February 3, 2026 • 43 mins
It's been coined, "The Caitlin Clark Effect." For the WNBA's last few seasons, it's translated to a surge in popularity, viewership, and revenue, sparked by one extremely talented, ever-watchabale player. But are women's sports at large suddenly having a moment? Where was that attention two or three decades ago? And what does the future look like for female athletes? Sports journalist, former college athlete, and Good Game podcast host Sarah Spain chats with Kal about the Caitlin Clark Effect amidst all things women's sports.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm a big basketball fan.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I grew up loving the New Jersey Nets as a kid,
and then fell out of love with them, like any
good Jersey guy when they decided to leave New Jersey
and come to New York. Now, I obviously also live
in New York. But I can't go back to the Nets, man,
I can't do it. I have too much childhood pride
slash trauma. So I'm a Knicks fan, and I love
(00:23):
going to Knicks games. It's the type of thing you know, culturally,
if you have a sports loving friend group, or you
just get random texts like Hey, you know what games
are we going to this season?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Or like, what do you do next week? I have
an extra ticket.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Since twenty twenty four, there's also been like a huge
uptick in our in our friends group of people who
are like saying the same thing about our wonderful WNBA team,
New York Liberty, who won the twenty twenty four championship.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And I think it's really cool that you get.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The same amount of texts and the same amount of
love for the WNBA as you do for the NBA,
at least with a lot of my friends.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
The thing that stands out to me so much.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Is the number of people who for years knew I
worked in sport, and if I had brought up something
in women's sport would have gone kind of glassy eye,
did not have anything to add to the conversation. Who
were suddenly coming to me to want to talk about
this phenom Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And it brings us to the topic that we have
today in our episode where we bring sports journalist Sarah
Spain on to break down the history of women's sports,
why it's taken so long for everybody to seemingly catch
up and diving into this bigger question of is women's
sports in some sort of an investor boom? Is it
having a moment? Is that moment here to stay or
has it kind of always been around? And it's just
(01:37):
dumb men like me who are noticing.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Now Here we go again again again again.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Hey, I'm Cal Penn and this is Here we Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Asks why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Here we go? Thanks for doing it, Cal, Yeah, we
have lots of mutual friends.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Cal, That's what I hear today. I'm speaking with.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Sarah Spain host of Good Game with Sarah Spain on
iHeart podcast, the only daily women's sports show on any
outlet and any medium, part time for espnW, and author
of the book Runs in the Family.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Okay, also, so thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I'm excited to talk to you because it feels like,
sort of recently, like everyone suddenly obsessed with women's sports
and Caitlin Clark and athletes like that. I live in Brooklyn,
so like obviously Liberty has been crushing it, and so
one of the things I want to talk to you
about is like, where was that attention two or three
decades ago? What changed? What does the future look like
(02:57):
for women's sports? And having you on his very special
for us. You're a Peabody Emmy winning sports journalist. I
have not won a Peabody, and I'm merely an Emmy nominee.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So I'm really punching up.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Here, so much closer to the pagot.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
You know, I'm so far from all of them.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I have never worked in the White House, so there
you go.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah, but what does that even mean today? Nothing?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Great job, fair fair. It did sort of like downgrade
that line on your resume a little bit. It's really
actually a negative at this point.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
It keeps shrinking every year. Trust me.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So you've you've worked at ESPN for two decades as
a writer, radio host, podcasting host, and on ESPN TV.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
ESPN is actually only sixteen sixteen years.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
You and I have something in common, aside from our
love of kickball when we used to live in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
But you like comedy. Did you did improv? Do you
still do improv?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Well, so that's why it's funny that you're like, I'm reaching.
You have the job that I want. When I first
got out of college, I moved out to LA to
do comedy. I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live.
I still do. I will refuse to give up that
dream until I'm dead and buried. You just never know
when they need an aging white lady to add to
their fresh young cast. But yeah, I did the Second
(04:18):
City Conservatory, moved out there to do acting in comedy stuff,
and had been an athlete my whole life and just
sort of took a class in TV hosting, hosted a
fake Chicago bear show to practice teases and throwing to
break And someone said, this seems really natural. Why don't
you try it? And I said, well, there's no women
in sports, but let's give it a shot. And here
I am, that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
And you're you're not just an athlete, you're a heptathlete.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Is that how you say it?
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Yes, that's correct. So I've never heard of the word.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Obviously it sounds like hepatitis an athlete, which I'm sure
is not what.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
It is standing for seven not hepatitis, But that's the
first time i've heard that one. It is a long jump,
high jump, hurdles, eight hundred, two hundred, javelin, and shot put.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Oh hell yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
What did your parents think of you being a heptathlete? Like,
were they into this or was it overwhelming for them?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
They were into it?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I would say my dad was probably deeply regretting it
when I went to Junior Olympics in Washington in the
summer and it was like one hundred degrees and the
heptathlon is two days of competition, so he was just
sitting in the stands waiting for me to take a
jump that takes less than three seconds, and then waiting
a half hour for another jump that takes those than
three Yeah, it's that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
One of the things I love about this podcast is
I get to like pick people's brains on institutional memory,
so like, and that's the one thing in politics too
that I thought was very interesting is how like it's
trucial memory either is always there, like the revolving door
of people who always work in government. But I'm mostly
interested in that in entertainment because things change, so I
(05:47):
don't want to say quickly, but really like, if I
look back the last twenty years in entertainment and the
types of portrayals that are out there and the representation,
it's like it's so completely different, and there's so much
stuff to watch.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Well, Harold was ai right, thankfully not Jesus. That's the
whole other thing. That's a whole other episode of like
don't even get me started. Okay, So you've been at
ESPN for sixteen years. How has the culture around women's
sports changed there? And I imagine, just like sports culture
in general, just by virtue of like you were saying,
you're one of the few women to work there when
(06:20):
you started.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Right, Yeah, I mean I would say that the culture
elsewhere has probably changed more dramatically than at ESPN. ESPN
has always been pretty on the forefront of in terms
of rights packages, airing games, having rights to the different leagues,
whether that's Women's March, Madness, college basketball, WNBA, things like that.
(06:41):
But across the landscape, it's all the other places that
are really starting to invest. And I do think ESPN
has this arm called the espnW that was way ahead
of the game. I got on very early in that
it started, I want to say end of two thousand
and nine, maybe two thousand and eight, and it was
at a time when people were still extremely doubtful that
(07:02):
there was an interest that the product was worthy and valuable,
and so they and I as a part of that group,
really had to push through a lot of crap to
get to the place where we could stop just fighting
a well that had been poisoned and start building on
something that had just agreed upon value to it. And
(07:23):
I think that has really changed the landscape is everyone
doesn't have to be cheerleadery so much anymore. They can
be both critical and supportive, which is really what sports is.
It's not as fun to watch if you're never criticizing,
but when everybody is taking shots at women in sports
and women's leagues, it feels hard to be someone supportive
of it and do the same, so you end up
feeling like you're not giving a real critical eye to it.
(07:44):
And so now that we'ren't a place where we can
do that, it's much better. But I would say outside
of ESPN, there's just a lot more digital shows, podcasts, websites,
other networks that have women's only sports shows. And to
be frank, when I was at full time at ESPN,
I pitched multiple times some sort of women's sports show,
whether that was digitally or on linear television, and it
(08:05):
still doesn't really exist. They have a show called vibe
Check now that is all women hosting, but they do
both men's and women's sports, and it's still not quite
the thing. And so I think that's where ESPN could
still step up there cover just take all the rights
that they have and actually create the kind of show
that the space needs, which is what my podcast is
a daily look at the story, steak star stats, trades, transfers, quotes, games, previews,
(08:31):
all the things that we've been doing for men's sports
for decades and decades and decades to set.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
People up to want to go watch.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
We're not as good at doing that in women's we
mostly show highlights or tell feature stories about individual athletes.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
When you mentioned the.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Kind of proving the worth of women's sports from the inside,
were there, Like I remember in entertainment, there were definite,
like very clear gatekeepers who back in the day would
explicitly say we can't asked you because you're not white
or black, Like I actually really appreciate the candor because
then it shows me that the traditional way of getting
(09:06):
my foot in the door isn't going to work and
I'm going to have to strategize in a different way.
Did you have those gatekeepers who said things like women's
sports don't rate or was it more dynamic than a
straightforward conversation.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
That's actually the perfect example because it also told you
the product is not the problem, as in, my talent
isn't the thing keeping me from this. It's the expectation, right.
And So I think the story of women's sports and
what I've really been trying to talk to people about
and share over the last couple of years, as excitement
has increased and people have gotten involved, is that it's
(09:38):
not because the product is so fundamentally different now, it's
because there had been intentional holding back of women's sports
for such a long time, and you need all of
that context when you're discussing it to understand why it's changing.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Now.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
I'll give you just a couple examples. One is, professional
women's soccer in England was banned for decades and decades
and decades because a professional women's game that was the
day before a men's game got more attention, fan interests
and attendance and it angered the men at the top
of the soccer federation. So they banned women from playing
(10:15):
professional soccer. Now they were able to play in various leagues,
it was always deemed semi professional or not professional up
until I think it was nineteen seventy. And when you
think about the impact that decades of intentionally holding women
back can mean for who grows up thinking there's a
future there, who grows up thinking it societally endorsed, who
(10:38):
is putting money in investment and time and energy into
the space. So now when we see that these women's
soccer leagues across the pond are thriving, attendance is soaring,
investment is huge, you have to take into account that
they were so intentionally held back for so long that
This isn't just like, oh, we finally figured out that
women can play too, It's that they've literally been allowed
to create and start to build a foundation and grow it.
