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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jason Kelly, I'm Alex Rodriguez, and on this episode

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Speaker 2: of The Deal, Sue Bird.

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Speaker 3: All right, listen to this resume.

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Speaker 2: Two national championships with Yukon, four WNBA championships with the

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Speaker 2: Seattle Storm, five gold medals for the United States of America.

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Speaker 2: She did it all as a player. Now she's in

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Speaker 2: your business as an owner.

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Speaker 4: How's she doing.

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Speaker 3: She's doing pretty good.

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Speaker 4: Not only is she in my business with WNBA, but

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Speaker 4: also we both started our careers in Seattle and she

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Speaker 4: played obviously her entire career there, actually seven years. It's

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Speaker 4: really interesting the way she thinks about pivoting from being

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Speaker 4: a world class athlete to now doing some great things

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Speaker 4: in business.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, she's in my business as well, in the media business.

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Speaker 2: She started a company called Together with Chloe Kim, Alex Morgan,

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Speaker 2: and Simone Manuel. She's got a podcast with her partner,

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Speaker 2: Megan Rapino, another athlete.

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Speaker 3: We've heard of. Lots to talk about with Sue Bird.

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Speaker 2: All right, well, welcome, Please introduce yourself and what you do.

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Speaker 5: This is like the hardest question now that I'm retired.

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Speaker 5: I don't like it at all. It was so much

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Speaker 5: easier just saying superb professional basketball player.

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Speaker 3: There you go.

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Speaker 5: My name is Sue Bird. I am a retired professional

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Speaker 5: basketball player. I am currently figuring my life out. But

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Speaker 5: I am, I guess, an entrepreneur getting into the media space.

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Speaker 5: I'm a co founder of a media and commerce company together,

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Speaker 5: but also co founder of a production company A touch more.

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Speaker 3: Own a couple professional sports teams as well.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm in Gotham FC and NWSL as an investor

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Speaker 5: and then part of the ownership group with the Seattle Storm,

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Speaker 5: the team I've played for.

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Speaker 2: And so what would you say, so far is your

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Speaker 2: signature deal.

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Speaker 5: I think what I'm finding is a lot of how

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Speaker 5: I played basketball as a point guard. I like things

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Speaker 5: to make sense. I liked, you know, things to fit

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Speaker 5: to go for a to B t C in a

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Speaker 5: way that set everybody up for success. Is really what

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Speaker 5: production is like. So as I'm getting more into the

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Speaker 5: world of production, I'm really seeing my point guard skills

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Speaker 5: show themselves.

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Speaker 2: All Right, So, if we can, let's go back aways

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Speaker 2: to the start of your basketball career, or not the

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Speaker 2: full start, but probably the seminal moment where we're all

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Speaker 2: introduced to you, which is at Yukon. To call it

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Speaker 2: a historic program, it actually under sells it. Talk to

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Speaker 2: us about getting there. You know, you grew up in

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Speaker 2: Long Island. You get to Yukon, and Yukon's already Yukon

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Speaker 2: at that point.

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Speaker 3: What is it like to take us back there? Yeah?

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Speaker 5: So, yes and no. So they had one their first

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Speaker 5: national championship in nineteen ninety five, and that's Rebecca. They

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Speaker 5: go un defeated. What makes Yukon, I think, have success

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Speaker 5: from a fandom standpoint is that they're not quite Boston,

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Speaker 5: They're not quite New York. So if you're I don't know,

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Speaker 5: Red Sox, Celtics, whatever you are, or if your Yankees, Nicks, Mets,

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Speaker 5: whatever you are down here, the people in Connecticut needed something. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: and so Connecticut people really rallied around. I mean, god,

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Speaker 5: the fans are so amazing at Yukon. So anyways, Rebecca

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Speaker 5: Lobo hits that ninety five team hits, it blows up.

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Speaker 5: They're like everybody's sweetheart. It blows up. I get to

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Speaker 5: school in ninety eight. We end up winning my sophomore

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Speaker 5: year two thousand and that was the next championship. Oh oh,

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Speaker 5: So I was a part of the second one, right, yeah,

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Speaker 5: a lot of times. Yeah, you think Kyukon, you think

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Speaker 5: the eleven, you think it's always So I was there

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Speaker 5: pretty early, but it still was like a very prominent

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Speaker 5: pro It was the program at the time.

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Speaker 2: And so, I mean, and you experienced this as well

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Speaker 2: in a slightly different way. But you know, choosing where

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Speaker 2: to go to college, for you, that's one of your

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Speaker 2: first big business decisions, right, So how did you make

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Speaker 2: that decision? What are the conversations like with your family,

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Speaker 2: like how do you decide?

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Speaker 5: So my parents were really big on academics, and you know,

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Speaker 5: Yukon's the top twenty public. We're doing all right. But

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Speaker 5: I was also being recruited by Stanford. I was also

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Speaker 5: being recruited by Vanderbilt. Those were actually two of my

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Speaker 5: other final schools. So I actually had to battle a

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Speaker 5: little bit with my parents on wanting to go to Connecticut.

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Speaker 5: I remember my dad. One of the final things he

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Speaker 5: said was like, do you want everyone you know to

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Speaker 5: be from the state of Connecticut? Like do you want

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Speaker 5: the person you marry to be from the state of Connecticut?

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Speaker 5: And you know, you had a good point. You go

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Speaker 5: there and outside of the athletes, it's a lot of

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Speaker 5: Connecticut residents. But at the end of the day, I

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Speaker 5: mean even as a sixteen seventeen year old when I

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Speaker 5: was making the decision, it really just felt right. And

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Speaker 5: if you fast forward to now, I can sit here

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Speaker 5: and honestly tell you that a lot of the decisions

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Speaker 5: I have made, whether it be the teams I'm choosing

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Speaker 5: to play for, or investments I'm trying to make, ownership

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Speaker 5: groups I'm getting involved with, it's always a feel. There's

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Speaker 5: like a feel there that you got to follow. So

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Speaker 5: it's not that different.

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Speaker 2: I do want to go back to that idea of

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Speaker 2: what your dad said, because obviously no one could have

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Speaker 2: known exactly what was going to come after that. But

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Speaker 2: I mean, not only are you not limited to people

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Speaker 2: from Connecticut, I mean you become on that platform one

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Speaker 2: of the most famous athletes in the country pretty quickly

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Speaker 2: because of the platform that Yukon has. Were you aware

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Speaker 2: of that as it was happening, Because as you said,

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Speaker 2: it was early days for Yukon, it really starts to

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Speaker 2: happen while you're there.

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Speaker 3: What does it feel like?

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Speaker 5: God, great question. I've never thought of it this way.

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Speaker 5: Because of that ninety five team and because of Rebecca

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Speaker 5: Lobo especially, there was national attention always on that program.

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Speaker 5: And so when me and not just me I had,

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Speaker 5: I came in with a class of five and all

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Speaker 5: top recruits, all we had the number one, like tippy top, right,

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Speaker 5: So we came in with our own attention. Yeah, our

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Speaker 5: own national attention at times. You know, you play in

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Speaker 5: the All American Game, you have a lot of that

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Speaker 5: hype coming in with you. So it really was I

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Speaker 5: think a really good blend. Like I said, my class

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Speaker 5: and then what was already happening at Connecticut, and it

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Speaker 5: just became normal, Like when I got there, the media attention,

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Speaker 5: the amount of coverage we got. I already mentioned the

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Speaker 5: fans sold out. So we played in Gamble Pavilion on campus,

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Speaker 5: which is only ten thousand, But then we'd play in

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Speaker 5: Hartford it's called the Excel Center. Now that's like sixteen

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Speaker 5: plus sold out. No matter what every game, whether we're

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Speaker 5: playing like the crappiest team you've ever seen or you know,

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Speaker 5: the number two team in the country, whether it's a

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Speaker 5: beautiful day out or you know, twenty inches of snow,

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Speaker 5: people are getting to those games. Yeah, and that just

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Speaker 5: became the norm for us, Like the hoopla. We couldn't,

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Speaker 5: you know, we would go to the mall or whatever,

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Speaker 5: we would do, recognized everywhere. It really became normal. I

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Speaker 5: didn't see a shift because there wasn't a shift right

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Speaker 5: when we stopped on campus. It was like that. I

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Speaker 5: think it had already been brewing in that way.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting to think about sort of that fame and notoriety,

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Speaker 2: now what that would translate to, Yeah, dollars wise?

