Plumbing and Infrastructure with Danette Leighton and Sarah Axelson

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to good game of Sarah Spain, where we're duct
taping pillows to our shins, throwing on a bicycle helmet.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
And popping in our night guards.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
The PWHL Playoffs start tonight at Toronto and we're ready coach.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Even if just from our couches.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's Wednesday, May seventh, and on today's show, we'll be
chatting with two studs from the Women's Sports Foundation CEO
Dennett Layton and Vice President of Advocacy Sarah Axelson about
the state of the ORG fifty one years in fighting
for Title nine compliance and the implications of the House
versus NCAA settlement on women's college sports. Plus the PWHL
takes choosing your opponent to the next level, fits worthy

(00:36):
of Fashion's biggest night, and an announcement that stinks more
than poop in your pants. It's all coming up right
after this welcome back slices. Here's what you need to
know today. Let's start with the PWHL where the four
team playoffs get underweight tonight, Number two Toronto Scepters hosting

(00:57):
the number four Minnesota Frost for Game one of that
semi final series. Now we know what some of your
thinking the four seed in the two seed, don't most
semi finals feature the number one seed versus the number
four seed.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, as we mentioned.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Earlier this week, that's usually true, but not in the PWHL.
The league instead lets the top seed pick whether it
wants to play the number three or number four seed,
and this year the number one Montreal Victoire decided they'd
rather face the number three Ottawa Charge instead of the
number four Minnesota Frost, last year's defending Chaps.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Maybe those visuals of Kendall Cooins Schofield and company skating
around the ice with the Walter Cup in their hands
have Montreal a bit shook.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Either way.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
It'll be Minnesota and Toronto getting things started tonight at
Coca Cola Coliseum in Toronto, with Montreal and Ottawa facing
off tomorrow at Plas bell and Laval Quebec, just outside Montreal.
Both semi finals are best of five, with the two
winning teams moving on.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
To the Walter Cup Finals, also best of five.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
We'll link to the full playoff schedule and broadcast info
in our show notes to the WNBA, where preseason games
continue today with the Shington Mystics in Atlanta, Dream tipping
off early and eleven thirty am Eastern start. That game
will likely feature new Dream player Cheyenne Sellars, who was
selected by the Golden State Valkyries with the seventeenth overall
pick in the WNBA draft, but was already waived by

(02:14):
the expansion team. Over the weekend, the Dream picked up
the former Maryland star off the waiver wire, so she'll
be looking to make a statement in this preseason test
and hope her tenure with this team sticks. Speaking of
the Valkyries, the teams announced its local broadcast team for
the twenty twenty five season, a group that will include
former WNBA star and friend of the Show Lesia Clarendon,
who will do in studio coverage for select games. Wait

(02:37):
to Go Lay Can't wait to hear You on the mic.
Speaking of former WNBA players in the media, shout out
Sue Byrd on her new podcast, Yep, another one. It's
called Bird's Eye View. Unlike A Touch More the sports
and culture show she hosts with fonce Megan Rapino, this
podcast promises to be all about basketball. Sue spoke about
our vision for the show on social media on Tuesday,

(02:59):
take a list.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
And it's all about the WNBA. I've literally spent my
entire life in this game as a player now as
a fan, and.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
I'll get to talk about it every week.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
We're gonna be breaking it all down, the matchups, what
stood out, who bawled out, why it all matters.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh, we can't wait for that one.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
We'll link to the feed in our show notes to
the NWSL, where we've got a little ownership news expansion side.
Denver announced on Tuesday that American alpine skiing star Mikaela
Shiffrin is joining the team's ownership group. Schiffrin, who calls
Edwards Colorado home, said in a statement that she's quote
beyond thrilled to join the ownership group of Denver NWSL

(03:36):
and support something so meaningful in the community I call
home end quote. Finally, shout out to the athletes who
walk the red carpet at Monday Nights met Gala, including
Simone Biles, Angel Reese, Shakeri Richardson, Flaje Johnson and Serena
and Venus Williams, and the New York Liberty also well
represented with John Quell Jones, Brianna Stewart and Sabrinia and

(03:56):
Escu joining team owner Clara Wousai. Everybody, but I think
Angel Reese was my favorite. Not being a homer here,
I just think she absolutely nailed the theme, which was
super fine tailoring, black style, and the theme of black dandyism,
in particular the Tom Brown suit dress with the middrift cutout,
the retro flip in her hair, the makeup, in the styling,

(04:18):
it was just all perfection. I also loved John Quell
Jones taking a risk. She had this crocodile print jacket
and a super bold hairstyle. Her locks were like gathered
and twisted straight up in there and then accented by
gems and pearls.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
It looked amazing.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Also not female athletes, but my other faves were Coleman, Debanngo,
Carrie Washington, Zendea, and Doci. By the way, also shout
out to the at NWSL insta account admin who dropped
the quote if NWSL kits had hit the met.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Gala carpet photos.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
This entire thing is absolute perfection, but especially the Gotham
Times shaboozies fit and the halle Berry versus the Spirit
Black kits. It's so good you have to see it
for yourself. We'll put the link in our show notes.
We got to take a quick break, y'all. When we
come back, it's Tonet Layton and Sarah Axelson at the

(05:10):
Women's Sports Foundation stick around.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Slices.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Just to heads up, you might find it useful to
go back and listen to our episode from April twenty fifth,
called Keeping Lawyers in Business before you listen to this
conversation with Dennett and Sarah. That app is going to
help you understand the current and future landscape of women's
college sports and why we're already seeing some changes as
schools are preparing for post NCAA versus house budget crunches,

