Speaker 1: Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're manifesting
Speaker 1: a long sunny fall this year, first Indian summer, long
Speaker 1: Indian summer, but then real actual fall, several months of it.
Speaker 2: Please.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, September eighth, and on today show, we'll be
Speaker 1: talking to Resa Eard, the director of Research at Parody,
Speaker 1: about the biggest takeaways from two new reports on women's sports,
Speaker 1: plus the history of racism and WNBA media coverage, and
Speaker 1: why women's sports fans are the most valuable fans.
Speaker 2: And we're not just saying that the research proves it.
Speaker 1: That conversation with Resa is coming up right after this,
Speaker 1: joining us now.
Speaker 2: She was recently hired.
Speaker 1: As the director of research at Parody, a company that
Speaker 1: helps connect athletes in women's sports with businesses interested in
Speaker 1: sponsoring them.
Speaker 2: Before that, she spent a whole lot of time.
Speaker 1: In classrooms, including two years as a professor of sport
Speaker 1: management at Yukon. While an undergrad at Duke, she created
Speaker 1: her own major social change at the intersection of culture,
Speaker 1: gender and sport. And then we got her PhD from
Speaker 1: the University of Massachusetts with their dissertation that actually sounds interesting.
Speaker 1: Women's professional sport and stigma. Her hobbies include surfing and
Speaker 1: making educational children's worksheets about Title nine, it's Resa Iard.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised you when producer Alex our friends if
Speaker 1: your hobbies include making worksheets.
Speaker 3: It was such a great day. It was such a
Speaker 3: great day.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in your intro these days, you're the
Speaker 1: director of research at Parody, but you've been in the
Speaker 1: women's sports space for a long time, even though I'm
Speaker 1: guessing no one else was making Title nine worksheets for
Speaker 1: you growing up. Now you have filled that hole amongst others.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about how you first got interested
Speaker 1: in researching women's sports?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know.
Speaker 4: I got interested in researching really just because for a
Speaker 4: long time I was a fan, and so for me,
Speaker 4: I think it actually all goes back to nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 4: I was a really impressionable young girl growing up in Phoenix, Arizona,
Speaker 4: surrounded by the energy that launched the w like the
Speaker 4: most successful women's sport league that we've had in US history,
Speaker 4: and so I saw really early up close in personal
Speaker 4: like how powerful women athletes were and what they meant
Speaker 4: to me as a girl athlete. But I also saw
Speaker 4: the disparities at a really young age, and so from
Speaker 4: that moment on, I was really just committed to doing
Speaker 4: whatever I could, wherever I was, with whatever I had.
Speaker 4: And you know, I was never someone who like dreamed
Speaker 4: of being a pro athlete. I think I was a
Speaker 4: largely above average but basically mediocre athlete, and I loved sports,
Speaker 4: but in the classroom I had good grades, and so
Speaker 4: it was really just you know, what are the skills
Speaker 4: or the talents or the areas that I can excel
Speaker 4: in that I'm passionate about where I can hopefully help
Speaker 4: make a difference for women's sports. And so that led
Speaker 4: me down a lot of rabbit holes, you know, early
Speaker 4: jobs with the Mercury, reading the collective bargaining agreement in
Speaker 4: the eighth grade at bedtime, just like you know, being
Speaker 4: really nerdy really early and soaking it all up so
Speaker 4: that hopefully I was prepared for a moment like this.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love that we need people like you,
Speaker 1: because that's not my wheelhouse, digging through cbas and understanding
Speaker 1: the nitty gritty of contracts. But okay, so you're rising
Speaker 1: up the academia, and I imagine if you're a smart,
Speaker 1: accomplished person. There plenty of folks trying to pull you
Speaker 1: in different directions or suggest areas of focus. Did you
Speaker 1: ever have any trouble convincing people that women's sports were
Speaker 1: worth researching and worth your time?
Speaker 4: Honestly, I feel like probably pretty lucky to say no.
Speaker 4: I think the folks I surrounded myself with like saw
Speaker 4: that this was something I was really passionate about, and
Speaker 4: we're just like, we're going to get out of her
Speaker 4: way whether we get it or not.
Speaker 3: Like she's she's doing something, she's going somewhere.
Speaker 4: I actually remember years ago I was talking with an
Speaker 4: undergrad mentor and I wasn't sure yet about getting my PhD.
Speaker 4: And you know, I was like, I don't know about
Speaker 4: this whole thing, and he was like, look, you're actually
Speaker 4: going to study something that really matters, Like you're not
Speaker 4: going to just be another He was a historian, so
Speaker 4: he was kind of, you know, self deprecating. He was like,
Speaker 4: you're not just going to go be another historian of
Speaker 4: like you know these ten years. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 4: I love history. My undergrad honor thesis was on the
Speaker 4: history of Title nine, so like here for all of
Speaker 4: the history of women's sports. But I think people saw
Speaker 4: that this moment was going to come, and I think
Speaker 4: they just saw how much I lit up when I
Speaker 4: was doing this work.
Speaker 3: And you know, if all else sales like go do
Speaker 3: what makes you light up?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I love that and it's so true.