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Speaker 3: Do you ever think about that?

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Speaker 5: But of course n I L What do I mean? Yeah,

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Speaker 5: if nil was around when we were in college, because

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Speaker 5: we really did have it was a it wasn't just

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Speaker 5: my class. I don't make it sound like that. Like

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Speaker 5: koach Aama plays a huge role in this. Sure who

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Speaker 5: he is, how he is, his personality, his little you know, yeah,

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Speaker 5: his little one liners in media that combined with in

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Speaker 5: a lot of ways, the people of Connecticut took us

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Speaker 5: in like we were their daughters. Yeah, Like that's how

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Speaker 5: they would treat us, Like they would send us cookies

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Speaker 5: all the time, and Brownie's on our birthday. Like there

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Speaker 5: was there was I don't know, this familiar thing, familiar

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Speaker 5: thing happening. Yeah, but it all led to and then

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Speaker 5: the basketball play. We were dominant in my four years.

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Speaker 5: I mean we were dominant. So you're winning all the time.

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Speaker 5: And I think if you look back in the history

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Speaker 5: of women's sports, there are so now that we've broken

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Speaker 5: through in twenty twenty four in these unbelievable ways, especially

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Speaker 5: in basketball, it's going to feel normal, right, Like all

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Speaker 5: these franchises are going to have crazy success, whether it's attendance,

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Speaker 5: viewership numbers. But if you look back at the history,

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Speaker 5: there always were random teams or random programs that somehow

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Speaker 5: found a way randomly. I'm just thinking of the Portland Thorns,

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Speaker 5: the NWSL team in Portland. They sell out, they've been

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Speaker 5: selling out for years. They kill it and it's just like, oh, like,

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Speaker 5: what happened, what's the magic potion? Why aren't people copying it?

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Speaker 5: But I think the truth is there's just some scenarios,

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Speaker 5: or there were some scenarios where like a couple of

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Speaker 5: variables were the right exact recipe, and Yukon women's basketball

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Speaker 5: falls into that. And then you add on Nancy a tournament,

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Speaker 5: which is just like a marketing.

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Speaker 4: Machine, right right, So you talk about your four years

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Speaker 4: at Yukon, you obviously played for a legendary Hall of

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Speaker 4: Fame coach. A few questions. What lessons did you learn

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Speaker 4: from coach and your time of winning? Because all your

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Speaker 4: Connecticut is win. How has that shaped you into business today?

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Speaker 5: I think the two things I take with me from

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Speaker 5: Coach Rayama. One is preparation. He always used to tell

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Speaker 5: us about. He would do this like comparison between how

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Speaker 5: it felt when you were ready for a test, right,

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Speaker 5: how it felt when you had studied for that test,

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Speaker 5: how you feel when you walk in that classroom versus

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Speaker 5: when you crammed and you weren't quite ready, and just

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Speaker 5: he would really I vividly remember it was like tapping

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Speaker 5: into that feeling because I feel like we can all

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Speaker 5: right now close our eyes and feel what that feels like,

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Speaker 5: right you walk in the class while you're like, yeah, exactly, exactly,

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Speaker 5: And so he would always try to tell us, this

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Speaker 5: is how you want to feel on the basketball court,

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Speaker 5: prepared right Like, of course, when you play a game,

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Speaker 5: anything can happen. You have to that is what it is.

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Speaker 5: But the things that you can control, you have to

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Speaker 5: and you have to prepare in the ways that you can.

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Speaker 5: So that I took with me for sure, and then

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Speaker 5: he used to always say basketball is not a game

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Speaker 5: of how to, it's a game of when to, and

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Speaker 5: that I think is probably well the preparation as well.

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Speaker 4: What does that mean?

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Speaker 5: Everybody knows how to shoot? Everybody knows, especially at a

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Speaker 5: certain level. Right everybody knows how to dribble, shoot, pass,

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Speaker 5: But do they know when to do they know when

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Speaker 5: to do this? Do they know when to do that?

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Speaker 5: And to be honest, when I think of my own play,

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Speaker 5: that's probably been the separator for me because I'm not

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Speaker 5: the tallest, Like I was fast when I was younger,

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Speaker 5: but like as time goes, you're not the fastest, you're

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Speaker 5: not the quickest. But I knew when to do those things.

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Speaker 5: I knew when to pass, I knew when to shoot.

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Speaker 5: I knew when this needed that or that needed this.

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Speaker 4: I love that. I want to just share one quick

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Speaker 4: thing there because Lupinella taught us another common denominator that

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Speaker 4: I played in Seattle in my first seven years, started

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Speaker 4: in ninety four and left in two thousand and lou

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Speaker 4: who was a great teacher, would always say the when

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Speaker 4: when do you do this?

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Speaker 3: The scoreboard would teach you when you take, when.

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Speaker 4: You swing, when you try to hit a home run

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Speaker 4: when you move a guy over, so that resonates with

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Speaker 4: me as well.

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Speaker 2: I want to talk about this transition from the college game,

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Speaker 2: which is we've talked about Massive to the WNBA when

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Speaker 2: you made it, and I've heard you talk about this

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Speaker 2: in interviews, the culture shock as it were, of going

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Speaker 2: from guaranteed sold out to far from guarantee sold out

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Speaker 2: to say the least, I think we're interested in what

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Speaker 2: it feels like as a player and as a human,

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Speaker 2: But at that point you're becoming smarter and smarter about

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Speaker 2: the business. What are you making of that as you

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Speaker 2: make that transition.

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Speaker 5: So early on nothing, I'm just like cool, I'm a professional, Yeah,

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Speaker 5: like whatever, I'm figuring it out. You know, I'm moving

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Speaker 5: from New York, Connecticut to Seattle, which was difficult, super

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Speaker 5: far from everybody, so I'm just kind of like getting

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Speaker 5: through it. Some of the early stories or early memories

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Speaker 5: that I have that I've told about is when you know,

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Speaker 5: I've just gotten drafted, fresh off the plane, the Sonics

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Speaker 5: are in the playoffs, and they take me to like

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Speaker 5: what is like my first media day essentially, and they're

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Speaker 5: preparing me for it, and I'm kind of like Okay, cool,

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Speaker 5: Like I've just come from the final four, you know

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Speaker 5: what I mean, And Yukon and I walk in and

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Speaker 5: I'm like, well, is everybody here yet, you know, because

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Speaker 5: there's not that many people, right, And so that was

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Speaker 5: that's the culture shock you're talking about. And then of course,

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Speaker 5: you know college, you're flying charter. Everything is like, you know,

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Speaker 5: you're staying at the Ritzes or whatever it is. And

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Speaker 5: interestingly enough, we didn't charter. Obviously the WNBA did it,

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Speaker 5: but my rookie year we were actually still owned one

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Speaker 5: hundred percent by the NBA, so we hadn't gone to