(05:41):
like schools hiring cheaper, less experienced coaches for their women's teams,
cutting summer programs. Also how schools are being forced to
spend money paying off lawsuit back pay and are choosing
to spend money to keep up with like football and
top men's sports demands, leaving less for everything else. It's
all still very much in play, but useful to listen
to that primer before you get to this combo. All right,

(06:02):
let's get to Dinnett and Sarah joining us. Now, she's
the CEO of the Women's Sports Foundation. Previous gigs include
Chief Marketing Officer of the PAC twelve Conference and VP
of Business Ops for the WNBA Sacramento Monarchs. We've shared
the stage in can France, and we've chopped it up
at Vice President Kamala Harris's house.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Where to next, Tonnette. It's Tonette Layton. Hi, Tonet, Hi, Sarah.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
It's so fun to be with you today with her.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
She's Vice President of Advocacy at the Women's Sports Foundation
and a sixteen year veteran of the organization.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
A former college.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Softball player, now she scratches her competitive itch with kickboxing
and beach volleyball.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
It's Sarah Axelson. Hey, Sarah, Hey, Sarah, nice to see you.
Thanks for joining us. I'm so excited to talk to
both of you.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
So much to get to and you're sort of a
follow up episode to one we did not long ago,
trying to really get a grip on what the college
sports landscape is going to look like. So we're going
to get into all that in a minute, but I
just want to level set first with the Women's Sports Foundation.
Denett I was their last year when y'all celebrated your
fiftieth anniversary an incredible event. Congratulations on that. Now you're

(07:07):
just fifty one. How do you describe Women's Sports Foundation
of fifty one?

Speaker 4 (07:11):
We get asked that question a lot, and I would
love to tell you that we're not needed, but the
reality is, I think we're more needed than ever before.
And so for us, you know, we've really been rooted
in the reality that we look at the entire ecosystem.
So we care about youth and high school and collegiate
and the elite side, which obviously you and I both
have talked a lot about, which is getting so much attention,

(07:33):
but we really tie it all together to understand why
each of those levels are important and importantly why a
piece of legislation has made this entire excitement and momentum
in women's sports a reality that this moment in time
is not a coincidence. It's five decades of both men
and women having the ability to play sports. And when
each of those you know areas are functioning well, we

(07:56):
have a really thriving ecosystem, but we have multiple areas
is where there's always challenges, and that's really why this
organization was created and we always do it through the
lens of research everything, and that's what I've loved about
this organization and will continue to do that and making
sure that that research is out there to prove the model,
and the advacy work we do is all based on

(08:16):
that research that we see, and then all of our
awesome community impact work we do are just proof points
of that. And so that formula we've been doing for
fifty one years and we're going to continue to do it.
But the areas where we need to focus in on
may have evolved differently because of the fact that there's
other entities in the space that can work on some
of the business side of sports and some of those

(08:36):
valuations in data that maybe we had to do twenty
five years ago that we don't have to do today.
We really want to bridge the gap in the areas
of understanding that sports is not a nice to have
and it's not an extra curricular and it's a really
important part of our society, and that's really where our
focus is.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
I love it and it's so true.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
It feels like in the big moments, we pay lip
service to the idea that our women's Olympic team beats
full other countries because of title nine and our pro
leagues are because of great collegiate sports infrastructure. But then
when it comes down to bills and policy and things
like that, so often we seem to silo those things
and separate them from each other without looking at the

(09:15):
landscape the way you just described, which is it starts
with kids who then become high schoolers, who become collegiate,
who become a leade, who become Olympia all that other stuff.
So it is so necessary that you're focused on every
aspect of that timeline. Sarah, what would you say the
biggest focuses of Women's Sports Foundation are right now?

Speaker 5 (09:31):
You know, we're certainly paying close attention to the collegiate space.
I know, a couple of weeks ago you had, you know,
the Primer conversation, talked a lot about House VNCAA with
Kelly and Alisha. That's a big focus of ours as well.
I think there's possibilities for that to have long term
implications for collegiate sports, not just for women, but for

(09:51):
all sports, especially men's Olympic sports and broad based sports
as well. So we're certainly paying attention close attention to that.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Denette, you're in the business of making people care about
and invest in women's sports. What moves the needle because
you have to perfect the storytelling to evoke interest and
buy in, evoke emotion. What have you found works best
for folks listing that maybe have their own nonprofit or
something that they want people to care about and pay
attention to.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
What's the secret sauce?

Speaker 4 (10:20):
I would say, for me, the most important thing is
any part of an organization, And I think coming from
a CMO background, you have to know your product inside
and out and you have to be passionate about it.
I knew very early on that I would not be
the right CMO of certain products. That sports was that
product for me, and women's sports in particular. And I
think what's really unique about this position in fundraising for

(10:41):
the Women's Sports Foundation is to find those passionate people
and to be able to tell our story and why
it's so critical to invest in us, and how we
play a critical role in really convening and bringing all
these different entities and groups together. So, you know, I
think about our founder Billy Jean and the fact that
she's able to be in this moment, but she's been
putting her money where her mouth is as well as

(11:02):
her partner for you know, for decades. I mean I
always look back and it's not a coincidence either that
the top you know females that are paid in women's
sports are tennis players. I mean that has everything to
do with what Billy did, not for herself, but for
everybody else that came after her. And we see the
same problems in women's sports. We always like to say
every women's sport has the exact same problems, are just

