Lady Liberty

Clara Wu Tsai could hold the key to the WNBA’S future—and maybe to the entire business of women’s sports. By Megan Greenwell

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Lady Liberty, Clara Wootsye could hold the key to the
WNBA's future and maybe to the entire business of women's sports.
By Megan Greenwell read aloud by Mark Leidorf. Brianna Stewart,
the WNBA scoring leader, two time champion and Finals MVP,

(00:21):
Perennial All Star, four time NCAA champion, WNBA and Olympics MVP,
guaranteed first ballot Hall of Famer with a seven foot
one wingspan. That Brianna Stewart was an unrestricted free agent,
and Clara Woot's eye was hell bent on persuading her
to choose the New York Liberty. Stewie, who'd played all

(00:43):
of her seven pro years with the Seattle Storm, was
already one of the best players in women's basketball history.
She was seriously considering staying in Seattle, but she wanted
to weigh all her options. In January twenty twenty three,
she informed four teams she'd meet with them, including the
Storm and the Liberty. The contenders would have to fly
to Istanbul, where Stuart was spending the off season playing

(01:06):
for Turkish club Fenerbache, to supplement her two hundred and
twenty eight thousand, ninety four dollars w NBA's salary, then
the maximum allowable under league rules. That the Liberty were
in the conversation at all represented a major turnaround for
one of the only three original w NBA franchises still
around a quarter century after the league's founding. While New

(01:27):
York had made the finals in four of the league's
first six seasons, owner and legendary sports villain James Dolan
had unceremoniously put the team up for sale and relegated
it from Madison Square Garden to a Westchester arena that
felt like a glorified high school gym. Now, less than
four years after Wootsie and her husband Joseph Zi had

(01:49):
taken over the franchise, the Liberty were on the cusp
of creating a super team. Just a few days before
meeting with Stuart, the Liberty had traded for the reigning
league MVP, six foot six post presence John Quell Jones,
and they were courting all star point guard Courtney Vanderslute.
They already had sharp shooting guard Serena Ionescu on the roster,

(02:10):
having drafted her with the first overall pick in twenty
twenty three. Years removed from a two twenty season, New
York suddenly looked capable of winning its first ever championship
if it could land Stuart. When the Liberties executives got
to Turkey, general manager Jonathan Colb and head coach Sandy
Brondelo delivered a speel about how Stuart could help them

(02:32):
build a dynasty, but the team's sales pitch ultimately rested
on business, not basketball, leaving Colb and Brondelo behind. Whotsiye
set out to close the deal, chartering a boat to
take her, Stuart, and Stuart's wife and daughter on a
cruise down the Bosporas. Wootsie had almost no experience with recruiting,
and she admits she was nervous. It's not something I

(02:55):
had been familiar with, so I was learning.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
She says.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
It was really about listening to each other, because she'd
also never talked to someone like me. What she did
have was a plan, shaped by years as an executive
at American Express and Chinese auction site Tawbao, to complete
the Liberty's overhaul from the WNBA's most moribund franchise into
its crown jewel. A basketball obsessive who'd grown up rooting

(03:20):
for the University of Kansas. Wootsie was hungry to bring
New York a championship or ideally several, but her real
goal was much larger. She was out to prove women's
basketball could make huge profits if only team owners were
willing to substantially invest in them. And with a multi
billion dollar fortune behind her her husband co founded Chinese

(03:42):
tech giant Ali Baba, Wootsie was prepared to do just that.
In addition to titles, she committed to providing more and
better facilities, support staff, brand partnerships, media exposure, and business opportunities.
For years, Stewart had advocated for improved benefits and amenities
for WNBA players. Some of the world's best and tallest

(04:05):
athletes were still flying commercial to games, earning as little
as sixty two thousand dollars a season, practicing at community
rec centers, and risking injury by playing all off season abroad.
Now Stuart was sitting on a boat with someone whose
ambitions were at least as grand as her own. Wood's
Eye's pitch boiled down to together, we can up end

(04:26):
the way things work, not just for the liberty, but
for everyone in the league. I wanted to go somewhere
where not only could I fight for a championship, but
go lock arms with the people who are going to
make this league better.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Stuart says she.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Made me feel like everything I wanted was exactly what
she was fighting for too. A few days later, Stuart
signed with New York. She even took less money than
Seattle was offering, allowing the Liberty to add Vanderslute without
exceeding the league's salary cap. In a TikTok video announcing
the news, Stuart tore away a generic jersey on which
she'd Britain. I want to do my part to make