Speaker 1: Especially even just five six, seven years ago, there was
Speaker 1: such a dearth of both coverage and research and interest
Speaker 1: in this space that has since blown up, and so
Speaker 1: I imagine it was difficult in some cases to find
Speaker 1: the information you were pursuing or to get access to things,
Speaker 1: if not that many people were asking for it. So
Speaker 1: part of what you're doing now is creating the kinds
Speaker 1: of studies that everyone can look at and pull from,
Speaker 1: especially when they're trying to make pitches or arguments as
Speaker 1: to why investing in women's sports is smart. So this
Speaker 1: new role director of research for Parity. For folks who
Speaker 1: aren't familiar, can you give us kind of an overview
Speaker 1: of what Paroity is and the work that the company does.
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 4: Parody was founded in twenty twenty and our mission is
Speaker 4: to close the gender, income and opportunity gap in professional sports.
Speaker 4: So everybody who's listening here today knows pretty obviously that
Speaker 4: women athletes make up just a fraction of global sponsorships
Speaker 4: and media coverage, and they're often excluded from the most
Speaker 4: meaningful brand deals, and so Parody works directly with athletes
Speaker 4: and brands to address this inequity by connecting our roster,
Speaker 4: our community of more than eleven hundred athletes over three
Speaker 4: hundred lilympians across eighty five plus different sports, with purpose
Speaker 4: driven brands that really want to tap into the women's
Speaker 4: sports audience, that want to put their money where their
Speaker 4: mouth is. And in doing that, we're really focused on
Speaker 4: the financial empowerment and visibility for women athletes across our research,
Speaker 4: our partnerships, the campaigns we work with them, all of that.
Speaker 1: So you represent the athletes, but you're also contributing to
Speaker 1: the space by creating information and data that allows not
Speaker 1: just the connections with your athletes and brands, but just
Speaker 1: the overall space to be better informed.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I mean, I think we do our job best
Speaker 4: if the research that we're doing contributes to the broader ecosystem. Certainly,
Speaker 4: right with our partners, we can run some proprietary analyzes.
Speaker 4: We can make sure that you know the latest and
Speaker 4: greatest is going towards them and directing their strategy and
Speaker 4: their partnership deals. But above all else, we believe that
Speaker 4: a rising tide lifts all boats. So we absolutely want
Speaker 4: our research out there as far and wide as it
Speaker 4: can be to support every single person, brand, leader, athlete
Speaker 4: in the women's sports ecosystem to do what they're doing
Speaker 4: as well as they can do it so that women
Speaker 4: athletes make as much money as they can.
Speaker 1: Director of research sounds pretty fancy schmancy, So what exactly
Speaker 1: do you do and did that exist before you were hired?
Speaker 4: So Parody did have a person that was leading some
Speaker 4: research for them before I joined this role. They did
Speaker 4: a lot of things, and so I am the first
Speaker 4: person at Parody to kind of be focused on research
Speaker 4: twenty four to seven. And so my job is really
Speaker 4: to think about what's our strategy and research, what are
Speaker 4: the studies we want to run, and then go do
Speaker 4: those studies right? So, what's our data, what's our analysis,
Speaker 4: what's the story we're telling?
Speaker 3: How are we putting it out there?
Speaker 4: I have an amazing team of colleagues who are so
Speaker 4: good at all of what they do too, to help
Speaker 4: inform the research and make sure it's serving our clients
Speaker 4: and then you know, using that data, like I said,
Speaker 4: both externally so that everybody in the women's sports ecosystem
Speaker 4: can be as smart as we can be, and then
Speaker 4: using really also to drive extra value to our brand clients.
Speaker 2: There was just a new report that was released. This
Speaker 2: was pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: It was about fan behavior and beliefs in the women's
Speaker 1: soccer space. This is your baby, if you will so
Speaker 1: tell us some of the big takeaways from this particular report.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, you know, I think everyone who's listening here, we've
Speaker 4: all seen the data that the women's soccer audience is
Speaker 4: super engaged, loyal, passionate. I mean, I think probably everyone
Speaker 4: listening to this is that right, Like my guess is
Speaker 4: a huge number of you know, your listener, Sarah, have
Speaker 4: been the folks that are actually spending against brands, Like
Speaker 4: I can't count the number of brands I have bought
Speaker 4: from because they sponsor women's sports.
Speaker 3: And so we know that's happening across the board.
Speaker 4: What's really interesting about the women's soccer audience is like
Speaker 4: they're over indexing even above and beyond like your baseline
Speaker 4: women's sport consumer who was already so loyal so passionate,
Speaker 4: so engaged. We've kind of been joking like the women's
Speaker 4: sports fans might just be the most valuable audience in
Speaker 4: sports because they're not just watching, they're acting, and they're
Speaker 4: doing so at a rate even greater and higher and
Speaker 4: faster than other women's sports fans, which we just think
Speaker 4: is an awesome.
Speaker 3: Story to tell.