(11:23):
one different trajectories of where they are kind of in
their lifespan. But I think one of the most critical
things in understanding your product, and you and I have
talked about this, is understanding how the business works and
where the rights are controlled, because if you truly want
to invest in women's sports, it's very different at every level.
And I think that's something that I've experienced personally from

(11:44):
spending twelve years in collegiate athletics at a former Power five,
as well as working in the NBA and the WNBA.
And when you understand how it works, whether you're a
brand or an individual investor, it's critical to the success
of how that product's going to thrive. And I think
that's one of the biggest areas of growth for women's
sports personally.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, it's the storytelling in addition to the knowledge of
the infrastructure. The nitty gritty, maybe not quite as exciting,
is just as important to understand when you're trying to
get people to get involved. Speaking of nitty gritty, Sarah,
you are an expert in Title nine and you are
also needing to rely on storytelling to get people to
understand that we're still fighting for Title nine compliance. Can
you tell us a little the story of Ashley Bediz

(12:26):
and how that speaks to the current state for so
many girls and women in sport, still fighting just for
basic resources.

Speaker 5 (12:32):
Absolutely, and I think maybe before I get into this
Ashley story, talking a little bit more about big picture
of what we're seeing at both the high school and
collegiate level in terms of Title nine compliance. So Denette
referenced it at the top, But we care about this
so deeply because we know the benefits that sports provide,
right the leadership, the health, the economic benefits to our society,

(12:52):
and sport is a launch pad for the athletes that
go through it, for boys and girls, men and women.
But despite having decades upon decades of Title nine behind us.
We know many schools are still not in compliance. At
the high school level, girls are still short changed one
point two million participation opportunities than boys. However, if you

(13:15):
look at girls today to boys and before Title nine
and that seventy one to seventy two academic year, girls
still have not reached that level. So we're still about
a quarter million opportunities behind boys in the seventies, right,
which is just like it like take a moment to
absorb that, right, that is absolutely insane that girls today

(13:36):
in twenty twenty five have not reached the level of
participation opportunities that were afforded to boys in nineteen seventy one.
And we have had decades of this legislation, right, And
now if we look at the collegiate level, women are
still short changed opportunities there as well. And there's you know,
we can get into the nuances of Title nine and

(13:57):
how participation is measured, but if you're looking to how
many more opportunities men have than women, it's about eighty
thousand opportunities, right, and those are opportunities for education, for leadership,
for the ability to have career success. In some instances,
athletic scholarships. So that's why all of this matters. And
it's not just the stats, it's the impact that it

(14:21):
has in the long tail effect of these opportunities or
the lack of these opportunities for women and girls. And
so for Ashley, Ashley is a was this has been
many years now. At the time that this initial case
was filed, she was a high school water polo athlete
in Hawaii. She was at James Campbell High School, which

(14:42):
is the largest public high school in Hawaii. The suit
was first filed in twenty eighteen and was settled in
twenty twenty three. And if you look at the facts
of that case, you want to say it's egregious, and
it is, but we know that this is an the
only times that things like this happened. That they happen

(15:02):
in other instances in other schools as well, But this
was such a public display of some of the inequities
that persist across this country. So water polo in general, right,
Like I did not grow up with water polo as
a sport in my high school, but when you watch
it on you know the Olympic stage, the amount of
athleticism that that takes to do water polo in a pool. Right,

(15:23):
Their high school did not have access to a pool
for this water polo team. They were practicing in the
open ocean, right, So, like, just imagine the choppy waves,
the wind that this high school water polo team is
going through to practice in the open ocean because the
school didn't have facilities for them.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Every time the ball gets away, it's like not a tide.
You can't even use the side of the pool to
help wrangle it.

Speaker 5 (15:48):
Right, Like, it's just when you think about it, and
that like the the circumstances that they were in it,
and they were dealing with this, right when they started
raising concerns, the school, you know, started retaliating against the
athletes who did voice concerns for Title nine, which I
should add is illegal under the statute. Right, you're actually

(16:09):
protected from retaliation under Title nine. And the school even
threatened to cancel this season on them. Right, So you
have these athletes who realize that something is wrong, and
there have been stories and articles that have gone really
in depth in this, So encourage folks to go and
read that if they're interested in learning more, because it
is a really in depth look at what happened on

(16:32):
the ground in Hawaii and some of the things that
happened throughout that story, in that timeline, you know. One
of the other things, there were fourteen In the process
of doing that investigation, they started looking beyond just James
Campbell High School, because all of the public high schools
in Hawaii are part of the same school district. There
were fourteen schools statewide, fourteen high school statewide that had

(16:53):
no locker rooms for girls, right, And fourteen, right, doesn't
sound like that many, but in the context of Hawaii,
Hawaii doesn't have that many high schools, right, So this
was not an insignificant amount of high schools than Hawaii
that had zero locker room facilities for their girls. And
so as part of the settlement, the school you know,

(17:16):
appointed an independent observer. They've made some promises to adjust
the circumstances at those schools and we'll see, we'll see
where it goes and how things continue to progress from there.
But I think the key point is that this was
a group of athletes, right, it was Ashley, but it
was also others who were willing to speak up, who
noticed that something wasn't right. And you see quotes from

(17:38):
Ashley like it was She and her family just realized, like,
something isn't right here, and they googled it and they
found Title nine and they found the ACLU right like,
and that's that's often how folks come to us. They say,
it doesn't feel right. I googled it, I found you.
I found Title nine, Like, tell me what I need
to know. And so I think, really what we need
to take away from it is how much people need