(05:02):
this world a better place, revealing a sea foam green
Liberty warm up shirt underneath. During a three hour interview
earlier this spring at a performing art center near her
primary residence in San Diego's Tony La Joya neighborhood, Wootsye
doesn't sound surprised that it all worked out. Short and slim,
with highlighted black hair that brushes her collarbone, she looks

(05:25):
a decade younger than her fifty nine years. She has
a penchant for fashion, favoring patterned pants, clunky rings, trendy sneakers,
She makes intense eye contact when she speaks, but rarely
raises the pitch of her voice, exuding calmness and confidence
in equal measure. While she steadfastly refuses to publicly criticize

(05:46):
her fellow w NBA owners or anyone else, she also
doesn't shy away from conflict, especially on the question of
what players deserve. As she heads into her seventh season
as the Liberty's co owner and chief decision maker, seems
more likely than any other single person to reshape the
norms of women's professional sports, Wootsie kept her promises to Stuart.

(06:09):
Since buying the team, She's moved it to Brooklyn's eighteen
thousand seat Barkley Center from the Westchester County Center, which
could hold just twenty three hundred people for most Liberty games,
tripled the number of front office employees, overhauled the locker room,
built an NBA caliber staff of full time trainers, nutritionists,
and physical therapists, and helped compel the WNBA to finally

(06:32):
make charter flights the norm. In March, she announced plans
to fund an eighty million dollar practice facility that will
include everything from remote cameras and data tracking technology in
the gym to childcare facilities and a beauty salon. Wootsie
can't single handedly boost player salaries, which are governed by
the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement, or CBA, but the WNBA's

(06:55):
rapidly growing profile seems likely to result in a massive
rays for everyone in the next time contract. ESPN, which
broadcast twenty four regular season games last season, reported a
one hundred and seventy percent jump in viewership for the year,
averaging about one point seven million viewers per game. Attendance
was up forty eight percent from twenty twenty three, thanks

(07:17):
in part to Indiana Fever, rookie sensation Caitlin Clark, and
merch Sales through the league's website and its Manhattan store
grew six hundred and one percent. The Liberty saw even
larger growth in many categories, according to Wootsie, up sixty
four percent year over year in ticket sales, one hundred
and fifty two percent in season ticket memberships, eighty percent

(07:39):
in corporate partnerships. An investment deal last summer valued the
team at two hundred million dollars, more than ten times
with the size likely paid. GQ called Liberty Games the
best party in New York City A list celebrities were
regularly told there was no room for them in Berkley's
court side seats. At the u s end of last season,

(08:01):
Stuart and her teammates won the Liberty's first championship. For Wootsie,
hoisting the trophy validated her thesis. By winning, we finally
proved a point, she says. We proved that when you
invest in women, you can get a championship team, and
you can sell out arenas, and you can get a
deeply engaged fan base, and you can get a product

(08:21):
on the floor that's as competitive and good as anything
you see in the men's league. Wootsie isn't stopping now.
By the mid twenty thirties, she's pledged the Liberty will
be the first women's sports team valued at one billion dollars.
The question now is how many other owners will follow
her lead. For as long as she can remember, Wotsie

(08:43):
has fixated on fairness. Her grandfather was an activist for
Taiwanese rice farmers struggling to support themselves and dismantled discriminatory
policies set by the colonial Japanese government. He went on
to become the first elected mayor of Taipei after Japanese
rule ended. Her father went to the University of Wisconsin
at Madison to get an economics pH d before joining

(09:05):
the faculty at the University of Kansas and settling in
Lawrence with his wife, a fellow Taiwanese immigrant. At night,
he'd gather other immigrant professors in the basement of the
family home to advocate for an end to Taiwan's martial law,
which lasted almost forty years. Wutsi was born in nineteen
sixty six, two years after her brother Lawrence. As a

(09:28):
young child, she heard stories from her father and grandfather
about what Japanese and Chinese decision makers had cost the
Taiwanese people, which made her realize she wanted to make
a difference in the world. She knew early on that
she wasn't interested in pursuing academia like her father and
older brother, writing research papers felt too removed from real consequences.