Speaker 4: It's not actually a story we set out to tell,
Speaker 4: but it was just in the data and it was
Speaker 4: kind of screaming at us, and we really wanted to
Speaker 4: name it and give women's soccer fans their flowers and
Speaker 4: let brands know this is a great place to spend
Speaker 4: your money.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a prime example of someone who has
Speaker 1: been intentional about using products and buying products that I've
Speaker 1: seen step up when leagues needed it, step up and
Speaker 1: support the players that I care about. Dumb it down
Speaker 1: for folks who are not in this space, who maybe
Speaker 1: don't understand how the research is conducted and what you're
Speaker 1: looking for, and then we'll come back to some of
Speaker 1: the details you just spelled out.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, So, I think every great research project just starts
Speaker 4: with a question when I talk about it, you know,
Speaker 4: in my undergrads it's like, what are you noticing or
Speaker 4: what are you curious about?
Speaker 3: What do you want to know more about?
Speaker 4: Like it's just a question, and then you think about, Okay,
Speaker 4: if this is my question, what do I need to
Speaker 4: do to find the answer to that? What data can
Speaker 4: I collect? What data's already out there? Need to collect
Speaker 4: new data? Who do I need to hear from to
Speaker 4: be able to understand that? And so at parody for
Speaker 4: our last several reports we've partnered with survey Monkey. They've
Speaker 4: been fantastic for us in helping us survey a really
Speaker 4: strong gen pop audience so that we're not just hearing
Speaker 4: from women's sports fans. We're not just hearing from you know,
Speaker 4: listeners of Good Game with Sarah Spain. We're actually hearing
Speaker 4: from anybody who's ever taken a survey on survey Monkey,
Speaker 4: which is, you know, like more than two million people
Speaker 4: that they have serviced, and.
Speaker 3: So we're hearing from those folks.
Speaker 4: We're asking them questions about what sports are they watching,
Speaker 4: and how do they think about athletes, and what about
Speaker 4: these different brands and brand categories? And then that all
Speaker 4: comes back in a spreadsheet and I spend a lot
Speaker 4: of time writing fancy formulas or just doing some other
Speaker 4: kind of analyzes with those numbers to arrive at some
Speaker 4: answers as to what are we seeing here, how are
Speaker 4: fans engaging, what are they telling us about themselves?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and certainly what we understand about the relationship between
Speaker 1: sports fans and brands and sponsors is that the goal
Speaker 1: is to first get eyeballs on your name, your company,
Speaker 1: be familiar, maybe recognize it on a shelf, and you
Speaker 1: choose it because you remember hearing about it. But there's
Speaker 1: a difference in the way that might operate for fans of,
Speaker 1: say men's sport. I always make the example of if
Speaker 1: a beer sponsors the NFL, I'm not like, oh my gosh, wow,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, that's so good of them to make
Speaker 1: sure the NFL is going to succeed. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go out and buy that beer. They're going to get
Speaker 1: millions of eyeballs. But maybe fans don't see them in
Speaker 1: a different light because they are supporting the NFL.
Speaker 2: That's not the case for women's sports.
Speaker 1: People do change their opinions about brands, often as a
Speaker 1: result of their decision to get into the women's sports space.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned that women's sports fans potentially are the
Speaker 1: most valuable because one of the findings of the report
Speaker 1: is not just now we've heard of your brand, or
Speaker 1: now we know what your brand does, but we actually
Speaker 1: actively change our buying behaviors as a result of you
Speaker 1: showing up. So more than one in four women's soccer
Speaker 1: fans have made a purchase because of a brand sponsorship,
Speaker 1: making them fifty eight percent more likely to do so
Speaker 1: than other women's sports. So this isn't just women's sports fans,
Speaker 1: which we know over index compared to everyone else, but
Speaker 1: soccer fans specifically. What do you think it is about
Speaker 1: the soccer world? Disposable income? Is that part of it?
Speaker 2: Is that what we learned?
Speaker 3: You know, it's a great question. I really think it's
Speaker 3: a few things about women's soccer.
Speaker 4: I think first and foremost we have to talk about
Speaker 4: the supporter community in women's soccer and just the way
Speaker 4: that teams are already building really deep and meaningful and
Speaker 4: authentic relationships with these fans, and so when brands enter
Speaker 4: that space, fans are there for it. And so there's
Speaker 4: a community around being a women's soccer fan that's different
Speaker 4: than what you might find in other women's sports. I
Speaker 4: think that's a huge part of it. I also think
Speaker 4: women's soccer has had its moments of really deep important
Speaker 4: reckoning of times that we all know the players were
Speaker 4: not treated with the respect that they deserve, and the
Speaker 4: brands that stuck by those players, the brands that are
Speaker 4: investing in that, I think there's a little bit of
Speaker 4: extra gratitude and appreciation and recognition for stepping up for
Speaker 4: these athletes who haven't always had people who had their backs,
Speaker 4: and so I think those combined really help women's soccer
Speaker 4: fans step up over and above how all other women's
Speaker 4: sports fans are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the community aspect is really smart because
Speaker 1: one of the things that we hear about women's sports
Speaker 1: fans is they sometimes feel isolated. They don't have as
Speaker 1: many people to talk about their favorite teams and players too,
Speaker 1: and in the soccer world, there is a built in
Speaker 1: sort of place to join to create community around this
Speaker 1: thing that you love and care about, and then in
Speaker 1: that they can have discussions about supporting and working with
Speaker 1: brands that seem to be doing right by the.