(11:00):
Until the nineteen nineties, there were still heads of sport
federations using pseudoscience to keep women out of sport. The
head of the International Ski Jumping Federation was still saying
in nineteen ninety that women should not ski jump because
their uteruses will fall out. Jesus, I am certain you
have heard this, because uteruses falling out has been used
to keep us from running marathons, riding horses, ski jumping.
(11:23):
Like the idea that women are a protected species that
should be kept at home in order to incubate future
generations and not put at risk their baby making parts
is like a through line throughout so much of the
history of sport is it's always been used to keep
women from moving their bodies and feeling empowered in their
bodies too. I spoke to the head of the Afghanistan
(11:44):
women's national soccer team at the World Cup in twenty
twenty three in Australia, and she and her teammates had
been airlifted out of Afghanistan as soon as the Taliban
took over. They immediately took the educated women and the
women in sport. Not even their families came with them.
They got them out as soon as possible because they
believe them to be at the greatest danger because of
(12:05):
what an embodied woman who is in control of her body.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And what she does with it means to the ideals
of you.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Know, the Taliban. So that's just an example for you
of the ways in which it's so complicated. It's not
just as simple as we'd rather watch men do that.
It's what does it mean to put women in their
place or in their lane in society? And when you
add up all the different ways. I mean, men's stadiums
are taxpayer funded, right, and we never talk about that.
(12:32):
We're like, oh, women, figure it out, and it's like, well,
we're not getting political benefits. You know, when the mayor
goes up and tells you how much he loves a
men's team, they're using that often to curve favor politically
and socially, and women's sports has ever been a part
of that conversation until very recently. So I just think
all of that matters when you talk about it, because
the product has so long been blamed for what is
(12:54):
actually a result of a patriarchal system and society that
has so often told us like where we belong in
what we're allowed to do.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
With that incredible background, and by the way, I had
not heard the ridiculous uterus falling out nonsense.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
I've never heard of a uterus falling out, and I
feel like if they did, there would be some sort
of secondhand uterus market for or especially now seeing a
uterus available for a place the original that fell out,
or some sort of surgery to put it back in.
It just feels like that's probably not likely.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I think this is my next movie. It's just about that.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
What would you say is the biggest or several of
the biggest differences between working in sports media then versus now,
Like what's it like today?
Speaker 4 (13:36):
What I often say is that the basement is the same,
but the ceiling is higher than ever, And by that
I mean that women can now be play by play
color owners, gms, like all the jobs at the top
are far more open to women than they ever were before.
But the beginning of getting into the industry, you are
still more likely than not going to be sexually harassed,
more likely not to be condescended, to be told you
(13:58):
don't know what you're talking about, for people to presume
that you are there to meet men or sleep with athletes,
or because I think it's like yeah Jesus, yeah yeah.
But when you push through that and fight through that,
there's so much more on the other side. There are
so many more women working in every space. Also that
it's not as novel to see a woman or hear
(14:19):
from a woman, and then the reactions are much more measured,
because it just is absurd at this point to see
a woman on TV talking sports and be like, what's
she doing here? Whereas when I started it literally was
a reaction to existing was so negative. And now you
just have to say something they disagree with, or talk
about male female dynamics and sexual assault, domestic violence, all
(14:41):
of those serious issues, and then you will get right
back to the death threats of the old days.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Also, I feel like I feel like this is this
is so crazy because I'm seeing now the dichotomy of
like it sounds like either you're a lesbian, as if
that's a bad thing, or you're just there to meet men, yes,
or you're.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Or you know, if you're in a Ben Affleck movie,
you're a lesbian waiting to meet a manage that will
make you not be a lesbian anymore. That's a fascinating
part of all of this, too, is there was a
lot of homophobia at the root of judgment of and
predisposed ideas about women's sport, and so whether that's coaches
who have literally two different closets where they keep their
(15:22):
regular clothes and then the clothes they use to recruit
that won't give away that they're queer, or there's athletes
who for so long had to be really inauthentic in
their presentation because sponsors or leagues would tell them they
wouldn't be accepted as they are. That I think is
one of the biggest things that has allowed for women's
sport to become what it is now, which isn't just
(15:44):
of interest as sport, but a real cultural influencer. These
female athletes are some of the most influential in terms
of social media, fashion, all the other stuff. It's because
they're allowed to be multi dimensional. At one point it
was really either your little girl all grown up, what
a great role model. She's never done anything wrong and
she would never even swear or how hot is she?
(16:07):
Everybody wants to sleep with her? Those are your two options.
Over sexualized or completely infantilized. And also always straight, girl
next door white was really what we elevated. And now
women athletes are allowed to be so many different things,
mass presenting, queer, straight villains, heroes, funny, serious, all the
other stuff. And once people are allowed to be authentically
(16:28):
themselves and society has started just accepting more versions of people.
It has allowed for people to really connect with them,
and then they want to watch them, root for them,
follow them by their stuff, all those things.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
So there was World War Two, so many men were
drafted to war. Baseball, America's favorite pastime. Basically the most
able bodied men were away. So Major League Baseball execs
brought women in and created the All American Girls Professional
Baseball League, amazing a league of their own. Gina Davis,
Tom Hanks, razio'donnell is based on this particular moment. So
(17:03):
I'm curious if, given your expertise, if you have a
take on why that moment maybe didn't last.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
It wasn't intended to last. It was intended to be
a thing that they were allowed to do because the
circumstances had prevented men from playing, and that has been.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
A through line so often.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
There are certainly leagues and teams that tried and failed
and weren't financially viable. But often what you see is
a real desire from people in power to take away opportunity.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
If we jumped from there and fast forward to Title
nine in nineteen seventy two, and I guess for people
who don't know, Title nine prohibits sex based discrimination and
education and programs that receive federal funding, so that means
school sports. So Title nine dramatically boosted fumal athletic participate
in schools and colleges. What do you think the lasting
(18:03):
impact of that has been.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Massive? Massive? You can never underestimate the impact of titleline
on women's and girls sports in the United States. It's
why when the Olympics roll around, oftentimes the women for
Team USA would place third in the metal count across
every country including the men. Like that's how dominant our
(18:28):
women's teams are, and it is because there has been
a necessity. Now, I want to let you know that
sadly compliance for Title nine, despite it being a law,
is horrific and currently women and girls still have one
million fewer opportunities at the high school level than boys
(18:50):
did in nineteen seventy two when the law asked. So
it's still something that needs a lot of work, but
it vastly changed the landscape.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
And you hear.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
From women who say they're daughters of Title nine, meaning
they grew up seeing and knowing that their mother played
or was allowed to play, and it meant that it
was not a question of whether they would, but it
was what sport. And then with each generation that passes,
both boys and girls are raised understanding that sport is
for everybody, and that wasn't the case back in the
(19:25):
nineteen seventies. So it's had a massive impact, and US
ends up then establishing whether it's professional leagues or pay
equity fights or other things that inspire fights around the globe,
and other countries' investment in their programs has to rise
in order to be able to compete in any way
with the US on a global scale.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So Title nine was seventy two, then seventy three was
Billy jan King playing against Bobby Riggs and the Battle
of the Sexes and one is and then nineteen ninety
nine Viva Women's World Cup final filled the Rose Bowl
more than ninety thousand fans. Do you have favorite pivotal
moments for women's sports throughout history?
Speaker 4 (20:11):
That is by far one of them, the ninety nine ers,
And it's pretty wild to me having grown up watching them.
How I'm friends with a lot of the ninety nine
ers at this point and really look to them as
we continue to try to push forward in this fight
for women's sports to be invested in and cared for
the right way. Frankly, the more recent US women's national
soccer teams were definitely a gateway drug for me for soccer.
(20:33):
Soccer is an interesting sport in the US because we
love to say that we're all alone here in the US.
We label our champions world champions, even though.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
They're yeah, yeah, competing against.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
The world, but we're like, yeah, we're still the best.
This is the one that counts. But soccer has never
been that way. It's always been a global sport that
we aren't really figuring out or falling in love with
the same way, in part because our men's national team
has never been one of the best, and so it's
interesting how women and really immigrants have caused our love
of soccer to grow. I mean, there's so many. I
(21:07):
grew up playing tennis, so all the tennis stars of
my youth. I played basketball in high school.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
So it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Being an athlete at a certain time when the WNBA
was kind of starting up. How it was not presented
to me in a way that had as much of
an impact as I wish it had. It was the
butt of jokes, and it was the butt of jokes
from people in the industry, men in the industry. There's
a really hilarious story. Rebecca Lobo, the famous Olympic basketball
(21:38):
player WNBA great met her husband because he was a
sports illustrated columnist who wrote in a column if I
wanted to take a nap, I'd go to a New
York Liberty game. And she messaged him and said, have
you ever been? And he said, no, of course not.