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Speaker 5: individual ownership models yet. So I did have like one

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Speaker 5: year maybe two I can remember exactly where we still

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Speaker 5: were getting some NBA treatment, So the like didn't we

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Speaker 5: didn't fly charter, but the hotels we stayed in we're

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Speaker 5: all super nice, you know. We we had a practice

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Speaker 5: facility because we were with the Sonics, which is kind

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Speaker 5: of standard at that time. A lot of the WNBA

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Speaker 5: teams would use their NBA affiliate practice facility. But yeah,

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Speaker 5: so we had some bells and whistles. But then I

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Speaker 5: think the media coverage is probably the best story to

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Speaker 5: tell that that showcase like where where it was compared

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Speaker 5: to college. But very quickly I started playing overseas. And

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Speaker 5: I actually just say this as like a matter of fact,

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Speaker 5: we were all making so much money overseas that in

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Speaker 5: a sense, I don't want to say we didn't care

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Speaker 5: because we cared, but because we're making so much money

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Speaker 5: over there. When CBA negotiations come up, we were like, okay, whatever,

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Speaker 5: just get it done. We want to keep we want

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Speaker 5: in the weeds.

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Speaker 2: Right, we want to keep playing, and the money's fine,

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Speaker 2: not here but over there, so let's just just do it.

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Speaker 4: And so when you say making a lot of money,

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Speaker 4: give me a range of for me personally, yeah, or

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Speaker 4: the league high love.

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Speaker 5: It's hard, Yeah, it's hard. It's so individual. So I

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Speaker 5: would say early on, I mean always well over six figures,

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Speaker 5: and early on, like my first couple of years, we're

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Speaker 5: talking like I've got them really going back like in

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Speaker 5: the like three to six hundred thousand dollars range. But

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Speaker 5: that's all like it depends how many months you play.

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Speaker 3: So usually your doc that's what you're making. In Russia.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, in my first couple of years, but I only

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Speaker 5: went for like five months, so like bang for your bucks,

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Speaker 5: not so bad. By the end of my time, now

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Speaker 5: we're up in like the million dollar range.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 5: So I would say like that was started probably like

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Speaker 5: let's call it, like three hundred thousand, and then by

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Speaker 5: the end I was much closer to a million.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 5: And yet with bonuses you can get over right, and.

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Speaker 2: You've got endorsements and all that, And yet it's plateauing

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Speaker 2: generously here. And so how are you sort of rectifying

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Speaker 2: that in your mind? What are you thinking and what

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Speaker 2: sort of business decisions are you making with all of

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Speaker 2: that in mind for yourself?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so none of my business ventures if you want

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Speaker 5: to call it that at that point in time, So

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Speaker 5: let's call it. You know, I'm in my thirties. Let's say,

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Speaker 5: like I'm forty four now, so I'm like thirty years old.

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Speaker 5: They were all I was betting on. People Like I

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Speaker 5: have a good friend of mine who I grew up with.

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Speaker 5: I always joke if he had called me and said

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Speaker 5: I'm opening up a zoo, I would have invested, Like

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Speaker 5: I'm opening up that, I would have invested. He wanted

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Speaker 5: to do restaurants. That's like my first big investment. So

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Speaker 5: we now have I think it's five in the Boston area,

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Speaker 5: So what kind of restaurant like upscale bar food vibes Like,

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Speaker 5: that's how it started, and I got lucky. They killed it.

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Speaker 5: I got my money back within like a year or

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Speaker 5: two years. Wow, yes, killed it. I know in the

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Speaker 5: restaurant business, I know, I know, Yeah, I got lucky.

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Speaker 5: And as you're.

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Speaker 4: Writing these checks, is there a part of it as

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Speaker 4: excited or part of you is more nervous.

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Speaker 5: I know I was excited. Really, I feel like I

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Speaker 5: was investing in the people, not the businesses themselves.

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Speaker 2: Whether it's given your background or ukon or whatever it is.

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Speaker 2: Do you feel confident as a at that point? Is

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Speaker 2: a business person You're like, yeah I got this.

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Speaker 5: No, no, no, But I feel like I sit here

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Speaker 5: now and say I'm confident in my ability to read people.

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Speaker 5: Another business I'm invested in are again a friend I

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Speaker 5: grew up with. Her and her husband have sports center

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Speaker 5: facilities in New Jersey. So you know you rented out,

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Speaker 5: you do you host like leagues have their tournaments there.

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Speaker 5: That kind of a thing killing it, Yeah, but I

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Speaker 5: invested in them right right. It's very shark tank in

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Speaker 5: that way, because like it's their life and I'm like

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Speaker 5: you know how like they always invest in people when

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Speaker 5: it's like their life. Yeah, so I felt like it

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Speaker 5: was a good investment.

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Speaker 3: Yes he does know that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, shar I want to get inside your

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Speaker 4: head a little bit. As opportunities must come from all

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Speaker 4: over the place. Are you someone that goes kind of

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Speaker 4: wide and shallow or narrow and deep in the things

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Speaker 4: that you like and walk us through if a deal

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Speaker 4: comes through? How quickly do you say no? How quickly

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Speaker 4: does it go to like there's a maybe? And then yeah, I.

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Speaker 5: Think I'm more so I'm learning. I'm still learning very much.

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Speaker 5: I've had moments of wide and shallow. I don't like it.

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Speaker 5: I don't like it. I like narrow and deep better.

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Speaker 5: And I think assuming the investment that I'm looking is

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Speaker 5: something that I feel like values are aligned, I feel

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Speaker 5: like I can, you know, provide some sort of whatever

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Speaker 5: it is, nuance, expertise. Then it does. It usually moves

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Speaker 5: pretty quick. I kind of know right away, Like when

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Speaker 5: something catches my eye, I kind of know right away.

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Speaker 5: And then when something feels a little not often in

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Speaker 5: a bad way or a negative way, which is maybe

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Speaker 5: not right, I kind of get like that initial initial

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Speaker 5: like ping, and then obviously, like the financial piece of

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Speaker 5: it is usually what I have to figure out, just

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Speaker 5: like how much is you know, like how do you

357
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Speaker 5: do this? You know? So that's yes, that could be

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Speaker 5: very scary, and I've you know, I've hit and I've missed.

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Speaker 2: So I want to talk about one big decision that

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Speaker 2: you make in your career that's one of the most

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Speaker 2: recent decisions, and it's something that comes to you, which

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Speaker 2: is you're done playing and somebody sort of like virtually

363
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Speaker 2: knocks in your doors like hey, do you want to

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Speaker 2: own part of this team?

365
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Speaker 3: Or at least that's how the story gets told us

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Speaker 3: the story.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, no, that's not that far off. It was actually

368
00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:08,080
Speaker 5: right after I retired, probably a month and you know,

369
00:18:08,080 --> 00:18:10,520
Speaker 5: obviously have a great relationship with the ownership group in Seattle,

370
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Speaker 5: so like, hey, we want to show you. So they

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00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:16,159
Speaker 5: were just opening up and doing like a race for

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Speaker 5: like a small amount of investors. So the three women

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Speaker 5: that own our team, they were the sole owners and

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Speaker 5: then they just were doing this raise in this moment.

375
00:18:24,119 --> 00:18:26,280
Speaker 5: So I was being asked to get involved in that,

376
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:28,840
Speaker 5: and they're like, we want to show you the investor

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00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:31,199
Speaker 5: deck the same way we've been showing everybody like we

378
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:33,359
Speaker 5: want to treat you like a real you know what

379
00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:35,280
Speaker 5: I mean by real, like like we don't know you,

380
00:18:35,320 --> 00:18:37,399
Speaker 5: basically like we want to present. So a lot of

381
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:39,199
Speaker 5: this is going to be redundant. Your picture is going

382
00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:40,760
Speaker 5: to show up a couple of times, just ignore that.