Speaker 2: People that they care about.
Speaker 1: For this study specifically about women's soccer fans, are there
Speaker 1: any unanswered questions that you're hoping to do a future
Speaker 1: reporter or understand better in the future.
Speaker 3: That's a great question, you know.
Speaker 4: I think we just kind of want to track this,
Speaker 4: Like I am excited to continue to see how this develops.
Speaker 4: I'm excited to see how brands activate off of this
Speaker 4: and what great stories we can tell. And I also
Speaker 4: think Parody's really well positioned, given our community of nearly
Speaker 4: twelve hundred athletes, to really shine a light on the
Speaker 4: athlete experience and what is it for them, And so
Speaker 4: I'm excited for us to continue doing work not just
Speaker 4: with fans and not just with brands, but also making
Speaker 4: sure that athlete voices are heard and elevated as part
Speaker 4: of these conversations. Everything we do at Parody is about
Speaker 4: women athletes and elevating them and their stories and closing
Speaker 4: that gender and income opportunity gap.
Speaker 3: So I'm excited for our research to do that too.
Speaker 1: We got to take a quick break more with Risa
Speaker 1: right after this. Earlier in the summer, Parody released a
Speaker 1: broader report. This was on marketing and fan purchasing behavior
Speaker 1: just in women's sports in general. So what conclusions can
Speaker 1: you share from that Broader Report.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, So we spent a lot of time talking
Speaker 4: about soccer across the board. Basketball leads the way in
Speaker 4: terms of the number of fans across the US for
Speaker 4: women's basketball, and so we think that's really exciting and
Speaker 4: a story worth elevating. And also we can't ignore all
Speaker 4: of the new leagues that are emerging, you know, as
Speaker 4: part of this incredible movement, that are making a huge impression.
Speaker 4: And so we've seen a lot of traction actually with
Speaker 4: the GSL, with the PWHL, right with Unrivaled, with a
Speaker 4: lot of leagues that are emerging really kind of getting
Speaker 4: off to a great start, and so that was a
Speaker 4: really exciting part of that report as well.
Speaker 1: The GSL, the Gamebridge Super League. We've talked about that
Speaker 1: a few times on the show, though not super in depth.
Speaker 1: That's sort of the league competing to be alongside the NWSL,
Speaker 1: though most of the best players in the US are
Speaker 1: still choosing the NWSL. You mentioned those emerging leagues. What
Speaker 1: I think we're finding from some of them is incredible
Speaker 1: dexterity as a result of being brand new and because
Speaker 1: of their size, not being regulated quite the same way,
Speaker 1: not having sort of like traditional history or connection to brands,
Speaker 1: and they're not connected to men's leagues that have relationships
Speaker 1: that they're required to be beholden too, like we often
Speaker 1: see with say the WNBA Unrivaled feels a little more
Speaker 1: dexterous right now, although we'll see how that changes as
Speaker 1: they continue to age and grow. When you look at
Speaker 1: that larger study of women's sports, I think we hear
Speaker 1: at the show and you've probably talked about them a
Speaker 1: million times, But are there a couple quick takeaways that
Speaker 1: maybe the average person doesn't realize when you talk about
Speaker 1: how fans of women's sport above and beyond anyone else
Speaker 1: might be the most valuable.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so trust in women athletes is at an all
Speaker 4: time high. Year over year, we have seen the trust
Speaker 4: in women athletes grow. We call this the believability boosts,
Speaker 4: Like consumers believe women athletes believe in the products that
Speaker 4: you know they're endorsing. And this is actually, you know,
Speaker 4: true even for people who tell us they never watch
Speaker 4: women's sports. Fifty eight percent of people who never watch
Speaker 4: women's sports actually tell us they still have pretty significant
Speaker 4: trust in women athletes when it comes to kind of
Speaker 4: the products they're promoting and the collaborations they're part of,
Speaker 4: and I mean, I think that's a phenomenal statistic, Like
Speaker 4: more than half of people who literally are never watching
Speaker 4: this actually care what these folks have to say as influencers,
Speaker 4: as endorsers for products, and so I think that's really exciting,
Speaker 4: especially paired with all the research we know about how
Speaker 4: sponsorship drives purchase intention and the fact that like fans
Speaker 4: just want more, they want more brands in this space.
Speaker 4: I don't know a lot of places that consumers are
Speaker 4: saying please, I'd like more advertising, like please feed me more,
Speaker 4: But in women's sports were like, please, I would like
Speaker 4: you right to feed me some advertising. And so I
Speaker 4: think it's a great opportunity for brands to do that,
Speaker 4: and to do that in partnership with women athletes, because
Speaker 4: we know that those athletes first strategies really resonate most.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's been a lot of research into that that
Speaker 1: just putting a female athlete in the campaign changes how
Speaker 1: much people click on it, watch it, and then buya
Speaker 1: as a results of it.
Speaker 2: I think women athletes areu on this.