She said, well, let me give you tickets. You can
come and see if you fall asleep, and they fell
in love. Not my favorite meet cute, Yeah, but he
must be a good guy. Beyond of the article. And
(22:01):
then fast forward to her being inducted into the Basketball.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Her kids are there and she tells an anecdote about
her son flipping through the TV, stopping on a men's
basketball game and saying, wait, boys played basketball too, Oh awesome,
And that's it. It's what are you presented with? What
does your little part of the world show you about
what sports is? And I wish when I was growing
up and what was happening in the media space hadn't
been to so poison the well of women's sports to
(22:27):
make it the butt of jokes, whether it's Jay Leno
and the late night shows or the people on the
sports networks. There's a woman, Andrea Brimmer. She's the CMO
of Ally Bank, and they've done a ton of investment
across the women's sports space, and a couple of years
ago they pledged to do a fifty to fifty where
they'd put as much money behind women's sports as men's
in terms of their sponsorships and endorsements and marketing dollars.
(22:47):
And when she got into the space and actually started
to put that into action, one thing she realized was
that there's not as much to invest in, whether that's
actual leagues and events or programming like pre and post
game and radio shows and things like that. What she
also found was if she wanted to invest. The opportunities
were like ESPN two at three am, a watch of tape, delayed, whatever.
(23:07):
And so one of the first things she did is
she said to ESPN, I'm going to give you all
this money, but you're going to move the NWSL Championship,
the title game for the National Women's Soccer League, to
ABC and in primetime. That's the only way you get
this money. And that was, you know, just a couple
of years ago that we're seeing the very first you know, meanwhile,
(23:28):
no offense to pickleball, but people are like, oh, it's
the greatest, Like let's start airing it, or like Parkour
or you know, and so a lot of it is
changing these antiquated mindsets of decision makers who decide how
much media coverage should be given and things like where
games are slotted in television programming because you look at
something like the Little League World Series and ESPN tells
(23:50):
you you should care about this, We're going to talk
about it a ton, We're going to put it on
at good hours, We're going to tell you all about it,
and then people show up. And when they don't do
that for women's sports, particularly leagues, that have been almost
thirty years in the making. They're telling you their value proposition, yes,
and that is telling the fan whether they should value
the thing as well.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I want to jump ahead to twenty twenty three in
Kaitlin Clark. It's the NCAA Women's Tournament. We got this
junior at Iowa. People are riveted by and then she
obviously gets drafted by the WNBA after her senior season
is there and then what is the Caitlin Clark effect?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Oh, there absolutely is. Yeah, it's massive. Well, it's an
impact on the number of eyeballs watching literally in terms
of viewership, attending going to games, and it's the water
cooler talk. The thing that stands out to me so
much is the number of people who for years knew
(24:44):
I worked in sport, and if I had brought up
something in women's sport would have gone kind of glassy
eyed and not had anything to add to the conversation,
who were suddenly coming to me to want to talk
about this phenom Caitlin Clark, and who suddenly, because of
their interest in her, then had this door open to
see people like Angel Reese, to see Pagebeckers, to see
Azy Fund, to see all the other talent in the
(25:05):
women's college game, and then eventually in the WNBA once
she was drafted because they had I use it again,
the gateway drug that was Kaitlyn Clark.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Now.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
The effect to me and what's fascinating about it and
the reason I think she had an impact that was
different than even some of the greatest of all time
is a couplefold.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
One.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
The timing, right, she came around at a time when
women's sports was building, building, building, and then it was
sort of like a bonfire, and she was the match
needed to build all of that first for the match
to light anything on fire. But what she did was
absolutely light the scene of Blaze, Iowa, which is a
school that's not as associated with dominance, so she really
had to put the school on her back in a
(25:43):
way that really compelled people, and they found interesting, white
straight girl next door, very palatable full the American public.
And then the way she plays now, Caitlin Clark is
extremely skilled in many ways, but what people saw and
understood was, holy cow, she shooting the ball for really
far away right, and it takes zero knowledge of basketball,
(26:05):
of her team, of the other team, of what's happening
at all to know that what she's doing is difficult
and that even male players can't do it. And there's
such a comparison of sports between men and women that
the idea that she was doing something that was recognized
as difficult across all all basketball was a huge part
of it. And then again, you didn't need to know
anything about what else was going on. It was just
(26:25):
she's hitting crazy threes from like half court and then
hitting them in the clutch, and then celebrating and competitive
and having this fire about her. It's a lot of things,
but a lot of it is just I mean, she's
shooting from half court and making it over and over.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Is this an example of the classic thing you always hear,
which is like women, people of color, LGBT folks, immigrants
always have to work a thousand times harder than anybody
else just to get noticed. On parody, like, is that
what had to happen in order for people to notice
women's basketball?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah, I mean, I think what fundamentally can be difficult
in sports is when people compare men and women. There
are times when women are going to be faster, stronger, better,
but a lot of times the cases is that the
men are going to do whatever it is a little
bit faster or jump a little bit higher, and if
your goal is to compare the two, you're going to
fall short. And so while Caitlin making those shots and
(27:16):
being able to make shots that a lot of men
players can't make. In fact, there's a mark on the
court where she set the NCAA scoring record, and I
love watching the videos of visiting men's teams shoot from
that mark and not be able to make it, because
it's just a reminder of the crazy thing she was doing.
But I don't think it serves women's sports to hold
them up in a comparison in that way. And I
don't think it was necessary for her to do something
(27:39):
that's hard for men for people to respect women. I
just think it was the easiest way for folks to
access this thing that they otherwise hadn't been paying attention to,
and the quickest and most simple moment of joy and
entertainment that they could see a clip of without any
context and still be like, that's good, that's exciting. And unfortunately,
(28:00):
I do think sometimes people want women to go play
in the NFL in order to believe that they can
play football or play against men in order to show
their skill.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
But thankfully, I.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Think we're moving past that, and actually, in some sports,
people are recognizing that the kind of play that happens
and women's can be more enjoyable at times. For instance,
in tennis they have longer rallies because their serves aren't
three thousand miles per hour and are actually returnable. And
moments like that, I think conversations about how to enjoy
differently are still necessary for people to see women's sports
(28:32):
as part of the entertainment that they could select if
they get to choose.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
When you had these people come up to you to
want to talk about Caitlin Clark or any of these
other incredible women, what like, what does that?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
What does it feel like inside?
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Right?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Forget the institutional memory stuff like yeah, what did that
actually feel like? To know that a mainstream audience was
enthusiastically embracing female athletes like this on that level.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I was about to say that the last couple of years,
I've just been walking around with this like shit and
grin a little bit if I told you so, and
a little bit of like.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Oh my god, it's happening.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
I can believe It's how I got finally where have
you been, but also welcome. I'm not going to judge
you for just figuring out how great it is. And
so I think for me going from being in a
space where first of all, I was getting death threats
simply for existing in sports, and we were told that
there was no way you could combine those two things,
to now see that we don't have to separate and
(29:24):
isolate sport from what is inherently feminine or stereotypically feminine,
and just being my whole self out in the world
of sport as opposed to what I started at. It
is this feeling of like constant joy and excitement. And
I'm very protective because to your point and the point
of this whole show, here we go again. There are
things that we assume are safe, like Roe v. Wade,
(29:49):
that we think are assured us that you can't take away.
And if there is any proof of anything for women
and other marginalized groups is that if you live in
a patriarchal system with people clinging to power, they view
our equity and equality as being taken from them instead
of something given to us, and they will fight to
take it back. And so I am very protective of
(30:11):
assumptions being made that this rocket ship will keep going
up without us making sure that we protect against the
same people who keep showing up and trying to take
it away.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And what does that? What does being protective mean to you?
What are the tools that people should use to do that?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
I mean, I don't want to dive too deep into
this because it is a very nuanced topic.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
But one thing that.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
People are using to attack the growth of women's sports
is to consistently bring up the idea of trans women
in sports and them being bad for women taking spots.
It is a solution to a problem that does not
exist right, and it is a solution that usually involves cruelty, ignorance,
a complete and utter lack of science and nuance and understanding.