(18:02):
to understand their rights under the law.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
The compliance only happens if you essentially sue are threatened
to sue. And that's one of the biggest issues for
a title line is it's in a lot of ways
it's a law in name but not practice, because so
many don't know what their rights are or they're not
aware that they're being violated. Because in those cases like
you're talking about her, there's been really standout cases where

(18:24):
a coach has to like get all the goose poop
off of a public field so her team can try
to play softball and there's holes and cigarette butts and
drug paraphernalia and puddles and it's you know, open to
the public all the time except for the one hour
her team gets to use it.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
But first she has to clean it up.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Or the Hawaii athletes that didn't have a bathroom to
go to, not just a locker room.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
To change, but literally a toilet to use.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
When you have those egregious instances, it's a lot easier
to be like, hey, something's up. But there are countless
examples of less obvious inequalities that are also illegal if
you took them to your school board or your principal,
or to the court system if necessary. So it's so
necessary that we keep pointing them out because a lot
of people aren't even aware of it.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
Absolutely, And I think just one thing to add to that,
for folks who are listening who maybe saying, like you know,
thinking through their own sport experience or the sport experience
of their daughters, it doesn't always have to be the
legal route, right. It doesn't always have to be a
complaint with the government or a lawsuit. Sometimes, and we've
seen this happen right with folks who have contacted us.
Sometimes it's a really well informed parent or athlete or

(19:31):
coach who goes to the school with the facts or
the school board with the facts to say this isn't right,
this is the law, this is what you should be doing,
and it takes persistence, and it takes a willingness to
speak out and put yourself out there. Oftentimes it's parents
of you know, juniors or seniors who are getting ready
to depart the school who say, this is my last kid.

(19:54):
I'm doing it for the kids behind them. You know,
they weren't necessarily willing to rock the boat at the
time that their child was a at the school, but
they're not willing to let it go unaddressed. And so
I think for folks listening like it doesn't have it
doesn't necessarily have to be a lawsuit. Oftentimes sometimes it'll
get to that, but it can also be addressed by

(20:15):
having a well informed conversation and being persistent with it
as well.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, I've told this story before.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
I'll sum it up quickly, but when I was at Cornell,
the head of the football team wanted the female track
athletes to change out of what we practiced in and
into our regulation issued shirt and shorts before we went
into the weight room that we shared with them, because
we were a distraction because we had on spandex and
this was not asked of any other athletes of any
other sport and we were not responsible for whether the

(20:42):
football players could keep their focus that was on them,
And so I just put a petition on the door
of our locker room and had all the athletes from
the men's and women's track teams sign it, handed it
back and said we weren't interested in changing our attire
for the sake of the football team, and they should
get them to focus on their workouts in some other
way unrelated to us.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
And that was the end of that.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Didn't require a lawsuit or anything else, just required me
being like, hey, that's bullshit, we're not going to do that,
and everyone signing and that was the end of that.
So sometimes that's all it takes. There is so much
to get into on the Title nine front, but things
are getting all the more complicated because of this NC
DOUBLEA ruling, This House versus NC DOUBLEA, the long and

(21:20):
short of it, and if you haven't go back and
listened to our deep dive into this with the two
sports lawyers a couple episodes ago. But basically, it gives
college athletes back pay to those who've already graduated from
a large lump settlement and payment going forward to current
athletes based on a percentage of TV right deals. So
that's money that financially and finally acknowledges the revenue that
students name, image and likeness and athletic performances bring to schools.

(21:44):
You combine that with nil money from outside brands, and
we're looking at a whole.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
New model for college athletics.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
Now it's a positive that student athletes are finally getting paid.
Everyone else was getting money, now they are, but there
will be a lot of.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Consequences to these chains.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
And Dennette, I wonder if you can just even if
it's the tip of the iceberg or if it's the
whole iceberg, share your concerns about the impact of House
versus NCAA.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
Yeah, So I think I think it's really important to
understand this is only one piece of what's happening in
college athletics. And so when we talk about being able
to see why we exist and how we look at everything,
we connect all the dots. So I know we're not
going to be able to cover everything. And I was
glad that you were able to talk through the details
of House and some of the other things obviously on
the last podcast. It was great, But I want to

(22:31):
kind of remind people if we look at how we
look at college athletics and why it keeps us up
at night, and I look at it through a few
different kind of umbrella areas. The first one is we
have an antiquated system. So you we talk about it's
not if we talked about the storytelling before, Well, I'm
going to talk about why it's so important to understand
the plumbing and the infrastructure because in college athletics that

(22:52):
is essentially was driving all of these challenges, and there's
more and more that are coming. So you have an
antiquated economic system that has been created and was based
on a very old model. That model has had to
evolve now because you have all of these new things
that have come into the space, whether it's anile individual,
whether it's nil collectives, whether it's multiple different legal lawsuits

(23:15):
like house or whether it's things like antitrust and labor laws,
and we could go on and on and on and
on right, So there's multiple things that are impacting this
entire system. In addition to those realities of kind of
a bad economic model that needs to evolve, there's never
really been true investment in women's sports and men's Olympic

(23:37):
sports through the lens of how you would look at
as a business. So when we compare like the business
side of sports, like coming off of whether it's a
professional model to a collegiate model, they're very different in
how they're structured. And a lot of that is because
of where the rights are controlled. And so it's really
important to understand the nuances of the plumbing of how
and who controls the rights in the collegiate model to

(24:00):
really know where you can make a difference in how
you invest. So there's components of what you can do,
but there's also components of how it's structured, which is
why you need to understand, like you say, get under
the hood. And I think this was something that I
saw so strongly because I worked on this side for
so long, working for the twelve schools that I worked
for in the Pac twelve. In addition to that, this

(24:21):
impacts broad based sports. It's not just women's sports. This impact.
This will impact men's Olympic sports as much as it
will impact women's sports. And it's really important to know
that at the Women's Sports Foundation, we care about both.
We've always cared about men and women having equal opportunity
to play sports at every level, and what is about
to happen in college could really reduce that one piece

(24:44):
of Title nine in this conversation, Title nine protects the
amount that that school needs to be able to be compliant, right,
so it is never going to protect if an institution
carries thirty sports, they don't have to carry at thirty sports.
I think it's sixteen currently, and FBS Division one, I
think it's fourteen and other divisions. So right now, that's

(25:04):
all you have to carry, but you can keep reducing.
So I know some of the strongest Olympic team USA
producing institutions are ones that carry a lot more than that.
If you look at different institutions that have carried the
most Olympians as an example, we're already seeing the pattern
of reduction of sport opportunities, reduction potentially of dropping down divisions.

(25:28):
So again I keep there's layers and layers and layers
to this. So I think it's really important to understand
that this legal patchwork, the NI collectives and NIL are
very different from each other, and how you have to
look at it. The lack of data transparency, the reality
of a very antiquaid economic model and then knowing how
it works is really critical to what's actually happening in

(25:48):
college sports, which is why we have a lot of
concerns about what this could look like when you see
the long tail of it, and we want to make
sure that we're not looking in the rear view mirror going,
oh my gosh, what just happened. And we also know
that each of the institutions, if I'm sitting as a
division ie FBS athletics director right now, we also know

(26:08):
how hard it is for them too. I don't want
to not have empathy for what they're going through because
it's a very different landscape for them than it was
for their predecessors twenty years ago. You've had a model
that was based on one sport for a very long
time and how that revenue was generated, and you had
control of where that money came from because you were
able to control it from the top on down. Now
that money is being spread out everywhere, so you have

(26:31):
to think about how can we continue to evolve. And again,
I'm the biggest college football fan. I love college football,
but we have no expense caps in college athletics. It
is very strange, and you come from professional sports and
realize that doesn't exist in college and so because of that,
we have to work within the framework of knowing how
the business model works to know how you can affect change.

(26:53):
And one of those biggest things that I think you
can affect change on is the reality of understanding how
you can invest if you are an individual philanthropist or
you're a brand in college athletics, and being very direct
and deliberate and deliberate in where you want that money
to go. Because of how rights are controlled, it usually
is you give money at the top of the athletics department,

(27:15):
that money gets spread out. But if you want your
money to go to the women's basketball program, or you
want your money to go to that women's water polo program,
you have to be very intentional and you have to
understand who controls the rights, even on the media right side.
Most people don't understand what the NCAA controls on the
media right side and what they don't. They don't control
college football media rights contracts. They control the NCAA media

(27:37):
championships like the basketball tournament. So it's again understanding and
college has a tendency to not essentially like to take
a lot of risk remember it's still under a higher
education model, and athletics departments are one piece of a
central campus of a university, so the controls are also
usually divided up and different rights holders are giving the

(27:59):
access to be able to control those rights for a
given institution, whether that's sponsorship or ticket sales. So I've
always been worried that there hasn't been an investment in
what's called the publicity side, or we might call on
the business side of professional sports side, selling sponsorship, selling tickets,
creating fan bases, doing all the things that we know
are the metrics, but have empathy on the collegiate side

(28:20):
because they're trying to do that for not one facility,
but fifteen or twenty sometimes and also multiple sports. So
I think most people don't understand the nuances and for
living on both sides, I've learned to have respect for
both and have empathy for both, which is why it
really is going to take a collaborative effort. But consumers

(28:40):
need to understand the plumbing, which isn't as sexy, but
when you understand it, you can make change.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yeah, I think there's so much there that's fascinating, But
if there isn't a push to sell sponsorships, to market
a team, to explain why it's valuable. On the women's side,
those are the things that fall behind. And then we
blame the product when it has never been marketed or
sold the way that we have men's And if you
don't market or sell it, then it won't get better.

(29:05):
And you can keep pointing to its outcomes, its revenues,
et cetera as the reason you don't invest. It's a
roboros of bullshit, right because if we're not investing, we
never see it get better. And then if it never
gets better, then we have a reason that we say
we're not investing. Before I move on really quickly, I
want to ask you, and you can't predict the future,
but for folks who are maybe never going to dive

(29:26):
into the plumbing, it's five or ten years down the road.
What's the worst case scenario here in terms of programs
being disbanded, women's sports not being invested in, money deciding
to be given from all these different things to just
the men.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
What does it look like?

Speaker 4 (29:41):
Well, I don't want to it's I don't want to
say it's doomsday, because I think we all have an
opportunity to actually make change, and I think the excitement
around women's sports and the momentum around women's sports can
help us do that. It's just knowing where you put
your money. So I do think the one part that
I'm very concerned about with House, the piece that I
don't like, is it's one thing for the formula or
the model they're creating for the back pay, it's another

(30:03):
thing that formula is going to utilize as investment into
the future. I don't like that at all because there
hasn't ever been a fair market value in the areas
you just described, the lack of funding that has gone
towards the sponsor side, the marketing side, the publicity side,
that side, just because women's sports and men's Olympic sports
have always been defined as non revenue generating sports my

(30:25):
least favorite word ever, and so there has never been
a fair market value. So the reality of that is
we've already been behind the game for a long time,
and so but we have these great examples of models
that are proving that you can be that now, which
is some of the momentum you're obviously seeing at the
top of the ecosystem. So that's why I think if

(30:45):
you understand some of the plumbing. It's just about being
intentional where you put your dollars. We always talk about
there needs to be more brands involved. There needs to
be a lot more brands to create the ocean. But
when those brands need to be you know, they also
need to understand how the system works so they know
how they can utilize their marketing dollars. So I would
say that, like, my biggest concern is can a very

(31:07):
significant reduction in broad based sports for both men and
women Olympic sports, that's my biggest concern. I think that
you will see less opportunities than you see today if
we don't pay attention. And there's enough examples of those
already of athletics departments, you know, not continuing to play
no matter what division and at what level they are,
sports being going away men's and women's. And the reality

(31:33):
is we've got a really beautiful system because it's tied
to our education model and the legislation that is allowed
for so many of those men and women that never
go on to be on Team USA, but just have
a great opportunity to be able to play at whatever
level in college and be able to earn their degree.
So I do think we should feel a lot of
pride in that part of the collegiate system and recognize

(31:54):
that we can make we can make change. And my
goal and objective is to see some of these sports,
both men's and women's Olympic sports, be able to pay
for themselves so they're not on the chopping block and
so not seeing a reduction in investment, but an increase
in investment, but having empathy and understanding the challenges athletic
administrators are under and recognizing that the private sector can

(32:18):
play a big role on this and making sure that
they make those investments. Because everybody loves college athletics in
the United States. We all have rama mater, we all
have you know, the school that we follow in our
own community. This is relevant to everybody, and I think
that's something that I'm hopeful we can rally everybody to
understand just progress made isn't necessarily a progress progress to come,
So let's let's not let it get there.

Speaker 5 (32:40):
Yeah. I just wanted to emphasize something that Dennett, you know,
has has said is just Title nine does not protect
broad based sports offerings, right, So what it means is
that all Title nine says is that once a school
decides to offer sports, it must do so equitably. A
school can offer zero sports equitably, they can offer, you know,

(33:01):
a fraction of the opportunities that they currently have. And
while they're currently minimum sponsorship requirements at the NCAA level,
to my knowledge, all it takes is a vote of
membership to say, you know what, sixteen is too much?
Right Maybe it's sixteen right now, but who says five
years down the road, they might say, you know what,
sixteen's too much, We actually need it to be ten.

(33:24):
And now you're looking at schools severely diminishing the number
of sports that they're carrying and just investing much more
in fewer sports, which to some extent is their prerogative
when it comes to the current offerings. But you know,
as we said, we want more student athletes to have

(33:44):
access to sports because we know the lifelong benefits that
they provide.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Right, so they would make these cuts because essentially, once
you've opened the door to hey, we can make money,
and we can openly make money, they're just going to
start focusing only on the teams that make money at
the expense of others. Because the influx of new money
that goes to the athletes, why does that automatically and
ultimately lead to cuts to the programs.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
The challenging part is this, if you're running a business,
you're looking at it like, how do I keep my
lights turned on? Right? If you have all these different
sports in that you're responsible for and you don't have
expense caps, then at the end of the day, it
just becomes an economic decision. Unfortunately, it's really black and white.
And so if you're in that situation and you have
the ability that you have to stay here because this

(34:31):
sport is allowing you to generate this much money, and
why would you ever start to invest in the other
sports if you're just trying to hold on because you
used to be able to control how the money is distributed.
You don't get to control that anymore because of all
things that we just described, Because it's going out to
nil individual, because you have the lawsuits.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Well, you do get to control it.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
But because now people understand that you're in control of distributing,
there can be more pull on just giving it all
to football or all to basketball. Whereas before, or when
revenue came in from football, you could distribute it across
the school to the benefit of the athletic department at large,
and now there will be demands from coaches who want
their players paid more or their programs to be even

(35:12):
more lifted up.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
Yeah, and there would be choices. I mean, I think
you could also say we haven't even gotten into the
discussions of the transferporter. But there's also the reality of
what's happening that we used to say used to happen.
You know, under the table is very forward facing now.
So it's also a matter of is that money that
used to be a booster that's going somewhere else now
going to a quarterback and so that money might have

(35:34):
gone to the top of the athletics department before, and
so they did have the ability to distribute that to
the softball team. So that's why you have to look
at each of these layers to understand that it's almost
like a restricted grant. Is a very important way to
think about it if you're thinking about funding different sports
properties because in college, because then it's a guarantee to

(35:54):
get to that. That's why I think individuals and brands
can say this is the only place where I want
my money to go, and this is why And I
think that's going to be really important in the future
because I do think brands and individuals can help drive
infusing more cash into the system that will help women's
sports and men's Olympic sports, which ultimately is what's needed anyways,

(36:16):
because we haven't really done what we need to do
to get those women's sports, in particular to have the
right types of promotional tools to actually build fandom. I've
always said, done all this great work in women's sports
with essentially our hands tied behind our backs. We've never
controlled the rights. The disruption and media has allowed us
to be in different places. I just think that the

(36:36):
opportunities are here because of all that disruption, and so
it's why you have to be able to play and
work the system to understand where you can make an impact,
because it's going to be one of those challenges at
the end of the day that schools are going to
have to decide and if your budgets are looking the way,
they're looking a certain way, you're going to have to
make our choices and what's the easiest choice to make.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
So Sarah my friend Victoria Jackson, she's a professor of
sport history at ASU, and she believes The answer is
you have to spin off football, make it a separate industry,
fully professional under twenty three league, not run by higher
education anymore, but affiliated with schools. So schools have their
games and teams, students and fans keep their experiences, but
the school doesn't run it. Players get employment contracts, they

(37:20):
can activate the free education associated with the school whenever
they want, while they're playing or after, and it sort
of becomes a minor league for the NFL, but with
affiliation to schools that people are so clinging to because
of what Dannetti said, we all love our alma mater,
we all love that experience, and the schools love the
money that comes with it. Is that the only way
to do this because the number of roster spots for

(37:41):
football and the outsized money there is really what keeps
us from trying to have a more balanced ecosystem.

Speaker 5 (37:48):
I think there are plenty of ways that you know
are There are lots of opportunities and ways that people
have suggested we can approach this right. And I don't
think that there's necessarily one right answer to it. I
think there's lots of conversation right and there's no right answer,
and we're all trying to figure it out. But I think,

(38:08):
you know, the a couple things just from a Title
nine perspective that strike me as we're talking, and even
in what Dennetja said, like, yes, folks can say this
is where I want my money to go. And on
the women's side, that's going to be super helpful because
maybe there's not as much investment by the schools. But
I want to give the caveat that regardless of where

(38:30):
the money comes from, as long as the school allows
that benefit to be passed along to the student athletes,
they are responsible for making sure that their student athletes
are treated equitably. Right, So you can't say, well, it
came it's a restricted it's restricted money, it came from
over here, so therefore it doesn't matter in factoring in
the Title nine compliance aspect of it. So and the

(38:53):
same as of right now and how things are structured
is true for football, right and that debate happened long
ago on you know the floors of Congress of whether
or not football gets spun off and kind of becomes
its own thing and isn't under Title nine right now
in the way things are structured attached to our educational programs.
Football is part of Title nine compliance, and schools need

(39:14):
to make sure because at the end of the day,
right it's still students at that school who are receiving
the benefits the educational opportunities. Title nine is an educational law,
and we need to make sure that we're treating folks
equitably under the law.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Completely agree, I mean as of right now, of course,
I'm just wondering if it's possible to fix this problem
when we all know that the big thing sticking out
is the thing that has one hundred plus roster spots
and is you know, has a bunch of different roles.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
What's up to that?

Speaker 4 (39:44):
Yeah, I think the part that makes it so complicated
is that again diving in, like most people don't understand
that Division one FBS is very different from Division one FCS,
was very different from Division two, division three, I mean,
and there's football at all levels. So I think that
that's one of the things that's really hard on. Does
it work in certain circumstances?

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Well, what is that?

Speaker 4 (40:04):
I mean even within division one, Division one is very
different from the top to the bottom part of Division one,
and people don't understand that, like even within conferences. So
I think that's the part that has always made this
so complicated is that not everybody's treated equally in the
relationship of how football is even functions in the collegiate model.
And I think what we don't want to see happen

(40:25):
is that there are great things about college football at
all levels that has really benefited young men to have
the ability to go earn their scholarships. And how the
business model works again is so antiquated because it's built
on something that worked a long time ago that isn't
necessarily working today in twenty twenty five. And so I
think our concern too is to see the reality of

(40:46):
what potentially could happen, but it's not the same. Like
I worked at a Power five conference. I know who
controls the media rights, and I worked at one of
the Power five conferences that went away and so you
know that isn't the same one and had the most
prolific women's sports Olympic programs of the entire country. So
I worked with those institutions for over a decade to

(41:09):
know the work and you know, for me to see
a conference that entire women's sports olympians were stronger than
anybody else in the country, and to see it, you know,
be where it is today's very hard to swallow in
the collegiate model, you know, I spent I'm a West
Coast girl and spent time as a PAC ten, Pac
twelve kid and graduate. So to go through that process

(41:29):
of seeing all of that and seeing where we are
today and really seeing a conference that was all about
the conference of champions and recognizing those strengthen women's Olympic sports.
But I think it's important for people to recognize that
it's so different from even within Division one.

Speaker 5 (41:46):
Sarah Denett as you as you talk about women's Olympic sports.
I also want to make the point that we often
talk about collegiate sports as a feeder system for a
Team USA, but we also should recognize the fact that
at our colleges and universities also produce international student athletes.
So this is not just about the strength of Team USA.

(42:08):
This is about the strength of the field on the
Olympic stage and the number of athletes who come through
US systems benefit from Title nine at the high school
or collegiate level and then either go back to a
home country and play for a national team or go
to a country of where they have heritage, and they're
able to play even if they're born here. Right Like

(42:30):
Title nine has elevated the global game. And we also
can't gloss over the impact that this could have not
just on Team USA, but globally the athletes and the
training grounds that we have in our collegiate system right now.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, and that's true for men and women, but particularly
for women in countries that don't have the infrastructure and
the investment in women's sports, they can come here and thrive.
We are so out of time, but I do want
one sentence. It's going to be hard, but one sentence
from each of you, a call to action. Then Nette,
you've sort of already done it, but a call to

(43:06):
action for folks who want to have an impact on
this changing landscape.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
HM.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
I always, because we spend so much time talking about investment,
I will always say intentional and deliberate investment in every
layer of the ecosystem of women's sports is critical. Understanding
enough about how it works so you put your money
where you want your money to go is really really critical.
And just remembering that sports is so much bigger than

(43:35):
the time in which they compete. It is essentially fueling
our economy with the future leaders both men and women,
as well as all the amazing preventative health measures that
happen when girls and boys both play sports. So we
have to continue to make sure this isn't a nice
to have. And that was way long.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Run on sentence, but I'll allow it, Sarah.

Speaker 5 (43:55):
I think I'll stick with the title nine theme, right.
I think we need folks need to be education on
the law and empowered to speak up. Just because we've
seen so much progress already doesn't mean that we're guaranteed
that progress or that we will maintain that ground for
the next fifty years. So it takes all of us
in understanding the law, being educated, and being empowered to
speak up and increase compliance.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
To steal a line from one of those PAC twelve schools,
fight on is the message here. Thank you both so
much for coming on. Obviously we could talk about this
for much longer. Maybe we'll have you back as we
continue to monitor the landscape, but so appreciate your insight.

Speaker 4 (44:33):
Thanks Sar, Thank you for having us, Sarah. Thanks for
being a big voice for women's sports. It's important.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Thanks again to Dennette and Sarah for taking the time.
We got to take another break when we come back.
A review that cast shade and intends to spark change.
Stick around, Welcome back slices. We love that you're listening,
but we want to get in the game every day too,

(45:01):
So here's our good game play of the day. We
wanted to highlight an upcoming event some uselcens might be
interested in attending. Athlete Ally is holding its fifth annual
Athlete Activism Summit from June twelfth to the fifteenth in Portland, Oregon,
with registration open now through May ninth. The four day
summit is open to any college athlete, coach, or administrator
who's looking to make their school's community more inclusive and

(45:23):
welcoming with panels, discussion groups, and outings to local games
and activities. We're big fans of athlete Ally here at
Good Games, so even if you can't make the event,
be sure to check out their work. We'll link to
their website and the event registration page in the show notes.
And you know, we always love to hear from you,
so hit us up on email. Good Game at wondermedianetwork
dot com. Don't forget to subscribe a rate and review, y'all.

(45:45):
It's really easy. Just take it from former triathlete and
ironmanwinner Sarah Gross, who called in with a guest review
on some recent news.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Take a listen.

Speaker 6 (45:54):
Ironman, not the superhero, but the triathlon company made announcements
last week that's sadly will significantly reverse forward progress for
women who love to swim, bike, and run. Rating minus
infinity stars review. First of all, thank you Sarah and
slices for letting me jump in with this review today.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
I wish I had better news.

Speaker 6 (46:17):
I'm Sarah Gross, former Ironman North American champion and founder
and CEO of Feisty, a media company that covers women's
sports and women's health. Side note, I love the episode
with Chelsea Sadaro and Haley Tura and have narrowly avoided
pooping my pants on several occasions. It comes with a territory.
So on to the bad news. Iron Man announced that

(46:40):
for their World Championship they will be going back to
a single day of racing both men and women together
on the Big Island of Hawaii. Many people in the
sport cheered. I mean, I can understand the appeal of
having everyone together racing at the same time, but when
you dig into the details, you realize that these changes
come at the expense of all the forward progress Iron

(47:01):
Men has made for women over the last two or
three years. Since twenty twenty two, women have had their
own race, meaning there were no men on the course
with them. This ensured that women had a clear, fair
course undisturbed by the men's race. Like Chelsea said at
the time, there aren't men on the court during the
women's Wimbledon final, so why should there be men on

(47:21):
our race course? And it's been incredible being in Kona
for these races, with all the media focus on the
women's race, and watching a woman cross the finish line
first in an Iron Man so many shivers. But this
change back to a single day of racing has come
at another cost as well. As you can imagine, when
men and women each had their own race, there were

(47:44):
equal numbers of available race spots by gender. But under
this new system, which is really an old system, recycled
slots will be handed out based on participation numbers. In practice,
this means that twenty five percent of the athletes racing
and in twenty twenty six will be women and a
whopping seventy five percent will be men. Now I'm sure,

(48:06):
you can imagine lots of people were upset about this.
It seems clear and obvious from where I sit that
women having half the slots is not just the right
thing to do, but also the only option if you
want to develop the women's side of the sport. So
what do we do about it? Iron Man has shown
consistently that they are willing to listen, so let them

(48:28):
know what you think. If you want to dive into
this topic more deeply, or help us spread the word
slide into my dms. I am Sarah at Sarah with
noh dot gross on Instagram. I would love to hear
from you, so thanks again Sarah for letting me share
this unfortunate news. Myself and everyone at Feisty Media do

(48:49):
not want to see iron Man quietly get away with this.
I'm going to keep banging my drum and I hope
to have a positive update next time we talk.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Thanks to Sarah for the review and for letting us
know how to call on iron Man to do better.
Now it's your turn, slices, rate and review. Thanks for listening.
Say you tomorrow. Good game, Dinnette, good game, Sarah. Few
new systems that are actually bad old systems Brought Back
from the Dead. Good Game with Sarah Spain is an
iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports

(49:21):
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 Rutterer, Britney Martinez,
and Grace Lynch. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and

(49:41):
I'm Your host Sarah Spain.

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