Speaker 1: Really cool sweet spot where I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us are kind of tired of quote unquote just influencers.
Speaker 1: It started out with, Oh, we believe you because you're
Speaker 1: the average person, and now we're like, we don't believe
Speaker 1: you because you're the average person who will just get
Speaker 1: paid to tell us that you like literally anything that
Speaker 1: anyone will pay you to tell us about, you probably
Speaker 1: haven't even tried it, and also probably just photoshop is
Speaker 1: why you like look better in the APA photo.
Speaker 2: Whereas women athletes.
Speaker 1: Are more relatable than men's in that they're not millionaire
Speaker 1: billionaires who are probably just driving cars we can't afford
Speaker 1: and wearing watches we can't afford, they're more likely to
Speaker 1: be closer to our economic kind of status, but they're cooler,
Speaker 1: more talented, more visible, more fit. Like they they're aspirational,
Speaker 1: but in a way that we feel like we can
Speaker 1: still touch, and so then we believe them and we
Speaker 1: want to be like them in a way that I
Speaker 1: think it's very hard for male athletes to pull off,
Speaker 1: because we're just like cool, Lebron, you love sketchers. I
Speaker 1: know he's not a sketchers but like anytime many athletes
Speaker 1: like sketchers, that's the only thing I wear. I'm like, sure,
Speaker 1: no offense sketchers come support the show.
Speaker 2: We're always looking for sponsors. All right. Back to you.
Speaker 1: A few years back, you were you're actually pursuing your PhD.
Speaker 1: You published a study looking at race in WNBA media.
Speaker 1: Your finding's got a lot of buzz, including pagebackers giving
Speaker 1: you a shout out on stage at the SP's that
Speaker 1: famous speech that we all remember where we were like,
Speaker 1: holy how house page backers already this evolved at that age.
Speaker 2: But talk about that research for folks who aren't familiar
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: Can you give us a little overview of what you
Speaker 1: and your co author found and why it stood out
Speaker 1: to so many folks, including page.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and that was pretty exciting. My phone was blowing up.
Speaker 4: People were like, did you see pages speech? And I
Speaker 4: was like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 4: I wasn't in a time zone that was very friendly
Speaker 4: for watching the SP's at that time.
Speaker 3: And then I went and I was like, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 3: I know that data. That's really cool.
Speaker 4: So yeah, absolutely, we were in a study based on
Speaker 4: the twenty twenty WNBA season affectionately known the Leubble season
Speaker 4: less affectionately right this summer that our country was embroiled
Speaker 4: in a really important racial reckoning following George Floyd's murder,
Speaker 4: following you know, Breonna Taylor's murder, and media companies and
Speaker 4: brands and leagues and you know, basically everybody at the
Speaker 4: time was saying black lives matters and say her name.
Speaker 4: And actually the WNBA court and worn up shirts reflected
Speaker 4: this sentiment, given players vocal advocacy around it, and so
Speaker 4: that was really exciting. And also black wa players, who
Speaker 4: that season made up approximately eighty percent of the league.
Speaker 4: They also won eighty percent of the postseason awards. They
Speaker 4: were MVP, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year,
Speaker 4: Most Improved Player, and six women. They weren't getting credit
Speaker 4: in the media so overwhelmingly. We ran a study where
Speaker 4: we just actually counted the number of times that players
Speaker 4: got mentioned in the media across a six month period
Speaker 4: from shortly before the season was supposed to kick off
Speaker 4: until a bit after the season ended. We looked at
Speaker 4: it across the entire league, We looked at it across
Speaker 4: that like I said, those six months, and across three
Speaker 4: different media partners, two of whom were actually official partners
Speaker 4: media partners.
Speaker 3: Of the WNBA that season.
Speaker 4: And what we found, even when you control for on
Speaker 4: court production like points and rebounds, is that white athletes
Speaker 4: got significantly more coverage than their black counterparts, their black teammates, right,
Speaker 4: the people who are literally playing these games with them
Speaker 4: making up the majority of the league. And you know,
Speaker 4: there's some other nuances there about what we found too,
Speaker 4: when you think about not just a player's race, but
Speaker 4: also how they expressed themselves. Right, who's a little bit
Speaker 4: more masculine, who's a little bit more feminine. And I
Speaker 4: just also want to connect this to how important this
Speaker 4: is when it comes to pay equity, because media coverage
Speaker 4: is just free advertising, like.
Speaker 3: That's all it is.
Speaker 4: And so when you have this kind of disparity in
Speaker 4: media coverage, you're going to see that kind of disparity
Speaker 4: in the kinds of endorsement deals and contracts that players
Speaker 4: can command. And so we kind of felt like it
Speaker 4: wasn't surprising that at the time Stewie was actually the
Speaker 4: only w player in a decade to have a signature shoe.