(30:52):
But for instance, like one thing that one of the
things I'm looking out for, and I hate to say
it a loud because I'm like, I don't want to
give anyone ideas, but there was an op in the
Wall Street Journal that the hard fouls on Caitlin Clark
were a hate crime and that Congress should look into
it because she was clearly getting fouled harder because she's
white and the black players are mad at the attention
(31:12):
she's getting. When I see that, not only do I
think how could they publish this absolute crap? But I
worry about what it looks like when the rest of
society is pushing women back and trying to send us
back into traditional spaces. While women's sports feels like it's
on a rocket ship of progressive growth and it is
predominantly for a large percentage women of color, LGBTQ plus
(31:36):
people very progressive voices. Women's sports has always aligned a
lot with social issues, and there's been a lot of
really incredible progress made using women of sport to help
push forward progressive ideas. So that's where I worry is
that it doesn't feel like this movement of women's sport
is aligned with all the other things happening to women
right now and our rights and our abilities, And so
(31:58):
that's where I get worried about whether folks will try
to use their power to insert themselves into places and
start affecting the progress we're making.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
So getting fouled is the new uterus falling out, that's
the That's fine, Well.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Telly Fault, I would say that the pseudoscience of uteruses
were aligned with the pseudoscience of attacking trans intersects and
DSD players.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Can you quickly for those who have not been following
as closely, I wanted to ask you about pay parody
between men and women in sports. Can you sort of
describe what's going on? And also, because you have the
background of being on the business side of this for
so long, how are these conversations impacted by the business
side of this as well.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Yeah, so I'll just start by saying one thing that
I think needs to be made clear is there's a
difference between say, the US women's soccer team fighting for
pay equity and what the w NBA players or NWSL
players or professional league players want. US Soccer is a
nonprofit federation with an assigned goal of growing the game
for boys and girls, men and women, and they were
(33:03):
disproportionately funding the men despite their complete and utter lack
of success over the women who were winning World Cups
and Olympics for years and years and years. So I'll
just want to say that when a federation like that
is asking for pay equity, it is not the same
as what the WNBA players are fighting for when they're
looking for a new CBA. WNBA players do not believe
(33:24):
they should be paid the same as NBA. They play
fewer games, the season is shorter, the revenue is much less,
but when compared to the NBA, WNBA players should probably
be getting about a quarter of what the men make
based on the revenue comparison, and the average WNBA player
is making an eightieth an eightieth an eightieth of what
(33:45):
the men means, So it's not give us what they're getting,
it's give us a proper percentage of the revenue that
we're driving. Now, I hear all the people in the
comments saying what revenue they don't make money? Well, first
of all, there is almost a financial trend parency in
a lot of these women's leagues, which makes it really
hard to argue, but it does allow for people to
cling to the arguments that they lose money when it
(34:07):
suits them. Meanwhile, there are men's leagues. There are businesses
like Netflix that don't make money for years and years,
because the value proposition is the long term ROI, it
isn't year to year. But in women's sports, as soon
as they lose money, we will argue that the product
is a failure and should not be invested in and
on the men's side. We're on the fiftieth iteration of
(34:27):
the XFL. I haven't met a single person who wants it,
but we're putting two hundred and eighty million in a year,
blowing through it and trying again.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Where do you hope or where do you think women's
sports will be in five years?
Speaker 4 (34:46):
This is where I'm always torn between continuing to let
it live in its own space, because I think it
is a little bit of a different thing. It is
more than just sport, and particularly for the community and
the people that both play it, watch it, and re
on it, it feels different than the spaces that men's
sports live in, but also continuing to silo it, I
(35:08):
think says to people, this isn't sports, and it is.
It's two teams playing against each other's two people playing
against you. There's a winner, there's a loser, there's rivalries,
they're competitive, they want to win, And so part of
me would like to see a lot more intersection where
when people say sports they mean everything, they mean men's
and women's, they mean whichever teams they're fans of, whichever
(35:28):
leagues they're fans of, and that you don't have to
say women's sports but I also fear that with the
investments coming in from men's leagues, we are going to
end up in a place where the price to play,
to be involved in these leagues is going to limit
it to billionaire white men, just like on the men's side.
And are those people deeply connected to the space that
(35:50):
they're overseeing so that it doesn't result in toxic environments
for women? And so I think in five years, listen
the boom in professionally, whether that's the Professional Women's Hockey League,
National Women's Soccer League, professional Women's Baseball League, Athletes Unlimited
Softball League WNBA, I could go on, there's a women's
professional lacrosse league that's starting up. The opportunities across sport
(36:13):
for women to play and get paid to continue doing
the thing they love after college and outside of the
Olympics is so exciting. And not all of them will thrive,
but so many of them are, and so many of
them are starting from such a better place than years
ago when these leagues were launching that I have a
lot of excitement and enthusiasm that the next five years
(36:34):
will not see the bubble burst, will not see any
slowing down, unless, of course, we don't have a country anymore, slash,
we completely abandon all the rules and laws, which we've
already done like half of That's the only thing I
think would get in the way is if it gets
intersected with all the other shit that's happening in the world.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Okay, well that's good, that's a good that's promising, ISHK
enthusiastic as long as our sure no, that is that
is the best cynical but forward thinking take. I think
I've heard it a long time. What would what would
real equity and sports look like to you?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Well, one would be that Title nine would have some teeth,
and unfortunately it's actually being sort of defanged to continue
that metaphor. I won't get into the details, but this
new House versus ncaa lawsuit that is allowing schools to
actually pay their players, not just for name, image and likeness,
not just for like kind of that marketing side, but
to actually almost create a salary cap for their teams. Yeah,
(37:33):
the current administration is arguing that Title nine does not apply.
So what you're doing is you're allowing schools to funnel
all of their money where they always do, which is
men's football and basketball. Everything is so dim callum such
an optimist and happy person, but like there's so much
that could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Well also, but what I appreciate about that is for like,
for people who are listening or sports fans period, you've
kind of outlined like, Okay, if if you want this
to continue, like go, you know, go see go see
a game, go like you know, follow these people by
the you know, buy the shirt right.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Well, and also if you are a young person or
you have a young person in your life, the only
way to get title nine and forced is basically to
threaten to sue. Tell your Yeah, you have to be
the one who tells your school, Hey, the football team
got this and we didn't. It's against the law for
that to be the case. Hey, why is our facility
a local baseball field that we have to clean pigeon
poop off before we play and you just built the
(38:29):
boys team a million dollar facility. That's illegal. You have
to know that, and you have to be willing to
go to your school and fight them on it, because
they aren't complying. They're using different ways to to like
weasel around the different pillars that they're supposed to be hitting.
And unfortunately it's it's a law without much teeth because
(38:49):
they aren't being forced to actually make it make it so.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
On that note, are their pro bono firms that specialize
in Title nine.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Yes, thankfully.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
And then the Women's Sports Foundation, which Billy Jean King
started with her five thousand dollars check that she won
for winning way way way back when.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Fifty plus years ago.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
Billy Jean King's like the Forest Gump of women's sports.
At any moment in time, you could drop in somewhere
and she would be there, helping start the PWHL, helping
women's tennis get pay equity, helping US hockey fight for
the things. I mean, she's incredible. But she started that
foundation and they devote a lot of their time and
energy and funding to both research to be able to
(39:27):
point to the disparities that still exist and to help
fighting for those who are arguing that Title nine is
not properly being enforced.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
A lot of the trends that you talked about in
women's sports, not in America in general necessarily, but they're trending.
It sounds like they're trending in the right direction. There's
a lot to be hopeful about. What do you think
that says overall about us, just about society.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Yeah, it says a ton And again it will have
to be just separate from the other timeline, which is
pushing women into antiquated lanes and roles, right, so ignoring
that part of society which is like trad wife, and
focusing on the other side. It is an embrace and
an acceptance of women in so many different forms, and
(40:11):
of women being allowed in spaces that previously were sort
of restricted. And so I think what it says is
something we've seen across society for a decade two decades now,
which is much more mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ plus people,
much more mainstream acceptance of women who are willing and
interested in trading on values that are not associated with
(40:34):
their looks and sexuality. I remember in comedy being told like,
the worst thing an attractive woman can do is to
make herself less attractive in pursuit of a laugh. Men
get uncomfortable seeing attractive women look unattractive, and instead of
laughing they cringe at Oh wait, I just like lost
my boner because you tried to be funny in a
(40:54):
way that was unattractive and for women, for such a
long time, and even in the sports business, it is
always we see you first, and we value you first
as a sex object, and then after that maybe there's
other things. And what we're seeing I think across the
women's sports space in particular, is we are valuing super
badass athletes who are telling you, I don't want to
(41:14):
be feminine, I don't want to be straight, I don't
want to wear the clothes you're telling me to. The
last thing I would say is, since you said you
always view things through a lens of sort of rais
and ethnicity because that's where you feel marginalized in society,
is that when you drill deeply into women's sports, those
issues are such a part two of why they've been
held back and where we still need to improve, which
(41:37):
is that when you've got an attractive, white star female athlete,
the doors are opened.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
For her in a way that queer or.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
Women of color or less esthetically socially pleasing women are not.