383
00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:42,320
Speaker 5: But this is what this is.

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Speaker 2: We've had some of the most impressive and important you

385
00:18:46,720 --> 00:18:49,080
Speaker 2: have heard it for super exactly.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So I was like, okay, So they sat me down.

387
00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:54,000
Speaker 5: We did know. They took me through the whole deck.

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Speaker 5: And obviously this wasn't about convincing me and to believe

389
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Speaker 5: like I believe because I've been preaching that people should

390
00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:05,359
Speaker 5: get in the probably the last three or four years.

391
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:09,040
Speaker 5: It was like, get in now, because A you're gonna

392
00:19:09,040 --> 00:19:11,439
Speaker 5: look like a genius in five to ten, but B

393
00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:13,760
Speaker 5: in a couple of years, it's not gonna be this

394
00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:16,520
Speaker 5: cheap like get in now. So I didn't need to

395
00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:19,520
Speaker 5: be convinced of any of that. But in the moment,

396
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Speaker 5: what I wasn't sure about was because I've literally just retired,

397
00:19:23,760 --> 00:19:27,200
Speaker 5: I was just like, well, how does this impact any

398
00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:30,040
Speaker 5: other business things I might want to do, Because it does.

399
00:19:30,320 --> 00:19:32,560
Speaker 5: I mean, we all just saw what Tom Brady that

400
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:35,080
Speaker 5: like laundry list of things he can and can't do it.

401
00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:37,000
Speaker 5: Being an owner of a team when you still want

402
00:19:37,040 --> 00:19:41,399
Speaker 5: to stay involved in the sport does have implications. So

403
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:44,000
Speaker 5: I just wasn't ready to pull the trigger yet. And

404
00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:47,280
Speaker 5: that's the only reason why it took. It ended up

405
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:49,720
Speaker 5: technically taking like a year and a half to get done.

406
00:19:50,119 --> 00:19:52,480
Speaker 5: For like a year, I just like waited. I see,

407
00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:54,560
Speaker 5: I want to see what was what? What impacts this?

408
00:19:54,640 --> 00:19:56,639
Speaker 5: What impacts that I kind of wanted to live my

409
00:19:56,680 --> 00:19:59,040
Speaker 5: life not have to worry about. You know, like our

410
00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:01,600
Speaker 5: CVA negotiations are going to start soon, so we can't

411
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:04,440
Speaker 5: talk about anything. So like that. I want to be

412
00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:07,000
Speaker 5: able to be free to speak. I didn't want to

413
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:09,879
Speaker 5: be held back. And then as time went I was like, Okay,

414
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Speaker 5: I don't want to be I want to be a genius.

415
00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:14,600
Speaker 5: I don't want to be the idiot who got into line.

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00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:17,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you said something that I would love to

417
00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:20,280
Speaker 2: dig into, which is what you were seeing from a

418
00:20:20,280 --> 00:20:22,680
Speaker 2: business perspective while you were still playing.

419
00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:24,960
Speaker 3: That made it so obvious.

420
00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:29,800
Speaker 2: What was it that like just made you so convinced

421
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:33,280
Speaker 2: other than it's an awesome game. Yeah, there's got to

422
00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:36,480
Speaker 2: be something tangible from a business perspective that you're seeing.

423
00:20:36,480 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 3: What is it?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So I'll actually start at the end, which is

425
00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:45,359
Speaker 5: so Pagebeckers is, you know, about to be a senior

426
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:47,600
Speaker 5: whatever year was she was in high school?

427
00:20:47,600 --> 00:20:49,639
Speaker 3: So high school, okay, senior in high school.

428
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:52,800
Speaker 5: Twenty eighteen nineteen, something like that. And I'm starting to

429
00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:55,840
Speaker 5: see on social media like this kid's got buzz. People

430
00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:59,399
Speaker 5: are following her. You know, you go to her Instagram account,

431
00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:01,960
Speaker 5: who knows what it was. She's got three four, five

432
00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:04,720
Speaker 5: hundred thousand followers, which for a high school kid, a

433
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 5: basketball player. So I saw that and I was like, huh.

434
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:10,960
Speaker 5: I was like something like something's like there's something is

435
00:21:11,080 --> 00:21:13,760
Speaker 5: clicking for that generation. So it's kind of the end

436
00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:17,520
Speaker 5: because when I saw that, I was like, oh, we're

437
00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:20,399
Speaker 5: good to go. But from my own experience, what I

438
00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:22,400
Speaker 5: already knew and what a lot of us already knew,

439
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 5: was yes, we weren't making a ton of money from

440
00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:30,919
Speaker 5: our WNBA salaries, but I was getting endorsement deals. I

441
00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:36,400
Speaker 5: did have value, like significant financial value to come speak

442
00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:41,000
Speaker 5: at events or represent you know, a certain company, or

443
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:43,560
Speaker 5: I mean even down to the like hey, my kids

444
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:46,000
Speaker 5: getting bought mitzfoot, I'll pay you this to come show

445
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:48,640
Speaker 5: up at this event. So there was like a disconnect.

446
00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:50,959
Speaker 5: I was like, wait a minute, I'm getting these offers

447
00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:54,400
Speaker 5: off the court because I'm a basketball player, but on

448
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:57,679
Speaker 5: the court, the business part of the basketball is not

449
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:00,560
Speaker 5: getting the looks or the value. So then I started

450
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 5: learning about how the systems are not really set up

451
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:07,160
Speaker 5: for the WNBA to succeed. So I knew it wasn't

452
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:09,199
Speaker 5: going to be easy. But I also was like, the

453
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:12,320
Speaker 5: reason that this has not kaboomed the way we're seeing

454
00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:15,680
Speaker 5: it now isn't because people don't like women's basketball, right,

455
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:18,960
Speaker 5: Like how many times would you hear ten years ago,

456
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 5: like nobody goes to those games. And then I'm like, well,

457
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:23,520
Speaker 5: that's weird because I was just in the finals and

458
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:26,040
Speaker 5: it was sold out and people are seeing it now

459
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:28,040
Speaker 5: and they're like, wow, look at this crowd support. And

460
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:30,800
Speaker 5: by the way, the attendance has been record breaking. It's

461
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:33,879
Speaker 5: not to take away from this year. Every finals I've

462
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:36,560
Speaker 5: ever played in has been like that, with the exception

463
00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:40,200
Speaker 5: of a few where we couldn't play not in Seattle.

464
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 5: We had to go on the road, and some of

465
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,600
Speaker 5: those teams couldn't get their arenas, so we had to

466
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:47,919
Speaker 5: play in smaller arenas. So that happens, see how the

467
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:51,399
Speaker 5: systems aren't set up. But all you hear, all the

468
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:54,520
Speaker 5: narratives and the conversations were like, oh, nobody cares, nobody watches,

469
00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:57,679
Speaker 5: but I knew. I walk around the streets, I get

470
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:00,760
Speaker 5: stopped for pictures like obviously people care, right, And this

471
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 5: is ten fifteen years ago. So anyways, but if you

472
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:06,639
Speaker 5: bring it back around to seeing the page Beckers getting

473
00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 5: that attention in high school, I was like, oh, something's changing.

474
00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:13,159
Speaker 2: And that's a really interesting point because I remember that.