Speaker 4: Nothing against Dewey, She's an amazing player, but that feels
Speaker 4: a little bit off in a league that has so
Speaker 4: many amazing players, you know, eighty percent of whom are black,
Speaker 4: So big picture about the study and you know the
Speaker 4: findings and really the implications on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember really soon after college because I wasn't
Speaker 1: in the marketing advertising space learning about ad equivalency and
Speaker 1: really understanding what it means to say, we would have
Speaker 1: spent this much money for you to see this, and instead,
Speaker 1: because media covered it for we got the equivalent of
Speaker 1: this many dollars. And that's such a great point to
Speaker 1: make because of course that's not the intention of media,
Speaker 1: but it's a result of it. And so when athletes
Speaker 1: aren't covered and given publicity and talked about, and their
Speaker 1: efforts and accolades and points and rebounds and all the
Speaker 1: things they are accomplishing aren't the stories aren't told, they
Speaker 1: end up not being just harmed in terms of people
Speaker 1: not knowing who they are, but the kind of sponsorships
Speaker 1: that they're offered, and even sometimes subconsciously, the way the
Speaker 1: refs call the game, the way teams think about signing
Speaker 1: them as free agents, like, all of it becomes part
Speaker 1: of their story in a way that is unfairly weighted,
Speaker 1: very heavily on how the media does their job, which
Speaker 1: is why this show is so important to us and
Speaker 1: why I think things are changing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Asia Wilson was the twenty twenty WA MVP. She received
Speaker 1: half as much media coverage that season as Sabrini and Escu,
Speaker 1: who was the first pick in the draft, played in
Speaker 1: just three games before she got a season ending injury.
Speaker 1: A lot of enthusiasm about Sabrina the triple doubles coming
Speaker 1: out of Oregon the end of her season prematurely there was,
Speaker 1: of course, there's a lot of excitement about her arriving,
Speaker 1: but she got hurt, she didn't really play, she's white
Speaker 1: and ends up getting twice as much covered as the
Speaker 1: person who was the MVP. That's a great example of
Speaker 1: how you can build mythology around a player at the
Speaker 1: expense of another player who is more deserving of creating
Speaker 1: those myths. Do you think things have changed since this
Speaker 1: is a topic that has been covered and talked about since,
Speaker 1: particularly in part because of your research.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I will just I also always want to say too, right,
Speaker 4: like the players aren't to blame for this. Nobody who's
Speaker 4: a player did anything wrong to get media coverage right
Speaker 4: like this. What we were able to do and what
Speaker 4: I think is so important about the research that we
Speaker 4: ran is like we can look across at the time,
Speaker 4: one hundred and forty four athletes, right, we can look
Speaker 4: across twelve teams, across six months, across three media partners,
Speaker 4: and so you're really seeing like a system of patterns,
Speaker 4: not and you can see a great kind of point
Speaker 4: examples on these one on ones that we've just talked about,
Speaker 4: and those are true in the data. But this isn't
Speaker 4: always a one on one comparison, Like this is just
Speaker 4: a pattern across the board, and I think that's so important.
Speaker 4: And no, I don't think we've made a lot of
Speaker 4: progress on this, you know. I laugh sometimes that like
Speaker 4: maybe a little bit of hubris. In the title of
Speaker 4: the op ed where we launched this was make this
Speaker 4: the season we end discriminatory sports coverage.
Speaker 3: That was May of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4: And I think people who have tuned into the W
Speaker 4: in the last few years knows that this issue hasn't
Speaker 4: gone away. We're still seeing preferential treatment of several athletes.
Speaker 4: We're seeing black athletes, you know, not always having their
Speaker 4: names pronounced correctly. Like we're just seeing these kinds of
Speaker 4: biases continue to be perpetuated. I do know from some
Speaker 4: media executives who reached out to me afterwards that some
Speaker 4: companies have actually taken steps to put different policies and
Speaker 4: practices in place to like make some progress. And so yes,
Speaker 4: I think in small ways we've made progress, and I
Speaker 4: think in big ways we've had in conversations.
Speaker 3: But on the whole, I think if.
Speaker 4: We ran this study again, I don't think we would
Speaker 4: find very different outcomes.
Speaker 1: Do you think that would be really statistically offset by
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark in particular, though, because while I do believe
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that she has swallowed a giant percentage
Speaker 1: of coverage, particularly coverage in spaces that did nothing at
Speaker 1: all before and have stepped in to do a little bit,
Speaker 1: And it's really just about her, because I think there
Speaker 1: are some really great pieces of progress, Asia Wilson's signature shoe,
Speaker 1: the incredible campaign around her from Nike, the statues. I
Speaker 1: think that we've had a lot more moments now. Part
Speaker 1: of it also might be that, you know, the last
Speaker 1: year and a half, I've spent all of my time
Speaker 1: on women's sports instead of my previous jobs where I
Speaker 1: spent some on women's and some on men's, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't as deeply invested. So I'm seeing more personally surely
Speaker 1: as a result of that, but it also feels like
Speaker 1: we're more aware of it and more thoughtful about it.
Speaker 1: It's just that the Caitlin Clark of it all is
Speaker 1: so giant that you'd almost have to take her out
Speaker 1: just to see if everything else settled a little more
Speaker 1: evenly than it used to.
Speaker 2: Is that fair?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I do think that's fair.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: You publish some research about the sort of isofans in
Speaker 1: the WNBA. First of all, can you tell us what
Speaker 1: an isofan is and what your research found about it?