And so the idea that even in sport and competition,
women cannot be separated from their sexuality where their appeal
is something that I think is still frustrating all these
years later. But we're getting better at calling it out,
(42:09):
and especially the white women in their sports are getting
better at saying these other women are deserving of opportunities
and sponsorships and media coverage. Two. And I think that's
going to continue to be really necessary because we know
that sex sells, but it's kind of bullshit when we
try to apply that to someone just trying to kick
someone else's ass on a field.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Totally awesome, Sarah Spain, Thank you very much, super fun.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
I feel sorry for the editor who has to go
through all that and figure out where to put it.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
That was sports journalist Sarah Spain.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
To hear more from Sarah, listen to her podcast Good
Game with Sarah Spain, which is with iHeart, or read
her book.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Runs in the Family.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Here we Go Again as a production of iHeart Podcasts
and Snap Foo Media in association with New Metric Media.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Our executive producers.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Are me kalpen Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagin. Meghan tan is
our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Our consulting producer is rom And Borsolino. Tory Smith is
our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly, logo by
Matt Gosson, Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson and
(43:22):
Meghan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn,
Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson,
Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell
your friends write a review. All of this helps. I
appreciate you listening, and until we go again, I'm Kelpen
I'm a big basketball fan.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I grew up loving the New Jersey Nets as a kid,
and then fell out of love with them, like any
good Jersey guy when they decided to leave New Jersey
and come to New York. Now, I obviously also live
in New York. But I can't go back to the Nets, man,
I can't do it. I have too much childhood pride
slash trauma. So I'm a Knicks fan, and I love
(00:23):
going to Knicks games. It's the type of thing you know, culturally,
if you have a sports loving friend group, or you
just get random texts like Hey, you know what games
are we going to this season?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Or like, what do you do next week? I have
an extra ticket.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Since twenty twenty four, there's also been like a huge
uptick in our in our friends group of people who
are like saying the same thing about our wonderful WNBA team,
New York Liberty, who won the twenty twenty four championship.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And I think it's really cool that you get.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The same amount of texts and the same amount of
love for the WNBA as you do for the NBA,
at least with a lot of my friends.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
The thing that stands out to me so much.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Is the number of people who for years knew I
worked in sport, and if I had brought up something
in women's sport would have gone kind of glassy eye,
did not have anything to add to the conversation. Who
were suddenly coming to me to want to talk about
this phenom Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And it brings us to the topic that we have
today in our episode where we bring sports journalist Sarah
Spain on to break down the history of women's sports,
why it's taken so long for everybody to seemingly catch
up and diving into this bigger question of is women's
sports in some sort of an investor boom? Is it
having a moment? Is that moment here to stay or
has it kind of always been around? And it's just
(01:37):
dumb men like me who are noticing.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Now Here we go again again again again.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Hey, I'm Cal Penn and this is Here we Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Asks why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Here we go? Thanks for doing it, Cal, Yeah, we
have lots of mutual friends.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Cal, That's what I hear today. I'm speaking with.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Sarah Spain host of Good Game with Sarah Spain on
iHeart podcast, the only daily women's sports show on any
outlet and any medium, part time for espnW, and author
of the book Runs in the Family.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Okay, also, so thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I'm excited to talk to you because it feels like,
sort of recently, like everyone suddenly obsessed with women's sports
and Caitlin Clark and athletes like that. I live in Brooklyn,
so like obviously Liberty has been crushing it, and so
one of the things I want to talk to you
about is like, where was that attention two or three
decades ago? What changed? What does the future look like
(02:57):
for women's sports? And having you on his very special
for us. You're a Peabody Emmy winning sports journalist. I
have not won a Peabody, and I'm merely an Emmy nominee.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So I'm really punching up.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Here, so much closer to the pagot.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
You know, I'm so far from all of them.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I have never worked in the White House, so there
you go.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah, but what does that even mean today? Nothing?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Great job, fair fair. It did sort of like downgrade
that line on your resume a little bit. It's really
actually a negative at this point.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
It keeps shrinking every year. Trust me.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So you've you've worked at ESPN for two decades as
a writer, radio host, podcasting host, and on ESPN TV.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
ESPN is actually only sixteen sixteen years.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
You and I have something in common, aside from our
love of kickball when we used to live in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
But you like comedy. Did you did improv? Do you
still do improv?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Well, so that's why it's funny that you're like, I'm reaching.
You have the job that I want. When I first
got out of college, I moved out to LA to
do comedy. I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live.
I still do. I will refuse to give up that
dream until I'm dead and buried. You just never know
when they need an aging white lady to add to
their fresh young cast. But yeah, I did the Second
(04:18):
City Conservatory, moved out there to do acting in comedy stuff,
and had been an athlete my whole life and just
sort of took a class in TV hosting, hosted a
fake Chicago bear show to practice teases and throwing to
break And someone said, this seems really natural. Why don't
you try it? And I said, well, there's no women
in sports, but let's give it a shot. And here
I am, that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
And you're you're not just an athlete, you're a heptathlete.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Is that how you say it?
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Yes, that's correct. So I've never heard of the word.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Obviously it sounds like hepatitis an athlete, which I'm sure
is not what.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
It is standing for seven not hepatitis, But that's the
first time i've heard that one. It is a long jump,
high jump, hurdles, eight hundred, two hundred, javelin, and shot put.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Oh hell yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
What did your parents think of you being a heptathlete? Like,
were they into this or was it overwhelming for them?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
They were into it?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I would say my dad was probably deeply regretting it
when I went to Junior Olympics in Washington in the
summer and it was like one hundred degrees and the
heptathlon is two days of competition, so he was just
sitting in the stands waiting for me to take a
jump that takes less than three seconds, and then waiting
a half hour for another jump that takes those than
three Yeah, it's that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
One of the things I love about this podcast is
I get to like pick people's brains on institutional memory,
so like, and that's the one thing in politics too
that I thought was very interesting is how like it's
trucial memory either is always there, like the revolving door
of people who always work in government. But I'm mostly
interested in that in entertainment because things change, so I
(05:47):
don't want to say quickly, but really like, if I
look back the last twenty years in entertainment and the
types of portrayals that are out there and the representation,
it's like it's so completely different, and there's so much
stuff to watch.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Well, Harold was ai right, thankfully not Jesus. That's the
whole other thing. That's a whole other episode of like
don't even get me started. Okay, So you've been at
ESPN for sixteen years. How has the culture around women's
sports changed there? And I imagine, just like sports culture
in general, just by virtue of like you were saying,
you're one of the few women to work there when
(06:20):
you started.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Right, Yeah, I mean I would say that the culture
elsewhere has probably changed more dramatically than at ESPN. ESPN
has always been pretty on the forefront of in terms
of rights packages, airing games, having rights to the different leagues,
whether that's Women's March, Madness, college basketball, WNBA, things like that.
(06:41):
But across the landscape, it's all the other places that
are really starting to invest. And I do think ESPN
has this arm called the espnW that was way ahead
of the game. I got on very early in that
it started, I want to say end of two thousand
and nine, maybe two thousand and eight, and it was
at a time when people were still extremely doubtful that
(07:02):
there was an interest that the product was worthy and valuable,
and so they and I as a part of that group,
really had to push through a lot of crap to
get to the place where we could stop just fighting
a well that had been poisoned and start building on
something that had just agreed upon value to it. And
(07:23):
I think that has really changed the landscape is everyone
doesn't have to be cheerleadery so much anymore. They can
be both critical and supportive, which is really what sports is.
It's not as fun to watch if you're never criticizing,
but when everybody is taking shots at women in sports
and women's leagues, it feels hard to be someone supportive
of it and do the same, so you end up
feeling like you're not giving a real critical eye to it.
(07:44):
And so now that we'ren't a place where we can
do that, it's much better. But I would say outside
of ESPN, there's just a lot more digital shows, podcasts, websites,
other networks that have women's only sports shows. And to
be frank, when I was at full time at ESPN,
I pitched multiple times some sort of women's sports show,
whether that was digitally or on linear television, and it
(08:05):
still doesn't really exist. They have a show called vibe
Check now that is all women hosting, but they do
both men's and women's sports, and it's still not quite
the thing. And so I think that's where ESPN could
still step up there cover just take all the rights
that they have and actually create the kind of show
that the space needs, which is what my podcast is
a daily look at the story, steak star stats, trades, transfers, quotes, games, previews,
(08:31):
all the things that we've been doing for men's sports
for decades and decades and decades to set.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
People up to want to go watch.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
We're not as good at doing that in women's we
mostly show highlights or tell feature stories about individual athletes.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
When you mentioned the.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Kind of proving the worth of women's sports from the inside,
were there, Like I remember in entertainment, there were definite,
like very clear gatekeepers who back in the day would
explicitly say we can't asked you because you're not white
or black, Like I actually really appreciate the candor because
then it shows me that the traditional way of getting
(09:06):
my foot in the door isn't going to work and
I'm going to have to strategize in a different way.
Did you have those gatekeepers who said things like women's
sports don't rate or was it more dynamic than a
straightforward conversation.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
That's actually the perfect example because it also told you
the product is not the problem, as in, my talent
isn't the thing keeping me from this. It's the expectation, right.
And So I think the story of women's sports and
what I've really been trying to talk to people about
and share over the last couple of years, as excitement
has increased and people have gotten involved, is that it's
(09:38):
not because the product is so fundamentally different now, it's
because there had been intentional holding back of women's sports
for such a long time, and you need all of
that context when you're discussing it to understand why it's changing.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Now.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
I'll give you just a couple examples. One is, professional
women's soccer in England was banned for decades and decades
and decades because a professional women's game that was the
day before a men's game got more attention, fan interests
and attendance and it angered the men at the top
of the soccer federation. So they banned women from playing
(10:15):
professional soccer. Now they were able to play in various leagues,
it was always deemed semi professional or not professional up
until I think it was nineteen seventy. And when you
think about the impact that decades of intentionally holding women
back can mean for who grows up thinking there's a
future there, who grows up thinking it societally endorsed, who
(10:38):
is putting money in investment and time and energy into
the space. So now when we see that these women's
soccer leagues across the pond are thriving, attendance is soaring,
investment is huge, you have to take into account that
they were so intentionally held back for so long that
This isn't just like, oh, we finally figured out that
women can play too, It's that they've literally been allowed
to create and start to build a foundation and grow it.