(09:49):
I don't have a lot of tolerance for a lot
of bureaucracy or bullshit, she says, before apologizing for cursing.
I have an obsession with results, products, outcome, the practical
married to the new knowledge. To this day, Wootsie is
most comfortable talking about concrete goals. She comes alive when
discussing her professional passions. Asked for specific anecdotes from her childhood, though,

(10:14):
she turns to the communications rep sitting in on the interview,
I don't know, can you think of anything that I've
ever said to you? She didn't play sports as a kid,
focusing instead on violin, piano and grades. Per her parents' expectations.
She was enthralled by the exuberant fan culture that surrounded
Kansas men's basketball, though, and learned strategy catching games on TV.

(10:38):
Even as the rest of her family didn't care much
for them, The Jayhawks remained one of her deepest passions.
While working overseas, Wotsie got up in the middle of
the night to watch the team play.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
The Wus had.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Relatives in northern California, so Clara followed her brother to
Stanford University, where she majored in international relations. After a
brief stint as a junior can sultant at Mackenzie, she
enrolled in Harvard Business School, which raised the eyebrows of
her professor father. Why do you need a degree to
do business? She remembers him, asking, just go into business

(11:12):
at Harvard, she found she loved her course in Technology
Operations Management, the boring stuff that makes a company work.
It was very cut and dried, she says, you could
see your impact and you could control it. When she
finished her MBA, she worked for two years on the
revenue strategy team at the New York Times, then left
to become a business analyst for American Express. She loved

(11:35):
the energy of New York and the opportunity to see
any concert or art exhibit she wanted. In nineteen ninety three,
a friend set her up with Zi, a young Taiwanese
born tax attorney. They started with a double date at
Finelli Cafe, a senee pub in Soho, and spent the
whole time debating politics so fervently that their friends assumed

(11:55):
they didn't particularly like each other. The other couple offered
to take Clara home home, but she said she and
Joe were going to keep hanging out. They ended up
closing down the bar. She and Si bonded over their
shared Taiwanese ancestry, as well as their love of business
and sports. He'd played lacrosse at Yale University. By the

(12:16):
time they were married three years later, Zi had become
a private equity investor, and Wutsie had arranged a transfer
to join him in moving to Hong Kong. Soon after that,
Si met Jack Ma and co founded Ali Baba that
Sis stayed in Hong Kong for fifteen years and had
three children there. Wusi rose quickly through the ranks of

(12:37):
American Express, becoming a vice president for international card partnerships,
but found working at a massive company stultifying. And Chen,
a friend of thirty years, says we would talk about
what it was like as people in our late twenties
and early thirties working in a corporate environment, and she
just wasn't satisfied with the pace of change or the

(12:57):
ability to create impact.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Whereas I I was very happy.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
She's much more bold and much more ambitious. Wootsie left
American Express after eight years, moving on to oversee the
Hong Kong operations of tawbaw An Ali Baba subsidiary that
was essentially China's answer to eBay. Experimenting to solve new
problems felt more exciting than following corporate protocol. She says,
it made me realize how entrepreneurial I was. In twenty thirteen,

(13:25):
Wotsie stepped down from Tawbou, and the size moved to
the US, settling in San Diego. She was excited for
her kids to experience the parts of American life she'd
loved growing up. SI, Alibaba's second largest shareholder, oversaw the
company's initial public offering the following year. Suddenly the Size
were billionaires, and Wotsie began to think of her work

(13:47):
in a new way. She researched what philanthropic causes.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Would allow her to make the biggest.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Difference, pouring money into social mobility interventions and arts programs.
But the couple sought profit making investments too. Their love
of sports they'd pushed their kids to play competitively brought
them to pro franchises, which are scarce by design and
thus valuable assets. It was also hard to think of
any industry that dovetailed so directly with wood size affinity

(14:15):
for competition and clear outcomes. In twenty seventeen, Zi bought
the rights to an expansion professional indoor lacrosse team in
San Diego, a baby step toward the couple's real goal
of owning an NBA team. They didn't want to be
stuck as minority owners. Long term, so they looked for
franchises that presented a clear path to outright control. That

(14:37):
narrowed the options down to the Houston Rockets or the
Brooklyn Nets. The kids voted for Houston. It had superstar
James Harden, and the Nets were decidedly the number two
team in their own hometown. The parents, though, wanted New York.
At the end of twenty seventeen, they bought a forty
nine percent stake in the Brooklyn franchise. A little more

(14:57):
than a year later, they acquired the rest two point
four billion dollars, then the highest price ever paid for
a sports team. They also bought the Nets home arena,
the Barclays Center. To Wotsie, owning a basketball team felt
like a dream, but the NBA, which owned half of
the WNBA at the time, wanted to know if that

(15:18):
size might consider buying one more. The Liberty had been
losing money for years, and moving out of New York
City had made things worse. Multiple potential buyers had balked
after looking at the books. Wotsie, though, was intrigued. The
whole sector was under invested in and we saw potential,
she says. We knew that the league attracted the best

(15:39):
basketball players in the world, and we knew that New
York City was the biggest media market in the world,
so we thought, okay, these are some solid business fundamentals.
The nets, where Atsi was taking the lead, were a
mature business. The Liberty needed an entrepreneur, and the failure
of her fellow billionaires to invest seriously in women's sports

(16:00):
at Whosie's sense of fairness, she couldn't resist the challenge.
In twenty nineteen that Size bought the team Wootseye, they
announced would run it. We'll be right back with Lady Liberty.
Welcome back to Lady Liberty. For most of the WNBA's

(16:22):
almost thirty year existence, many people treated it like a
charity case. The NBA owned fifty percent of the women's
league until three years ago, with the remaining fifty percent
split among the teams. Most owners seemed content to lose
money on their franchises. Sports Illustrated reported in twenty twenty
two that one owner liked to say his team was

(16:44):
worth literally nothing, making everything he spent a generous donation.
The league's CBA prohibits a range of financial disclosures, and
WNBA and NBA executives have always been secretive about even
the most basic economic questions, frustrating anyone who believes the
league isn't paying.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Players their fair share.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
According to Bloomberg News reporting, the WNBA generated about one
hundred forty four million dollars in league revenue in twenty
twenty four, up one hundred and seventy seven percent from
twenty nineteen, but the people in charge won't confirm. Wootsye
wasn't interested in treating a for profit franchise as a
charity or in paying players as little as possible. She

(17:27):
knew she was committing to years of losing money, but
she also saw a route to profitability. Shortly after the
couple bought the Liberty, she went on a listening tour
of sorts, consulting prominent figures in women's sports about what
they'd change. She drove two hours each way from La
Joya to meet with Billy Jean King, a vocal advocate
for greater investment in women's pro leagues, near King's home

(17:50):
outside Palm Springs. The two talked business strategy for hours
and have since become good friends. People like Clara are
a big part of the dream without her and people
like her, we're not going to make it. King says,
she's actually putting her heart and soul and money into it.
It goes beyond just money, but you've got to have
that starting point. The Liberty's overhaul began with the move

(18:14):
to the size arena in Brooklyn. It wasn't without risks.
Spending two years losing constantly at a third tier arena
in the northern Suburbs had driven away much of the
fan base. The pandemic didn't help, forcing the team to
play a shortened twenty twenty season at a COVID nineteen
isolation facility in Florida before starting up in Earnest in

(18:35):
Brooklyn in twenty twenty one. That first year at Berkley's,
the Liberty averaged fewer than nineteen hundred attendees per game,
even fewer than during their years in the Burbs. Many nights,
the arena was so quiet that fans sitting in the
lower bowl could hear players shouting to one another. I
viewed us as an expansion team coming from Westchester, says Colb,

(18:58):
whom Wusie hired as to general manager. We really had
to start everything all over the only way to rebuild
the fan base, as far as Wootsye could see, was
to start winning. The Liberty hadn't finished a season above
five hundred since twenty seventeen, and few stars had clamored
to work for Dolan. To make New York more attractive,

(19:18):
the Liberty began offering better perks, a best in class
locker room, the biggest performance staff in the league, on
site chefs, and a mid season bonding trip to NAPA.
The Liberty would be a player led team, Wootseye told
free agents whatever they needed, they'd have. We had that
philosophy that we were just going to upgrade everything.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
She says.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
The North Star was building a championship caliber team that
could bring back the old fans and attract new ones.
Before her work paid off, though woots Eye's free spending
ways nearly brought her entire project crashing down. The WNBA
had always banned flights on private jets, a long standing
perk for men's pro teams of a sense of fairness to.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Teams whose owners couldn't afford them.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Wootsye, on the other hand, thought it was unfair to
make elite athletes cram their long legs into economy seats.
So throughout the second half of the twenty twenty one season,
she simply broke the rules chartering flights to away games.
When she got caught, the league considered punishments as severe
as suspending ownership or terminating the franchise altogether, according to

(20:25):
Sports Illustrated, but woots Eye eventually received little more than
a slap on the wrist a one million dollar fine
later reduced to five hundred thousand dollars. Her defiance and
the charter flight question dominated WNBA discourse for weeks. Plenty
of observers cheered her willingness to give players first class
amenities no matter the cost. Plenty of others castigated her

(20:48):
for throwing money around when not everyone could do the same.
One part of the story got less attention in the
fall of twenty twenty one. During the same period, the
Liberty were secretly flying privates. Eyes proposed charter flights be
made the standard travel option for every WNBA team for
at least three years, according to Sports Illustrated, but the

(21:09):
owner's council rejected it. S I reported in part because
they didn't want players to become accustomed to a perk
they might not have forever. The WNBA said at the
time that the Liberty didn't put.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Forward a formal proposal. It's tough.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Wosie says about the rejection, then hesitates her communications rep
jumps in. I think that's one of the things we're
not supposed to talk about. But her efforts to woo
players with perks worked. She'd already lured in defensive powerhouse
Benija Laney Hamilton before the Charter Flights began in twenty
twenty three. Jones requested a trade to New York, and

(21:47):
Stuart and Van der Slutt both signed out a free
agency with the Stars now aboard, the Liberty went thirty
two to eight during the twenty twenty three regular season
before losing in the finals to the defending champion Las
Vegas Aces. The next year, they took down the Aces
in the semifinals, then beat the Minnesota Lynx in a
game five overtime thriller to win the title. In the

(22:09):
locker room afterward, Wootsie strapped on Moet branded goggles and
danced alongside her players, soaked in bubbly and looking giddy.
Describing her feeling as the confetti fell, Wootsye mimics wiping
sweat from her chest in relief as she predicted, winning
brought the fans back Upgrading their experience helped two. The

(22:30):
vibe at Liberty games began to feel like a Brooklyn
block party, thumping music and all ages crowd, jubilant toddler's
high fiving, tenderly dressed zoomers. Ellie the Elephant, a mascot
introduced in twenty twenty one, became a star in her
own right, with a profile in Vogue and almost two
hundred thousand.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Followers on TikTok.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
The Liberty aren't making money yet. All Wootsye will say
about the team's finances is that she expects it to
be profitable soon. But by the end of the twenty
twenty sees before season, attendance was up four hundred and
seventy percent from when its size took charge, and a
new TV deal with the local Fox affiliate was making
games accessible to anyone in.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
The Tri state area.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
She rescued US chief executive officer Kia Clark, who spent
eight years working under Dolan, says of Wotsye, Wootsie can't
talk about the negotiations over the league's next CBA. She's
not a member of the league's board of governors, so
she has no official role in the talks. The day
after the Liberty won the twenty twenty fourth title in October,

(23:32):
the WNBA players Union announced it was opting out of
the current CBA, giving them a year to negotiate a
new contract before its time for a workstopage. With its
popularity surging, the league announced last July that it expected
to collect two point two billion dollars from an eleven
year media rights deal with ESPN owner Disney, Amazon dot Com,

(23:53):
and NBC Universal. Yet outside researchers estimate the players are
paid an average of less than one hundred and fifty
one thousand dollars each, totaling roughly ten percent of league
revenue compared with fifty percent in the NBA. The WNBA
won't comment on these estimates. They're not demanding NBA level salaries.
Stuart and other union leaders emphasize just a revenue share

(24:16):
closer to half, plus better benefits for family planning, childcare,
and housing. Stuart, who serves as vice president of the
players Union, says she's optimistic they'll strike an agreement before
time runs out in October. The negotiations are still in
the early stages without concrete proposals or counter offers from
either party, but the conventional wisdom is that the momentum

(24:39):
is on the player's side. They are more famous and
beloved than ever. They've also shown the WNBA isn't their
only option. Earlier this year, with thirty five million dollars
in private investment, Stuart and Minnesota Link Star ANDNFISA Collier
launched Unrivaled, a six team three on three women's league
that plays during the WNBA off season. Unrivaled has allowed

(25:02):
many top players to avoid the hassle of playing overseas
to supplement their income, paying them an average of two
hundred and twenty thousand dollars for ten weeks of games,
according to ESPN. Shortly after winning an NCAA championship, University
of Connecticut star Paige Becker signed an unrival deal that
will pay her more in two and a half months
than she can earn in four years of a WNBA

(25:25):
rookie contract. The new league also offers players equity, which
the WNBA doesn't, plus better amenities and childcare benefits than
many WNBA teams. Unrivaled says it made twenty seven million
dollars in its first year from sponsorships and a TV
deal with Warner Brothers Discovery, and came close to breaking even.

(25:47):
While the WNBA owners are staying tight lipped about the
CBA negotiations, a growing number of them appear to want
to pay their players significantly more. Of course, what works
in New York and Las Vegas might not be realistic
in the w NBA's smaller markets, but the old model
of owner austerity seems to be losing ground to the

(26:07):
new model of spending money to make money, and Woots
Eye continues to stand out as an icon of owner
largesse who's willing to treat players like the top tier
pro athletes they are. Ever since Clara and Joe came
into the w NBA's space, they've been able to lead
differently than any one else. Stuart says it doesn't always
have to be a fight. As the players and owners

(26:30):
negotiate over the next five months, the Liberty will be
trying to repeat as w NBA champions. They look to
have a good shot. Although they lost Vandersloot to free
agency and Laney Hamilton to an injury sustained during the
unrivaled season, their top three players are back and healthy,
and veteran guard Natasha Cloud, who came over in a

(26:50):
trade with the Connecticut Son will pick up some of
the defensive burden. Wootsie longs for another title, but she's
focused on some off court goals too. Part of the
reason that Size bought the Nets instead of the Rockets
was that she thought Brooklyn would be a good place
to concentrate her philanthropic work, much of which aims to
help people build wealth. Teen boot camps dealing with artificial

(27:12):
intelligence and the blockchain, a tech accelerator that invests in
founders of color, grants and low interest loans for small
business owners. An annual social justice prize for people working
to improve their communities. A fervent museum goer, Woods Eye
also started an arts program in public schools, which initially
centered on the work of Brooklyn born artist Jean Michel

(27:33):
Basciat and culminated in an exhibition of students Basquiat inspired
paintings at Barclay's. Next year, the program will highlight the
work of Rashid Johnson, a friend of Woodsize, to give
students a look at the life of a contemporary working artist.
She wants them to understand they have options through the
Liberty and Nets parent company b SE Global. Meanwhile, the

(27:56):
Size are planning a major development initiative in the traffic
clogged area around Barclays, adding hotels and restaurants, Wootsye says
will help draw more fans for the Liberty and Nets
while also benefiting Brooklyn more broadly. Only a fraction of
New York City's sixty three million annual tourists ever set
foot in the borough, and though the Liberty's attendants and

(28:17):
TV viewership set records last year, the path to the
billion dollar valuation sheet craves requires even more. In the
absence of specific numbers from the WNBA or its teams,
it's impossible to know for sure how far they are
along the path from charity case to money making machine.
Woots Eye says much of the league's focus for the
next few years should be on monetizing its growing viewership

(28:41):
by negotiating better terms for sponsorships and team media deals.
The WNBA is also slated to expand twenty five percent
to fifteen franchises by the end of next year. One
new team, the Golden State Valkyries, will make its debut
this season. Followed in twenty twenty six by teams in
Toronto and Portland, Oregon. Expansion teams bring new fans, which

(29:03):
just expands the pie for everyone.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Right. Wootsye says, what the.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Liberty managed to do was bring in non traditional sports fans,
not just go after existing people. There's still so much
more growth that's possible with our team.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
And with the league.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
Two through lines unite her seemingly diverse projects. One is
her need for results, the instinct that made her turn
away from her father's academic life and toward the business world.
Few things bring her more joy than seeing students art
on the walls of her family's arena, or a local
business that's expanded its offerings because of a grant, or
the players she's recruited, lifting a championship trophy in front

(29:40):
of a sellout crowd measurable units of the work she's
made possible. The other is her childhood obsession with making
things fair. Asked during the interview in La Joya about
how her desire for equality shapes her work, Wotsye initially
demurs she's a businesswoman, not a utopian. I'm not Pollyanna.

(30:00):
A lot of things in life aren't fair, so you
know I don't ride or die it. Nine days later,
Wootsye sends a follow up email. She's been dwelling on
the question for more than a week and wants to
revise her answer. It's true that she wouldn't have invested
in The Liberty unless she thought it could make huge money.
She needs people to understand that when she says her

(30:21):
team will be worth one billion dollars, she's not guessing
or being optimistic, but upon further reflection, she's willing to
say she's just.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
As committed to equality.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
She could build a billion dollar business in any number
of industries.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
She needs to prove to all the doubters that she
can do it.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
In the w NBA, like all women's sports, the team
had been underestimated and underfunded. We changed that, Wootsye writes.
We bet on women and we are winning.