Speaker 2: And I have a feeling it relates to what we
Speaker 2: just discussed.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So ISO fans are fans who when you ask them,
Speaker 4: who do you share your fandom with, they say nobody,
Speaker 4: Like I don't have anyone to talk about it with.
Speaker 4: I don't have anyone to watch games with. I don't
Speaker 4: have anybody to go to games with. I'm just a
Speaker 4: fan in my own bubble, and I don't know anyone
Speaker 4: else to share this passion with.
Speaker 3: And so we did.
Speaker 4: We ran a study with myself and some co authors,
Speaker 4: and we really just wanted to understand how WNBA fans
Speaker 4: were connecting to one another, to teams, and then like what.
Speaker 3: That meant for their engagement.
Speaker 4: We were caught really by surprise when we got this data,
Speaker 4: because even when you look at it in men's sports,
Speaker 4: the numbers are fairly low.
Speaker 3: When you look at WNBA fans.
Speaker 4: In this initial study, twenty eight percent of told us
Speaker 4: that they were ISO fans, and that was four times
Speaker 4: as high as a comparable NBA sample and much much
Speaker 4: higher than really anything like you see in men's sports.
Speaker 4: And so we actually kind of thought it was a fluke,
Speaker 4: such that we recollected data and ran it again.
Speaker 3: And found the same thing. So it was not a fluke.
Speaker 4: What is exciting is that when we recollected data just
Speaker 4: more recently in partnership with Wasserman and the Collective, we
Speaker 4: found that the number of isofans has declined, but we've
Speaker 4: also seen a greater emergence of we call them duo fans,
Speaker 4: so people who say, like I had someone, I have
Speaker 4: one person.
Speaker 3: To share my fandom with, but I don't have a
Speaker 3: whole club. I don't have a whole crew.
Speaker 4: I'm not like rolling deep to games or the sports
Speaker 4: bra or wherever I'm going to watch it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm actually not surprised by that. It's something that
Speaker 1: I've noticed across the space for a long time, and
Speaker 1: I've encouraged things like companies to start doing company outings
Speaker 1: to women sporting events because the natural cultural practice is
Speaker 1: let's go to a Cubs game. Oh, let's all go
Speaker 1: to a Bulls game. It's like a thing that's part
Speaker 1: of life. And that's from media coverage. That's from traffic, news, weather,
Speaker 1: and sports and every day it's just the men's games.
Speaker 2: And here's what's happening.
Speaker 1: It's from advertising, it's from marketing spend, it's from it
Speaker 1: being a part of your life all the time, to
Speaker 1: the point where even if you don't care about it,
Speaker 1: you kind of know about it. And women's sports requires
Speaker 1: going to find it, and so you can do that alone.
Speaker 1: And you might do that alone if you don't know
Speaker 1: that other people are also interested. But thankfully you mentioned
Speaker 1: the sports bra. There are women's sports bars popping up
Speaker 1: all over the country. There's some companies and brands that
Speaker 1: are starting to align around bringing people together to watch together.
Speaker 1: There is an understanding from brands that women like to
Speaker 1: watch in communal spaces. Even if that means something like
Speaker 1: a message board or a Twitch stream that's running alongside
Speaker 1: a life broadcast. So do you think that's going to
Speaker 1: change just as a part of the larger storytelling that's
Speaker 1: being done around women's sports welcoming more people under the ten?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 4: I mean I think that's what the shift in the
Speaker 4: data has shown us, right, is that we have fewer
Speaker 4: ISO fans now. They are still far more prevalent in
Speaker 4: women's sport than they are in men's sport, but the
Speaker 4: number is shifting. I also think in the second data collection,
Speaker 4: we really wanted to better understand who isofans were, like,
Speaker 4: what is this experience because we didn't expect to find
Speaker 4: them in the first studies, so we did an admittedly
Speaker 4: terrible job at learning anything more about them other than.
Speaker 3: That they exist.
Speaker 4: And so I think what's interesting is actually, like, there's
Speaker 4: some folks who say that they want to be an
Speaker 4: ISO fan, Like it's not a problem to solve. But
Speaker 4: what is interesting is even in that case isofans engage
Speaker 4: much less they have They're like less strong in their
Speaker 4: fan identity, they consume less, they spend less, And so
Speaker 4: what that says to us is that even if someone
Speaker 4: wants to be an isofan, and not all of them do.
Speaker 4: Some of them said they wish they had more people
Speaker 4: and that they would choose to join a group. But
Speaker 4: in all cases isofans are just underserved, like they're not
Speaker 4: being met where they're at, whether they want to stay
Speaker 4: an ice sofian or not. There's an opportunity here for
Speaker 4: us to invest in these fans who are showing up,
Speaker 4: overcoming the barriers alone, to show up for women's sports
Speaker 4: and deserve to be seen in our spaces.
Speaker 1: Rees, is there anywhere people can read this research of
Speaker 1: yours or find it publicly?
Speaker 3: It's a great question. A lot of it.
