April 2, 2025 • 39 mins
Jane McManus, longtime sports reporter, NYU professor, and author of the new book “The Fast Track: Inside The Surging Business of Women’s Sports,” joins Sarah to discuss the NCAA basketball tournament one year after Caitlin v. Angel, why organizations need to stop using the men’s formula for the women’s game, and how media gatekeepers are the arbiters of who and what gets airtime.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to a Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're
scheming how to get Billy Jean King to post for
a photo showing the Good Game podcast playing on her phone.
It's Wednesday, April second, and on today's show will be
joined by Jane McManus, author, NYU professor and editor of
the Year's Best Sports Writing twenty twenty four. We caught
up with her last week right after Juju Watkins unfortunate injury,
and we chopped it up about her new book, The
(00:22):
Fast Track Inside the Surging Business of Women's Sports. We
got into our organizations need to stop using the men's
formula for the women's game, how gatekeepers have impacted the
growth of women's sports, and her warning for those that
think the future trajectory of women's sports is unquestionably up.
That conversation's coming up.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Right after this joining us now.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
She's the author of the new book The Fast Track
Inside the Surging Business of Women's Sports, the editor of
the Year's Best Sports Writing twenty twenty four, and NYU professor,
and one of the greatest ESPN radio show that's ever existed,
The Trifecta on the roller derby tracks. She went by
Leslie e Visceit, but we call her Jane. It's Jane McManus.
Welcome back to the show, Jane.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Thanks so much for having me, Sarah. Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, I'm so excited to have you back now that
the book is actually out and talk about so many things.
But first, you're kind of joining us at an interesting time,
and since you have this perspective having written about women's
sports for the last however long that book.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Took a couple months, thirty years, thirty years.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
You're joining us right in the midst of this NCAA
basketball tournament, about a year after the true explosion in
interest due to the Angel Resoursus Kaitlin Clark rivalry.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Obviously, it was building for years, but last year saw
this monumental leap. And I wonder what.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Some of the biggest shifts you've noticed since last year's tourney,
whether that's through the WNBA season, unrivaled, now back into
tourney time again.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Yeah, Okay, so many places to go with that. The
first thing I would say is there's just been an
explosion in professional leagues for women. I mean, I think
every single sport that's been invented in maybe some that
haven't are planning pro leagues right now, is which is
great in that there's a lot of enthusiasm and they're
able to work up startup cash for those I think
it will make a more crowded marketplace. So we'll see
(02:12):
how those all things, you know, pan out.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
That's number one. Number two will be in just my.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Game day experience watching the tournament, more games on ABC.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Bumper coverage.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
We get that fantastic studio trio of Shane McKay and
Andrea Carter and El Duncan far longer now. I don't
know why they haven't turned that into a weekly show,
because I think that they are that level. They are
lightning in a bottle. They should get they should get
more platform. But I'm getting my fill now. I get
(02:44):
to see them a lot. And I also think every
single advertisement. It used to be that you would watch
women's games and there would be ads featuring men's teams,
But now you're watching women's games and there are ads
featuring women team. You know, Don Staley in a weird
one where the duck comes in in duck dunks, you know,
where I'm kind of like, okay, all right, that's that's
(03:05):
Andrea Carter's in that one too, So I'm you know,
I'm not opposed to it. I'm just kind of confused
by it. But I'm really glad that it's there. So
that would be the other thing is I would say,
like it is that suite of programming around the game
that we've you know, you and I Sarah have been
waiting for for so long, you know, back in the
day when we could only talk about you know, one
(03:27):
or two women's topics per show. You know, now we're
we're in a completely different time and it feels great.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, what still needs to be improved upon, I know
a lot, But like what comes to mind first?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I think I think broadcast deals.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I think some of these leagues, you know, they're they're
negotiating for broadcast deals. I think their property is are
probably worth a little bit more than they're getting paid for.
Right now, the landscape is pretty chaotic because you can't
just have a straight up, you know deal with ESPN.
It's got to be street and then some kind of
you know, scripts or some kind of unconventional way watching,
(04:04):
and then and then hopefully a couple of national games
as well. So I think that experience could be improved
a little bit. And I also think just overall sports
discussions could bear with a little bit more touching into it.
Like I was a little surprised I turned on lots
of sports talk today as I was on the car,
didn't hear a ton about Juju Watkins, which is the
biggest story in my mind right now. So I think,
(04:26):
you know, that would be a place where it could
be improved.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
You know, when we dig into the missed economic opportunity
that went on for decades in the women's tournament. This
was unearthed by the independent investigation into the NC DOUBLEA
TV rights a few years ago, where we found out
it was worth you know, sixty million a year with
upwards of one hundred and twenty million a year, and
instead it was not materially renegotiated for like decades and
they were losing money like they were. They were setting
(04:49):
it up as if it was a money loser every year.
When we knew that it was this massive opportunity, where
do you point the finger for that? Was that solely
on the NC DOUBLEA or are there other pieces that
contributed to how delayed this massive growth is and could
have come so much earlier.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I'm going to use an analogy for this.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
You know how sometimes when you're walking down the street,
like you're communicating to people all the time, like where
you're gonna walk in the sidebark by, where you're looking,
And so that's how you can tell, Well, I think
the NC double A and US Soccer as well, where
are they looking? They're looking at what the ceiling is
for the men's property. They're not looking at the women's property.
And so you know, they didn't have separate the nstable
a part of that report. They didn't have a separate
(05:30):
staff to market those games, to market the opportunities.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Et cetera.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And when you don't even have that infrastructure, I mean
even the WNBA. Now, I mean they're building it up
a lot, but three four years ago they didn't have
like a.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Separate, fully formed front office for the WNBA.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
So I mean, again, where are you looking for opportunities?
US Soccer was definitely looking for the men to get
a couple more rounds in World Cup. They were not
looking for the women to win the gold again. And
so I just think it is like, what are you
focused on and what do you care about as an
organization and what is your co operating principle. If you're
in leadership, you hear this all the time. And for
those leagues, it has always been about the men's side
(06:07):
of the property in the brand, and so you know
when that's the case, that's what you're going to see. Sarah,
I'm dying to know what do you think on this
front because you have a front row seat to it
too well.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I think your point is a great one in your
analogy works for both the nc DOUBLEA, but then also
the schools participating. If you prioritize your men's team over
your women's you're only going to fight so hard even
if you recognize what a missed opportunity the NCUBLEA is
putting forth. Same goes for the economic units, right the
money units that now women's teams get paid their conference
(06:38):
gets paid when they do well in the tournament.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
That did not exist until this year.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So that was a disincentive for teams to spend money
on their women's program because they wouldn't get that money
back from the NCAA. They would get it in ticket
sales and merchandise and things like that. There was a
reason to invest, but it was not pushed the way
it was on the men's side. So yes, I blame
the NC DOUBLEA. They are the most complicit in that issue,
but also of the schools and the larger societal affect
(07:03):
toward women's sports and the potential that they had contributed
to us waiting such a long time before we finally
realized how to take advantage. But that does get us
to where we are now. There's so much more excitement
around this year's tournament, the storylines, the rivalries, the parodies
across the space. How does it compare this year to
your expectations for the year after Caitlin Clark graduated.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I think it's better the regular season games.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
ESPN reported that their regular season women's games did better
than ever at any other point in time, So I
think you're kind of seeing that the wave continues. I
should note that I am coming to you live from stores,
Connecticut right now, and it's interesting to me because I've
been talking to some colleges around the country and everywhere
I go, you know, that is the story, the story
(07:47):
of the inequity even now a lot of these different schools.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
But I'm going to speak at you count.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Tonight, which is a place where for the last thirty
years there has been some level of parody. There's certainly
been people who care deeply about the women's teams here
at the school, and so I'm wondering how, you know,
the conversation is different when you have I mean, is
are schools now becoming more like Yukon? I mean, I've
certainly heard of some interesting things like the golden ticket
(08:14):
quote unquote it perdue, which means that if you want,
if you're a student and you want to get a
ticket to a men's game, you get a ticket to
a women's game, and you have to attend that game
before you can attend the men's game, which is a
way of giving, yeah, a way of communicating institutional priorities.
I don't know that functionally it's working in a way
that's making everybody super happy. However, people are trying new things,
(08:35):
like they're trying things to get fans out and to
you know, to say if you care about our teams,
care about our teams. And I think that's completely different
from things you would have seen ten years ago. Again,
I don't know. You know, sometimes I think people who
aren't fans of the women's game might be like, ugh.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, you don't want it to feel like this is
a punishment, right, which for some people it will feel
like a forced punishment. It's like that that John Stamos
show where he was a basketball coach, but like he
was so disgraced as a men's coach that the only
option left was he had to coach girls.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Gone.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
It was like, hey, stop making the premise of your
shit that being a women's coach sucks, or going to
a women's game is a penalty you pay in order
to earn a spot at the men's game.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
But I like the idea that there are efforts happening.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I like the idea that there's a thoughtfulness behind it
instead of just a sort of being resigned to not
being able to sell or promote or get people invested
in the women's side of things.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Not to mention that the men's game has been de
facto for women's sports fans.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Forever, so you couldn't get away. I mean, the opposite
has been happening.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
If you want to watch the women's game and you're
clicking around for the last ten years, you're not gonna
have a hard time finding what you're looking for.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Where you hit the C button on your remote for
sports and you get to find out all the men's
sports on the TV, and only very recently have you
been able to move the tap forward and find out
what women's games are playing on your television.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah. In fact, I think some really brilliant person talked
about that in your book.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
We'll get to that later. I think her name was,
Yeah Spain something. Yeah, yeah, you know, we'll get to that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
You know you're at Yukon.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
You.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Kate Fagan and I had this conversation I think years ago, uh,
talking about Page Beckers and the double edged sword of
a truly transformational player getting the attention that's deserved, bringing
eyeballs to the game, drawing all of the sponsors, and players,
often women of color, not getting the same kind of
(10:32):
attention that they deserved. How do we balance leaning into
generational superstars with incredible appeal and selling power while also
trying to spotlight other players. Now, I will say, even
just from a few years ago, we are now seeing
Juju Watkins and other players of color get the kind
of love Asia Wilson that we've always asked for and
demanded when it was mostly being yeah flage, being mostly directed.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
At white players.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But I think there is something to be said still,
for how do you lean into the ones that change everything,
the Caitlin's and pages while also bringing along the rest,
cause I think sometimes we almost err on the side
of pushing back. I feel like some people in the
last year are because of so much drama and tension
and toxicity around Caitlin, almost started pushing back on allowing
(11:20):
for her presence to be doing the things it does.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah, so I think I think Caitlyn Clark and Angel
Reese are very much a tandem in this story, just
because their participation in the Women's tournament and there when
they meet each other that is such. It's like a rivalry,
and everybody loves a good rivalry. Bird Magic like is
always the one that's compared to. And so I feel
like it's important that when we're having the conversation about
(11:44):
what's happening in the WNBA right now, we don't leave
Angel Reese aside just to talk about Kaitlyn Clark. I
think they really have come in as a pair and
raise the level together, and so I think that's important.
I think also, like man the ad slute difficulty of
the WNBA conversation. Media wise, this summer was really tough.
(12:06):
I know, for you to listen to and for me,
some real old sports writer tropes came in The Great
White Hope. Anybody want to know that one. There was
also analysis recently done, an academic analysis that looked at
the idea of brains versus braun in the discussion with
Caitlin and Angel Reese and how unfair that is to
Angel Reese and.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Also to Kaitlyn Clark. I mean, at the same time,
she doesn't deserve.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
To be saddled with these old tropes, you know, an
any no one does anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So let's take out the broom and we will sweep
those out of our conversation for next season.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
I think, you know, this is a league, the w NBA,
a majority black women in that league, and they have
had to fight for their piece of the media pie. Uh,
they for recognition to be able to use their voices
in a way. You know that has not driven off
that it has brought more fans to the game, And
(13:03):
so I think it's really important to just be able
to open your eyes and see it and let's recognize
this dynamic for what it is and not fall into
the traps.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, I think last year, I if I'm being fully honest.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I wanted to make sure.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
My support of Caitlyn as a player and my fandom
of watching her wasn't misinterpreted as picking a quote unquote side,
and I have to say I sometimes probably aired too
far in trying to make sure it didn't seem like
I was bought into Caitlin Clark as the great white Hope,
the savior of things, to a point of maybe not
talking about her appreciating her as much as I would
(13:40):
have if there hadn't been so much bullshit out there.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
It was annoying and it.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Was frustrating, and a lot of moron started dominating conversation,
both at the highest levels who had big platforms and
people on social media that turned every word and every
syllable into some sort of secret message about how you
really felt. And I was accused on both sides being
the white lady who doesn't root for Angel Rees and
being the progressive lady who doesn't root for Kaitlin Clark
(14:05):
because I'm trying to defend Angel reason. It was exhausting,
and I hate that so much of that comes into
play as we're trying to harness this incredible growth and
excitement we're still fighting ourselves. We're getting in our own way,
and it's infuriating. But I think you know what you
and Kate and I decided years ago that is so
true is yes, lean into the people that can take
you to the next level. And while they're taking you,
(14:28):
be sure to send everybody else with them, because as
soon as we start rejecting those people that break through,
we are stopping that progress that inevitably will bring everyone along.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
It just might be frustrating along the way.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Yeah, I mean, I'm a brunette basketball player from Nebraska.
If you think I didn't watch Kaitlyn Clark for the
first time and be like, oh, it is glorious to
see like my little type, right, you know. But at
the same time, that doesn't mean that I don't also
think that, like angel reason, what she brings to the
court isn't amazing, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I think that's like absolutely and that you.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Know, there's room for everybody, literally everybody, every person, every
type in women's basketball, right, That's what's so beautiful about it.
The storytelling is great. I'll get misty at Caitlin Clark's story.
I'll get misty and other stories too, like it. You know,
you it's storytelling. We need the storytelling around everyone. So
you know, I was just looking because I'm hearing stories.
(15:21):
I was looking at some of the old pictures of
Geno orim you know, over the years, and there was
one of them where there was like this young swin
Cash sitting beside him. She had her hands down around
her arms and she had these you know she just said,
fully developed like arm muscles, like so muscular and everything.
And I was just like, I love this game. You know,
like swin Cash comes out of this game. You know,
all of these people that are just that go on
(15:41):
and do amazing things, and I think, you know, it's
for everybody.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And that they all like, like to your point, they
all look different doing it. You've got like, uh, swin Cash,
and you've got Audie Crooks, and you've got you know,
five five players who are like hitting step back Jay's
with a six to two player in their face. I mean,
Unrivaled proved to us some really fascinating things about the
sneaky guards versus the unicorn type tall players in the
(16:05):
one on one tournament where I thought there was gonna
be a lot more guards going deep and it turned
out to be the unicorns, the bigs that were better
because of their reach and everything. So yeah, it's fun
when you just get excited about all of them instead
of singularly laser focusing on the one or two that
fits some narrative that you want to endorse. Let's talk
about your book, because you came on the show in
December before it was officially out. But now The Fast
(16:27):
Track Inside the Surging Business of Women's Sports is actually
out in stores. In fact, it is in the front
window of my local book shop.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I sent you a picture of that. Very cool.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
What's been the resorts in the first week or so,
any surprising reactions or comments?
Speaker 4 (16:42):
You know what? I just I spoke to a group
at a university, Suffolk University in Boston a bit ago,
and the professor had as sign my book and they'd
read it, and I.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Was like, a day, Yeah, you know, it's funny. It's
like I have a book.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
No, well, the book has actually pages in it with
words on it that and ideas that are inside of that.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
It's crazy. So that's interesting. Also, I had yesterday villagean
King post with my book.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
I saw that, like, she's all over that book, right
obviously because this is her her area. Like she is,
she is such a foundational person when it comes to
women's sports and what women are capable of it and
really being like dynamic and insistent in a way that
I think is really important. So like, I you know,
so that was a little bit of a great moment
for me to see that.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
So yeah, so the response has been pretty good.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I did have.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
It's so funny.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I had a young woman who said, you know, as
I said earlier, she was like, what do you say?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
She was a basketball player.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
She's like, what do you say when guys are like,
don't make us watch women's sports?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
And because I think that's kind of what she was getting,
and and I'm always like, I don't, Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
They don't.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Nobody has to watch women's sports. Like you don't have to.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
You just have to not yell at us if you're
watching women's sports. Right, That's the only thing I don't
yell at other people when they watch any sport that
I'm not interested in.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Just what Supbird always said, It's fine if you're not interested,
just don't poison the well. We're already battling back from
centuries of patriarchy and misogyny. We don't need it added,
you know, roadblock before we even get started, you're telling
everyone we suck.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Exactly right, exactly, And it's not just SUPERB who says
things like that.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You know, no, no, no, but.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Yeah, that dynamic is like has really been there and
it's been kind of the uphill. It's like, you know,
when you tell girls that they can be anything they
want to be, Like, why do you even.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Have to say that?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
You have to say that because they're impediments in their
way that haven't been there boys in the past.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
You know, you spent years in print journalism, you spent
a decade or so at ESPN. When you were writing
this book, what stood out most to you about how
your experiences in the journalism space informed your perspective on
women's sports and the changing landscape.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Yeah, because the same forces that acted on us in
a professional setting that was you know, around sports, are
the same forces that are acting on the women who
play and in those leagues as they fight for dollars
and they fight for sponsorships and they fight for a
share of the audience, and not only that, to find
the audience, I think is really where it's been, Like,
how are you meeting that audience where it lives as
(19:13):
opposed to expecting it to behave in the way that
other sports audiences have acted, And so that's kind of
been something that's really been different. Yeah, I mean, I
think also we saw sort of behind the scenes of
the decision making of what to promote, what to talk about. Hey,
we want to talk about this, No, I think you
just stick to this that we always talk about.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Which is usually met sports.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, but I think your book touches on a lot
of different aspects of the drivers behind growth or stalls,
including a lot of talk about gatekeepers, to which you
just reference the folks in charge, the people in power,
and how their decision making affects things. In fact, I
heard in an interview with Brenda the show Caroline Fitzgerald,
who does the Goals podcast, that.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
You almost name the book gatekeepers.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
You didn't end up ultimately wanting to give them that power,
but they do have a lot of power. And how
important is it when we talk about the history of
women's sports for it to be discussed as a result
of intention people in power making decisions as opposed to
a sort of organic societal response to the product, which
is what it was always held up as.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, so I think this is important.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
I think one of the things that you and I
witnessed is that people in decision making roles in broadcast
or media writ large were very wary of disturbing the
existing audience for men's sports, and that led to a
lot of decisions about what to profile, what to pay
attention to, where to shine a spotlight, what to let
(20:35):
people talk about, et cetera. It was this, you know
ESPN can look in. You know, it used to be
fifteen minute blocks. I'm sure it's smaller chunk chunks now
as to what people are watching at any given time, you
say a sentence and twelve percent of people turn the channel,
they're going to be aware of that, and they're going
to be aware of what conversations are driving audiences away.
(20:57):
Because people randomly come in, but if they go away
in mass at.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
A certain moment, then yeah, it's obvious.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Why so, I think there's been a lot of fear
that you're gonna lose audience without looking for how are
we going to gain audience? And part of the reason
that that's been so problematic in mainstream areas is because
you know, advertising has been sold to men through sports
when you you know, I often ask this of groups
when you listen to the sports talk radio and then
you know, all of the eighteen to twenty two year
(21:23):
olds look at me quizzically.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
But radio, what's that?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Man?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Let me talk?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Is that a podcast? What is that?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
It's like, well, in my generation, we used to have
this thing called radio, but you know, sports talk radio.
If you listen to the ads, they're you know, boner
pills and cars and razors and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
It's clearly products for men.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
And the idea was very much like, well, we don't
want to we don't want to lose the audience for
the men's products that we've established, and we don't quite
know how to sell women things. And we're not even
counting women in the audience when it comes to radio,
So how do we even know how we would.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Sell them a product? Let's just talk more about football.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
So to that point, just to put a finer point
on it, across so many spaces in sports, they actually
do only calculate men eighteen to forty nine. It's not
that they prioritize that, they only calculate that listenership. If
you ask them how many women are listening or watching.
They would say, we don't have numbers on that. So
(22:21):
imagine that more than fifty percent of the population is
not being accounted for as a possible viewer, engager, listener,
and that you're not putting any work into finding them
because you don't know how to track them or serve them,
and then you just give up.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
That's not a great business model.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
No, But at the same time, you know, I knew
when we were doing the Trifecta, if we brought in
sixty million women to that show every Saturday and we
lost five guys, our show would show a loss of listenership,
which is a bit jarring, you know. So, but that
is the model that it is, and so I don't
(22:56):
think it's necessarily malicious when people say, oh, well, maybe
we don't need sport a show for women, you know
about women's sports, it's because they're listening to the numbers
and they're afraid of they're scary.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, listen. I used to always compare it to baseball.
Major League Baseball would look at its numbers and say,
here the people, they're this age and they're this whatever,
And instead of thinking how can we serve younger people,
they would cling to the old people that they already
had and fear change. Lately, they've been doing better. They've
been finding rule changes to you know, speed up the game.
(23:31):
They've been doing stuff that traditionalists hate, but younger people
are more interested in. That's exactly what we were seeing
happen on the media space for the women's side. It
was like we were so afraid of losing the men
we had that we didn't even think about the possibility
of gaining. And often I think insulting male sports fans
as being these sort of stereotypical Neanderthals who were going
to be offended by the sound of a women's voice
or completely uninterested in women's sports, when we find that
(23:53):
so much of a percentage of women's sports fans are men.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Yeah, well right exactly. And now, I mean, I think
that has changed a lot. I mean, I'm listening to
a lot of the play by play and you know,
Beth Moens and you have like a lot of people
and she's of course been in the game forever and
talking about enduring that whole time period where people were
having debates about whether or not women's voices actually could
call games like in a serious way, you know, but
that's it. You know again, there is definitely stacking when
(24:20):
is the term for it in in a sports broadcast,
and that means that people of different identities have roles
in different places, which is the sideline reporter is generally
going to be a woman, the play by play is
generally going to be a guy. I mean, you definitely
have these like stereotypical roles and it is very difficult
for broadcasting to.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Break out of it.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I hope that they're going to because when you have
more women's games to call, necessitates having more people who
are familiar with those players, and those are generally going
to be women and women who played, so you see,
I think elane emerging for athletes and former athletes is
really gratifying to see and that the growth in that
sector for that, you know, for a retired athlete from
when in sports now is amazing.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Not just calling games, but podcasts, wrap around shows, shoulder programming,
all that stuff. We got to take a quick break
when we come back more with Jane McManus. So in
the book, you also talk about big picture issues like
(25:23):
expectations for the female body and harnessing the male gaze, Like,
you know, I so often tell people the issues in sport,
whether they be misogyny, online trolls, disparate opportunities, pay inequity,
They're just the issues of life, right, Like, how are
we expected to fight the patriarchy in sport when we're
struggling so much to do it in life?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
So how do you? I have to admit, I'm not
all the way through the book, so what.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
This interview is over?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I know, I just it was funny. I was like,
I just got started.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
When I saw you the other week, I was I
just got started, but I haven't gotten that far. And
You're like you didn't even look to see how many
times you're in it? And I'm like, no, but now
I will. And I went to the end there, so
I'm like, I'm in it a lot, But like, how
do you talk about fixing things that are so much.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Bigger than women's sports issues?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Well? Actually, I think like women's sports are a way
to change the perception of women, and that's impart of
why women's sports are so important. But you know, we
can only get so far in sports as women in
as we can get in society. You know, there has
to be an allowance in space for women and for
you know, for people in women's sports and athletes who
(26:32):
play women's sports. There has to be an allowance for
those people in society in order to be able to
progress in the games. And so the way I look
at it is, you know, you have to have a
society where the roles assigned to you because of your
gender are not so rigid that you can't work outside
the home. I mean, there are societies where the roles
are so rigid that women are allowed to leave the
house by themselves, and those are really hard way places
(26:53):
to feel a soccer team, for example, So you have
to have that. I think you also have to have
some level of productive freedom, the ability to decide when
you're going to have children number one, in order to
have you know, women's leagues writ large, you have to
have that.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
And you also have the.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Ability to not have having a child or giving birth
completely disrupt your ability to play. So you have to
have space where you have childcare, you have help in childcare.
You also have facilities that are built into your CBA
or into your team or into your day that allow
you to nurse, that allow you to have take care
(27:31):
of a kid that allow you, you know, whatever it
is that you need in order to be able to
be more than just the athlete. And so those things
have to be allowable for women as well, and allowable
literally allowable. So I think those are all things. But
I do think that playing sports give people a sense
of their body and their bodily autonomy, the power of
(27:52):
their body, and that is disruptive when when culture really
insists that women stay within very small reas defined roles.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So anyway, those are some of the things that I'll say.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, no, it's so true.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I've talked about this before on the show, but just
to mention again how profound it was for me that
when I was out at the Sydney Opera House with
Angel City for their Angel City Summit for the World Cup,
I interviewed the captain of the Afghan women's soccer team.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
And when the Taliban.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Took over, one of the first groups that was sent away,
thrown onto a plane and sent away without friends or
family were female athletes. Because the Taliban was looking for
educated women and they were looking for empowered women, which
meant athletes who were in control of their bodies and
understood their own power and their own autonomy, and I
think that's all you need to know to understand why
(28:38):
women's sports and sports can be such an act of
resistance in times when we're trying to be funneled into
lanes or restricted from where we're allowed to be and
what we're allowed to do. Because when you understand that
your body is yours and it accomplishes things, it is
not the subject of another person's gaze, or something to
be put to work in the home, or something to
be used to create babies, your perspective changes and to yeah,
(29:00):
your point is valued. Not only are we trying to
fight patriarchal issues in sports, but also we understand that
sports have a unique power to fight.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Against them if we if we push in our own space.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You know, on the show, we've talked about how people
will often post exciting stats, like most viewers since, but
they rarely go back to see what was going on
years ago when the viewership was even higher. Why was
it higher that twenty or thirty years ago? To the
post you just made right, it's great to celebrate it,
but what does it tell us when we aren't understanding
(29:31):
what the peaks and valleys came from, why they happen,
and that often I think folk leads folks to think
that the era going up will inevitably continue to go up.
Do you have a warning for those that think the
future trajectory of women's sports is unquestionably up?
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I think you know the answer to this, I absolutely do.
You know. That's the thing is like those WNBA games
in the beginning we're on ABC, I watched them. Princess
Diana was in the had that tragic car accident that
same summer that the WNBA finals were on a liberty
versus the Houston Comets, which were a team that existed
(30:07):
back then.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
I won a lot, but you know they did, they
won a lot that they don't they're not around anymore.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
But yeah, so there's not an inevitability to this trajectory
at all, and I think it needs to be guarded
against because I think some of the some of the
very points that we just rd in the previous answer
are things that are you know, that people are aware
of when they're not interested in women having their voice
and surging. Like you know, there plenty of rights that
people have taken for granted can be taken away, and
(30:35):
so I think it's really careful to guard against that
and to not take things as a given. You know,
I walk into a classroom and I talk to young people,
and when I say Billy Jean King's name, I kind
of look to see if everybody recognized how many people
of you how many here know you know? And it's
not a given that everybody knows that, and they don't
know their history. And I think for them, you know,
thank goodness. You know, a lot of these you know,
(30:57):
athletes at the NC double A right now, they were
raised in a time when they didn't.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Have to worry about a lot of that stuff and
where things were going up.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
But you know, the thing is, like, the big point
of this book is that this is not like we
like to tell the story of sports and women's leagues
through the you know, Billy Jean King, the person who overcame,
But there are a lot of people who get eaten
by the system and it didn't overcome and who weren't
able to. And I think it's really important not to
just tell the story through the plucky little gal that
(31:24):
made it through, but it's important to tell it through
the fact that there were lots of really plucky kids
who got told to sit back down. And so anyway,
I mean that's kind of like this this book is
for those people as well, like for the people who
didn't get to be the hero, didn't get to hold
the trophy, didn't get to go to practice, all of that,
and I just you know, we don't want to go
(31:45):
back to those days. Sports have been you know, great
for you personally, probably got you into.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
A great school. And they were great for me too.
For sure.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I have met you know, amazing people through playing sports
and playing pickup you know, basketball back in the day.
But but that's not you know, if we revert to
a time where it's dangerous for girls to play with boys,
then you know, all those pickup games that playden would
have been impossible. So you know, I think we really
have to guard against some of these conversations that are
(32:15):
happening right now about women's quote unquote safety.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, I completely agree because to your point. Also, usually
it's not from people who have a genuine fear of
women's sports not getting their due or their resources or
their investment. It's people who again want to put us
back into certain spaces and lanes, and they know that
using starting with trans athletes and then further limiting the
scope of where girls can play and against whom and
(32:39):
what's too hard on their bodies or dangerous for them
or leads them, you know, to be unladylike.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
We'll get right back to that and we'll be going backwards.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I think about when you talk about the plucky girls
left behind, it's not even just the ones who weren't
allowed to compete. It makes me sad sometimes thinking about,
like what if Sue Bird and Dinah Tarassi were starting
now and we needed them to get to where we
are and it's not like they're hurting' But gosh, what
I like to see Diana to ROSSI start a career
right now, start the career that she had right now
(33:11):
with the eyeballs and the investment and the money and
the sponsors and the attendance.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I just, I just you need the builders. But I do.
I think about Molly Bolan. There's a great doc about her.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
It's incredible college basketball player who ended up playing in
the Women's Professional Basketball League the WPBL and was averaging
like over thirty points a game. She would score like
fifty points. She had to create a calendar of her
like looking sexy in her jersey to try to pay
her bills, and then she got basically condemned for trying
to be a sex symbol while being a mom, while
(33:44):
being a player, and like was you know, ultimately just
didn't have the opportunity to be the incredible player that
she was and go down in history as someone we
remember and know her name because the situation that she
played in the time she played and just didn't allow
for her to be this multi dimensional, amazing player.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
It's a Cheryl Miller.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
I would love to see Cheryl Miller, you know, have
the spotlight, you know, I mean that, like there are
all kinds of and even even like Simone Augustus, like
you know, players who had like unconventional ways of presenting
that the world wasn't ready to embrace yet. I mean,
I think you'd see a different way of talking about
for sure.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeaeah, all right, I have to let you go.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I have one last question for you because you mentioned
walking into classrooms and wondering what they know about and
what they care about. It's an interesting time to be
in higher education. Uh I guess it starts. Yeah, I mean,
are you feeling the effects of threats to funding or
criticism of certain language or topics that you're allowed to broach.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Sarah, I am a woman who has gone into journalism
and higher ed for I have made all the wrong decisions.
No one should ask me about anything. I have not
lived my life in a way.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
What was your first big splurge when you got your paycheck?
Did you get a car?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I got some clean underpants, you know, I got the
three pack of Haynes Nice.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
It's about I've.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Earned it, so yeah, you know it's it's no, it's
it is a tough time I worry about.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I mean, the thing is like, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
I just feel like I've always felt it's important for me.
People are going to know where I come from generally.
But I don't try to preach in the class Like
I don't think it's my business to tell anybody how
to think. I think it's my business to help you
figure out how you want to think and what you
want to think about.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Like that's my way of looking at it.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
So I'm not I'm not proselytizing to anybody or expecting people,
you know, to believe, like to leave a classroom thinking
what I think. That's not That's not why I got
entire it, So I kind of and I tend to
feel like that's I genuinely see educators who kind of
care about students and want want them to think critically
(35:46):
and want them to learn, you know, be able to
tell information from disinformation, or how do you check a
source when you're reading through you.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Know, things becoming more necessary now with AI and fake
information and everything else. I do think probably though, it
must be heartening to see more students care about women's sports.
Do you find that young people are more interested in
and what they're interested in regard to women's sports.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Yeah, I'm gonna leave you with a really happy story.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
So I heard from this.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
So I was in this class, The class where everybody
had read my book was so nice to walk into. Anyway,
one of the young men raise his hand and said, hey,
do you think this is different than what it would
have been like? And you know, when you were coming in,
he said, I work at a Dick's Sporting goods and
we sell a lot of Sabrini nescue shoots. And he says,
and we sell them to young men young women. You know,
(36:36):
he said, he said, I think that's different. And you know,
I had like I've seen you know, young men coming
into some of these conversations and these with you know,
wearing like fleet caps or you know gear, you know
nd USL gear like that is different. You know.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
The thing is like, as much.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
As these young women who are playing today feel like
sports is theirs, as much as it is their brothers,
Like their brothers get that too, you know. I think
that's a big difference, is that there is Yeah, there's
crossover fandom for sure, unapologetic crossover fandom. And I think
that's I think that's pretty spectacular, and you know, that
shows a real seat change.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Everybody read Jane's book. I'm talking to myself too. I
am going to read it.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I just need literally two minutes off.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Man, good grind you don't you just I was trying
to I was trying to get your you know, get
you where you live by saying, don't you want to
see your name in print?
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I mean clearly I do.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
It's going to get me reading faster, that's for damn sure, exactly, Jane,
Thank you for the time always, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
We have to take another break. When we come back.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
The Trifecta has been writing up a storm welcome back slices.
We love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too, So here's our
good game play of the day. Make sure you pick
up a copy of Jane's book, duh. We'll link to
(38:00):
it in our show notes and we always love to
hear from you, so hit us up on email. Good
game at wondermedianetwork dot com, and don't forget to subscribe,
rate and review slices. It's easy watch seeing your friend's
book in the window of a store. Rating ten out
of ten.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Oh my gosh, I know her review.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
How fun was it for me to walk by my
local bookstore and see Jane's book prominently displayed? I love
that shout out to Volumes Book Cafe, And I know
I mentioned this at a previous show, but it bears
repeating because my mind is still kind of blown that
all three members of the award eligible radio show The
Trifecta will have a book on the shelves of bookstores
this year. Kate Fagan's thrilling, compelling book The Three Lives
(38:41):
of katek Jane's Fantastic The fast Track, and Soon My
Book Runs in the Family, An incredible true story of football,
fatherhood and belonging. We're all growns up, y'all, We're all
growns up. Haven't ordered all three books yet? What are
you waiting for? Come on, get to it now, It's
your turn. Rate and review slices.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Thanks, listen.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
See you tomorrow when we chat with not one, but
two national championship winning Hall of Fame basketball coaches, Tara
Vanderveer and Muffett McGrath. Good Game, Jane, Good Game, Kate You.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Boner pill Ads.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive
producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder.
Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez, and Grace Lynch.
(39:38):
Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and I'm your host
Sarah Spain
Welcome to a Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're
scheming how to get Billy Jean King to post for
a photo showing the Good Game podcast playing on her phone.
It's Wednesday, April second, and on today's show will be
joined by Jane McManus, author, NYU professor and editor of
the Year's Best Sports Writing twenty twenty four. We caught
up with her last week right after Juju Watkins unfortunate injury,
and we chopped it up about her new book, The
(00:22):
Fast Track Inside the Surging Business of Women's Sports. We
got into our organizations need to stop using the men's
formula for the women's game, how gatekeepers have impacted the
growth of women's sports, and her warning for those that
think the future trajectory of women's sports is unquestionably up.
That conversation's coming up.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Right after this joining us now.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
She's the author of the new book The Fast Track
Inside the Surging Business of Women's Sports, the editor of
the Year's Best Sports Writing twenty twenty four, and NYU professor,
and one of the greatest ESPN radio show that's ever existed,
The Trifecta on the roller derby tracks. She went by
Leslie e Visceit, but we call her Jane. It's Jane McManus.
Welcome back to the show, Jane.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Thanks so much for having me, Sarah. Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, I'm so excited to have you back now that
the book is actually out and talk about so many things.
But first, you're kind of joining us at an interesting time,
and since you have this perspective having written about women's
sports for the last however long that book.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Took a couple months, thirty years, thirty years.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
You're joining us right in the midst of this NCAA
basketball tournament, about a year after the true explosion in
interest due to the Angel Resoursus Kaitlin Clark rivalry.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Obviously, it was building for years, but last year saw
this monumental leap. And I wonder what.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Some of the biggest shifts you've noticed since last year's tourney,
whether that's through the WNBA season, unrivaled, now back into
tourney time again.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Yeah, Okay, so many places to go with that. The
first thing I would say is there's just been an
explosion in professional leagues for women. I mean, I think
every single sport that's been invented in maybe some that
haven't are planning pro leagues right now, is which is
great in that there's a lot of enthusiasm and they're
able to work up startup cash for those I think
it will make a more crowded marketplace. So we'll see
(02:12):
how those all things, you know, pan out.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
That's number one. Number two will be in just my.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Game day experience watching the tournament, more games on ABC.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Bumper coverage.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
We get that fantastic studio trio of Shane McKay and
Andrea Carter and El Duncan far longer now. I don't
know why they haven't turned that into a weekly show,
because I think that they are that level. They are
lightning in a bottle. They should get they should get
more platform. But I'm getting my fill now. I get
(02:44):
to see them a lot. And I also think every
single advertisement. It used to be that you would watch
women's games and there would be ads featuring men's teams,
But now you're watching women's games and there are ads
featuring women team. You know, Don Staley in a weird
one where the duck comes in in duck dunks, you know,
where I'm kind of like, okay, all right, that's that's
(03:05):
Andrea Carter's in that one too, So I'm you know,
I'm not opposed to it. I'm just kind of confused
by it. But I'm really glad that it's there. So
that would be the other thing is I would say,
like it is that suite of programming around the game
that we've you know, you and I Sarah have been
waiting for for so long, you know, back in the
day when we could only talk about you know, one
(03:27):
or two women's topics per show. You know, now we're
we're in a completely different time and it feels great.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, what still needs to be improved upon, I know
a lot, But like what comes to mind first?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I think I think broadcast deals.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I think some of these leagues, you know, they're they're
negotiating for broadcast deals. I think their property is are
probably worth a little bit more than they're getting paid for.
Right now, the landscape is pretty chaotic because you can't
just have a straight up, you know deal with ESPN.
It's got to be street and then some kind of
you know, scripts or some kind of unconventional way watching,
(04:04):
and then and then hopefully a couple of national games
as well. So I think that experience could be improved
a little bit. And I also think just overall sports
discussions could bear with a little bit more touching into it.
Like I was a little surprised I turned on lots
of sports talk today as I was on the car,
didn't hear a ton about Juju Watkins, which is the
biggest story in my mind right now. So I think,
(04:26):
you know, that would be a place where it could
be improved.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
You know, when we dig into the missed economic opportunity
that went on for decades in the women's tournament. This
was unearthed by the independent investigation into the NC DOUBLEA
TV rights a few years ago, where we found out
it was worth you know, sixty million a year with
upwards of one hundred and twenty million a year, and
instead it was not materially renegotiated for like decades and
they were losing money like they were. They were setting
(04:49):
it up as if it was a money loser every year.
When we knew that it was this massive opportunity, where
do you point the finger for that? Was that solely
on the NC DOUBLEA or are there other pieces that
contributed to how delayed this massive growth is and could
have come so much earlier.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I'm going to use an analogy for this.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
You know how sometimes when you're walking down the street,
like you're communicating to people all the time, like where
you're gonna walk in the sidebark by, where you're looking,
And so that's how you can tell, Well, I think
the NC double A and US Soccer as well, where
are they looking? They're looking at what the ceiling is
for the men's property. They're not looking at the women's property.
And so you know, they didn't have separate the nstable
a part of that report. They didn't have a separate
(05:30):
staff to market those games, to market the opportunities.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Et cetera.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And when you don't even have that infrastructure, I mean
even the WNBA. Now, I mean they're building it up
a lot, but three four years ago they didn't have
like a.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Separate, fully formed front office for the WNBA.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
So I mean, again, where are you looking for opportunities?
US Soccer was definitely looking for the men to get
a couple more rounds in World Cup. They were not
looking for the women to win the gold again. And
so I just think it is like, what are you
focused on and what do you care about as an
organization and what is your co operating principle. If you're
in leadership, you hear this all the time. And for
those leagues, it has always been about the men's side
(06:07):
of the property in the brand, and so you know
when that's the case, that's what you're going to see. Sarah,
I'm dying to know what do you think on this
front because you have a front row seat to it
too well.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I think your point is a great one in your
analogy works for both the nc DOUBLEA, but then also
the schools participating. If you prioritize your men's team over
your women's you're only going to fight so hard even
if you recognize what a missed opportunity the NCUBLEA is
putting forth. Same goes for the economic units, right the
money units that now women's teams get paid their conference
(06:38):
gets paid when they do well in the tournament.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
That did not exist until this year.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So that was a disincentive for teams to spend money
on their women's program because they wouldn't get that money
back from the NCAA. They would get it in ticket
sales and merchandise and things like that. There was a
reason to invest, but it was not pushed the way
it was on the men's side. So yes, I blame
the NC DOUBLEA. They are the most complicit in that issue,
but also of the schools and the larger societal affect
(07:03):
toward women's sports and the potential that they had contributed
to us waiting such a long time before we finally
realized how to take advantage. But that does get us
to where we are now. There's so much more excitement
around this year's tournament, the storylines, the rivalries, the parodies
across the space. How does it compare this year to
your expectations for the year after Caitlin Clark graduated.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I think it's better the regular season games.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
ESPN reported that their regular season women's games did better
than ever at any other point in time, So I
think you're kind of seeing that the wave continues. I
should note that I am coming to you live from stores,
Connecticut right now, and it's interesting to me because I've
been talking to some colleges around the country and everywhere
I go, you know, that is the story, the story
(07:47):
of the inequity even now a lot of these different schools.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
But I'm going to speak at you count.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Tonight, which is a place where for the last thirty
years there has been some level of parody. There's certainly
been people who care deeply about the women's teams here
at the school, and so I'm wondering how, you know,
the conversation is different when you have I mean, is
are schools now becoming more like Yukon? I mean, I've
certainly heard of some interesting things like the golden ticket
(08:14):
quote unquote it perdue, which means that if you want,
if you're a student and you want to get a
ticket to a men's game, you get a ticket to
a women's game, and you have to attend that game
before you can attend the men's game, which is a
way of giving, yeah, a way of communicating institutional priorities.
I don't know that functionally it's working in a way
that's making everybody super happy. However, people are trying new things,
(08:35):
like they're trying things to get fans out and to
you know, to say if you care about our teams,
care about our teams. And I think that's completely different
from things you would have seen ten years ago. Again,
I don't know. You know, sometimes I think people who
aren't fans of the women's game might be like, ugh.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, you don't want it to feel like this is
a punishment, right, which for some people it will feel
like a forced punishment. It's like that that John Stamos
show where he was a basketball coach, but like he
was so disgraced as a men's coach that the only
option left was he had to coach girls.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Gone.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
It was like, hey, stop making the premise of your
shit that being a women's coach sucks, or going to
a women's game is a penalty you pay in order
to earn a spot at the men's game.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
But I like the idea that there are efforts happening.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I like the idea that there's a thoughtfulness behind it
instead of just a sort of being resigned to not
being able to sell or promote or get people invested
in the women's side of things.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Not to mention that the men's game has been de
facto for women's sports fans.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Forever, so you couldn't get away. I mean, the opposite
has been happening.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
If you want to watch the women's game and you're
clicking around for the last ten years, you're not gonna
have a hard time finding what you're looking for.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Where you hit the C button on your remote for
sports and you get to find out all the men's
sports on the TV, and only very recently have you
been able to move the tap forward and find out
what women's games are playing on your television.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah. In fact, I think some really brilliant person talked
about that in your book.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
We'll get to that later. I think her name was,
Yeah Spain something. Yeah, yeah, you know, we'll get to that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
You know you're at Yukon.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
You.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Kate Fagan and I had this conversation I think years ago, uh,
talking about Page Beckers and the double edged sword of
a truly transformational player getting the attention that's deserved, bringing
eyeballs to the game, drawing all of the sponsors, and players,
often women of color, not getting the same kind of
(10:32):
attention that they deserved. How do we balance leaning into
generational superstars with incredible appeal and selling power while also
trying to spotlight other players. Now, I will say, even
just from a few years ago, we are now seeing
Juju Watkins and other players of color get the kind
of love Asia Wilson that we've always asked for and
demanded when it was mostly being yeah flage, being mostly directed.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
At white players.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But I think there is something to be said still,
for how do you lean into the ones that change everything,
the Caitlin's and pages while also bringing along the rest,
cause I think sometimes we almost err on the side
of pushing back. I feel like some people in the
last year are because of so much drama and tension
and toxicity around Caitlin, almost started pushing back on allowing
(11:20):
for her presence to be doing the things it does.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah, so I think I think Caitlyn Clark and Angel
Reese are very much a tandem in this story, just
because their participation in the Women's tournament and there when
they meet each other that is such. It's like a rivalry,
and everybody loves a good rivalry. Bird Magic like is
always the one that's compared to. And so I feel
like it's important that when we're having the conversation about
(11:44):
what's happening in the WNBA right now, we don't leave
Angel Reese aside just to talk about Kaitlyn Clark. I
think they really have come in as a pair and
raise the level together, and so I think that's important.
I think also, like man the ad slute difficulty of
the WNBA conversation. Media wise, this summer was really tough.
(12:06):
I know, for you to listen to and for me,
some real old sports writer tropes came in The Great
White Hope. Anybody want to know that one. There was
also analysis recently done, an academic analysis that looked at
the idea of brains versus braun in the discussion with
Caitlin and Angel Reese and how unfair that is to
Angel Reese and.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Also to Kaitlyn Clark. I mean, at the same time,
she doesn't deserve.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
To be saddled with these old tropes, you know, an
any no one does anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So let's take out the broom and we will sweep
those out of our conversation for next season.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
I think, you know, this is a league, the w NBA,
a majority black women in that league, and they have
had to fight for their piece of the media pie. Uh,
they for recognition to be able to use their voices
in a way. You know that has not driven off
that it has brought more fans to the game, And
(13:03):
so I think it's really important to just be able
to open your eyes and see it and let's recognize
this dynamic for what it is and not fall into
the traps.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, I think last year, I if I'm being fully honest.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I wanted to make sure.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
My support of Caitlyn as a player and my fandom
of watching her wasn't misinterpreted as picking a quote unquote side,
and I have to say I sometimes probably aired too
far in trying to make sure it didn't seem like
I was bought into Caitlin Clark as the great white Hope,
the savior of things, to a point of maybe not
talking about her appreciating her as much as I would
(13:40):
have if there hadn't been so much bullshit out there.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
It was annoying and it.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Was frustrating, and a lot of moron started dominating conversation,
both at the highest levels who had big platforms and
people on social media that turned every word and every
syllable into some sort of secret message about how you
really felt. And I was accused on both sides being
the white lady who doesn't root for Angel Rees and
being the progressive lady who doesn't root for Kaitlin Clark
(14:05):
because I'm trying to defend Angel reason. It was exhausting,
and I hate that so much of that comes into
play as we're trying to harness this incredible growth and
excitement we're still fighting ourselves. We're getting in our own way,
and it's infuriating. But I think you know what you
and Kate and I decided years ago that is so
true is yes, lean into the people that can take
you to the next level. And while they're taking you,
(14:28):
be sure to send everybody else with them, because as
soon as we start rejecting those people that break through,
we are stopping that progress that inevitably will bring everyone along.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
It just might be frustrating along the way.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Yeah, I mean, I'm a brunette basketball player from Nebraska.
If you think I didn't watch Kaitlyn Clark for the
first time and be like, oh, it is glorious to
see like my little type, right, you know. But at
the same time, that doesn't mean that I don't also
think that, like angel reason, what she brings to the
court isn't amazing, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I think that's like absolutely and that you.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Know, there's room for everybody, literally everybody, every person, every
type in women's basketball, right, That's what's so beautiful about it.
The storytelling is great. I'll get misty at Caitlin Clark's story.
I'll get misty and other stories too, like it. You know,
you it's storytelling. We need the storytelling around everyone. So
you know, I was just looking because I'm hearing stories.
(15:21):
I was looking at some of the old pictures of
Geno orim you know, over the years, and there was
one of them where there was like this young swin
Cash sitting beside him. She had her hands down around
her arms and she had these you know she just said,
fully developed like arm muscles, like so muscular and everything.
And I was just like, I love this game. You know,
like swin Cash comes out of this game. You know,
all of these people that are just that go on
(15:41):
and do amazing things, and I think, you know, it's
for everybody.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And that they all like, like to your point, they
all look different doing it. You've got like, uh, swin Cash,
and you've got Audie Crooks, and you've got you know,
five five players who are like hitting step back Jay's
with a six to two player in their face. I mean,
Unrivaled proved to us some really fascinating things about the
sneaky guards versus the unicorn type tall players in the
(16:05):
one on one tournament where I thought there was gonna
be a lot more guards going deep and it turned
out to be the unicorns, the bigs that were better
because of their reach and everything. So yeah, it's fun
when you just get excited about all of them instead
of singularly laser focusing on the one or two that
fits some narrative that you want to endorse. Let's talk
about your book, because you came on the show in
December before it was officially out. But now The Fast
(16:27):
Track Inside the Surging Business of Women's Sports is actually
out in stores. In fact, it is in the front
window of my local book shop.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I sent you a picture of that. Very cool.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
What's been the resorts in the first week or so,
any surprising reactions or comments?
Speaker 4 (16:42):
You know what? I just I spoke to a group
at a university, Suffolk University in Boston a bit ago,
and the professor had as sign my book and they'd
read it, and I.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Was like, a day, Yeah, you know, it's funny. It's
like I have a book.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
No, well, the book has actually pages in it with
words on it that and ideas that are inside of that.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
It's crazy. So that's interesting. Also, I had yesterday villagean
King post with my book.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
I saw that, like, she's all over that book, right
obviously because this is her her area. Like she is,
she is such a foundational person when it comes to
women's sports and what women are capable of it and
really being like dynamic and insistent in a way that
I think is really important. So like, I you know,
so that was a little bit of a great moment
for me to see that.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
So yeah, so the response has been pretty good.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I did have.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
It's so funny.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I had a young woman who said, you know, as
I said earlier, she was like, what do you say?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
She was a basketball player.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
She's like, what do you say when guys are like,
don't make us watch women's sports?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
And because I think that's kind of what she was getting,
and and I'm always like, I don't, Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
They don't.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Nobody has to watch women's sports. Like you don't have to.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
You just have to not yell at us if you're
watching women's sports. Right, That's the only thing I don't
yell at other people when they watch any sport that
I'm not interested in.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Just what Supbird always said, It's fine if you're not interested,
just don't poison the well. We're already battling back from
centuries of patriarchy and misogyny. We don't need it added,
you know, roadblock before we even get started, you're telling
everyone we suck.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Exactly right, exactly, And it's not just SUPERB who says
things like that.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You know, no, no, no, but.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Yeah, that dynamic is like has really been there and
it's been kind of the uphill. It's like, you know,
when you tell girls that they can be anything they
want to be, Like, why do you even.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Have to say that?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
You have to say that because they're impediments in their
way that haven't been there boys in the past.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
You know, you spent years in print journalism, you spent
a decade or so at ESPN. When you were writing
this book, what stood out most to you about how
your experiences in the journalism space informed your perspective on
women's sports and the changing landscape.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Yeah, because the same forces that acted on us in
a professional setting that was you know, around sports, are
the same forces that are acting on the women who
play and in those leagues as they fight for dollars
and they fight for sponsorships and they fight for a
share of the audience, and not only that, to find
the audience, I think is really where it's been, Like,
how are you meeting that audience where it lives as
(19:13):
opposed to expecting it to behave in the way that
other sports audiences have acted, And so that's kind of
been something that's really been different. Yeah, I mean, I
think also we saw sort of behind the scenes of
the decision making of what to promote, what to talk about. Hey,
we want to talk about this, No, I think you
just stick to this that we always talk about.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Which is usually met sports.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, but I think your book touches on a lot
of different aspects of the drivers behind growth or stalls,
including a lot of talk about gatekeepers, to which you
just reference the folks in charge, the people in power,
and how their decision making affects things. In fact, I
heard in an interview with Brenda the show Caroline Fitzgerald,
who does the Goals podcast, that.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
You almost name the book gatekeepers.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
You didn't end up ultimately wanting to give them that power,
but they do have a lot of power. And how
important is it when we talk about the history of
women's sports for it to be discussed as a result
of intention people in power making decisions as opposed to
a sort of organic societal response to the product, which
is what it was always held up as.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, so I think this is important.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
I think one of the things that you and I
witnessed is that people in decision making roles in broadcast
or media writ large were very wary of disturbing the
existing audience for men's sports, and that led to a
lot of decisions about what to profile, what to pay
attention to, where to shine a spotlight, what to let
(20:35):
people talk about, et cetera. It was this, you know
ESPN can look in. You know, it used to be
fifteen minute blocks. I'm sure it's smaller chunk chunks now
as to what people are watching at any given time, you
say a sentence and twelve percent of people turn the channel,
they're going to be aware of that, and they're going
to be aware of what conversations are driving audiences away.
(20:57):
Because people randomly come in, but if they go away
in mass at.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
A certain moment, then yeah, it's obvious.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Why so, I think there's been a lot of fear
that you're gonna lose audience without looking for how are
we going to gain audience? And part of the reason
that that's been so problematic in mainstream areas is because
you know, advertising has been sold to men through sports
when you you know, I often ask this of groups
when you listen to the sports talk radio and then
you know, all of the eighteen to twenty two year
(21:23):
olds look at me quizzically.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
But radio, what's that?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Man?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Let me talk?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Is that a podcast? What is that?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
It's like, well, in my generation, we used to have
this thing called radio, but you know, sports talk radio.
If you listen to the ads, they're you know, boner
pills and cars and razors and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
It's clearly products for men.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
And the idea was very much like, well, we don't
want to we don't want to lose the audience for
the men's products that we've established, and we don't quite
know how to sell women things. And we're not even
counting women in the audience when it comes to radio,
So how do we even know how we would.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Sell them a product? Let's just talk more about football.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
So to that point, just to put a finer point
on it, across so many spaces in sports, they actually
do only calculate men eighteen to forty nine. It's not
that they prioritize that, they only calculate that listenership. If
you ask them how many women are listening or watching.
They would say, we don't have numbers on that. So
(22:21):
imagine that more than fifty percent of the population is
not being accounted for as a possible viewer, engager, listener,
and that you're not putting any work into finding them
because you don't know how to track them or serve them,
and then you just give up.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
That's not a great business model.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
No, But at the same time, you know, I knew
when we were doing the Trifecta, if we brought in
sixty million women to that show every Saturday and we
lost five guys, our show would show a loss of listenership,
which is a bit jarring, you know. So, but that
is the model that it is, and so I don't
(22:56):
think it's necessarily malicious when people say, oh, well, maybe
we don't need sport a show for women, you know
about women's sports, it's because they're listening to the numbers
and they're afraid of they're scary.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, listen. I used to always compare it to baseball.
Major League Baseball would look at its numbers and say,
here the people, they're this age and they're this whatever,
And instead of thinking how can we serve younger people,
they would cling to the old people that they already
had and fear change. Lately, they've been doing better. They've
been finding rule changes to you know, speed up the game.
(23:31):
They've been doing stuff that traditionalists hate, but younger people
are more interested in. That's exactly what we were seeing
happen on the media space for the women's side. It
was like we were so afraid of losing the men
we had that we didn't even think about the possibility
of gaining. And often I think insulting male sports fans
as being these sort of stereotypical Neanderthals who were going
to be offended by the sound of a women's voice
or completely uninterested in women's sports, when we find that
(23:53):
so much of a percentage of women's sports fans are men.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Yeah, well right exactly. And now, I mean, I think
that has changed a lot. I mean, I'm listening to
a lot of the play by play and you know,
Beth Moens and you have like a lot of people
and she's of course been in the game forever and
talking about enduring that whole time period where people were
having debates about whether or not women's voices actually could
call games like in a serious way, you know, but
that's it. You know again, there is definitely stacking when
(24:20):
is the term for it in in a sports broadcast,
and that means that people of different identities have roles
in different places, which is the sideline reporter is generally
going to be a woman, the play by play is
generally going to be a guy. I mean, you definitely
have these like stereotypical roles and it is very difficult
for broadcasting to.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Break out of it.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I hope that they're going to because when you have
more women's games to call, necessitates having more people who
are familiar with those players, and those are generally going
to be women and women who played, so you see,
I think elane emerging for athletes and former athletes is
really gratifying to see and that the growth in that
sector for that, you know, for a retired athlete from
when in sports now is amazing.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Not just calling games, but podcasts, wrap around shows, shoulder programming,
all that stuff. We got to take a quick break
when we come back more with Jane McManus. So in
the book, you also talk about big picture issues like
(25:23):
expectations for the female body and harnessing the male gaze, Like,
you know, I so often tell people the issues in sport,
whether they be misogyny, online trolls, disparate opportunities, pay inequity,
They're just the issues of life, right, Like, how are
we expected to fight the patriarchy in sport when we're
struggling so much to do it in life?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
So how do you? I have to admit, I'm not
all the way through the book, so what.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
This interview is over?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I know, I just it was funny. I was like,
I just got started.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
When I saw you the other week, I was I
just got started, but I haven't gotten that far. And
You're like you didn't even look to see how many
times you're in it? And I'm like, no, but now
I will. And I went to the end there, so
I'm like, I'm in it a lot, But like, how
do you talk about fixing things that are so much.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Bigger than women's sports issues?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Well? Actually, I think like women's sports are a way
to change the perception of women, and that's impart of
why women's sports are so important. But you know, we
can only get so far in sports as women in
as we can get in society. You know, there has
to be an allowance in space for women and for
you know, for people in women's sports and athletes who
(26:32):
play women's sports. There has to be an allowance for
those people in society in order to be able to
progress in the games. And so the way I look
at it is, you know, you have to have a
society where the roles assigned to you because of your
gender are not so rigid that you can't work outside
the home. I mean, there are societies where the roles
are so rigid that women are allowed to leave the
house by themselves, and those are really hard way places
(26:53):
to feel a soccer team, for example, So you have
to have that. I think you also have to have
some level of productive freedom, the ability to decide when
you're going to have children number one, in order to
have you know, women's leagues writ large, you have to
have that.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
And you also have the.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Ability to not have having a child or giving birth
completely disrupt your ability to play. So you have to
have space where you have childcare, you have help in childcare.
You also have facilities that are built into your CBA
or into your team or into your day that allow
you to nurse, that allow you to have take care
(27:31):
of a kid that allow you, you know, whatever it
is that you need in order to be able to
be more than just the athlete. And so those things
have to be allowable for women as well, and allowable
literally allowable. So I think those are all things. But
I do think that playing sports give people a sense
of their body and their bodily autonomy, the power of
(27:52):
their body, and that is disruptive when when culture really
insists that women stay within very small reas defined roles.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So anyway, those are some of the things that I'll say.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, no, it's so true.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I've talked about this before on the show, but just
to mention again how profound it was for me that
when I was out at the Sydney Opera House with
Angel City for their Angel City Summit for the World Cup,
I interviewed the captain of the Afghan women's soccer team.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
And when the Taliban.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Took over, one of the first groups that was sent away,
thrown onto a plane and sent away without friends or
family were female athletes. Because the Taliban was looking for
educated women and they were looking for empowered women, which
meant athletes who were in control of their bodies and
understood their own power and their own autonomy, and I
think that's all you need to know to understand why
(28:38):
women's sports and sports can be such an act of
resistance in times when we're trying to be funneled into
lanes or restricted from where we're allowed to be and
what we're allowed to do. Because when you understand that
your body is yours and it accomplishes things, it is
not the subject of another person's gaze, or something to
be put to work in the home, or something to
be used to create babies, your perspective changes and to yeah,
(29:00):
your point is valued. Not only are we trying to
fight patriarchal issues in sports, but also we understand that
sports have a unique power to fight.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Against them if we if we push in our own space.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You know, on the show, we've talked about how people
will often post exciting stats, like most viewers since, but
they rarely go back to see what was going on
years ago when the viewership was even higher. Why was
it higher that twenty or thirty years ago? To the
post you just made right, it's great to celebrate it,
but what does it tell us when we aren't understanding
(29:31):
what the peaks and valleys came from, why they happen,
and that often I think folk leads folks to think
that the era going up will inevitably continue to go up.
Do you have a warning for those that think the
future trajectory of women's sports is unquestionably up?
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I think you know the answer to this, I absolutely do.
You know. That's the thing is like those WNBA games
in the beginning we're on ABC, I watched them. Princess
Diana was in the had that tragic car accident that
same summer that the WNBA finals were on a liberty
versus the Houston Comets, which were a team that existed
(30:07):
back then.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
I won a lot, but you know they did, they
won a lot that they don't they're not around anymore.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
But yeah, so there's not an inevitability to this trajectory
at all, and I think it needs to be guarded
against because I think some of the some of the
very points that we just rd in the previous answer
are things that are you know, that people are aware
of when they're not interested in women having their voice
and surging. Like you know, there plenty of rights that
people have taken for granted can be taken away, and
(30:35):
so I think it's really careful to guard against that
and to not take things as a given. You know,
I walk into a classroom and I talk to young people,
and when I say Billy Jean King's name, I kind
of look to see if everybody recognized how many people
of you how many here know you know? And it's
not a given that everybody knows that, and they don't
know their history. And I think for them, you know,
thank goodness. You know, a lot of these you know,
(30:57):
athletes at the NC double A right now, they were
raised in a time when they didn't.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Have to worry about a lot of that stuff and
where things were going up.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
But you know, the thing is, like, the big point
of this book is that this is not like we
like to tell the story of sports and women's leagues
through the you know, Billy Jean King, the person who overcame,
But there are a lot of people who get eaten
by the system and it didn't overcome and who weren't
able to. And I think it's really important not to
just tell the story through the plucky little gal that
(31:24):
made it through, but it's important to tell it through
the fact that there were lots of really plucky kids
who got told to sit back down. And so anyway,
I mean that's kind of like this this book is
for those people as well, like for the people who
didn't get to be the hero, didn't get to hold
the trophy, didn't get to go to practice, all of that,
and I just you know, we don't want to go
(31:45):
back to those days. Sports have been you know, great
for you personally, probably got you into.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
A great school. And they were great for me too.
For sure.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I have met you know, amazing people through playing sports
and playing pickup you know, basketball back in the day.
But but that's not you know, if we revert to
a time where it's dangerous for girls to play with boys,
then you know, all those pickup games that playden would
have been impossible. So you know, I think we really
have to guard against some of these conversations that are
(32:15):
happening right now about women's quote unquote safety.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, I completely agree because to your point. Also, usually
it's not from people who have a genuine fear of
women's sports not getting their due or their resources or
their investment. It's people who again want to put us
back into certain spaces and lanes, and they know that
using starting with trans athletes and then further limiting the
scope of where girls can play and against whom and
(32:39):
what's too hard on their bodies or dangerous for them
or leads them, you know, to be unladylike.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
We'll get right back to that and we'll be going backwards.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I think about when you talk about the plucky girls
left behind, it's not even just the ones who weren't
allowed to compete. It makes me sad sometimes thinking about,
like what if Sue Bird and Dinah Tarassi were starting
now and we needed them to get to where we
are and it's not like they're hurting' But gosh, what
I like to see Diana to ROSSI start a career
right now, start the career that she had right now
(33:11):
with the eyeballs and the investment and the money and
the sponsors and the attendance.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I just, I just you need the builders. But I do.
I think about Molly Bolan. There's a great doc about her.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
It's incredible college basketball player who ended up playing in
the Women's Professional Basketball League the WPBL and was averaging
like over thirty points a game. She would score like
fifty points. She had to create a calendar of her
like looking sexy in her jersey to try to pay
her bills, and then she got basically condemned for trying
to be a sex symbol while being a mom, while
(33:44):
being a player, and like was you know, ultimately just
didn't have the opportunity to be the incredible player that
she was and go down in history as someone we
remember and know her name because the situation that she
played in the time she played and just didn't allow
for her to be this multi dimensional, amazing player.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
It's a Cheryl Miller.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
I would love to see Cheryl Miller, you know, have
the spotlight, you know, I mean that, like there are
all kinds of and even even like Simone Augustus, like
you know, players who had like unconventional ways of presenting
that the world wasn't ready to embrace yet. I mean,
I think you'd see a different way of talking about
for sure.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeaeah, all right, I have to let you go.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I have one last question for you because you mentioned
walking into classrooms and wondering what they know about and
what they care about. It's an interesting time to be
in higher education. Uh I guess it starts. Yeah, I mean,
are you feeling the effects of threats to funding or
criticism of certain language or topics that you're allowed to broach.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Sarah, I am a woman who has gone into journalism
and higher ed for I have made all the wrong decisions.
No one should ask me about anything. I have not
lived my life in a way.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
What was your first big splurge when you got your paycheck?
Did you get a car?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I got some clean underpants, you know, I got the
three pack of Haynes Nice.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
It's about I've.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Earned it, so yeah, you know it's it's no, it's
it is a tough time I worry about.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I mean, the thing is like, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
I just feel like I've always felt it's important for me.
People are going to know where I come from generally.
But I don't try to preach in the class Like
I don't think it's my business to tell anybody how
to think. I think it's my business to help you
figure out how you want to think and what you
want to think about.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Like that's my way of looking at it.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
So I'm not I'm not proselytizing to anybody or expecting people,
you know, to believe, like to leave a classroom thinking
what I think. That's not That's not why I got
entire it, So I kind of and I tend to
feel like that's I genuinely see educators who kind of
care about students and want want them to think critically
(35:46):
and want them to learn, you know, be able to
tell information from disinformation, or how do you check a
source when you're reading through you.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Know, things becoming more necessary now with AI and fake
information and everything else. I do think probably though, it
must be heartening to see more students care about women's sports.
Do you find that young people are more interested in
and what they're interested in regard to women's sports.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Yeah, I'm gonna leave you with a really happy story.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
So I heard from this.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
So I was in this class, The class where everybody
had read my book was so nice to walk into. Anyway,
one of the young men raise his hand and said, hey,
do you think this is different than what it would
have been like? And you know, when you were coming in,
he said, I work at a Dick's Sporting goods and
we sell a lot of Sabrini nescue shoots. And he says,
and we sell them to young men young women. You know,
(36:36):
he said, he said, I think that's different. And you know,
I had like I've seen you know, young men coming
into some of these conversations and these with you know,
wearing like fleet caps or you know gear, you know
nd USL gear like that is different. You know.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
The thing is like, as much.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
As these young women who are playing today feel like
sports is theirs, as much as it is their brothers,
Like their brothers get that too, you know. I think
that's a big difference, is that there is Yeah, there's
crossover fandom for sure, unapologetic crossover fandom. And I think
that's I think that's pretty spectacular, and you know, that
shows a real seat change.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Everybody read Jane's book. I'm talking to myself too. I
am going to read it.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I just need literally two minutes off.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Man, good grind you don't you just I was trying
to I was trying to get your you know, get
you where you live by saying, don't you want to
see your name in print?
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I mean clearly I do.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
It's going to get me reading faster, that's for damn sure, exactly, Jane,
Thank you for the time always, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
We have to take another break. When we come back.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
The Trifecta has been writing up a storm welcome back slices.
We love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too, So here's our
good game play of the day. Make sure you pick
up a copy of Jane's book, duh. We'll link to
(38:00):
it in our show notes and we always love to
hear from you, so hit us up on email. Good
game at wondermedianetwork dot com, and don't forget to subscribe,
rate and review slices. It's easy watch seeing your friend's
book in the window of a store. Rating ten out
of ten.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Oh my gosh, I know her review.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
How fun was it for me to walk by my
local bookstore and see Jane's book prominently displayed? I love
that shout out to Volumes Book Cafe, And I know
I mentioned this at a previous show, but it bears
repeating because my mind is still kind of blown that
all three members of the award eligible radio show The
Trifecta will have a book on the shelves of bookstores
this year. Kate Fagan's thrilling, compelling book The Three Lives
(38:41):
of katek Jane's Fantastic The fast Track, and Soon My
Book Runs in the Family, An incredible true story of football,
fatherhood and belonging. We're all growns up, y'all, We're all
growns up. Haven't ordered all three books yet? What are
you waiting for? Come on, get to it now, It's
your turn. Rate and review slices.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Thanks, listen.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
See you tomorrow when we chat with not one, but
two national championship winning Hall of Fame basketball coaches, Tara
Vanderveer and Muffett McGrath. Good Game, Jane, Good Game, Kate You.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Boner pill Ads.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive
producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder.
Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez, and Grace Lynch.
(39:38):
Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and I'm your host
Sarah Spain
Host
Sarah Spain
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