(11:00):
Until the nineteen nineties, there were still heads of sport
federations using pseudoscience to keep women out of sport. The
head of the International Ski Jumping Federation was still saying
in nineteen ninety that women should not ski jump because
their uteruses will fall out. Jesus, I am certain you
have heard this, because uteruses falling out has been used
to keep us from running marathons, riding horses, ski jumping.
(11:23):
Like the idea that women are a protected species that
should be kept at home in order to incubate future
generations and not put at risk their baby making parts
is like a through line throughout so much of the
history of sport is it's always been used to keep
women from moving their bodies and feeling empowered in their
bodies too. I spoke to the head of the Afghanistan
(11:44):
women's national soccer team at the World Cup in twenty
twenty three in Australia, and she and her teammates had
been airlifted out of Afghanistan as soon as the Taliban
took over. They immediately took the educated women and the
women in sport. Not even their families came with them.
They got them out as soon as possible because they
believe them to be at the greatest danger because of
(12:05):
what an embodied woman who is in control of her body.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And what she does with it means to the ideals
of you.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Know, the Taliban. So that's just an example for you
of the ways in which it's so complicated. It's not
just as simple as we'd rather watch men do that.
It's what does it mean to put women in their
place or in their lane in society? And when you
add up all the different ways. I mean, men's stadiums
are taxpayer funded, right, and we never talk about that.
(12:32):
We're like, oh, women, figure it out, and it's like, well,
we're not getting political benefits. You know, when the mayor
goes up and tells you how much he loves a
men's team, they're using that often to curve favor politically
and socially, and women's sports has ever been a part
of that conversation until very recently. So I just think
all of that matters when you talk about it, because
the product has so long been blamed for what is
(12:54):
actually a result of a patriarchal system and society that
has so often told us like where we belong in
what we're allowed to do.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
With that incredible background, and by the way, I had
not heard the ridiculous uterus falling out nonsense.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
I've never heard of a uterus falling out, and I
feel like if they did, there would be some sort
of secondhand uterus market for or especially now seeing a
uterus available for a place the original that fell out,
or some sort of surgery to put it back in.
It just feels like that's probably not likely.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I think this is my next movie. It's just about that.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
What would you say is the biggest or several of
the biggest differences between working in sports media then versus now,
Like what's it like today?
Speaker 4 (13:36):
What I often say is that the basement is the same,
but the ceiling is higher than ever, And by that
I mean that women can now be play by play
color owners, gms, like all the jobs at the top
are far more open to women than they ever were before.
But the beginning of getting into the industry, you are
still more likely than not going to be sexually harassed,
more likely not to be condescended, to be told you
(13:58):
don't know what you're talking about, for people to presume
that you are there to meet men or sleep with athletes,
or because I think it's like yeah Jesus, yeah yeah.
But when you push through that and fight through that,
there's so much more on the other side. There are
so many more women working in every space. Also that
it's not as novel to see a woman or hear
(14:19):
from a woman, and then the reactions are much more measured,
because it just is absurd at this point to see
a woman on TV talking sports and be like, what's
she doing here? Whereas when I started it literally was
a reaction to existing was so negative. And now you
just have to say something they disagree with, or talk
about male female dynamics and sexual assault, domestic violence, all
(14:41):
of those serious issues, and then you will get right
back to the death threats of the old days.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Also, I feel like I feel like this is this
is so crazy because I'm seeing now the dichotomy of
like it sounds like either you're a lesbian, as if
that's a bad thing, or you're just there to meet men, yes,
or you're.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Or you know, if you're in a Ben Affleck movie,
you're a lesbian waiting to meet a manage that will
make you not be a lesbian anymore. That's a fascinating
part of all of this, too, is there was a
lot of homophobia at the root of judgment of and
predisposed ideas about women's sport, and so whether that's coaches
who have literally two different closets where they keep their
(15:22):
regular clothes and then the clothes they use to recruit
that won't give away that they're queer, or there's athletes
who for so long had to be really inauthentic in
their presentation because sponsors or leagues would tell them they
wouldn't be accepted as they are. That I think is
one of the biggest things that has allowed for women's
sport to become what it is now, which isn't just
(15:44):
of interest as sport, but a real cultural influencer. These
female athletes are some of the most influential in terms
of social media, fashion, all the other stuff. It's because
they're allowed to be multi dimensional. At one point it
was really either your little girl all grown up, what
a great role model. She's never done anything wrong and
she would never even swear or how hot is she?
(16:07):
Everybody wants to sleep with her? Those are your two options.
Over sexualized or completely infantilized. And also always straight, girl
next door white was really what we elevated. And now
women athletes are allowed to be so many different things,
mass presenting, queer, straight villains, heroes, funny, serious, all the
other stuff. And once people are allowed to be authentically
(16:28):
themselves and society has started just accepting more versions of people.
It has allowed for people to really connect with them,
and then they want to watch them, root for them,
follow them by their stuff, all those things.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
So there was World War Two, so many men were
drafted to war. Baseball, America's favorite pastime. Basically the most
able bodied men were away. So Major League Baseball execs
brought women in and created the All American Girls Professional
Baseball League, amazing a league of their own. Gina Davis,
Tom Hanks, razio'donnell is based on this particular moment. So
(17:03):
I'm curious if, given your expertise, if you have a
take on why that moment maybe didn't last.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
It wasn't intended to last. It was intended to be
a thing that they were allowed to do because the
circumstances had prevented men from playing, and that has been.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
A through line so often.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
There are certainly leagues and teams that tried and failed
and weren't financially viable. But often what you see is
a real desire from people in power to take away opportunity.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
If we jumped from there and fast forward to Title
nine in nineteen seventy two, and I guess for people
who don't know, Title nine prohibits sex based discrimination and
education and programs that receive federal funding, so that means
school sports. So Title nine dramatically boosted fumal athletic participate
in schools and colleges. What do you think the lasting
(18:03):
impact of that has been.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Massive? Massive? You can never underestimate the impact of titleline
on women's and girls sports in the United States. It's
why when the Olympics roll around, oftentimes the women for
Team USA would place third in the metal count across
every country including the men. Like that's how dominant our
(18:28):
women's teams are, and it is because there has been
a necessity. Now, I want to let you know that
sadly compliance for Title nine, despite it being a law,
is horrific and currently women and girls still have one
million fewer opportunities at the high school level than boys
(18:50):
did in nineteen seventy two when the law asked. So
it's still something that needs a lot of work, but
it vastly changed the landscape.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
And you hear.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
From women who say they're daughters of Title nine, meaning
they grew up seeing and knowing that their mother played
or was allowed to play, and it meant that it
was not a question of whether they would, but it
was what sport. And then with each generation that passes,
both boys and girls are raised understanding that sport is
for everybody, and that wasn't the case back in the
(19:25):
nineteen seventies. So it's had a massive impact, and US
ends up then establishing whether it's professional leagues or pay
equity fights or other things that inspire fights around the globe,
and other countries' investment in their programs has to rise
in order to be able to compete in any way
with the US on a global scale.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So Title nine was seventy two, then seventy three was
Billy jan King playing against Bobby Riggs and the Battle
of the Sexes and one is and then nineteen ninety
nine Viva Women's World Cup final filled the Rose Bowl
more than ninety thousand fans. Do you have favorite pivotal
moments for women's sports throughout history?
Speaker 4 (20:11):
That is by far one of them, the ninety nine ers,
And it's pretty wild to me having grown up watching them.
How I'm friends with a lot of the ninety nine
ers at this point and really look to them as
we continue to try to push forward in this fight
for women's sports to be invested in and cared for
the right way. Frankly, the more recent US women's national
soccer teams were definitely a gateway drug for me for soccer.
(20:33):
Soccer is an interesting sport in the US because we
love to say that we're all alone here in the US.
We label our champions world champions, even though.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
They're yeah, yeah, competing against.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
The world, but we're like, yeah, we're still the best.
This is the one that counts. But soccer has never
been that way. It's always been a global sport that
we aren't really figuring out or falling in love with
the same way, in part because our men's national team
has never been one of the best, and so it's
interesting how women and really immigrants have caused our love
of soccer to grow. I mean, there's so many. I
(21:07):
grew up playing tennis, so all the tennis stars of
my youth. I played basketball in high school.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
So it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Being an athlete at a certain time when the WNBA
was kind of starting up. How it was not presented
to me in a way that had as much of
an impact as I wish it had. It was the
butt of jokes, and it was the butt of jokes
from people in the industry, men in the industry. There's
a really hilarious story. Rebecca Lobo, the famous Olympic basketball
(21:38):
player WNBA great met her husband because he was a
sports illustrated columnist who wrote in a column if I
wanted to take a nap, I'd go to a New
York Liberty game. And she messaged him and said, have
you ever been? And he said, no, of course not.