Speaker 4: It's in some academic journals, some of it lives in
Speaker 4: sports business journals, off eds. I'll definitely share links with
Speaker 4: your team and you can put them in the show
Speaker 4: notes for folks. And then, of course, parody actually just
Speaker 4: debuted a new research page. I'm super stoked about it.
Speaker 4: It's parody noow dot co slash Women's Sports dash research.
Speaker 1: Okay, nobody wrote that down, So we'll put it in
Speaker 1: our show notes and we will direct them to the
Speaker 1: link there where they can find it. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful you came on. I love talking about this
Speaker 1: stuff and I think it's so fascinating and interesting for
Speaker 1: folks to know how much what they're doing is actually
Speaker 1: helping the leagues and the players that they like, but
Speaker 1: also for brands and sponsors that are listening. And to
Speaker 1: the last point that you said, I want to give
Speaker 1: a shout out to super Slice Marcus Sisson, who has
Speaker 1: written in asking for us to create a community around
Speaker 1: this show, and so I want everybody listening to know
Speaker 1: that we're actually talking about it behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: We are just not sure about where.
Speaker 1: And when we'll be able to bring everyone together, but
Speaker 1: she suggested potentially a slack or a discord or somewhere,
Speaker 1: and we do want to be able to bring all
Speaker 1: of our slices together to talk about episodes of the show,
Speaker 1: what they want to see more of, just get to
Speaker 1: know each other, because we do understand that women's sports
Speaker 1: fans are looking for more community and for more folks
Speaker 1: that are knowledgeable to talk about this stuff with, and
Speaker 1: they're all gathering to listen to us, and now we
Speaker 1: just have to connect them to each other.
Speaker 2: So we promise we're working on it.
Speaker 1: And this interview with Reesa is just going to push
Speaker 1: our little butts along to get moving on it and
Speaker 1: make it happen faster.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for the time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Sarah. I look forward to being at
Speaker 3: your gatherings with your slices.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Resa for hanging out. We got to
Speaker 1: take another break when we come back. The email bystander
Speaker 1: effect is real, y'all.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, slices.
Speaker 1: We love that you're listening, but we want you to
Speaker 1: get in the game every day too, So here's our
Speaker 1: good game play of the day. Check out Reesa's research.
Speaker 1: We'll link to both of the reports Parody published this
Speaker 1: summer in the show notes, along with a bunch of
Speaker 1: other op eds Resa has written over the years, including
Speaker 1: the ones about isofans in the WNBA and the role
Speaker 1: of race in media coverage. And you know we love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. We'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: our regular Monday through Friday schedule, so in the meantime,
Speaker 1: send us a note with things you'd like to see
Speaker 1: us cover this fall. You know, we tell you every
Speaker 1: single episode that we love to hear from you, and
Speaker 1: some of you write us on the daily, but some
Speaker 1: of you are like, nah, I don't need to reach
Speaker 1: out with my thoughts and feelings. I'm sure other people
Speaker 1: are doing it. Come on, we want to hear from you,
Speaker 1: specifically you the person right now listening to this. That's
Speaker 1: like I always have things to say, but I never
Speaker 1: really actually send an email.
Speaker 2: Send that email. We want to get it.
Speaker 1: Our email as always is good game at wondermedianetwork dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can leave us a voicemail at eight seven
Speaker 1: two two oh four fifty seven, and don't forget to subscribe,
Speaker 1: rate and review.
Speaker 2: It's real easy slices.
Speaker 1: Watch a fresh batch of pens, rating ten out of
Speaker 1: ten perfect lines drawn review. Even though I no longer
Speaker 1: have a reason to buy perfectly color coordinated school supplies
Speaker 1: matching binder, notebook pen for each subject, obvi, I still
Speaker 1: find ways to celebrate back to school shopping, including a
Speaker 1: gorgeous new pack of multi colored paper Mate flare felt
Speaker 1: tip pens every fall. The best of all the pens,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, writes like a marker, but sharper, bold
Speaker 1: and beautiful, but doesn't bleed through the page. Adds a
Speaker 1: bit of whimsy and delight to any written correspondence. Paper
Speaker 1: calendar entry or birthday card. Ah. I miss the joy
Speaker 1: of writing things on paper, but on the rare occasion
Speaker 1: that I still do, it's a paper mate moment for me.
Speaker 1: This was not an AD, but it should have been
Speaker 1: paper mate moment. Call me paper mate. Now it's your turn,
Speaker 1: rate and review. Thanks for listening. We'll see in a
Speaker 1: couple day. Good Game, Resa, Good Game, ISO fans for
Speaker 1: staying committed even when you're watching alone. You super cute
Speaker 1: daily planners taunting me from the shelves, tempting me into
Speaker 1: buying you, even though I know I'll never ever use you,
Speaker 1: because my phone is in my pocket all day and
Speaker 1: you're in some room I can't remember and not conveniently
Speaker 1: located when my schedule changes for the eleventeenth time in
Speaker 1: one day. Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart
Speaker 1: women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
Speaker 1: You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
Speaker 1: our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive
Speaker 1: producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and
Speaker 1: Gianna Palmer. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones. Production assistance
Speaker 1: from Avery Loftist and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain