like the first or second show,
I was like, what do y'all want to be called?
You're going to have a name, You're going to be something,
You're going to be able to not say, oh I
listened to that, but no, I'm a slice At the
end of every game, you a good game. Good game,
(26:42):
you get your orange slices. So our listeners are slices.
And that community came together so fast they were calling
for merch. I've been on shows that are on for
years and no one's asking me for merch. And this one,
it was like a month and you really dropped the merch.
I saw it in Tampa. I want to say, within
a couple of days it's time as you.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Could order it and it got shipped to you. People
were wearing it to the Final four and they were
rocking it.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah. So I think that's the biggest thing that stands
out to me is how hungry people were for this
and how much they've instantly come together. The other example
is there's a pre professional women's soccer team in Minneapolis,
the Minnesota Aurora FC, and I love what the Aurora
have done and everything they stand for. So when their
founder reached out, I was like, instead of just me
(27:25):
getting involved, let's see if the slices want to be,
you know, putting their skin in the game too. And
so there was a capital raise and in the two
weeks that we announced that you should get involved and
buy a slice. To the end, it went up over
two hundred thousand dollars. It wasn't just our listeners, but
it was two hundred thousand dollars in two weeks, with
slices from all over putting their money in.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
And so I think that's it.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
It's just the buy in, the care, the emails that
we get from people in their eighties who have said
I've been waiting my whole life for this, to people
who listen with their kids in the car, and I
have to apologize to them because we do have some swears.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Just a sidebar.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
I've been meaning to tell you this story, and I
was waiting for this show to tell you. I was
at my niece who's four years old, co ed rec
soccer game, and they lined up, you know, at the
end of the game and the whole good game, and
here's four year old kids. They're slapping five, they're hugging,
like the joy of the game.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yeah, And I just.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Thought of you, and like I could get emotional thinking
about the power of what sport does. And I often
tell people like, sport is not the output, it's the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
It's the vehicle to.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
All of these human interest stories, emotions, connections, things we
navigate as people and the community you're talking about. I
imagine for you comes with a great sense of responsibility
to have to super serve yes, of course, but show
up as your authentic self every day and the fine line.
I'm sure sometimes that can play.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I actually love it though, because I was not my
whole self for so much of my career.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Here I can talk about. You know, early on I.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Had embedded a bunch of Taylor Swift easter eggs throughout
the show, and the person figured out the mystery like
won a prize. So like bringing my whole self and
talking about things that are sort of more stereotypically if
eminine while also being the sporty, spice version of myself
has been really cool.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
I love that. And just to close this out, because
I'd be remiss not to highlight one of your most
recent projects that is off the mic. You've co written
a new book called Runs in the Family, an incredible
true story of football, fatherhood and belonging. I'd love for
you to just quickly give our listeners overview on and
sort of the catalyst for getting involved in this project.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
As I said on my show, I know I mostly
cover women's sports now and I wrote about a man.
So I'm sorry for that, but it is an incredible story.
I wrote about him for ESPN a handful of years ago.
We did an E sixty feature and a long form
piece and it went super viral. It's just an incredible story.
This Skydlan mccull is, now the running backs coach for
the Las Vegas Raiders. Previously was at USC Notre Dame.
(29:53):
The Chiefs won a Super Bowl there and he was adopted.
Grew up in Youngstown post steel mill claps, so had
a really rough child hood where his adoptive father also
left his mom dated some unsavory dudes. Football kind of
got him out of there, and he goes on this
journey of trying to make it as a player and
then after an injury, getting into coaching, has four sons,
never knows anything about his background, and in his forties
(30:14):
he's able to get his birth certificate, finds his mom
and discovers that his birth dad has actually been in
his life for almost thirty years, but neither of them
know that they're related.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
It's this unbelievable story.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
You would never think it was true when I tell
the story, and I forget to say that it's a
true story. People don't react and then I go, oh,
it's a true story, and they're like what, I think,
it's like fiction. And a lot of the book I
wove in a lot of psychology and science. I want
you to read the book and hear his story, and
I also want you to read the book and see
your own self and your own family and understand that
(30:46):
what we get through nature and nurture, some of it
is irrefutable. You can't turn away from your blood and
your DNA, but a lot of it is a choice
to carry on or say it ends with you. Whether
that's generational trauma, whether that's family systems, messaging that doesn't
serve you or your children or the rest of your family.
You can even heal backwards. You can even go to
family members that came before you and tell them this
(31:08):
isn't helping us, this isn't serving us. We need to
reassess how we're approaching things. And that's everything from messaging
that his adoptive mom get that you don't talk about things.
If you just bury it, the painal go away, which
obviously doesn't work. And so for him to unearth a
lot of difficulty in his family by going searching for
his birth parents, but also him choosing to be a
(31:29):
healer that wants to help generations before and after him
change the way they do things. I think so many
people can get something out of it beyond just the
big crazy twist.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Was there anything you got out of it that you
were surprised by?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I think probably the last decade ever since I really
got more into psychology and neuroplasticity and the way our
brains work and why people have certain pathologies and are
the way they are, I've just been more and more
indebted to my parents, who I think did the best job,
and I'm like marveling all the time at how they
didn't screw me up. I've got plenty of issues done
to them are from my parents. I think I've been
(32:05):
even more effusive in my praise of them from interacting
with and reading so much about folks who have had
a lot of struggles that they have to overcome. I
just really realize that I have a tremendous amount of
privilege in terms of both mental health and in terms
of my background, that I have not had to overcome
barriers put in my way by other people or by
the choices of other people, and it's really helped me
(32:27):
be so much more understanding and empathetic to people who
do struggle with stuff. I think I used to pat
myself on the back a lot, and now I realize
a lot of it was not my doing. Yes, I've
worked hard and tried to make good choices, but so
much of it was just having this great path set
for me. And so I'm much more empathetic and patient
and want to hear the stories of people who have
(32:47):
struggles so that I can be a better person in
that room, advocating for them or understanding them.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
So powerful.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Well, I am so grateful that you are the host
of Good Game with Sarah Spain, and that you are
the first and leading the way. I think there's so
much so many can learn, not just about what you're
sharing on the MIC, but your journey to it and
what you're doing to move it forward.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Thank you so much for opening up this opportunity for me.
It's been so rewarding.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I'm your host, Laura Crenti, founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz,
and this show is produced by Ryan Martz along with
associate producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman. Court Side is
an Iheartwomen's sports production and partnership with Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(33:33):
wherever you get your podcasts. Want more, follow, rate, and
review court Side wherever you get your podcasts, and stay
in the game by following us on social media at
iHeart Women's Sports. And don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter.
In the show notes, thanks for listening. We'll see you
next time. Court Side
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