She said, well, let me give you tickets. You can
come and see if you fall asleep, and they fell
in love. Not my favorite meet cute, Yeah, but he
must be a good guy. Beyond of the article. And
(22:01):
then fast forward to her being inducted into the Basketball.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Her kids are there and she tells an anecdote about
her son flipping through the TV, stopping on a men's
basketball game and saying, wait, boys played basketball too, Oh awesome,
And that's it. It's what are you presented with? What
does your little part of the world show you about
what sports is? And I wish when I was growing
up and what was happening in the media space hadn't
been to so poison the well of women's sports to
(22:27):
make it the butt of jokes, whether it's Jay Leno
and the late night shows or the people on the
sports networks. There's a woman, Andrea Brimmer. She's the CMO
of Ally Bank, and they've done a ton of investment
across the women's sports space, and a couple of years
ago they pledged to do a fifty to fifty where
they'd put as much money behind women's sports as men's
in terms of their sponsorships and endorsements and marketing dollars.
(22:47):
And when she got into the space and actually started
to put that into action, one thing she realized was
that there's not as much to invest in, whether that's
actual leagues and events or programming like pre and post
game and radio shows and things like that. What she
also found was if she wanted to invest. The opportunities
were like ESPN two at three am, a watch of tape, delayed, whatever.
(23:07):
And so one of the first things she did is
she said to ESPN, I'm going to give you all
this money, but you're going to move the NWSL Championship,
the title game for the National Women's Soccer League, to
ABC and in primetime. That's the only way you get
this money. And that was, you know, just a couple
of years ago that we're seeing the very first you know, meanwhile,
(23:28):
no offense to pickleball, but people are like, oh, it's
the greatest, Like let's start airing it, or like Parkour
or you know, and so a lot of it is
changing these antiquated mindsets of decision makers who decide how
much media coverage should be given and things like where
games are slotted in television programming because you look at
something like the Little League World Series and ESPN tells
(23:50):
you you should care about this, We're going to talk
about it a ton, We're going to put it on
at good hours, We're going to tell you all about it,
and then people show up. And when they don't do
that for women's sports, particularly leagues, that have been almost
thirty years in the making. They're telling you their value proposition, yes,
and that is telling the fan whether they should value
the thing as well.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I want to jump ahead to twenty twenty three in
Kaitlin Clark. It's the NCAA Women's Tournament. We got this
junior at Iowa. People are riveted by and then she
obviously gets drafted by the WNBA after her senior season
is there and then what is the Caitlin Clark effect?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Oh, there absolutely is. Yeah, it's massive. Well, it's an
impact on the number of eyeballs watching literally in terms
of viewership, attending going to games, and it's the water
cooler talk. The thing that stands out to me so
much is the number of people who for years knew
(24:44):
I worked in sport, and if I had brought up
something in women's sport would have gone kind of glassy
eyed and not had anything to add to the conversation,
who were suddenly coming to me to want to talk
about this phenom Caitlin Clark, and who suddenly, because of
their interest in her, then had this door open to
see people like Angel Reese, to see Pagebeckers, to see
Azy Fund, to see all the other talent in the
(25:05):
women's college game, and then eventually in the WNBA once
she was drafted because they had I use it again,
the gateway drug that was Kaitlyn Clark.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Now.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
The effect to me and what's fascinating about it and
the reason I think she had an impact that was
different than even some of the greatest of all time
is a couplefold.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
One.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
The timing, right, she came around at a time when
women's sports was building, building, building, and then it was
sort of like a bonfire, and she was the match
needed to build all of that first for the match
to light anything on fire. But what she did was
absolutely light the scene of Blaze, Iowa, which is a
school that's not as associated with dominance, so she really
had to put the school on her back in a
(25:43):
way that really compelled people, and they found interesting, white
straight girl next door, very palatable full the American public.
And then the way she plays now, Caitlin Clark is
extremely skilled in many ways, but what people saw and
understood was, holy cow, she shooting the ball for really
far away right, and it takes zero knowledge of basketball,
(26:05):
of her team, of the other team, of what's happening
at all to know that what she's doing is difficult
and that even male players can't do it. And there's
such a comparison of sports between men and women that
the idea that she was doing something that was recognized
as difficult across all all basketball was a huge part
of it. And then again, you didn't need to know
anything about what else was going on. It was just
(26:25):
she's hitting crazy threes from like half court and then
hitting them in the clutch, and then celebrating and competitive
and having this fire about her. It's a lot of things,
but a lot of it is just I mean, she's
shooting from half court and making it over and over.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Is this an example of the classic thing you always hear,
which is like women, people of color, LGBT folks, immigrants
always have to work a thousand times harder than anybody
else just to get noticed. On parody, like, is that
what had to happen in order for people to notice
women's basketball?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah, I mean, I think what fundamentally can be difficult
in sports is when people compare men and women. There
are times when women are going to be faster, stronger, better,
but a lot of times the cases is that the
men are going to do whatever it is a little
bit faster or jump a little bit higher, and if
your goal is to compare the two, you're going to
fall short. And so while Caitlin making those shots and
(27:16):
being able to make shots that a lot of men
players can't make. In fact, there's a mark on the
court where she set the NCAA scoring record, and I
love watching the videos of visiting men's teams shoot from
that mark and not be able to make it, because
it's just a reminder of the crazy thing she was doing.
But I don't think it serves women's sports to hold
them up in a comparison in that way. And I
don't think it was necessary for her to do something
(27:39):
that's hard for men for people to respect women. I
just think it was the easiest way for folks to
access this thing that they otherwise hadn't been paying attention to,
and the quickest and most simple moment of joy and
entertainment that they could see a clip of without any
context and still be like, that's good, that's exciting. And unfortunately,
(28:00):
I do think sometimes people want women to go play
in the NFL in order to believe that they can
play football or play against men in order to show
their skill.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
But thankfully, I.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Think we're moving past that, and actually, in some sports,
people are recognizing that the kind of play that happens
and women's can be more enjoyable at times. For instance,
in tennis they have longer rallies because their serves aren't
three thousand miles per hour and are actually returnable. And
moments like that, I think conversations about how to enjoy
differently are still necessary for people to see women's sports
(28:32):
as part of the entertainment that they could select if
they get to choose.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
When you had these people come up to you to
want to talk about Caitlin Clark or any of these
other incredible women, what like, what does that?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
What does it feel like inside?
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Right?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Forget the institutional memory stuff like yeah, what did that
actually feel like? To know that a mainstream audience was
enthusiastically embracing female athletes like this on that level.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I was about to say that the last couple of years,
I've just been walking around with this like shit and
grin a little bit if I told you so, and
a little bit of like.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Oh my god, it's happening.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
I can believe It's how I got finally where have
you been, but also welcome. I'm not going to judge
you for just figuring out how great it is. And
so I think for me going from being in a
space where first of all, I was getting death threats
simply for existing in sports, and we were told that
there was no way you could combine those two things,
to now see that we don't have to separate and
(29:24):
isolate sport from what is inherently feminine or stereotypically feminine,
and just being my whole self out in the world
of sport as opposed to what I started at. It
is this feeling of like constant joy and excitement. And
I'm very protective because to your point and the point
of this whole show, here we go again. There are
things that we assume are safe, like Roe v. Wade,
(29:49):
that we think are assured us that you can't take away.
And if there is any proof of anything for women
and other marginalized groups is that if you live in
a patriarchal system with people clinging to power, they view
our equity and equality as being taken from them instead
of something given to us, and they will fight to
take it back. And so I am very protective of
(30:11):
assumptions being made that this rocket ship will keep going
up without us making sure that we protect against the
same people who keep showing up and trying to take
it away.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And what does that? What does being protective mean to you?
What are the tools that people should use to do that?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
I mean, I don't want to dive too deep into
this because it is a very nuanced topic.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
But one thing that.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
People are using to attack the growth of women's sports
is to consistently bring up the idea of trans women
in sports and them being bad for women taking spots.
It is a solution to a problem that does not
exist right, and it is a solution that usually involves cruelty, ignorance,
a complete and utter lack of science and nuance and understanding.
(30:52):
But for instance, like one thing that one of the
things I'm looking out for, and I hate to say
it a loud because I'm like, I don't want to
give anyone ideas, but there was an op in the
Wall Street Journal that the hard fouls on Caitlin Clark
were a hate crime and that Congress should look into
it because she was clearly getting fouled harder because she's
white and the black players are mad at the attention
(31:12):
she's getting. When I see that, not only do I
think how could they publish this absolute crap? But I
worry about what it looks like when the rest of
society is pushing women back and trying to send us
back into traditional spaces. While women's sports feels like it's
on a rocket ship of progressive growth and it is
predominantly for a large percentage women of color, LGBTQ plus
(31:36):
people very progressive voices. Women's sports has always aligned a
lot with social issues, and there's been a lot of
really incredible progress made using women of sport to help
push forward progressive ideas. So that's where I worry is
that it doesn't feel like this movement of women's sport
is aligned with all the other things happening to women
right now and our rights and our abilities, And so
(31:58):
that's where I get worried about whether folks will try
to use their power to insert themselves into places and
start affecting the progress we're making.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
So getting fouled is the new uterus falling out, that's
the That's fine, Well.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Telly Fault, I would say that the pseudoscience of uteruses
were aligned with the pseudoscience of attacking trans intersects and
DSD players.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Can you quickly for those who have not been following
as closely, I wanted to ask you about pay parody
between men and women in sports. Can you sort of
describe what's going on? And also, because you have the
background of being on the business side of this for
so long, how are these conversations impacted by the business
side of this as well.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Yeah, so I'll just start by saying one thing that
I think needs to be made clear is there's a
difference between say, the US women's soccer team fighting for
pay equity and what the w NBA players or NWSL
players or professional league players want. US Soccer is a
nonprofit federation with an assigned goal of growing the game
for boys and girls, men and women, and they were
(33:03):
disproportionately funding the men despite their complete and utter lack
of success over the women who were winning World Cups
and Olympics for years and years and years. So I'll
just want to say that when a federation like that
is asking for pay equity, it is not the same
as what the WNBA players are fighting for when they're
looking for a new CBA. WNBA players do not believe
(33:24):
they should be paid the same as NBA. They play
fewer games, the season is shorter, the revenue is much less,
but when compared to the NBA, WNBA players should probably
be getting about a quarter of what the men make
based on the revenue comparison, and the average WNBA player
is making an eightieth an eightieth an eightieth of what
(33:45):
the men means, So it's not give us what they're getting,
it's give us a proper percentage of the revenue that
we're driving. Now, I hear all the people in the
comments saying what revenue they don't make money? Well, first
of all, there is almost a financial trend parency in
a lot of these women's leagues, which makes it really
hard to argue, but it does allow for people to
cling to the arguments that they lose money when it
(34:07):
suits them. Meanwhile, there are men's leagues. There are businesses
like Netflix that don't make money for years and years,
because the value proposition is the long term ROI, it
isn't year to year. But in women's sports, as soon
as they lose money, we will argue that the product
is a failure and should not be invested in and
on the men's side. We're on the fiftieth iteration of
(34:27):
the XFL. I haven't met a single person who wants it,
but we're putting two hundred and eighty million in a year,
blowing through it and trying again.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Where do you hope or where do you think women's
sports will be in five years?
Speaker 4 (34:46):
This is where I'm always torn between continuing to let
it live in its own space, because I think it
is a little bit of a different thing. It is
more than just sport, and particularly for the community and
the people that both play it, watch it, and re
on it, it feels different than the spaces that men's
sports live in, but also continuing to silo it, I
(35:08):
think says to people, this isn't sports, and it is.
It's two teams playing against each other's two people playing
against you. There's a winner, there's a loser, there's rivalries,
they're competitive, they want to win, And so part of
me would like to see a lot more intersection where
when people say sports they mean everything, they mean men's
and women's, they mean whichever teams they're fans of, whichever
(35:28):
leagues they're fans of, and that you don't have to
say women's sports but I also fear that with the
investments coming in from men's leagues, we are going to
end up in a place where the price to play,
to be involved in these leagues is going to limit
it to billionaire white men, just like on the men's side.
And are those people deeply connected to the space that
(35:50):
they're overseeing so that it doesn't result in toxic environments
for women? And so I think in five years, listen
the boom in professionally, whether that's the Professional Women's Hockey League,
National Women's Soccer League, professional Women's Baseball League, Athletes Unlimited
Softball League WNBA, I could go on, there's a women's
professional lacrosse league that's starting up. The opportunities across sport
(36:13):
for women to play and get paid to continue doing
the thing they love after college and outside of the
Olympics is so exciting. And not all of them will thrive,
but so many of them are, and so many of
them are starting from such a better place than years
ago when these leagues were launching that I have a
lot of excitement and enthusiasm that the next five years
(36:34):
will not see the bubble burst, will not see any
slowing down, unless, of course, we don't have a country anymore, slash,
we completely abandon all the rules and laws, which we've
already done like half of That's the only thing I
think would get in the way is if it gets
intersected with all the other shit that's happening in the world.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Okay, well that's good, that's a good that's promising, ISHK
enthusiastic as long as our sure no, that is that
is the best cynical but forward thinking take. I think
I've heard it a long time. What would what would
real equity and sports look like to you?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Well, one would be that Title nine would have some teeth,
and unfortunately it's actually being sort of defanged to continue
that metaphor. I won't get into the details, but this
new House versus ncaa lawsuit that is allowing schools to
actually pay their players, not just for name, image and likeness,
not just for like kind of that marketing side, but
to actually almost create a salary cap for their teams. Yeah,
(37:33):
the current administration is arguing that Title nine does not apply.
So what you're doing is you're allowing schools to funnel
all of their money where they always do, which is
men's football and basketball. Everything is so dim callum such
an optimist and happy person, but like there's so much
that could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Well also, but what I appreciate about that is for like,
for people who are listening or sports fans period, you've
kind of outlined like, Okay, if if you want this
to continue, like go, you know, go see go see
a game, go like you know, follow these people by
the you know, buy the shirt right.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Well, and also if you are a young person or
you have a young person in your life, the only
way to get title nine and forced is basically to
threaten to sue. Tell your Yeah, you have to be
the one who tells your school, Hey, the football team
got this and we didn't. It's against the law for
that to be the case. Hey, why is our facility
a local baseball field that we have to clean pigeon
poop off before we play and you just built the
(38:29):
boys team a million dollar facility. That's illegal. You have
to know that, and you have to be willing to
go to your school and fight them on it, because
they aren't complying. They're using different ways to to like
weasel around the different pillars that they're supposed to be hitting.
And unfortunately it's it's a law without much teeth because
(38:49):
they aren't being forced to actually make it make it so.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
On that note, are their pro bono firms that specialize
in Title nine.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Yes, thankfully.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
And then the Women's Sports Foundation, which Billy Jean King
started with her five thousand dollars check that she won
for winning way way way back when.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Fifty plus years ago.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
Billy Jean King's like the Forest Gump of women's sports.
At any moment in time, you could drop in somewhere
and she would be there, helping start the PWHL, helping
women's tennis get pay equity, helping US hockey fight for
the things. I mean, she's incredible. But she started that
foundation and they devote a lot of their time and
energy and funding to both research to be able to
(39:27):
point to the disparities that still exist and to help
fighting for those who are arguing that Title nine is
not properly being enforced.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
A lot of the trends that you talked about in
women's sports, not in America in general necessarily, but they're trending.
It sounds like they're trending in the right direction. There's
a lot to be hopeful about. What do you think
that says overall about us, just about society.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Yeah, it says a ton And again it will have
to be just separate from the other timeline, which is
pushing women into antiquated lanes and roles, right, so ignoring
that part of society which is like trad wife, and
focusing on the other side. It is an embrace and
an acceptance of women in so many different forms, and
(40:11):
of women being allowed in spaces that previously were sort
of restricted. And so I think what it says is
something we've seen across society for a decade two decades now,
which is much more mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ plus people,
much more mainstream acceptance of women who are willing and
interested in trading on values that are not associated with
(40:34):
their looks and sexuality. I remember in comedy being told like,
the worst thing an attractive woman can do is to
make herself less attractive in pursuit of a laugh. Men
get uncomfortable seeing attractive women look unattractive, and instead of
laughing they cringe at Oh wait, I just like lost
my boner because you tried to be funny in a
(40:54):
way that was unattractive and for women, for such a
long time, and even in the sports business, it is
always we see you first, and we value you first
as a sex object, and then after that maybe there's
other things. And what we're seeing I think across the
women's sports space in particular, is we are valuing super
badass athletes who are telling you, I don't want to
(41:14):
be feminine, I don't want to be straight, I don't
want to wear the clothes you're telling me to. The
last thing I would say is, since you said you
always view things through a lens of sort of rais
and ethnicity because that's where you feel marginalized in society,
is that when you drill deeply into women's sports, those
issues are such a part two of why they've been
held back and where we still need to improve, which
(41:37):
is that when you've got an attractive, white star female athlete,
the doors are opened.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
For her in a way that queer or.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
Women of color or less esthetically socially pleasing women are not.
And so the idea that even in sport and competition,
women cannot be separated from their sexuality where their appeal
is something that I think is still frustrating all these
years later. But we're getting better at calling it out,
(42:09):
and especially the white women in their sports are getting
better at saying these other women are deserving of opportunities
and sponsorships and media coverage. Two. And I think that's
going to continue to be really necessary because we know
that sex sells, but it's kind of bullshit when we
try to apply that to someone just trying to kick
someone else's ass on a field.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Totally awesome, Sarah Spain, Thank you very much, super fun.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
I feel sorry for the editor who has to go
through all that and figure out where to put it.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
That was sports journalist Sarah Spain.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
To hear more from Sarah, listen to her podcast Good
Game with Sarah Spain, which is with iHeart, or read
her book.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Runs in the Family.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Here we Go Again as a production of iHeart Podcasts
and Snap Foo Media in association with New Metric Media.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Our executive producers.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Are me kalpen Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagin. Meghan tan is
our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Our consulting producer is rom And Borsolino. Tory Smith is
our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly, logo by
Matt Gosson, Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson and
(43:22):
Meghan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn,
Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson,
Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell
your friends write a review. All of this helps. I
appreciate you listening, and until we go again, I'm Kelpen
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