475
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 2: I remember that very well. Page buckets like all of

476
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 2: that going. You know, she commits to UKND. It's like,

477
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 2: oh you gone, you know, here we go. And it

478
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 2: certainly presaged what we saw over the last two years,

479
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 2: right or the last maybe three years in the NCAA

480
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:34,320
Speaker 2: with Caitlin and Angel and whatnot. Like the page mania

481
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 2: was really there's a lot of heat around her.

482
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:40,399
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, so now like for me that what that

483
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:45,880
Speaker 5: said was like society's changing, Like younger people are interested

484
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 5: in women's basketball or girls basketball. She was in high school. Yeah,

485
00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 5: and you had even not just girls, but boys. Like

486
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 5: what I remember during the pandemic, you know, we're all bored.

487
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,280
Speaker 5: Page was like going on her ig Live and like

488
00:23:58,320 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 5: people were coming in. You know, you can like bring

489
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 5: one in and it's like NBA guys. So that's different. Now,

490
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 5: that's different. And that all speaks to like the cultural

491
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:11,719
Speaker 5: cachet that I feel like pro sports usually has that

492
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:15,359
Speaker 5: women's basketball for some reason, we were you know, I like,

493
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:17,440
Speaker 5: we were the butt of the joke on SNL skits. Yeah,

494
00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 5: we weren't cool just yet. And Page to me marked

495
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 5: this moment of coolness.

496
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:25,679
Speaker 2: I mean, especially given this moment you alluded to it

497
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:28,320
Speaker 2: that we're sitting in for women's sports, there's a lot

498
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 2: of when too. It feels like going on now. So

499
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:34,120
Speaker 2: when you make this investment, take us into that start thinking.

500
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:36,640
Speaker 5: So some of its luck in a sense, I think

501
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 5: Together is a great example of the when too. This

502
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:44,080
Speaker 5: was a scenario where it was twenty eighteen nineteen. I

503
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 5: get a call from Alex Morgan and she has this idea,

504
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:49,360
Speaker 5: And the easiest way to tell it is she calls

505
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 5: me on the phone. She's like, you know, Lebron has uninterrupted, right,

506
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 5: Derek Jeter has Players Tribune, So these athletes are starting

507
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 5: to build these platforms to tell other athletes stories. She's like,

508
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 5: and they do cover women, both of them. They've covered

509
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 5: women's that I've been covered by both of those platforms,

510
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 5: but there's not one dedicated to women's sports. But the

511
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 5: win too of it all is here you had myself,

512
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,160
Speaker 5: Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim comes on board, some Ommanuel four

513
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 5: athletes that have been living our athlete lives. We see

514
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 5: what's happening in front of us, We understand the landscape

515
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:23,560
Speaker 5: and we can like sense something. So we all come

516
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,080
Speaker 5: together and together gets formed. Now the lucky part is

517
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:29,640
Speaker 5: you can't predict what happened in women's sports from let's

518
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 5: call it twenty nineteen, equal pay for the World Cup,

519
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 5: the women's the US women's national team twenty twenty happens.

520
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 5: What comes from that is the WNBA does their bubble season,

521
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 5: a lot of activism. We're able to stand for something

522
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,400
Speaker 5: bigger than ourselves while playing the game that is now

523
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 5: on TV a lot more because there's nothing on TV

524
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 5: right at this point. Then you have Sedona Prince. She

525
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 5: shares her TikTok of the discrepancies between the men's and

526
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 5: women's trade rooms. Yeah, so you have all these moments

527
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:06,879
Speaker 5: that in some way we're luck right, but together was

528
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 5: formed before this. We launched like shortly after, but the

529
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 5: wheels were in motion, things were in place, and boom,

530
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,959
Speaker 5: when we launched, we're ready to catch all that. And

531
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 5: now where I would argue one of the more important

532
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 5: platforms in telling athlete stories. And again we were just

533
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 5: ready to do it. So when this moment hits, we're

534
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 5: right on top of it.

535
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,399
Speaker 2: Describe what it started as and is it more or

536
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:31,360
Speaker 2: less what you imagined it would be.

537
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 5: It's not too far from how it started to where

538
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 5: it is now. But I think when it started, we

539
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:40,640
Speaker 5: were just trying to tell the stories of women in sports, right,

540
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 5: shine the light on people that don't always get the

541
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:44,439
Speaker 5: light shot on them. And as you know, as it

542
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 5: turns out you fast forward to now, you start to realize.

543
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:50,920
Speaker 5: You know, men's sports, a lot of their fans are

544
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,640
Speaker 5: generational fans, right, Like you go to a Yankee game

545
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 5: because your dad took you and because his dad took him,

546
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 5: and so on and so forth, and that's how a

547
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 5: lot of the fans are like become die hard. And

548
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 5: for women's sports, we just don't have that history yet.

549
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 5: And so for women's sports, a lot of it is

550
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:09,159
Speaker 5: the storylines. It is the players stories. I feel like

551
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 5: the best parallel is the Olympics, Like we all do it.

552
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 5: We turn on the Olympics, you happen to catch a

553
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 5: special for like somebody who's about to, I don't know,

554
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 5: play badminton, and now you're like tuning in. You're like

555
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 5: the biggest badminton fan ever. Women's sports thrives on that,

556
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 5: like we have data around that now.

557
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 2: So the shoulder programming types toime, yeah, like yeah, understanding

558
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:30,920
Speaker 2: the players, gaining to know them in a different way.

559
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:33,439
Speaker 5: And so much of men's sports, like we know so

560
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:39,360
Speaker 5: much about male athletes like Meganos yeah, biasmosis almost yeah,

561
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 5: like we know what they eat for breakfast. You don't

562
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 5: even know how somehow you do and that just doesn't

563
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 5: exist as much for womens sports. So Together's part of

564
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 5: Together's mission statement was definitely to make a mark in

565
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 5: the media landscape in that way telling these stories, whether

566
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 5: it's you know, a quickie on Instagram where you tap

567
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 5: in you see something for thirty seconds, or becoming more

568
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,919
Speaker 5: like long form, whether it's documentaries or series, and so

569
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 5: that was always what we wanted to do. But I

570
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 5: think the part we couldn't have predicted was the community

571
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 5: that it built, and how the identity of the company

572
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 5: itself almost was yes, dictated by the founders, but more

573
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,199
Speaker 5: so dictated by that community, like what they wanted, what

574
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 5: they were inclined to be, almost like obsessed with, and

575
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 5: then you're kind of feeding that. It was almost like

576
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:25,400
Speaker 5: a north Star in a sense.

577
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 3: I bet she never thought she'd be in the T

578
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 3: shirt business. Talk about that.

579
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 5: I mean that that's incredible.

580
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a cool, fascinating business story.

581
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 5: So one part of it is it shows you the

582
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 5: gap in merchandise that exists in women's sports. You can't

583
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 5: get like cool stuff in women's sports. It's changing, Don't

584
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 5: get me wrong. I'm not really talking about the last

585
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 5: couple of years. A friend of mine and I were

586
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 5: just talking about the like pinket and shrink it. I

587
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 5: actually didn't know that term.

588
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 3: What is it?

589
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 5: Yeah, So yeah, I didn't know either. So it's basically like,

590
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 5: all right, we'll use the Yankees. I bet when the Yankees,

591
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 5: at some point, let's call it fifteen years ago, when

592
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 5: they wanted to get merch going for women, they would

593
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 5: make it smaller obviously, and then they would just make

594
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 5: it pink, pink it and shrink it. So but the

595
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 5: truth is, like not everybody wants that, right, Like I

596
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,479
Speaker 5: actually would prefer to have like a real you know,

597
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 5: Yankees uniform or whatever, like a jersey. Yeah, you'd want it,

598
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 5: like the authentic thing. You don't want the pink version

599
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 5: that fits me. Yeah. So all that to say, the

600
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 5: everyone watches women's sports t shirts proves the huge gap

601
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 5: that is in merchandise in women's sports, but also it

602
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 5: proves or business.

603
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 3: Right.

604
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 5: For a long time, women's sports was looked at as

605
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 5: a charity, this box some people would check. And now

606
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 5: I think we're being looked at as like a real

607
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 5: investment or real business. But the people involved in this

608
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 5: world are still very much about the impact and they're

609
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 5: still very much about making statements and making points. I

610
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 5: think when people wear that shirt there's like a pride

611
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,479
Speaker 5: to it, like yeah, like this is factual now, you know.

612
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 5: And so there's something to that.

613
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 3: How did the T shirt come about? Like what's the

614
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 3: origin story?

615
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 2: Yeah?

616
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 5: So I was not there, like I'm not in the

617
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 5: day to day by any means. We had done a

618
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 5: couple of different T shirt drops through the years, and

619
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 5: then this particular time they were in a room. From

620
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 5: what I understand, a bunch of the people that work

621
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 5: it together just kind of thrown out ideas and you know,

622
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 5: oh I mentioned this earlier. A lot of people were like,

623
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 5: nobody watches women's sports, and so they were like, what

624
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 5: can we do to like play on that, Like do

625
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 5: we do a shirt? And you know that I didn't

626
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 5: know what was called this, by the way, but SpongeBob

627
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 5: SquarePants font yes, where it goes like uppercase lowercase, uppercase lowercase.

628
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 5: So they were thinking, like, oh, do we do something

629
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 5: like that, as if to say no, you know, you're

630
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 5: making fun of it. And then I think it was

631
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 5: Justine Brown a couple people in the room, they were like,

632
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 5: why don't we just write like but that's wrong, we

633
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 5: just have like everybody watches one in sports? And there

634
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 5: you have it. Wow, And it went crazy And a

635
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:08,959
Speaker 5: big pivotal moment of that was dawns Daily wearing it

636
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 5: during a South Carolina game on I want to I

637
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 5: want to say national television. Yeah, and then it just took.

638
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 2: Off and so is is something like that within the company.

639
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 2: I mean, is it measurable? How do you measure the

640
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 2: impact of something like that either on your business on

641
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 2: the broader world, Like, what are there metrics underneath that

642
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 2: that you can then use?

643
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean this one's pretty simple. It made a

644
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 5: lot of money. Yeah, it made a lot of money

645
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 5: that wasn't expected, which obviously in business that's.

646
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 3: Always you know, welcome millions.

647
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:39,959
Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, I mean I don't know if I'm

648
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 5: supposed to like but yeah, yeah, yeah, like way up there.

649
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 5: So now, like I said, this was this this arm

650
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 5: of the company that was there but not really given

651
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 5: a ton of thought er dedication to. And now it's like, oh,

652
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 5: like we have something here, like what do we want

653
00:31:58,040 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 5: to do with this? How do we want to grow this?

654
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 5: How we want to sustain it? And so now those

655
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 5: are the conversations.

656
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 2: Because you're doing team you'll you'll do a collab with

657
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 2: a team, right with their team colors Colors.

658
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and we did for the Olympics. We did

659
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 5: it in French, which is really cool. So that was nice.

660
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 5: I'm sure there's going to be Yeah, there's going to

661
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 5: be more.

662
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 2: And so that becomes a sort of if I'm understanding

663
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 2: you sort of an unanticipated growth area then for together

664
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 2: that you continue.

665
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 3: To invest in.

666
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:28,080
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, absolutely totally unexpected and now totally real.

667
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. You know.

668
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 2: One of the things that I think we're we've all

669
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 2: seen anecdotally but also empirically, is this rise in in viewership, Like, so,

670
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 2: how do you how does that sort of carry through

671
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:47,520
Speaker 2: to what you're doing, the decisions you make about what

672
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 2: to make. It's sort of the the how to, the

673
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 2: what to, and the and the when to that you

674
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, So how do those viewership numbers affect you?

675
00:32:57,800 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 5: Honestly, it's just kind of like a big I told

676
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 5: you so, Like, oh, if you invest in this, because

677
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 5: for me, the story of the WNBA, if I were

678
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 5: to be like super simple about it was look where

679
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 5: we got without any investment. Now imagine if you invested

680
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 5: in it. Like we were able to do this while

681
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 5: having like legit, concrete poured all over us constantly, like

682
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 5: nothing can grow when it has concrete poured on it.

683
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 5: And yet we still found a way. And sometimes this

684
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 5: one's a little bit of a stretch. I'm working on this,

685
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 5: this talking point.

686
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 3: Your worship works time.

687
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 5: But I always felt this I was like women's sports.

688
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 5: Girls sports isn't some like random startup where we're like, no,

689
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 5: trust us, Like girls aren't going anywhere, They're going to

690
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 5: keep being born and sports isn't going anywhere. Like these

691
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 5: two things like girls' sports and women's sports are not

692
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 5: going anywhere. So to me, it's like why not invest

693
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 5: in something like that? And and then of course when

694
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 5: you start to change the narratives, that's probably been the

695
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 5: biggest key and what I call that cool factor, Like

696
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 5: we have this line of cool now where culturally, like

697
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 5: like the WBA Finals, like people felt like the intensity

698
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 5: they were steaks on that game, like you know, I'm

699
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 5: actually not like a huge baseball fan. I like tap it,

700
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 5: but like the World Series, like hell yeah, I'm watching

701
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:16,280
Speaker 5: that right, So we never had that where the casual

702
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 5: is like, oh this means something.

703
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, So anyways, I think changed that, Like what changed it?

704
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 2: Because that stakes point is a really really interesting one,

705
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 2: Like what changed the perception of the stakes?

706
00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 5: I think it's this cool factor that I keep referencing.

707
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 5: I think we were like in the consciousness of the

708
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 5: casual fan, we weren't worth it. It didn't matter. And I

709
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 5: always feel like in fandom there's like three categories. There's

710
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 5: the diehards. They're there no matter what, like, doesn't matter,

711
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 5: they are there. They are a ride or die. Then

712
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 5: there's the people that don't like it, which every sport

713
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 5: has that. Yeah, the people that don't like it. And

714
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,440
Speaker 5: that's fine. I always say, like women's basketball, if it's

715
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 5: not your thing, that's cool. Like, but if it's not

716
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 5: your thing, that's cool. Like there's stuff I don't like,

717
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 5: that's fine. But then there's that larger piece, or that

718
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 5: larger group, which is the casual fan, right, the one

719
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:11,400
Speaker 5: that isn't really into it, but is going because their

720
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 5: friends are going and it's cool to be there. And

721
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 5: so we've always struggled in that and that's where I'm

722
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 5: going back to this like consciousness, like people just I mean,

723
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:21,320
Speaker 5: we were the butt of the jokes, yeah, and it

724
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 5: was really hard to break through. So if I were

725
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 5: to nutshell it, I would say things that I've already mentioned.

726
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 5: The twenty twenty season like a Page Becker's DANCA final

727
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 5: four has always been amazing, Sodona Princess TikTok, Kobe Bryant

728
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 5: wearing the WNBA hoodie, like there was these little moments

729
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:42,399
Speaker 5: of breakthrough and then all of a sudden, this player

730
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 5: named Kaitlyn Clark comes and the way I frame it is,

731
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 5: fire was going. It was burning. It was burning, and

732
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 5: it was burning brighter like even if you look at

733
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,359
Speaker 5: a twenty twenty three viewership in the WNBA finals, it

734
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 5: was way higher than twenty twenty two. Like it was starting.

735
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 5: The fire was there. But Kaitlyn came and she poured

736
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:01,360
Speaker 5: gasoline all over the thing. Yeah, and just took it

737
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 5: to another level and she broke through. I think with

738
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:08,320
Speaker 5: her logo threes. It was we finally had the anecdote

739
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 5: to dunking.

740
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, because.

741
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 5: All anybody ever wants to say is you're not Literally

742
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:17,959
Speaker 5: they don't literally say this, but what they are saying

743
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 5: the translation is like, you're not worth it. I can

744
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 5: probably beat you, you can't even dunk. But now it's, oh,

745
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,879
Speaker 5: that girl's hitting logo threes. I don't think I can

746
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 5: do that. Yeah, And everybody respects that. Men, women, there's

747
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 5: a respect factor and that leads into all the things

748
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 5: you're seeing and the cool factor and it just is

749
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 5: born from that.

750
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:40,839
Speaker 4: So, so you talked about years ago, even a decade ago,

751
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 4: you starting to foresee what could be for the w

752
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 4: fast forward to where we are today, five ten years,

753
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 4: What is the upside.

754
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 3: For this league?

755
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:51,879
Speaker 4: Because I don't think anyone really knows that.

756
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I know. I mean I'm hopeful that in

757
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 5: a couple of years we look at the media deal

758
00:36:57,719 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 5: that we just signed and we're like, oh, needs to

759
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 5: be bigger. You know, I'm hopeful for that because that's

760
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 5: always been part of the you know, the argument like

761
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 5: men's sports is so obviously so successful, pick a leak,

762
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 5: it doesn't even matter. But how much growth can actually

763
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 5: happen only like a percentage point or two, right, and

764
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 5: you hope for that. But for women's because we haven't

765
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 5: had the investment, the media coverage, all the things. The

766
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 5: growth is insane and it's hard to put an exact

767
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 5: number figure on it. I personally think my semi hot

768
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:33,400
Speaker 5: take it's not that hot. I think the women's basketball

769
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:34,719
Speaker 5: is going to be the biggest story at the LA

770
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 5: twenty twenty eight Olympics, and I think that is gonna

771
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 5: We're going to continue to grow in the next four

772
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 5: years the way you've seen it this year, it's going

773
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 5: to continue to grow. The page Beckers, the ju Ju's Flage,

774
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:51,240
Speaker 5: Johnson all of this young talent that builds huge brands

775
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,239
Speaker 5: and huge fan bases in college. By the way, that's

776
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 5: another part of this whole story that was always a

777
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 5: major disconnect. I went to Yukon, I had huge following

778
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 5: WNBA Gon it was like it didn't come with and

779
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 5: that's for years. Yeah, but now it's starting to. I

780
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 5: think Nil plays a role on that, and now it's

781
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:11,920
Speaker 5: starting to. So now all these young players are going

782
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 5: to come in, They're going to you know, hit the

783
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,240
Speaker 5: stage and meet up with the Caitlin's and the Stewies

784
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 5: and the Asia Wilsons. And in four years when we

785
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 5: hit the Olympics, that growth will will get to a

786
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 5: point where that Olympics could then be like that next

787
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:26,439
Speaker 5: gasoline layer, if you will.

788
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:28,839
Speaker 4: You know, one way Jay's way of thinking about it

789
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:30,959
Speaker 4: is there's always going to be haters for every league,

790
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 4: right for men and women, you name it. Everyone says, well,

791
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 4: w has been a failure for so long. I look

792
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 4: at it a little bit different. First of all, you

793
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 4: got to give David stern commission David stern On a

794
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 4: lot of credit for his vision, you know, almost thirty

795
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 4: years ago or whatever. But if you look at the

796
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 4: NBA compared to the WNBA in the first twenty five years.

797
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 4: You can make an argument that a W has been

798
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 4: more successful than that NBA in the first twenty five years.

799
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 4: So when you think about upside, it's right on track.

800
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 4: It is a growth business and it's doing quite well

801
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 4: for being such a young league.

802
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's one of the talking for

803
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:00,839
Speaker 5: mes for sure.

804
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 4: Let me ask you this because I think it's very

805
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 4: interesting when you said, Yukon you have this enormous fan

806
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 4: base and it doesn't transfer when you go to Seattle.

807
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 4: How much has social media impacted that? Because one of

808
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 4: the things that I looked at was like, wait a minute,

809
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 4: they have more followers than.

810
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:18,240
Speaker 3: Some of our guys.

811
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 4: What's happening here? So you have a real matric in

812
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 4: your face that you can't ignore, even if you are

813
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:25,400
Speaker 4: a hater. So how much of social media played a

814
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:25,839
Speaker 4: part in that?

815
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 5: Huge? Huge Some of it is that we have big followings.

816
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 5: I think you're right. A lot of times you go

817
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 5: check male athletes and it is it's surprise. You're like, oh,

818
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 5: it's like it catches you off guard for a second.

819
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 5: And I'm thankful for social media. It played an incredibly

820
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 5: huge role in what we're seeing now, not just in

821
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 5: women's basketball, I think all of women's sports, because we

822
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 5: were all able to use it to tell our stories.

823
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 5: We're able to use it to show different parts that

824
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 5: you weren't seeing. I mean one of my favorite favorite

825
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 5: it's not a great story, but favorite because it kind

826
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 5: of tells the story. So I'm into fashion. It's not

827
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:01,759
Speaker 5: like my favorite thing, but I like getting a fit

828
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:03,840
Speaker 5: off every now and then. And when that was becoming

829
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:07,479
Speaker 5: cool in the NBA, we were also wearing our little

830
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:09,959
Speaker 5: fits to the game. But we didn't always have photographers.

831
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 3: Mmm.

832
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 5: So there was a year where I had to especially

833
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 5: on the road. So at home we could tell our

834
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 5: team and like, hey, can we get the photographer when

835
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 5: we show up? Cool, no problem.

836
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 3: But on the road for your tunnel fit.

837
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 5: Yeah, for a tunnel fit. But on the road we

838
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 5: couldn't get a photographer. There were years where we had

839
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 5: our PR guy on his iPhone just like snap it,

840
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 5: and then what we would do is we would post

841
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 5: it on our own social media. And that's one example

842
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,319
Speaker 5: social media. There's a thousand, but that's one example I

843
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 5: like to use to show how we were able to

844
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 5: use social media. To show stuff that the larger I

845
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:45,319
Speaker 5: guess media landscape wasn't wasn't going to get to see

846
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 5: if we didn't, if we didn't put it on our

847
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 5: own channels.

848
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 2: I'd love to talk for a minute, if we can,

849
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 2: about your partnership with Megan Rapino, especially when it comes

850
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 2: to the investments that you guys have made in each

851
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 2: other's sports. Yeah, the work that you're doing together with

852
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 2: a touch more. How does that all work and how

853
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 2: does it evolve?

854
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 5: Well, we're in couples therapy, so there's your answer. No,

855
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 5: it's been good.

856
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 3: Sometimes we hear that on the pod.

857
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. No, it's been great because Meghan

858
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,839
Speaker 5: and I are so different but really compliment each other,

859
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 5: and we're seeing that show up in business. Like I'm

860
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 5: you know, I just preached preparation and know when to

861
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 5: so I'm like very much like the planner, and I

862
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 5: like I like to like when we do our pod,

863
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:29,879
Speaker 5: you know, I'm kind of the one more leading from

864
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 5: like one topic to the next. I'm the one like

865
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 5: keeping that run a show in my head. Where's Meghan's

866
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:36,799
Speaker 5: more spontaneous and more off the cuff, and you need

867
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 5: both so you're like Jason, Yeah.

868
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:41,479
Speaker 2: And what have you learned?

869
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 3: I mean, I'd be interested in what you've learned through

870
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 3: the Gotham investment.

871
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:49,360
Speaker 2: I would imagine, you know, these are two you know,

872
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:56,720
Speaker 2: growth leagues, different paths, different stages of growth. Women's soccer

873
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 2: has literally failed three times already professionally in the country.

874
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 2: The w to Alex's point has been, you know, growing

875
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 2: solely and then all of a sudden, really quickly. What

876
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 2: do you take from each of those?

877
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 5: The better way to answer your question is actually, when

878
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 5: Megan and her national team were in their equal pay fight,

879
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,479
Speaker 5: they were also doing a CBA and it was pretty

880
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 5: much at the same time that we were doing our CBA.

881
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:22,960
Speaker 5: Oh interesting, Yeah, because to your point, the leagues are different.

882
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 5: We're very lucky at times. I've called the NBA gift

883
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 5: anna curse because it's such a gift. We wouldn't be

884
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 5: here without the NBA. But the curse part of it

885
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 5: is sometimes you need individual attention, you know, so that exists,

886
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 5: but very much a gift. And the WNBA is so

887
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 5: much further along because of you know what we've been

888
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 5: able to learn from the NBA. Where's the NWSL It

889
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 5: has like almost less rules whereas in the WNBA we're

890
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 5: very much at times we're hamstrung by NBA rules. Now,

891
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 5: sometimes they fit for us and sometimes they don't, and

892
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 5: that's what we're figuring out or or we have been

893
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 5: figuring out. But my point being, we were able to

894
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 5: learn from each other to be like, oh, that's how

895
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 5: you would do that, Like, oh, let me see if

896
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:08,399
Speaker 5: that would work over here, and vice versa. What I've

897
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 5: seen in my time with Gotham is now that the

898
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 5: Tish family has bought the team, you really see what

899
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:16,319
Speaker 5: it means. And I feel like you guys have done

900
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:18,760
Speaker 5: this a great job of this with the Links in Minnesota,

901
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 5: Like you see what it is when they put investment,

902
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:24,520
Speaker 5: and you see what it is when they're like, go

903
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 5: get those good players, Championships come finals come Now. Where

904
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 5: the leagues are totally different is the salary cap of

905
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 5: it all. The WNBA is a hard salary cap. There's

906
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 5: a zero wiggle room. You are like you either your

907
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 5: money fits or it doesn't, like that's it. Whereas the

908
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 5: NWSL so they have like a little more there's a

909
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 5: little more like fluidity in there. We can kind of

910
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 5: I don't even know what to call it. It's not. Yeah,

911
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 5: Angel City just had a thing, so I don't want to.

912
00:43:52,400 --> 00:44:03,760
Speaker 2: Say we're going to move to the rapid fire portion.

913
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:07,919
Speaker 3: Ten questions. I'm gonna edit hard. You're a pro, will

914
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 3: bounce back and forth. What's one word to describe your

915
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,320
Speaker 3: deal making style quick?

916
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 4: What's more important your instincts or data instincts.

917
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 3: Who's your dream deal making partner? Oh Man Alex.

918
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 4: What's the best piece of advice you've received on deal

919
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 4: making or business?

920
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:32,800
Speaker 5: Probably something in the do your homework where world. I

921
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:35,800
Speaker 5: don't have like an exact quote. Yeah, yeah, how to?

922
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 3: Yeah?

923
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 5: No, one to?

924
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:40,319
Speaker 3: I mean, what's the worst advice you've been given?

925
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 5: I haven't really been given, guys. I'm open for advice.

926
00:44:43,719 --> 00:44:45,359
Speaker 5: If it wants to give me any good or bad,

927
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 5: I am open.

928
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 4: What's your hype song before a big meeting or a

929
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 4: big negotiation.

930
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 5: I'm a jay Z fan, Okay, so anything jay Z? Yeah?

931
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 5: I mean to have my go tos, but Lucifers won

932
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 5: My first song's another?

933
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 2: You've won at the end double A level, you won

934
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 2: at the WNBA level, and you've won at the Olympic level.

935
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:06,280
Speaker 3: What's your favorite title?

936
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:09,919
Speaker 5: God, it's really I know this is a rapid fire.

937
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 5: It's really hard not to pick Olympic gold medals, Yes,

938
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 5: particularly my last.

939
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 3: One, particularly your fifth.

940
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:21,880
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, But the twenty eighteen WNBA Championship does have

941
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 5: a special place. Why because we were going through a

942
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:27,919
Speaker 5: rebuild and I stuck around for it. Whereas I could

943
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 5: have requested a trade or tried to go win somewhere else,

944
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 5: I stuck around. I was like, no, I'm going to

945
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 5: do this and never expected to be there again. So

946
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 5: to do it unexpectedly that late in my career, it's

947
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 5: like a you do it unexpectedly early, and when you

948
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 5: do it then you're like, oh, it's great, I'm going

949
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 5: to be your over year you're not. But when you

950
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:46,839
Speaker 5: do it unexpectedly later in your career, there's just something

951
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 5: special to it.

952
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 4: If you're can to even watch one sport for the

953
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 4: rest of your life, which one is it?

954
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:53,839
Speaker 3: It's basketball. What team do you want to see win

955
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:55,240
Speaker 3: a championship more than anything?

956
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 5: Well, Seattle Storm, it's no other answer.

957
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 3: Not the Huskies.

958
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 5: You know, I wouldn't mind seeing the next one. Wow, okay,

959
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 5: that'll be number three.

960
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 4: Do you have a fun fact about yourself that your

961
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:11,720
Speaker 4: teammates would be surprised.

962
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 3: To hear about Oh, good question.

963
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,239
Speaker 5: Probably that I made a really poor decision in college

964
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 5: and got my tongue Pierce. WHOA, that's usually the reaction.

965
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:21,359
Speaker 3: Do you still wear?

966
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 5: No? Our college coaches like got word that some people

967
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:27,440
Speaker 5: got it done. I took that thing out immediately.

968
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 2: Wow, I cannot imagine's face.

969
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 5: I was like, I thought you were saying with me

970
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:34,720
Speaker 5: having I was like, yeah, I can't even imagine anything.

971
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a given.

972
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:39,359
Speaker 3: This has been really fun. Thank you so much.

973
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you.

974
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 1: The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.

975
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:56,360
Speaker 1: The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.

976
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: Our producers are Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong, and Lizzie Phillip. Original

977
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: music and engineering by Blake Maples. Our managing editor is

978
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 1: David E. Ravella. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly, Brendan

979
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:17,120
Speaker 1: Francis Newnham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Kyle Kramer, Andrew Barden,

980
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 1: Kelly Laferrier, and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is.

981
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:22,839
Speaker 5: Our head of Podcasts.

982
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: Additional support from Rachel Scaramzino and Elena So, Los Angeles.

983
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 1: Joshua Devou is our director of photography. Rubob Shakir is

984
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 1: our creative director. Art direction is from Jacqueline Kessler, casting

985
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 1: by Julia Manns, camera operation by Suma Hussain and Crystal Jefferson.

986
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:47,360
Speaker 1: Our gaffer is max Garstak, and our grip is Maximo Meluso.

987
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 1: Taja Smith is our video editor. Listen to the Deal

988
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

989
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 1: You can also tune into the Video Companion on Bloomberg

990
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 1: Originals and on bloom Burg TV. Thanks for listening.

991
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 5: M