Speaker 1: Welcome to good game of Sarah Spain, where we're duct
Speaker 1: taping pillows to our shins, throwing on a bicycle helmet.
Speaker 2: And popping in our night guards.
Speaker 1: The PWHL Playoffs start tonight at Toronto and we're ready coach.
Speaker 2: Even if just from our couches.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, May seventh, and on today's show, we'll be
Speaker 1: chatting with two studs from the Women's Sports Foundation CEO
Speaker 1: Dennett Layton and Vice President of Advocacy Sarah Axelson about
Speaker 1: the state of the ORG fifty one years in fighting
Speaker 1: for Title nine compliance and the implications of the House
Speaker 1: versus NCAA settlement on women's college sports. Plus the PWHL
Speaker 1: takes choosing your opponent to the next level, fits worthy
Speaker 1: of Fashion's biggest night, and an announcement that stinks more
Speaker 1: than poop in your pants. It's all coming up right
Speaker 1: after this welcome back slices. Here's what you need to
Speaker 1: know today. Let's start with the PWHL where the four
Speaker 1: team playoffs get underweight tonight, Number two Toronto Scepters hosting
Speaker 1: the number four Minnesota Frost for Game one of that
Speaker 1: semi final series. Now we know what some of your
Speaker 1: thinking the four seed in the two seed, don't most
Speaker 1: semi finals feature the number one seed versus the number
Speaker 1: four seed.
Speaker 2: Well, as we mentioned.
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, that's usually true, but not in the PWHL.
Speaker 1: The league instead lets the top seed pick whether it
Speaker 1: wants to play the number three or number four seed,
Speaker 1: and this year the number one Montreal Victoire decided they'd
Speaker 1: rather face the number three Ottawa Charge instead of the
Speaker 1: number four Minnesota Frost, last year's defending Chaps.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe those visuals of Kendall Cooins Schofield and company skating
Speaker 1: around the ice with the Walter Cup in their hands
Speaker 1: have Montreal a bit shook.
Speaker 2: Either way.
Speaker 1: It'll be Minnesota and Toronto getting things started tonight at
Speaker 1: Coca Cola Coliseum in Toronto, with Montreal and Ottawa facing
Speaker 1: off tomorrow at Plas bell and Laval Quebec, just outside Montreal.
Speaker 1: Both semi finals are best of five, with the two
Speaker 1: winning teams moving on.
Speaker 2: To the Walter Cup Finals, also best of five.
Speaker 1: We'll link to the full playoff schedule and broadcast info
Speaker 1: in our show notes to the WNBA, where preseason games
Speaker 1: continue today with the Shington Mystics in Atlanta, Dream tipping
Speaker 1: off early and eleven thirty am Eastern start. That game
Speaker 1: will likely feature new Dream player Cheyenne Sellars, who was
Speaker 1: selected by the Golden State Valkyries with the seventeenth overall
Speaker 1: pick in the WNBA draft, but was already waived by
Speaker 1: the expansion team. Over the weekend, the Dream picked up
Speaker 1: the former Maryland star off the waiver wire, so she'll
Speaker 1: be looking to make a statement in this preseason test
Speaker 1: and hope her tenure with this team sticks. Speaking of
Speaker 1: the Valkyries, the teams announced its local broadcast team for
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty five season, a group that will include
Speaker 1: former WNBA star and friend of the Show Lesia Clarendon,
Speaker 1: who will do in studio coverage for select games. Wait
Speaker 1: to Go Lay Can't wait to hear You on the mic.
Speaker 1: Speaking of former WNBA players in the media, shout out
Speaker 1: Sue Byrd on her new podcast, Yep, another one. It's
Speaker 1: called Bird's Eye View. Unlike A Touch More the sports
Speaker 1: and culture show she hosts with fonce Megan Rapino, this
Speaker 1: podcast promises to be all about basketball. Sue spoke about
Speaker 1: our vision for the show on social media on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: take a list.
Speaker 3: And it's all about the WNBA. I've literally spent my
Speaker 3: entire life in this game as a player now as
Speaker 3: a fan, and.
Speaker 4: I'll get to talk about it every week.
Speaker 3: We're gonna be breaking it all down, the matchups, what
Speaker 3: stood out, who bawled out, why it all matters.
Speaker 2: Oh, we can't wait for that one.
Speaker 1: We'll link to the feed in our show notes to
Speaker 1: the NWSL, where we've got a little ownership news expansion side.
Speaker 1: Denver announced on Tuesday that American alpine skiing star Mikaela
Speaker 1: Shiffrin is joining the team's ownership group. Schiffrin, who calls
Speaker 1: Edwards Colorado home, said in a statement that she's quote
Speaker 1: beyond thrilled to join the ownership group of Denver NWSL
Speaker 1: and support something so meaningful in the community I call
Speaker 1: home end quote. Finally, shout out to the athletes who
Speaker 1: walk the red carpet at Monday Nights met Gala, including
Speaker 1: Simone Biles, Angel Reese, Shakeri Richardson, Flaje Johnson and Serena
Speaker 1: and Venus Williams, and the New York Liberty also well
Speaker 1: represented with John Quell Jones, Brianna Stewart and Sabrinia and
Speaker 1: Escu joining team owner Clara Wousai. Everybody, but I think
Speaker 1: Angel Reese was my favorite. Not being a homer here,
Speaker 1: I just think she absolutely nailed the theme, which was
Speaker 1: super fine tailoring, black style, and the theme of black dandyism,
Speaker 1: in particular the Tom Brown suit dress with the middrift cutout,
Speaker 1: the retro flip in her hair, the makeup, in the styling,
Speaker 1: it was just all perfection. I also loved John Quell
Speaker 1: Jones taking a risk. She had this crocodile print jacket
Speaker 1: and a super bold hairstyle. Her locks were like gathered
Speaker 1: and twisted straight up in there and then accented by
Speaker 1: gems and pearls.
Speaker 2: It looked amazing.
Speaker 1: Also not female athletes, but my other faves were Coleman, Debanngo,
Speaker 1: Carrie Washington, Zendea, and Doci. By the way, also shout
Speaker 1: out to the at NWSL insta account admin who dropped
Speaker 1: the quote if NWSL kits had hit the met.
Speaker 2: Gala carpet photos.
Speaker 1: This entire thing is absolute perfection, but especially the Gotham
Speaker 1: Times shaboozies fit and the halle Berry versus the Spirit
Speaker 1: Black kits. It's so good you have to see it
Speaker 1: for yourself. We'll put the link in our show notes.
Speaker 1: We got to take a quick break, y'all. When we
Speaker 1: come back, it's Tonet Layton and Sarah Axelson at the
Speaker 1: Women's Sports Foundation stick around.
Speaker 2: Slices.
Speaker 1: Just to heads up, you might find it useful to
Speaker 1: go back and listen to our episode from April twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: called Keeping Lawyers in Business before you listen to this
Speaker 1: conversation with Dennett and Sarah. That app is going to
Speaker 1: help you understand the current and future landscape of women's
Speaker 1: college sports and why we're already seeing some changes as
Speaker 1: schools are preparing for post NCAA versus house budget crunches,
Speaker 1: like schools hiring cheaper, less experienced coaches for their women's teams,
Speaker 1: cutting summer programs. Also how schools are being forced to
Speaker 1: spend money paying off lawsuit back pay and are choosing
Speaker 1: to spend money to keep up with like football and
Speaker 1: top men's sports demands, leaving less for everything else. It's
Speaker 1: all still very much in play, but useful to listen
Speaker 1: to that primer before you get to this combo. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to Dinnett and Sarah joining us. Now, she's
Speaker 1: the CEO of the Women's Sports Foundation. Previous gigs include
Speaker 1: Chief Marketing Officer of the PAC twelve Conference and VP
Speaker 1: of Business Ops for the WNBA Sacramento Monarchs. We've shared
Speaker 1: the stage in can France, and we've chopped it up
Speaker 1: at Vice President Kamala Harris's house.
Speaker 2: Where to next, Tonnette. It's Tonette Layton. Hi, Tonet, Hi, Sarah.
Speaker 4: It's so fun to be with you today with her.
Speaker 1: She's Vice President of Advocacy at the Women's Sports Foundation
Speaker 1: and a sixteen year veteran of the organization.
Speaker 2: A former college.
Speaker 1: Softball player, now she scratches her competitive itch with kickboxing
Speaker 1: and beach volleyball.
Speaker 2: It's Sarah Axelson. Hey, Sarah, Hey, Sarah, nice to see you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us. I'm so excited to talk to
Speaker 2: both of you.
Speaker 1: So much to get to and you're sort of a
Speaker 1: follow up episode to one we did not long ago,
Speaker 1: trying to really get a grip on what the college
Speaker 1: sports landscape is going to look like. So we're going
Speaker 1: to get into all that in a minute, but I
Speaker 1: just want to level set first with the Women's Sports Foundation.
Speaker 1: Denett I was their last year when y'all celebrated your
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary an incredible event. Congratulations on that. Now you're
Speaker 1: just fifty one. How do you describe Women's Sports Foundation
Speaker 1: of fifty one?
Speaker 4: We get asked that question a lot, and I would
Speaker 4: love to tell you that we're not needed, but the
Speaker 4: reality is, I think we're more needed than ever before.
Speaker 4: And so for us, you know, we've really been rooted
Speaker 4: in the reality that we look at the entire ecosystem.
Speaker 4: So we care about youth and high school and collegiate
Speaker 4: and the elite side, which obviously you and I both
Speaker 4: have talked a lot about, which is getting so much attention,
Speaker 4: but we really tie it all together to understand why
Speaker 4: each of those levels are important and importantly why a
Speaker 4: piece of legislation has made this entire excitement and momentum
Speaker 4: in women's sports a reality that this moment in time
Speaker 4: is not a coincidence. It's five decades of both men
Speaker 4: and women having the ability to play sports. And when
Speaker 4: each of those you know areas are functioning well, we
Speaker 4: have a really thriving ecosystem, but we have multiple areas
Speaker 4: is where there's always challenges, and that's really why this
Speaker 4: organization was created and we always do it through the
Speaker 4: lens of research everything, and that's what I've loved about
Speaker 4: this organization and will continue to do that and making
Speaker 4: sure that that research is out there to prove the model,
Speaker 4: and the advacy work we do is all based on
Speaker 4: that research that we see, and then all of our
Speaker 4: awesome community impact work we do are just proof points
Speaker 4: of that. And so that formula we've been doing for
Speaker 4: fifty one years and we're going to continue to do it.
Speaker 4: But the areas where we need to focus in on
Speaker 4: may have evolved differently because of the fact that there's
Speaker 4: other entities in the space that can work on some
Speaker 4: of the business side of sports and some of those
Speaker 4: valuations in data that maybe we had to do twenty
Speaker 4: five years ago that we don't have to do today.
Speaker 4: We really want to bridge the gap in the areas
Speaker 4: of understanding that sports is not a nice to have
Speaker 4: and it's not an extra curricular and it's a really
Speaker 4: important part of our society, and that's really where our
Speaker 4: focus is.
Speaker 2: I love it and it's so true.
Speaker 1: It feels like in the big moments, we pay lip
Speaker 1: service to the idea that our women's Olympic team beats
Speaker 1: full other countries because of title nine and our pro
Speaker 1: leagues are because of great collegiate sports infrastructure. But then
Speaker 1: when it comes down to bills and policy and things
Speaker 1: like that, so often we seem to silo those things
Speaker 1: and separate them from each other without looking at the
Speaker 1: landscape the way you just described, which is it starts
Speaker 1: with kids who then become high schoolers, who become collegiate,
Speaker 1: who become a leade, who become Olympia all that other stuff.
Speaker 1: So it is so necessary that you're focused on every
Speaker 1: aspect of that timeline. Sarah, what would you say the
Speaker 1: biggest focuses of Women's Sports Foundation are right now?
Speaker 5: You know, we're certainly paying close attention to the collegiate space.
Speaker 5: I know, a couple of weeks ago you had, you know,
Speaker 5: the Primer conversation, talked a lot about House VNCAA with
Speaker 5: Kelly and Alisha. That's a big focus of ours as well.
Speaker 5: I think there's possibilities for that to have long term
Speaker 5: implications for collegiate sports, not just for women, but for
Speaker 5: all sports, especially men's Olympic sports and broad based sports
Speaker 5: as well. So we're certainly paying attention close attention to that.
Speaker 1: Denette, you're in the business of making people care about
Speaker 1: and invest in women's sports. What moves the needle because
Speaker 1: you have to perfect the storytelling to evoke interest and
Speaker 1: buy in, evoke emotion. What have you found works best
Speaker 1: for folks listing that maybe have their own nonprofit or
Speaker 1: something that they want people to care about and pay
Speaker 1: attention to.
Speaker 2: What's the secret sauce?
Speaker 4: I would say, for me, the most important thing is
Speaker 4: any part of an organization, And I think coming from
Speaker 4: a CMO background, you have to know your product inside
Speaker 4: and out and you have to be passionate about it.
Speaker 4: I knew very early on that I would not be
Speaker 4: the right CMO of certain products. That sports was that
Speaker 4: product for me, and women's sports in particular. And I
Speaker 4: think what's really unique about this position in fundraising for
Speaker 4: the Women's Sports Foundation is to find those passionate people
Speaker 4: and to be able to tell our story and why
Speaker 4: it's so critical to invest in us, and how we
Speaker 4: play a critical role in really convening and bringing all
Speaker 4: these different entities and groups together. So, you know, I
Speaker 4: think about our founder Billy Jean and the fact that
Speaker 4: she's able to be in this moment, but she's been
Speaker 4: putting her money where her mouth is as well as
Speaker 4: her partner for you know, for decades. I mean I
Speaker 4: always look back and it's not a coincidence either that
Speaker 4: the top you know females that are paid in women's
Speaker 4: sports are tennis players. I mean that has everything to
Speaker 4: do with what Billy did, not for herself, but for
Speaker 4: everybody else that came after her. And we see the
Speaker 4: same problems in women's sports. We always like to say
Speaker 4: every women's sport has the exact same problems, are just
Speaker 4: one different trajectories of where they are kind of in
Speaker 4: their lifespan. But I think one of the most critical
Speaker 4: things in understanding your product, and you and I have
Speaker 4: talked about this, is understanding how the business works and
Speaker 4: where the rights are controlled, because if you truly want
Speaker 4: to invest in women's sports, it's very different at every level.
Speaker 4: And I think that's something that I've experienced personally from
Speaker 4: spending twelve years in collegiate athletics at a former Power five,
Speaker 4: as well as working in the NBA and the WNBA.
Speaker 4: And when you understand how it works, whether you're a
Speaker 4: brand or an individual investor, it's critical to the success
Speaker 4: of how that product's going to thrive. And I think
Speaker 4: that's one of the biggest areas of growth for women's
Speaker 4: sports personally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the storytelling in addition to the knowledge of
Speaker 1: the infrastructure. The nitty gritty, maybe not quite as exciting,
Speaker 1: is just as important to understand when you're trying to
Speaker 1: get people to get involved. Speaking of nitty gritty, Sarah,
Speaker 1: you are an expert in Title nine and you are
Speaker 1: also needing to rely on storytelling to get people to
Speaker 1: understand that we're still fighting for Title nine compliance. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us a little the story of Ashley Bediz
Speaker 1: and how that speaks to the current state for so
Speaker 1: many girls and women in sport, still fighting just for
Speaker 1: basic resources.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and I think maybe before I get into this
Speaker 5: Ashley story, talking a little bit more about big picture
Speaker 5: of what we're seeing at both the high school and
Speaker 5: collegiate level in terms of Title nine compliance. So Denette
Speaker 5: referenced it at the top, But we care about this
Speaker 5: so deeply because we know the benefits that sports provide,
Speaker 5: right the leadership, the health, the economic benefits to our society,
Speaker 5: and sport is a launch pad for the athletes that
Speaker 5: go through it, for boys and girls, men and women.
Speaker 5: But despite having decades upon decades of Title nine behind us.
Speaker 5: We know many schools are still not in compliance. At
Speaker 5: the high school level, girls are still short changed one
Speaker 5: point two million participation opportunities than boys. However, if you
Speaker 5: look at girls today to boys and before Title nine
Speaker 5: and that seventy one to seventy two academic year, girls
Speaker 5: still have not reached that level. So we're still about
Speaker 5: a quarter million opportunities behind boys in the seventies, right,
Speaker 5: which is just like it like take a moment to
Speaker 5: absorb that, right, that is absolutely insane that girls today
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty five have not reached the level of
Speaker 5: participation opportunities that were afforded to boys in nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 5: And we have had decades of this legislation, right, And
Speaker 5: now if we look at the collegiate level, women are
Speaker 5: still short changed opportunities there as well. And there's you know,
Speaker 5: we can get into the nuances of Title nine and
Speaker 5: how participation is measured, but if you're looking to how
Speaker 5: many more opportunities men have than women, it's about eighty
Speaker 5: thousand opportunities, right, and those are opportunities for education, for leadership,
Speaker 5: for the ability to have career success. In some instances,
Speaker 5: athletic scholarships. So that's why all of this matters. And
Speaker 5: it's not just the stats, it's the impact that it
Speaker 5: has in the long tail effect of these opportunities or
Speaker 5: the lack of these opportunities for women and girls. And
Speaker 5: so for Ashley, Ashley is a was this has been
Speaker 5: many years now. At the time that this initial case
Speaker 5: was filed, she was a high school water polo athlete
Speaker 5: in Hawaii. She was at James Campbell High School, which
Speaker 5: is the largest public high school in Hawaii. The suit
Speaker 5: was first filed in twenty eighteen and was settled in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three. And if you look at the facts
Speaker 5: of that case, you want to say it's egregious, and
Speaker 5: it is, but we know that this is an the
Speaker 5: only times that things like this happened. That they happen
Speaker 5: in other instances in other schools as well, But this
Speaker 5: was such a public display of some of the inequities
Speaker 5: that persist across this country. So water polo in general, right,
Speaker 5: Like I did not grow up with water polo as
Speaker 5: a sport in my high school, but when you watch
Speaker 5: it on you know the Olympic stage, the amount of
Speaker 5: athleticism that that takes to do water polo in a pool. Right,
Speaker 5: Their high school did not have access to a pool
Speaker 5: for this water polo team. They were practicing in the
Speaker 5: open ocean, right, So, like, just imagine the choppy waves,
Speaker 5: the wind that this high school water polo team is
Speaker 5: going through to practice in the open ocean because the
Speaker 5: school didn't have facilities for them.
Speaker 1: Every time the ball gets away, it's like not a tide.
Speaker 1: You can't even use the side of the pool to
Speaker 1: help wrangle it.
Speaker 5: Right, Like, it's just when you think about it, and
Speaker 5: that like the the circumstances that they were in it,
Speaker 5: and they were dealing with this, right when they started
Speaker 5: raising concerns, the school, you know, started retaliating against the
Speaker 5: athletes who did voice concerns for Title nine, which I
Speaker 5: should add is illegal under the statute. Right, you're actually
Speaker 5: protected from retaliation under Title nine. And the school even
Speaker 5: threatened to cancel this season on them. Right, So you
Speaker 5: have these athletes who realize that something is wrong, and
Speaker 5: there have been stories and articles that have gone really
Speaker 5: in depth in this, So encourage folks to go and
Speaker 5: read that if they're interested in learning more, because it
Speaker 5: is a really in depth look at what happened on
Speaker 5: the ground in Hawaii and some of the things that
Speaker 5: happened throughout that story, in that timeline, you know. One
Speaker 5: of the other things, there were fourteen In the process
Speaker 5: of doing that investigation, they started looking beyond just James
Speaker 5: Campbell High School, because all of the public high schools
Speaker 5: in Hawaii are part of the same school district. There
Speaker 5: were fourteen schools statewide, fourteen high school statewide that had
Speaker 5: no locker rooms for girls, right, And fourteen, right, doesn't
Speaker 5: sound like that many, but in the context of Hawaii,
Speaker 5: Hawaii doesn't have that many high schools, right, So this
Speaker 5: was not an insignificant amount of high schools than Hawaii
Speaker 5: that had zero locker room facilities for their girls. And
Speaker 5: so as part of the settlement, the school you know,
Speaker 5: appointed an independent observer. They've made some promises to adjust
Speaker 5: the circumstances at those schools and we'll see, we'll see
Speaker 5: where it goes and how things continue to progress from there.
Speaker 5: But I think the key point is that this was
Speaker 5: a group of athletes, right, it was Ashley, but it
Speaker 5: was also others who were willing to speak up, who
Speaker 5: noticed that something wasn't right. And you see quotes from
Speaker 5: Ashley like it was She and her family just realized, like,
Speaker 5: something isn't right here, and they googled it and they
Speaker 5: found Title nine and they found the ACLU right like,
Speaker 5: and that's that's often how folks come to us. They say,
Speaker 5: it doesn't feel right. I googled it, I found you.
Speaker 5: I found Title nine, Like, tell me what I need
Speaker 5: to know. And so I think, really what we need
Speaker 5: to take away from it is how much people need
Speaker 5: to understand their rights under the law.
Speaker 1: The compliance only happens if you essentially sue are threatened
Speaker 1: to sue. And that's one of the biggest issues for
Speaker 1: a title line is it's in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: it's a law in name but not practice, because so
Speaker 1: many don't know what their rights are or they're not
Speaker 1: aware that they're being violated. Because in those cases like
Speaker 1: you're talking about her, there's been really standout cases where
Speaker 1: a coach has to like get all the goose poop
Speaker 1: off of a public field so her team can try
Speaker 1: to play softball and there's holes and cigarette butts and
Speaker 1: drug paraphernalia and puddles and it's you know, open to
Speaker 1: the public all the time except for the one hour
Speaker 1: her team gets to use it.
Speaker 2: But first she has to clean it up.
Speaker 1: Or the Hawaii athletes that didn't have a bathroom to
Speaker 1: go to, not just a locker room.
Speaker 2: To change, but literally a toilet to use.
Speaker 1: When you have those egregious instances, it's a lot easier
Speaker 1: to be like, hey, something's up. But there are countless
Speaker 1: examples of less obvious inequalities that are also illegal if
Speaker 1: you took them to your school board or your principal,
Speaker 1: or to the court system if necessary. So it's so
Speaker 1: necessary that we keep pointing them out because a lot
Speaker 1: of people aren't even aware of it.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And I think just one thing to add to that,
Speaker 5: for folks who are listening who maybe saying, like you know,
Speaker 5: thinking through their own sport experience or the sport experience
Speaker 5: of their daughters, it doesn't always have to be the
Speaker 5: legal route, right. It doesn't always have to be a
Speaker 5: complaint with the government or a lawsuit. Sometimes, and we've
Speaker 5: seen this happen right with folks who have contacted us.
Speaker 5: Sometimes it's a really well informed parent or athlete or
Speaker 5: coach who goes to the school with the facts or
Speaker 5: the school board with the facts to say this isn't right,
Speaker 5: this is the law, this is what you should be doing,
Speaker 5: and it takes persistence, and it takes a willingness to
Speaker 5: speak out and put yourself out there. Oftentimes it's parents
Speaker 5: of you know, juniors or seniors who are getting ready
Speaker 5: to depart the school who say, this is my last kid.
Speaker 5: I'm doing it for the kids behind them. You know,
Speaker 5: they weren't necessarily willing to rock the boat at the
Speaker 5: time that their child was a at the school, but
Speaker 5: they're not willing to let it go unaddressed. And so
Speaker 5: I think for folks listening like it doesn't have it
Speaker 5: doesn't necessarily have to be a lawsuit. Oftentimes sometimes it'll
Speaker 5: get to that, but it can also be addressed by
Speaker 5: having a well informed conversation and being persistent with it
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've told this story before.
Speaker 1: I'll sum it up quickly, but when I was at Cornell,
Speaker 1: the head of the football team wanted the female track
Speaker 1: athletes to change out of what we practiced in and
Speaker 1: into our regulation issued shirt and shorts before we went
Speaker 1: into the weight room that we shared with them, because
Speaker 1: we were a distraction because we had on spandex and
Speaker 1: this was not asked of any other athletes of any
Speaker 1: other sport and we were not responsible for whether the
Speaker 1: football players could keep their focus that was on them,
Speaker 1: And so I just put a petition on the door
Speaker 1: of our locker room and had all the athletes from
Speaker 1: the men's and women's track teams sign it, handed it
Speaker 1: back and said we weren't interested in changing our attire
Speaker 1: for the sake of the football team, and they should
Speaker 1: get them to focus on their workouts in some other
Speaker 1: way unrelated to us.
Speaker 2: And that was the end of that.
Speaker 1: Didn't require a lawsuit or anything else, just required me
Speaker 1: being like, hey, that's bullshit, we're not going to do that,
Speaker 1: and everyone signing and that was the end of that.
Speaker 1: So sometimes that's all it takes. There is so much
Speaker 1: to get into on the Title nine front, but things
Speaker 1: are getting all the more complicated because of this NC
Speaker 1: DOUBLEA ruling, This House versus NC DOUBLEA, the long and
Speaker 1: short of it, and if you haven't go back and
Speaker 1: listened to our deep dive into this with the two
Speaker 1: sports lawyers a couple episodes ago. But basically, it gives
Speaker 1: college athletes back pay to those who've already graduated from
Speaker 1: a large lump settlement and payment going forward to current
Speaker 1: athletes based on a percentage of TV right deals. So
Speaker 1: that's money that financially and finally acknowledges the revenue that
Speaker 1: students name, image and likeness and athletic performances bring to schools.
Speaker 1: You combine that with nil money from outside brands, and
Speaker 1: we're looking at a whole.
Speaker 2: New model for college athletics.
Speaker 1: Now it's a positive that student athletes are finally getting paid.
Speaker 1: Everyone else was getting money, now they are, but there
Speaker 1: will be a lot of.
Speaker 2: Consequences to these chains.
Speaker 1: And Dennette, I wonder if you can just even if
Speaker 1: it's the tip of the iceberg or if it's the
Speaker 1: whole iceberg, share your concerns about the impact of House
Speaker 1: versus NCAA.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I think I think it's really important to
Speaker 4: understand this is only one piece of what's happening in
Speaker 4: college athletics. And so when we talk about being able
Speaker 4: to see why we exist and how we look at everything,
Speaker 4: we connect all the dots. So I know we're not
Speaker 4: going to be able to cover everything. And I was
Speaker 4: glad that you were able to talk through the details
Speaker 4: of House and some of the other things obviously on
Speaker 4: the last podcast. It was great, But I want to
Speaker 4: kind of remind people if we look at how we
Speaker 4: look at college athletics and why it keeps us up
Speaker 4: at night, and I look at it through a few
Speaker 4: different kind of umbrella areas. The first one is we
Speaker 4: have an antiquated system. So you we talk about it's
Speaker 4: not if we talked about the storytelling before, Well, I'm
Speaker 4: going to talk about why it's so important to understand
Speaker 4: the plumbing and the infrastructure because in college athletics that
Speaker 4: is essentially was driving all of these challenges, and there's
Speaker 4: more and more that are coming. So you have an
Speaker 4: antiquated economic system that has been created and was based
Speaker 4: on a very old model. That model has had to
Speaker 4: evolve now because you have all of these new things
Speaker 4: that have come into the space, whether it's anile individual,
Speaker 4: whether it's nil collectives, whether it's multiple different legal lawsuits
Speaker 4: like house or whether it's things like antitrust and labor laws,
Speaker 4: and we could go on and on and on and
Speaker 4: on right, So there's multiple things that are impacting this
Speaker 4: entire system. In addition to those realities of kind of
Speaker 4: a bad economic model that needs to evolve, there's never
Speaker 4: really been true investment in women's sports and men's Olympic
Speaker 4: sports through the lens of how you would look at
Speaker 4: as a business. So when we compare like the business
Speaker 4: side of sports, like coming off of whether it's a
Speaker 4: professional model to a collegiate model, they're very different in
Speaker 4: how they're structured. And a lot of that is because
Speaker 4: of where the rights are controlled. And so it's really
Speaker 4: important to understand the nuances of the plumbing of how
Speaker 4: and who controls the rights in the collegiate model to
Speaker 4: really know where you can make a difference in how
Speaker 4: you invest. So there's components of what you can do,
Speaker 4: but there's also components of how it's structured, which is
Speaker 4: why you need to understand, like you say, get under
Speaker 4: the hood. And I think this was something that I
Speaker 4: saw so strongly because I worked on this side for
Speaker 4: so long, working for the twelve schools that I worked
Speaker 4: for in the Pac twelve. In addition to that, this
Speaker 4: impacts broad based sports. It's not just women's sports. This impact.
Speaker 4: This will impact men's Olympic sports as much as it
Speaker 4: will impact women's sports. And it's really important to know
Speaker 4: that at the Women's Sports Foundation, we care about both.
Speaker 4: We've always cared about men and women having equal opportunity
Speaker 4: to play sports at every level, and what is about
Speaker 4: to happen in college could really reduce that one piece
Speaker 4: of Title nine in this conversation, Title nine protects the
Speaker 4: amount that that school needs to be able to be compliant, right,
Speaker 4: so it is never going to protect if an institution
Speaker 4: carries thirty sports, they don't have to carry at thirty sports.
Speaker 4: I think it's sixteen currently, and FBS Division one, I
Speaker 4: think it's fourteen and other divisions. So right now, that's
Speaker 4: all you have to carry, but you can keep reducing.
Speaker 4: So I know some of the strongest Olympic team USA
Speaker 4: producing institutions are ones that carry a lot more than that.
Speaker 4: If you look at different institutions that have carried the
Speaker 4: most Olympians as an example, we're already seeing the pattern
Speaker 4: of reduction of sport opportunities, reduction potentially of dropping down divisions.
Speaker 4: So again I keep there's layers and layers and layers
Speaker 4: to this. So I think it's really important to understand
Speaker 4: that this legal patchwork, the NI collectives and NIL are
Speaker 4: very different from each other, and how you have to
Speaker 4: look at it. The lack of data transparency, the reality
Speaker 4: of a very antiquaid economic model and then knowing how
Speaker 4: it works is really critical to what's actually happening in
Speaker 4: college sports, which is why we have a lot of
Speaker 4: concerns about what this could look like when you see
Speaker 4: the long tail of it, and we want to make
Speaker 4: sure that we're not looking in the rear view mirror going,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, what just happened. And we also know
Speaker 4: that each of the institutions, if I'm sitting as a
Speaker 4: division ie FBS athletics director right now, we also know
Speaker 4: how hard it is for them too. I don't want
Speaker 4: to not have empathy for what they're going through because
Speaker 4: it's a very different landscape for them than it was
Speaker 4: for their predecessors twenty years ago. You've had a model
Speaker 4: that was based on one sport for a very long
Speaker 4: time and how that revenue was generated, and you had
Speaker 4: control of where that money came from because you were
Speaker 4: able to control it from the top on down. Now
Speaker 4: that money is being spread out everywhere, so you have
Speaker 4: to think about how can we continue to evolve. And again,
Speaker 4: I'm the biggest college football fan. I love college football,
Speaker 4: but we have no expense caps in college athletics. It
Speaker 4: is very strange, and you come from professional sports and
Speaker 4: realize that doesn't exist in college and so because of that,
Speaker 4: we have to work within the framework of knowing how
Speaker 4: the business model works to know how you can affect change.
Speaker 4: And one of those biggest things that I think you
Speaker 4: can affect change on is the reality of understanding how
Speaker 4: you can invest if you are an individual philanthropist or
Speaker 4: you're a brand in college athletics, and being very direct
Speaker 4: and deliberate and deliberate in where you want that money
Speaker 4: to go. Because of how rights are controlled, it usually
Speaker 4: is you give money at the top of the athletics department,
Speaker 4: that money gets spread out. But if you want your
Speaker 4: money to go to the women's basketball program, or you
Speaker 4: want your money to go to that women's water polo program,
Speaker 4: you have to be very intentional and you have to
Speaker 4: understand who controls the rights, even on the media right side.
Speaker 4: Most people don't understand what the NCAA controls on the
Speaker 4: media right side and what they don't. They don't control
Speaker 4: college football media rights contracts. They control the NCAA media
Speaker 4: championships like the basketball tournament. So it's again understanding and
Speaker 4: college has a tendency to not essentially like to take
Speaker 4: a lot of risk remember it's still under a higher
Speaker 4: education model, and athletics departments are one piece of a
Speaker 4: central campus of a university, so the controls are also
Speaker 4: usually divided up and different rights holders are giving the
Speaker 4: access to be able to control those rights for a
Speaker 4: given institution, whether that's sponsorship or ticket sales. So I've
Speaker 4: always been worried that there hasn't been an investment in
Speaker 4: what's called the publicity side, or we might call on
Speaker 4: the business side of professional sports side, selling sponsorship, selling tickets,
Speaker 4: creating fan bases, doing all the things that we know
Speaker 4: are the metrics, but have empathy on the collegiate side
Speaker 4: because they're trying to do that for not one facility,
Speaker 4: but fifteen or twenty sometimes and also multiple sports. So
Speaker 4: I think most people don't understand the nuances and for
Speaker 4: living on both sides, I've learned to have respect for
Speaker 4: both and have empathy for both, which is why it
Speaker 4: really is going to take a collaborative effort. But consumers
Speaker 4: need to understand the plumbing, which isn't as sexy, but
Speaker 4: when you understand it, you can make change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's so much there that's fascinating, But
Speaker 1: if there isn't a push to sell sponsorships, to market
Speaker 1: a team, to explain why it's valuable. On the women's side,
Speaker 1: those are the things that fall behind. And then we
Speaker 1: blame the product when it has never been marketed or
Speaker 1: sold the way that we have men's And if you
Speaker 1: don't market or sell it, then it won't get better.
Speaker 1: And you can keep pointing to its outcomes, its revenues,
Speaker 1: et cetera as the reason you don't invest. It's a
Speaker 1: roboros of bullshit, right because if we're not investing, we
Speaker 1: never see it get better. And then if it never
Speaker 1: gets better, then we have a reason that we say
Speaker 1: we're not investing. Before I move on really quickly, I
Speaker 1: want to ask you, and you can't predict the future,
Speaker 1: but for folks who are maybe never going to dive
Speaker 1: into the plumbing, it's five or ten years down the road.
Speaker 1: What's the worst case scenario here in terms of programs
Speaker 1: being disbanded, women's sports not being invested in, money deciding
Speaker 1: to be given from all these different things to just
Speaker 1: the men.
Speaker 2: What does it look like?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't want to it's I don't want to
Speaker 4: say it's doomsday, because I think we all have an
Speaker 4: opportunity to actually make change, and I think the excitement
Speaker 4: around women's sports and the momentum around women's sports can
Speaker 4: help us do that. It's just knowing where you put
Speaker 4: your money. So I do think the one part that
Speaker 4: I'm very concerned about with House, the piece that I
Speaker 4: don't like, is it's one thing for the formula or
Speaker 4: the model they're creating for the back pay, it's another
Speaker 4: thing that formula is going to utilize as investment into
Speaker 4: the future. I don't like that at all because there
Speaker 4: hasn't ever been a fair market value in the areas
Speaker 4: you just described, the lack of funding that has gone
Speaker 4: towards the sponsor side, the marketing side, the publicity side,
Speaker 4: that side, just because women's sports and men's Olympic sports
Speaker 4: have always been defined as non revenue generating sports my
Speaker 4: least favorite word ever, and so there has never been
Speaker 4: a fair market value. So the reality of that is
Speaker 4: we've already been behind the game for a long time,
Speaker 4: and so but we have these great examples of models
Speaker 4: that are proving that you can be that now, which
Speaker 4: is some of the momentum you're obviously seeing at the
Speaker 4: top of the ecosystem. So that's why I think if
Speaker 4: you understand some of the plumbing. It's just about being
Speaker 4: intentional where you put your dollars. We always talk about
Speaker 4: there needs to be more brands involved. There needs to
Speaker 4: be a lot more brands to create the ocean. But
Speaker 4: when those brands need to be you know, they also
Speaker 4: need to understand how the system works so they know
Speaker 4: how they can utilize their marketing dollars. So I would
Speaker 4: say that, like, my biggest concern is can a very
Speaker 4: significant reduction in broad based sports for both men and
Speaker 4: women Olympic sports, that's my biggest concern. I think that
Speaker 4: you will see less opportunities than you see today if
Speaker 4: we don't pay attention. And there's enough examples of those
Speaker 4: already of athletics departments, you know, not continuing to play
Speaker 4: no matter what division and at what level they are,
Speaker 4: sports being going away men's and women's. And the reality
Speaker 4: is we've got a really beautiful system because it's tied
Speaker 4: to our education model and the legislation that is allowed
Speaker 4: for so many of those men and women that never
Speaker 4: go on to be on Team USA, but just have
Speaker 4: a great opportunity to be able to play at whatever
Speaker 4: level in college and be able to earn their degree.
Speaker 4: So I do think we should feel a lot of
Speaker 4: pride in that part of the collegiate system and recognize
Speaker 4: that we can make we can make change. And my
Speaker 4: goal and objective is to see some of these sports,
Speaker 4: both men's and women's Olympic sports, be able to pay
Speaker 4: for themselves so they're not on the chopping block and
Speaker 4: so not seeing a reduction in investment, but an increase
Speaker 4: in investment, but having empathy and understanding the challenges athletic
Speaker 4: administrators are under and recognizing that the private sector can
Speaker 4: play a big role on this and making sure that
Speaker 4: they make those investments. Because everybody loves college athletics in
Speaker 4: the United States. We all have rama mater, we all
Speaker 4: have you know, the school that we follow in our
Speaker 4: own community. This is relevant to everybody, and I think
Speaker 4: that's something that I'm hopeful we can rally everybody to
Speaker 4: understand just progress made isn't necessarily a progress progress to come,
Speaker 4: So let's let's not let it get there.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I just wanted to emphasize something that Dennett, you know,
Speaker 5: has has said is just Title nine does not protect
Speaker 5: broad based sports offerings, right, So what it means is
Speaker 5: that all Title nine says is that once a school
Speaker 5: decides to offer sports, it must do so equitably. A
Speaker 5: school can offer zero sports equitably, they can offer, you know,
Speaker 5: a fraction of the opportunities that they currently have. And
Speaker 5: while they're currently minimum sponsorship requirements at the NCAA level,
Speaker 5: to my knowledge, all it takes is a vote of
Speaker 5: membership to say, you know what, sixteen is too much?
Speaker 5: Right Maybe it's sixteen right now, but who says five
Speaker 5: years down the road, they might say, you know what,
Speaker 5: sixteen's too much, We actually need it to be ten.
Speaker 5: And now you're looking at schools severely diminishing the number
Speaker 5: of sports that they're carrying and just investing much more
Speaker 5: in fewer sports, which to some extent is their prerogative
Speaker 5: when it comes to the current offerings. But you know,
Speaker 5: as we said, we want more student athletes to have
Speaker 5: access to sports because we know the lifelong benefits that
Speaker 5: they provide.
Speaker 1: Right, so they would make these cuts because essentially, once
Speaker 1: you've opened the door to hey, we can make money,
Speaker 1: and we can openly make money, they're just going to
Speaker 1: start focusing only on the teams that make money at
Speaker 1: the expense of others. Because the influx of new money
Speaker 1: that goes to the athletes, why does that automatically and
Speaker 1: ultimately lead to cuts to the programs.
Speaker 4: The challenging part is this, if you're running a business,
Speaker 4: you're looking at it like, how do I keep my
Speaker 4: lights turned on? Right? If you have all these different
Speaker 4: sports in that you're responsible for and you don't have
Speaker 4: expense caps, then at the end of the day, it
Speaker 4: just becomes an economic decision. Unfortunately, it's really black and white.
Speaker 4: And so if you're in that situation and you have
Speaker 4: the ability that you have to stay here because this
Speaker 4: sport is allowing you to generate this much money, and
Speaker 4: why would you ever start to invest in the other
Speaker 4: sports if you're just trying to hold on because you
Speaker 4: used to be able to control how the money is distributed.
Speaker 4: You don't get to control that anymore because of all
Speaker 4: things that we just described, Because it's going out to
Speaker 4: nil individual, because you have the lawsuits.
Speaker 2: Well, you do get to control it.
Speaker 1: But because now people understand that you're in control of distributing,
Speaker 1: there can be more pull on just giving it all
Speaker 1: to football or all to basketball. Whereas before, or when
Speaker 1: revenue came in from football, you could distribute it across
Speaker 1: the school to the benefit of the athletic department at large,
Speaker 1: and now there will be demands from coaches who want
Speaker 1: their players paid more or their programs to be even
Speaker 1: more lifted up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there would be choices. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: you could also say we haven't even gotten into the
Speaker 4: discussions of the transferporter. But there's also the reality of
Speaker 4: what's happening that we used to say used to happen.
Speaker 4: You know, under the table is very forward facing now.
Speaker 4: So it's also a matter of is that money that
Speaker 4: used to be a booster that's going somewhere else now
Speaker 4: going to a quarterback and so that money might have
Speaker 4: gone to the top of the athletics department before, and
Speaker 4: so they did have the ability to distribute that to
Speaker 4: the softball team. So that's why you have to look
Speaker 4: at each of these layers to understand that it's almost
Speaker 4: like a restricted grant. Is a very important way to
Speaker 4: think about it if you're thinking about funding different sports
Speaker 4: properties because in college, because then it's a guarantee to
Speaker 4: get to that. That's why I think individuals and brands
Speaker 4: can say this is the only place where I want
Speaker 4: my money to go, and this is why And I
Speaker 4: think that's going to be really important in the future
Speaker 4: because I do think brands and individuals can help drive
Speaker 4: infusing more cash into the system that will help women's
Speaker 4: sports and men's Olympic sports, which ultimately is what's needed anyways,
Speaker 4: because we haven't really done what we need to do
Speaker 4: to get those women's sports, in particular to have the
Speaker 4: right types of promotional tools to actually build fandom. I've
Speaker 4: always said, done all this great work in women's sports
Speaker 4: with essentially our hands tied behind our backs. We've never
Speaker 4: controlled the rights. The disruption and media has allowed us
Speaker 4: to be in different places. I just think that the
Speaker 4: opportunities are here because of all that disruption, and so
Speaker 4: it's why you have to be able to play and
Speaker 4: work the system to understand where you can make an impact,
Speaker 4: because it's going to be one of those challenges at
Speaker 4: the end of the day that schools are going to
Speaker 4: have to decide and if your budgets are looking the way,
Speaker 4: they're looking a certain way, you're going to have to
Speaker 4: make our choices and what's the easiest choice to make.
Speaker 1: So Sarah my friend Victoria Jackson, she's a professor of
Speaker 1: sport history at ASU, and she believes The answer is
Speaker 1: you have to spin off football, make it a separate industry,
Speaker 1: fully professional under twenty three league, not run by higher
Speaker 1: education anymore, but affiliated with schools. So schools have their
Speaker 1: games and teams, students and fans keep their experiences, but
Speaker 1: the school doesn't run it. Players get employment contracts, they
Speaker 1: can activate the free education associated with the school whenever
Speaker 1: they want, while they're playing or after, and it sort
Speaker 1: of becomes a minor league for the NFL, but with
Speaker 1: affiliation to schools that people are so clinging to because
Speaker 1: of what Dannetti said, we all love our alma mater,
Speaker 1: we all love that experience, and the schools love the
Speaker 1: money that comes with it. Is that the only way
Speaker 1: to do this because the number of roster spots for
Speaker 1: football and the outsized money there is really what keeps
Speaker 1: us from trying to have a more balanced ecosystem.
Speaker 5: I think there are plenty of ways that you know
Speaker 5: are There are lots of opportunities and ways that people
Speaker 5: have suggested we can approach this right. And I don't
Speaker 5: think that there's necessarily one right answer to it. I
Speaker 5: think there's lots of conversation right and there's no right answer,
Speaker 5: and we're all trying to figure it out. But I think,
Speaker 5: you know, the a couple things just from a Title
Speaker 5: nine perspective that strike me as we're talking, and even
Speaker 5: in what Dennetja said, like, yes, folks can say this
Speaker 5: is where I want my money to go. And on
Speaker 5: the women's side, that's going to be super helpful because
Speaker 5: maybe there's not as much investment by the schools. But
Speaker 5: I want to give the caveat that regardless of where
Speaker 5: the money comes from, as long as the school allows
Speaker 5: that benefit to be passed along to the student athletes,
Speaker 5: they are responsible for making sure that their student athletes
Speaker 5: are treated equitably. Right, So you can't say, well, it
Speaker 5: came it's a restricted it's restricted money, it came from
Speaker 5: over here, so therefore it doesn't matter in factoring in
Speaker 5: the Title nine compliance aspect of it. So and the
Speaker 5: same as of right now and how things are structured
Speaker 5: is true for football, right and that debate happened long
Speaker 5: ago on you know the floors of Congress of whether
Speaker 5: or not football gets spun off and kind of becomes
Speaker 5: its own thing and isn't under Title nine right now
Speaker 5: in the way things are structured attached to our educational programs.
Speaker 5: Football is part of Title nine compliance, and schools need
Speaker 5: to make sure because at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: right it's still students at that school who are receiving
Speaker 5: the benefits the educational opportunities. Title nine is an educational law,
Speaker 5: and we need to make sure that we're treating folks
Speaker 5: equitably under the law.
Speaker 1: Completely agree, I mean as of right now, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering if it's possible to fix this problem
Speaker 1: when we all know that the big thing sticking out
Speaker 1: is the thing that has one hundred plus roster spots
Speaker 1: and is you know, has a bunch of different roles.
Speaker 2: What's up to that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the part that makes it so complicated
Speaker 4: is that again diving in, like most people don't understand
Speaker 4: that Division one FBS is very different from Division one FCS,
Speaker 4: was very different from Division two, division three, I mean,
Speaker 4: and there's football at all levels. So I think that
Speaker 4: that's one of the things that's really hard on. Does
Speaker 4: it work in certain circumstances?
Speaker 2: Well, what is that?
Speaker 4: I mean even within division one, Division one is very
Speaker 4: different from the top to the bottom part of Division one,
Speaker 4: and people don't understand that, like even within conferences. So
Speaker 4: I think that's the part that has always made this
Speaker 4: so complicated is that not everybody's treated equally in the
Speaker 4: relationship of how football is even functions in the collegiate model.
Speaker 4: And I think what we don't want to see happen
Speaker 4: is that there are great things about college football at
Speaker 4: all levels that has really benefited young men to have
Speaker 4: the ability to go earn their scholarships. And how the
Speaker 4: business model works again is so antiquated because it's built
Speaker 4: on something that worked a long time ago that isn't
Speaker 4: necessarily working today in twenty twenty five. And so I
Speaker 4: think our concern too is to see the reality of
Speaker 4: what potentially could happen, but it's not the same. Like
Speaker 4: I worked at a Power five conference. I know who
Speaker 4: controls the media rights, and I worked at one of
Speaker 4: the Power five conferences that went away and so you
Speaker 4: know that isn't the same one and had the most
Speaker 4: prolific women's sports Olympic programs of the entire country. So
Speaker 4: I worked with those institutions for over a decade to
Speaker 4: know the work and you know, for me to see
Speaker 4: a conference that entire women's sports olympians were stronger than
Speaker 4: anybody else in the country, and to see it, you know,
Speaker 4: be where it is today's very hard to swallow in
Speaker 4: the collegiate model, you know, I spent I'm a West
Speaker 4: Coast girl and spent time as a PAC ten, Pac
Speaker 4: twelve kid and graduate. So to go through that process
Speaker 4: of seeing all of that and seeing where we are
Speaker 4: today and really seeing a conference that was all about
Speaker 4: the conference of champions and recognizing those strengthen women's Olympic sports.
Speaker 4: But I think it's important for people to recognize that
Speaker 4: it's so different from even within Division one.
Speaker 5: Sarah Denett as you as you talk about women's Olympic sports.
Speaker 5: I also want to make the point that we often
Speaker 5: talk about collegiate sports as a feeder system for a
Speaker 5: Team USA, but we also should recognize the fact that
Speaker 5: at our colleges and universities also produce international student athletes.
Speaker 5: So this is not just about the strength of Team USA.
Speaker 5: This is about the strength of the field on the
Speaker 5: Olympic stage and the number of athletes who come through
Speaker 5: US systems benefit from Title nine at the high school
Speaker 5: or collegiate level and then either go back to a
Speaker 5: home country and play for a national team or go
Speaker 5: to a country of where they have heritage, and they're
Speaker 5: able to play even if they're born here. Right Like
Speaker 5: Title nine has elevated the global game. And we also
Speaker 5: can't gloss over the impact that this could have not
Speaker 5: just on Team USA, but globally the athletes and the
Speaker 5: training grounds that we have in our collegiate system right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's true for men and women, but particularly
Speaker 1: for women in countries that don't have the infrastructure and
Speaker 1: the investment in women's sports, they can come here and thrive.
Speaker 1: We are so out of time, but I do want
Speaker 1: one sentence. It's going to be hard, but one sentence
Speaker 1: from each of you, a call to action. Then Nette,
Speaker 1: you've sort of already done it, but a call to
Speaker 1: action for folks who want to have an impact on
Speaker 1: this changing landscape.
Speaker 3: HM.
Speaker 4: I always, because we spend so much time talking about investment,
Speaker 4: I will always say intentional and deliberate investment in every
Speaker 4: layer of the ecosystem of women's sports is critical. Understanding
Speaker 4: enough about how it works so you put your money
Speaker 4: where you want your money to go is really really critical.
Speaker 4: And just remembering that sports is so much bigger than
Speaker 4: the time in which they compete. It is essentially fueling
Speaker 4: our economy with the future leaders both men and women,
Speaker 4: as well as all the amazing preventative health measures that
Speaker 4: happen when girls and boys both play sports. So we
Speaker 4: have to continue to make sure this isn't a nice
Speaker 4: to have. And that was way long.
Speaker 1: Run on sentence, but I'll allow it, Sarah.
Speaker 5: I think I'll stick with the title nine theme, right.
Speaker 5: I think we need folks need to be education on
Speaker 5: the law and empowered to speak up. Just because we've
Speaker 5: seen so much progress already doesn't mean that we're guaranteed
Speaker 5: that progress or that we will maintain that ground for
Speaker 5: the next fifty years. So it takes all of us
Speaker 5: in understanding the law, being educated, and being empowered to
Speaker 5: speak up and increase compliance.
Speaker 1: To steal a line from one of those PAC twelve schools,
Speaker 1: fight on is the message here. Thank you both so
Speaker 1: much for coming on. Obviously we could talk about this
Speaker 1: for much longer. Maybe we'll have you back as we
Speaker 1: continue to monitor the landscape, but so appreciate your insight.
Speaker 4: Thanks Sar, Thank you for having us, Sarah. Thanks for
Speaker 4: being a big voice for women's sports. It's important.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Dennette and Sarah for taking the time.
Speaker 1: We got to take another break when we come back.
Speaker 1: A review that cast shade and intends to spark change.
Speaker 1: Stick around, Welcome back slices. We love that you're listening,
Speaker 1: but we want to get in the game every day too,
Speaker 1: So here's our good game play of the day. We
Speaker 1: wanted to highlight an upcoming event some uselcens might be
Speaker 1: interested in attending. Athlete Ally is holding its fifth annual
Speaker 1: Athlete Activism Summit from June twelfth to the fifteenth in Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: with registration open now through May ninth. The four day
Speaker 1: summit is open to any college athlete, coach, or administrator
Speaker 1: who's looking to make their school's community more inclusive and
Speaker 1: welcoming with panels, discussion groups, and outings to local games
Speaker 1: and activities. We're big fans of athlete Ally here at
Speaker 1: Good Games, so even if you can't make the event,
Speaker 1: be sure to check out their work. We'll link to
Speaker 1: their website and the event registration page in the show notes.
Speaker 1: And you know, we always love to hear from you,
Speaker 1: so hit us up on email. Good Game at wondermedianetwork
Speaker 1: dot com. Don't forget to subscribe a rate and review, y'all.
Speaker 1: It's really easy. Just take it from former triathlete and
Speaker 1: ironmanwinner Sarah Gross, who called in with a guest review
Speaker 1: on some recent news.
Speaker 2: Take a listen.
Speaker 6: Ironman, not the superhero, but the triathlon company made announcements
Speaker 6: last week that's sadly will significantly reverse forward progress for
Speaker 6: women who love to swim, bike, and run. Rating minus
Speaker 6: infinity stars review. First of all, thank you Sarah and
Speaker 6: slices for letting me jump in with this review today.
Speaker 2: I wish I had better news.
Speaker 6: I'm Sarah Gross, former Ironman North American champion and founder
Speaker 6: and CEO of Feisty, a media company that covers women's
Speaker 6: sports and women's health. Side note, I love the episode
Speaker 6: with Chelsea Sadaro and Haley Tura and have narrowly avoided
Speaker 6: pooping my pants on several occasions. It comes with a territory.
Speaker 6: So on to the bad news. Iron Man announced that
Speaker 6: for their World Championship they will be going back to
Speaker 6: a single day of racing both men and women together
Speaker 6: on the Big Island of Hawaii. Many people in the
Speaker 6: sport cheered. I mean, I can understand the appeal of
Speaker 6: having everyone together racing at the same time, but when
Speaker 6: you dig into the details, you realize that these changes
Speaker 6: come at the expense of all the forward progress Iron
Speaker 6: Men has made for women over the last two or
Speaker 6: three years. Since twenty twenty two, women have had their
Speaker 6: own race, meaning there were no men on the course
Speaker 6: with them. This ensured that women had a clear, fair
Speaker 6: course undisturbed by the men's race. Like Chelsea said at
Speaker 6: the time, there aren't men on the court during the
Speaker 6: women's Wimbledon final, so why should there be men on
Speaker 6: our race course? And it's been incredible being in Kona
Speaker 6: for these races, with all the media focus on the
Speaker 6: women's race, and watching a woman cross the finish line
Speaker 6: first in an Iron Man so many shivers. But this
Speaker 6: change back to a single day of racing has come
Speaker 6: at another cost as well. As you can imagine, when
Speaker 6: men and women each had their own race, there were
Speaker 6: equal numbers of available race spots by gender. But under
Speaker 6: this new system, which is really an old system, recycled
Speaker 6: slots will be handed out based on participation numbers. In practice,
Speaker 6: this means that twenty five percent of the athletes racing
Speaker 6: and in twenty twenty six will be women and a
Speaker 6: whopping seventy five percent will be men. Now I'm sure,
Speaker 6: you can imagine lots of people were upset about this.
Speaker 6: It seems clear and obvious from where I sit that
Speaker 6: women having half the slots is not just the right
Speaker 6: thing to do, but also the only option if you
Speaker 6: want to develop the women's side of the sport. So
Speaker 6: what do we do about it? Iron Man has shown
Speaker 6: consistently that they are willing to listen, so let them
Speaker 6: know what you think. If you want to dive into
Speaker 6: this topic more deeply, or help us spread the word
Speaker 6: slide into my dms. I am Sarah at Sarah with
Speaker 6: noh dot gross on Instagram. I would love to hear
Speaker 6: from you, so thanks again Sarah for letting me share
Speaker 6: this unfortunate news. Myself and everyone at Feisty Media do
Speaker 6: not want to see iron Man quietly get away with this.
Speaker 6: I'm going to keep banging my drum and I hope
Speaker 6: to have a positive update next time we talk.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Sarah for the review and for letting us
Speaker 1: know how to call on iron Man to do better.
Speaker 1: Now it's your turn, slices, rate and review. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Say you tomorrow. Good game, Dinnette, good game, Sarah. Few
Speaker 1: new systems that are actually bad old systems Brought Back
Speaker 1: from the Dead. Good Game with Sarah Spain is an
Speaker 1: iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports
Speaker 1: and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by
Speaker 1: Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan
Speaker 1: and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rutterer, Britney Martinez,
Speaker 1: and Grace Lynch. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and
Speaker 1: I'm Your host Sarah Spain.