Speaker 1: Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're practicing
Speaker 1: our moves before the big audition tomorrow. Valkyries are hiring
Speaker 1: a mascot, and our patented combination of the Elaine into
Speaker 1: the Splits is a show stopper. It's Thursday, May twenty second,
Speaker 1: and on today's show, we'll be chatting with Eben Noby Williams,
Speaker 1: Sportco's deputy editor and co host of the Sportacast podcast.
Speaker 1: We talk about the Connecticut Suns potential sale and relocation,
Speaker 1: the relationship between sports team valuations and revenue, and how
Speaker 1: the complicated WNBA ownership structure affects investment and expansion. Plus,
Speaker 1: Game two of the PWHL Finals is on deck, and
Speaker 1: our show Soccer Side plays its first home match. It's
Speaker 1: all coming up right after this welcome back slices. Here's
Speaker 1: what you need to know today. Let's start with the
Speaker 1: PWHL Finals, where Emily Clark scored two minutes and forty
Speaker 1: seven seconds into overtime to lead the Ottawa Charge to
Speaker 1: a two to one win over the defending champion Minnesota
Speaker 1: Frost on Tuesday night in Game one. Minnesota has yet
Speaker 1: to win a season opener across four series in their
Speaker 1: two seasons of playoff action. Meantime, Ottawa is a perfect
Speaker 1: three to zero on home ice in this year's playoffs.
Speaker 1: They host again tonight Game two, a seven pm Eastern
Speaker 1: puck drop at TD Place. More Hockey Team USA legend
Speaker 1: Hillary Knight says the twenty twenty six Milan Courtina Olympics
Speaker 1: will be her final games. Knight, who turns thirty six
Speaker 1: in July, is currently tied for the most Olympic medals
Speaker 1: of any American hockey player. A fifth medal in Milan
Speaker 1: would make her the sole record holder, a ten time
Speaker 1: world champ and the career leader in points, goals, and
Speaker 1: assists at the World Championships. Knight has been one of
Speaker 1: the most influential women in hockey for over a decade.
Speaker 1: She talked a friend of the show, Nancy Armor at
Speaker 1: USA Today Sports about the decision to make Milan her
Speaker 1: last games, saying, quote, it's time. I have grown up
Speaker 1: in this program and it's just given me so much.
Speaker 1: I'm at peace. I just have this feeling that it's time,
Speaker 1: and I'm grateful that hopefully I can stay healthy and everything,
Speaker 1: I can go out when i'd like to be done
Speaker 1: that is such a privilege that only a handful of
Speaker 1: competitors get end quote. Night isn't retiring just yet, though
Speaker 1: she does plan to play in the PWHL after Milan
Speaker 1: to Soccer. The US women's national team officially announced the
Speaker 1: twenty four player training camp roster for its upcoming friendlies
Speaker 1: against China and Jamaica. Defender Naomi Germa is back in
Speaker 1: the fold after missing every contest this calendar year due
Speaker 1: to injuries. She returns after winning the Women's Super League
Speaker 1: title and FA Cup with Chelsea FC, the side that
Speaker 1: made her the first ever player in women's soccer with
Speaker 1: a million dollar transfer fee. Seattle Rain forward lynd Biandolo
Speaker 1: also makes an appearance after missing. The squad's April games.
Speaker 1: Also had coach Emma Hayeses granted a few players their
Speaker 1: first ever senior national team call ups, including Orlando Pride
Speaker 1: defender Carriabello and Kansas City current midfielder she of the
Speaker 1: iconic twerk celebration Low Labanta. If thirty two year old
Speaker 1: Leabonta plays in either of the matches, she'll become the
Speaker 1: oldest player to debut for the US women's national team
Speaker 1: program ever. In its forty year history. I heard friends
Speaker 1: of the show sam Us and Becky Sowerbrun on the
Speaker 1: women's game advocating for a Grandma seally if Lebonta scores,
Speaker 1: so here for it, fake Caine limping walk the whole thing,
Speaker 1: Let's see it. We'll link to the full training camp
Speaker 1: roster in our show notes. The US women's national team
Speaker 1: will face China on May thirty first at Alion's Field
Speaker 1: in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and then Jamaica June third at
Speaker 1: Energizer Park in Saint Louis. That second match, we'll also
Speaker 1: see a pregame retirement celebration, including bobbleheads for Soerbrun, Saint
Speaker 1: Louis Native and US Women's national team legend. More soccer slices.
Speaker 1: We want to let you know that our show side,
Speaker 1: Minnesota Aurora FC, plays its home opener tonight, facing off
Speaker 1: against Rochester FC. Kickoff is at eight pm Eastern, and
Speaker 1: we are so excited to cheer them on as they
Speaker 1: try to dominate the USLW league. Thanks again to everybody
Speaker 1: who bought a slice of this community owned team, and
Speaker 1: we hope you're taking as much pride in them as
Speaker 1: we do. Also, some more details to come on my
Speaker 1: visit to Aurora FC, but it's almost certainly going to
Speaker 1: be the June twelfth game against the Chicago City Dutch Lions.
Speaker 1: There also might be some cool Aurora good game merch
Speaker 1: to look forward to, so we'll keep you updated on
Speaker 1: that as well. Moving on to a different pitch, we're
Speaker 1: approaching the tenth weekend of women's Elite rugby action. The
Speaker 1: Denver Onyx are leading the league with a perfect six
Speaker 1: and zero record, followed closely by the Boston Banshee's at
Speaker 1: five and two and the New York Exiles at four
Speaker 1: and three. My Chicago Tempest are, how shall we say,
Speaker 1: suffering from a bit of a drought, oh and seven,
Speaker 1: y'all zero wins. To quote Billy Shakespeare's The Tempest, Hell
Speaker 1: is empty and all the devils are here. We'll keep
Speaker 1: an eye on the standings as the league championship, the
Speaker 1: Legacy Cup is just a little over a month away,
Speaker 1: and we'll link to the full league schedule and to
Speaker 1: where you can purchase tickets in our show notes to hoops.
Speaker 1: The wa NBA's opening weekend was a smashing success, and
Speaker 1: one game in particular had incredible viewership. The Indiana Fever's
Speaker 1: home opener against the Chicago Sky on Saturday averaged two
Speaker 1: point seven million viewers, making it the most watched WNBA
Speaker 1: regular season game since two thousand. Per Sports Media Watch,
Speaker 1: the game peaked at three point one million viewers, good
Speaker 1: for the second biggest average audience for any league event,
Speaker 1: behind only last year's WNBA All Star Game. No official
Speaker 1: numbers on how many dumbass talking heads who don't say
Speaker 1: shit about the w until there's some sort of Fracice
Speaker 1: just had to chime in on Angel versus Caitlin all week,
Speaker 1: but it feels like three point one million. The Fever
Speaker 1: looked like world beaters in that game against the Sky,
Speaker 1: but they came down to Earth pretty quickly. On Tuesday night,
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Dream got the best of them in Indy,
Speaker 1: winning a nail bier ninety one to ninety. Britney Grinder
Speaker 1: led Atlanta with twenty one points and eight rebounds before
Speaker 1: she fouled out. Ryan Howard put up twenty points and
Speaker 1: three assists, and Brianna Jones posted a dominant nineteen point
Speaker 1: thirteen rebound double double. Indiana had some bright spots two
Speaker 1: in the loss in the form of some more broken
Speaker 1: records for Kaitlin Clark and Dewana Bonner. Clark notched her
Speaker 1: tenth career game with more than twenty points in tennisis,
Speaker 1: tying Courtney Vandersloot for the most such games in WNBA history.
Speaker 1: And get this, Clark did it in forty two games.
Speaker 1: Slute achieved the milestone in three hundred and ninety four.
Speaker 1: Caitlyn also recorded her sixth career twenty five plus point
Speaker 1: tennisist game, passing Sabrina and Nascue for the most in
Speaker 1: WNBA history, and she became the first player in WNBA
Speaker 1: history to open a season with back to back twenty
Speaker 1: plus point ten plus assist games. Last, but not least,
Speaker 1: Clark is now the first player in WNBA history with
Speaker 1: multiple games of twenty five plus points, ten plus assists,
Speaker 1: five plus rebounds, and five plus three pointers made. Who
Speaker 1: She is off to a hot start. Meanwhile, de Wana
Speaker 1: Bonner moved up a spot on the league's career rebounds list,
Speaker 1: leaprogging Tina Thompson to secure sole possession of eighth most
Speaker 1: boards all time. She's now got three thousand and seventy
Speaker 1: one eighth and rebounds third in points. Bonner is leaving
Speaker 1: her mark more basketball news On Monday, Minnesota Linkstar and
Speaker 1: if He Sikalier appeared on ESPN's NBA Today alongside Boniever
Speaker 1: frontman Justin Vernon, who announced that he's collabing with the
Speaker 1: Links franchise on a first of its kind partnership focused
Speaker 1: on gender equity and community impact. The team offered more
Speaker 1: details in a release, noting that the multi year collaboration
Speaker 1: starting this season, will quote focus on addressing gender inequities
Speaker 1: as a result of domestic and sexual violence, sex trafficking,
Speaker 1: health care disparities, and barriers within education and leadership end quote. Vernon,
Speaker 1: a longtime Links fan with family ties to both Minnesota
Speaker 1: and Wisconsin, has been a big advocate for gender equity.
Speaker 1: He assisted in creating Boniver's two a Billion campaign, which
Speaker 1: raises support and awareness and creates interpersonal connections in an
Speaker 1: effort to end gender inequity, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. Now,
Speaker 1: Boniyver's two AB and the Links will collaborate on a
Speaker 1: variety of things, including shining a spotlight on local nonprofits
Speaker 1: and activations throughout the season. The two AB campaign will
Speaker 1: also donate two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in total
Speaker 1: grant money to ten Minnesotan and Western Wisconsin nonprofits and shelters.
Speaker 1: This partnership packs even more of a punch than what
Speaker 1: we've said, so we'll link to the Lynx's full release
Speaker 1: explaining all the details in our show notes. Also a
Speaker 1: link to Fee and Vernon's five minute segment on NBA Today.
Speaker 1: In that links release, Vernon summed up why he's so
Speaker 1: excited to get involved. He said, quote, basketball is exactly
Speaker 1: like music. It's a group and individual improvising to create
Speaker 1: moments of vision, excitement, and joy. Simply said, the Minnesota
Speaker 1: Lynks team is my favorite band in the world right now.
Speaker 1: As Boney Verra, we also saw an unprecedented opportunity to
Speaker 1: not only support this band of incredible women on the court,
Speaker 1: but by combining forces to more urgently support the communities
Speaker 1: of women in the Upper Midwest end quote. As if
Speaker 1: I didn't already love him enough, What a mention. Finally,
Speaker 1: in hoops, Seattle Storm players Dominique Maloga and Gabby Williams
Speaker 1: have announced that they'll skip this summer's EuroBasket competition, which
Speaker 1: is slated to begin June eighteenth. Both players were part
Speaker 1: of the French national team that earned a silver medal
Speaker 1: at the Paris Olympics, but they'll stick around in the
Speaker 1: States to help build with Seattle. Williams hasn't play. I
Speaker 1: had a full WNBA season since twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 1: staying in the US offers her a chance to do so.
Speaker 1: Malonga spoke about her own choice on Monday, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: it was a difficult decision because the French jersey is
Speaker 1: very important for me. I decided to stay here because
Speaker 1: I think my rookie season is really important and I
Speaker 1: wanted to leave it all with the team end quote.
Speaker 1: This is great news for Seattle, who started the year
Speaker 1: a little shorthanded because of the league's hard salary cap
Speaker 1: and because of unfortunate knee injuries to Nica Mule, Jordan
Speaker 1: Horsten and Katie lu Samuelson, who suffered hers just weeks
Speaker 1: before the regular season tipped off. The French team will
Speaker 1: also be without Marin Johannes, who shared that she'll skip
Speaker 1: euro Basket as well to focus on her time with
Speaker 1: the New York Liberty. We got to take a quick
Speaker 1: break slices when we come back. Evan Novie Williams explains
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff to me like I'm five, stick
Speaker 1: around joining us now. He's sport of Ghost, deputy editor
Speaker 1: and co host of sport a Cast podcast. Prior to
Speaker 1: joining Sportico, he was at Bloomberg News for almost a decade,
Speaker 1: covering everything from media deals and team sales to e
Speaker 1: sports and the Olympics. He played sprint football for the
Speaker 1: Princeton Tigers, and when we wrote this bio was the
Speaker 1: first time Alex ever heard that there is a sport
Speaker 1: called sprint football. It's Evan Noby Williams.
Speaker 2: Hi, Evan, Hey, Sarah, how are you good.
Speaker 1: I'm quite familiar with sprint football because was the sprint
Speaker 1: football team at Cornell, But for those who don't understand,
Speaker 1: give us a brief synopsis.
Speaker 2: Sprint football is varsity football. Had a few institutions in
Speaker 2: the Northeast, Cornell being one of them with a weight limit,
Speaker 2: so everybody on the field when I played was weighing
Speaker 2: in at one hundred and seventy two pounds. It feels
Speaker 2: like the vestiges of a very privileged people who could
Speaker 2: not play full weight football but got to college and
Speaker 2: were likey, I want to keep doing this. How do
Speaker 2: we structure something so that my one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: five pound body can still be competitive. And they built it.
Speaker 2: And I will say I played on I played on
Speaker 2: a Princeton team that was went twenty years without winning
Speaker 2: a game and was losing games by very, very large sums.
Speaker 2: Cornell Army and Navy are in the Sprint League, and
Speaker 2: you can imagine they've got one hundred guys that are
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy two pounds exactly and are quite athletic,
Speaker 2: and we were losing games like seventy to nothing or
Speaker 2: like eight to five and things like that. So it
Speaker 2: was amazing. The guys were great. It was very fun
Speaker 2: for me, and it was a good learning life lesson
Speaker 2: that sometimes you know you're gonna lose before you take
Speaker 2: the field.
Speaker 1: You know. We were pretty nice about it. I don't
Speaker 1: remember there being and maybe there was between the football
Speaker 1: guys and the sprint football guys. Maybe there was like
Speaker 1: beef about, like you're not real football, but we never
Speaker 1: we never like heard that. We definitely knew who was
Speaker 1: on the football team and who was on sprint football,
Speaker 1: but we accepted everyone. We loved everyone. I also love
Speaker 1: how men always come up with the best names like
Speaker 1: euphemisms for their sizes, Like you know, if you're in
Speaker 1: a heavy set man, your suit is called executive. Did
Speaker 1: you know that that that's the name of the size, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: you must be very important because you're larger. And then
Speaker 1: like sprint football, like you're not sprinting the whole time, Like,
Speaker 1: but you didn't want to call it like small ball
Speaker 1: or like tiny man football, so they had to go
Speaker 1: with something that sounded impressive.
Speaker 2: The I do. I do triathlon sometimes, and there's a
Speaker 2: triathlon category for larger people. And I think it is
Speaker 2: like Clyde Gale and Athena. I think to your point
Speaker 2: of money, like choose. I love that choose terms that
Speaker 2: we call the main Princeton team the heavies. The heav
Speaker 2: differentiate them from the sprint folks.
Speaker 1: Well, you were not here to talk football, though it
Speaker 1: seems we could. We're going to talk a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff, and I want to start with the news
Speaker 1: you recently broke about the Connecticut Sun. What is the latest,
Speaker 1: if anything after the report you released about the team
Speaker 1: being engaged in talks about potentially selling Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think this is a fascinating one because it comes
Speaker 2: in the middle of the WNBA's expansion talks also, and
Speaker 2: there's very few people that I have talked to that
Speaker 2: think that that team is going to stay in Connecticut
Speaker 2: if it is sold. It's certainly possible, but you can
Speaker 2: see a world where someone who pays hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars to buy this asset decides that, hey, maybe Uncasville,
Speaker 2: Connecticut is not the market that I want this team
Speaker 2: to play in, and maybe playing in a venue owned
Speaker 2: by the former owner is not the situation that I
Speaker 2: really want. So if this team is indeed sold, then
Speaker 2: the person who buys it is looking to potentially move it.
Speaker 2: What does that mean for the already ongoing expansion talks?
Speaker 2: And there were dozens of I'm sure you know this Thereah,
Speaker 2: there was more than a dozen different groups and different
Speaker 2: cities that really wanted and put together bids and offers
Speaker 2: for WNBA expansion. My understanding is that a lot of
Speaker 2: those groups that learned they were not getting expansion are
Speaker 2: now in talks with the Sun as well. So I
Speaker 2: think it all kind of comes together at a critical
Speaker 2: time for the WNBA where they're deciding how many new
Speaker 2: teams they want to add. How many is too many
Speaker 2: because there's only so much talent, right, and you can
Speaker 2: expand to quickly. It's certainly a possibility. And then they've
Speaker 2: done it before exactly. So in the middle of all that,
Speaker 2: also this team that's on the market that could move
Speaker 2: to any one of these other cities as well, So
Speaker 2: a lot going on behind the scenes from a team
Speaker 2: sales and expansion standpoint.
Speaker 1: For the W couple things there. I assume that the
Speaker 1: league still has to approve a sale. So these expansion
Speaker 1: groups that are looking to buy both have to convince
Speaker 1: the Connecticut Sun ownership group that they have the best
Speaker 1: offer and have the Mohegan suntribe want to take their offer.
Speaker 1: But then the W also has to approve. Will they
Speaker 1: have to approve where the buyers take the team.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's all part of the conversation. The other
Speaker 2: interesting aspect here is price, and from what I understand,
Speaker 2: the conversation around expansion got up to, at least in
Speaker 2: Cleveland's case with Dan Gilbert, two hundred and fifty million
Speaker 2: dollars cash for expansion. It seems inconceivable to me that
Speaker 2: the Sun would sell for two hundred and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 2: So in some ways you now also have an expansion
Speaker 2: opportunity on the market that costs less than the actual
Speaker 2: ex expansion that the league is selling, which again creates
Speaker 2: a kind of interesting dynamic there.
Speaker 1: But we'll probably benefit the Sun and it will go
Speaker 1: for more than it's worth because it will be the
Speaker 1: only way for someone who wasn't awarded a team to
Speaker 1: get the team that they want in the place that they.
Speaker 2: Want totally, and just to go one step further. Perhaps
Speaker 2: even let's say that w decided on three expansion teams,
Speaker 2: maybe the league tries to push and I should say
Speaker 2: Allen and Company, the bank is doing both these transactions,
Speaker 2: Maybe they push one of the ones they wanted for
Speaker 2: expansion just towards the Sun. Right. There's a whole bunch
Speaker 2: I think possible iterations. But this process has been going
Speaker 2: on for a very long time in the W As
Speaker 2: you know, there are new teams that have been announced,
Speaker 2: new teams that have joined, new teams that are going
Speaker 2: to join. I think a lot of people in the
Speaker 2: league are looking forward to this being in the rearview mirror,
Speaker 2: having set the expansion conversation and then trying to figure
Speaker 2: out the fun stuff about how these teams join. What
Speaker 2: the player situation looks like. There's a labor deal looming
Speaker 2: in the background as well, which is obviously a big
Speaker 2: piece of the business puzzle for the double. So there's
Speaker 2: a lot going on and a mid rapid change. This
Speaker 2: league is going to look very different in a few years.
Speaker 1: How does the fact that there's expected to be a
Speaker 1: new CBA and eighty percent of the league's contracts and
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five affect the conversations around expansion or
Speaker 1: even buying, because what exactly are you buying? What players,
Speaker 1: who plays for whom right? All of those things are
Speaker 1: kind of going to be tossed in the air at
Speaker 1: the same time.
Speaker 2: I think this is such a good question, and it's
Speaker 2: something that I am also kind of confused about. The
Speaker 2: traditional way that most leagues have looked at expansion is
Speaker 2: you do your media deals, you get your labor piece,
Speaker 2: and then you hit the market with expansion. When you
Speaker 2: know that there's a certain amount of you know the
Speaker 2: rules of the game for player contracts and the relationship
Speaker 2: with the union, you know what the basically contracted revenue
Speaker 2: is coming in from media, that's the time to strike.
Speaker 2: And if you listen to Adam Silver, over the past
Speaker 2: few years, every time he was asked about NBA expansion,
Speaker 2: he was like, we're going to get our media deals done,
Speaker 2: We're going to get our labor piece locked in, and
Speaker 2: then sometime around literally right now, we're going to start
Speaker 2: talking about expansion. Formally, you would think that that is
Speaker 2: when your teams are most valuable, when there's that kind
Speaker 2: of comfort in the marketplace about long term revenue. But
Speaker 2: the W has done something differently right that W has
Speaker 2: had the expansion talks. The media deals are done, but
Speaker 2: the W had expansion talks before before the labor deal
Speaker 2: at least was signed and executed. And this is a
Speaker 2: potentially thornier labor deal than most other men's leagues at
Speaker 2: least have seen in the past few years. I can't
Speaker 2: tell if that says something about the way both the
Speaker 2: NBA and the WNBA think this labor deal is going
Speaker 2: to pan out, that they think that maybe selling a
Speaker 2: team teams now and expansion now is better. But I
Speaker 2: do think it's definitely interesting that the kind of traditional
Speaker 2: way you think about maximizing your value as to do
Speaker 2: labor first, and instead in the W we see teams
Speaker 2: hitting the market and expansion conversations happening before that labor
Speaker 2: deal gets signed.
Speaker 1: A couple more quick things about this Sun team. We
Speaker 1: did see them play a sellout game in Boston at
Speaker 1: the Garden last summer. It was a huge success. It
Speaker 1: had a lot of Sun fans nervous about the potential
Speaker 1: of them taking the team elsewhere, and of course den
Speaker 1: Risotti said no, no, we're very committed, and the Mohiget
Speaker 1: suntribe is very committed. And then here we are today
Speaker 1: talking about how they're taking calls about potentially leaving. Does
Speaker 1: it seem like Boston would have any priority or that
Speaker 1: there'd be any feeling about the existing fan base and
Speaker 1: not taking the team so far away that current Connecticut
Speaker 1: Sun fans couldn't root for whatever team it becomes in
Speaker 1: the same general area.
Speaker 2: I think it's certainly it's a great question, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure it's something that will come up. My understanding is
Speaker 2: that of the let's just call them twelve expansion groups
Speaker 2: that were really interested in this process, Boston was not
Speaker 2: a name I heard very often, and my understanding of
Speaker 2: the three kind of leading horse finalists right now, Boston
Speaker 2: was certainly not one of them. So not to say never,
Speaker 2: and who knows, the W could announce it's three expansion
Speaker 2: teams and then the Sun are not part of that.
Speaker 2: The Sun gets sold to a group in Boston. There's
Speaker 2: an NBA transaction obviously that is in the works potentially
Speaker 2: and in Boston at the same time, which either makes
Speaker 2: that more complicated or makes that potentially easier, depending on
Speaker 2: who the group is. But it would not be the
Speaker 2: first place that I would have thought, even given the
Speaker 2: proximity and obviously the fact that, as you said, they've
Speaker 2: played games there and have had good, good crowds. The
Speaker 2: interesting thing about the W to me is that the
Speaker 2: league is so small that there's so many good markets
Speaker 2: that don't have teams. And when you think about like
Speaker 2: baseball expansion, they're talking about like Portland, Oregon and maybe Nashville,
Speaker 2: and not to say those are bad markets, but there's
Speaker 2: just so many massive markets that don't have WNBA teams
Speaker 2: right now, right Philadelphia. So yeah, in some ways the
Speaker 2: competition is way fiercer because the options for the W
Speaker 2: in terms of huge markets, big sports cities that they
Speaker 2: can go to. It's just way wider than we see
Speaker 2: in these thirty or thirty two team men's leagues.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that there are three front runners.
Speaker 2: Give them to us, Yeah, I mean the three that
Speaker 2: I think are in the best place right now. Cleveland's
Speaker 2: been written about. Philadelphia seems very likely as well, particularly
Speaker 2: given that Adam Silver basically broke he to an agreement
Speaker 2: between the hockey and basketball teams there for their for
Speaker 2: their stadiums, and when they announced that agreement, they made
Speaker 2: it very clear that W was their priority. Wanda Sykes
Speaker 2: and her wife were on the stage when they announced it.
Speaker 2: She has been a very very vocal proponent of bringing
Speaker 2: w to Philadelphia, and then Detroit, I think is an
Speaker 2: interesting one as well, backed by both Tom Gores, who
Speaker 2: owns the Pistons, and then a whole host of local
Speaker 2: business women, businessmen, celebrities, athletes in the Detroit area. Detroit
Speaker 2: had a WNBA team at one point. Obviously, Adam Silver
Speaker 2: has set on the record before that he could totally
Speaker 2: see that team getting revived at some point. So if
Speaker 2: I was a betting person, those would be those would
Speaker 2: be the three that I would I would expect. But
Speaker 2: what everyone keeps telling me is that nothing is final, final, final,
Speaker 2: and everyone's kind of still waiting for the final decision.
Speaker 2: So I guess take that with a little bit of
Speaker 2: a grain of salt.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that Adam Silver is very clear in the
Speaker 1: way he's doing business on the NBA side, what needs
Speaker 1: to be in order before expansion, etc. That the W
Speaker 1: does things a little differently. Now this might be in
Speaker 1: part because the W has a very unique ownership structure.
Speaker 1: And as we get into this next topic, I want
Speaker 1: to get into it and do like an almost comically
Speaker 1: accessible way. Some real explain it to me like I'm
Speaker 1: five years old. Shit, because not just for me, I
Speaker 1: think I am someone who definitely loves to skip the
Speaker 1: math portion of assignments and isn't particularly interested in the
Speaker 1: business side, which is why it's great that I got
Speaker 1: into ownership and didn't know much about the place I
Speaker 1: was investing in, which explains why a lot of things
Speaker 1: went the way they did. But also just for listeners
Speaker 1: who are maybe learning this stuff for the first time.
Speaker 1: So when we talk about the WNBA and its ownership,
Speaker 1: we've got the WNBA, the NBA, and an independent investor
Speaker 1: group that are all three a part of this larger ownership.
Speaker 1: So can you tell us, and you just recently wrote
Speaker 1: a story about this, can you explain the three ownership
Speaker 1: groups and how expansion and decision making affects them differently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you nailed it. Essentially. When the WNBA launched, it
Speaker 2: was essentially fifty percent owned by the NBA, which put
Speaker 2: up a lot of the money in the working capital
Speaker 2: to get the league off the ground, and then the
Speaker 2: other fifty percent of that equity pool was divvied up
Speaker 2: among the owners. Some of them are NBA owners, some
Speaker 2: of them are independent owners. And then three years ago,
Speaker 2: I think twenty twenty two, they did a capital raise
Speaker 2: from a group of and it's a who's who of
Speaker 2: important people in sports. A lot of them are also
Speaker 2: NBA owners, some of them are investors in sports. Nike
Speaker 2: is one of them, right, So there's companies in there
Speaker 2: as well. They raised a bunch of money. They sold
Speaker 2: sixteen percent of the equity in the league, diluting both
Speaker 2: the NBA portion and the owner's portion equally. So right now,
Speaker 2: from my understanding, the NBA owns forty two percent of
Speaker 2: the league. This investment group owned sixteen percent of the league,
Speaker 2: and then the WNBA owners as a collective, own the
Speaker 2: other forty two percent of the league. And interestingly, and
Speaker 2: this surprised me when I heard it. When the W expands,
Speaker 2: they are only diluting that forty two percent piece that
Speaker 2: are owned by the owners. The NBA will continue to
Speaker 2: own forty two percent, these investors will continue to own
Speaker 2: sixteen percent, which is obviously different when the NFL. If
Speaker 2: the NFL were ever to expand, owners would go from
Speaker 2: having a thirty second of the slice to a thirty
Speaker 2: third of the slice. Right, that's how most of the
Speaker 2: leagues work. But because the equity structure in the W
Speaker 2: is so different, and because of the way they raise money,
Speaker 2: which was essentially to protect these people that gave the
Speaker 2: money and and to protect them from dilution, yeah, you
Speaker 2: end up with a world where the W going from
Speaker 2: fourteen to sixteen or if it's ever a twenty, you're
Speaker 2: not an owner owning one to twentieth of the league.
Speaker 2: You're an owner owning way, way, way way less than that.
Speaker 2: So when money comes into the league, for it's not
Speaker 2: split thirty two ways like it is in other leagues.
Speaker 2: The revenue sharing obviously is different because you have the
Speaker 2: NBA sitting there, you have these other owners sitting there,
Speaker 2: So it's definitely a more complex structure. I would imagine
Speaker 2: some people of the WNBA would maybe have done things
Speaker 2: a little bit differently in retrospect. But this was a league,
Speaker 2: as you know, that spent twenty years kind of trying
Speaker 2: to get a foothold and trying to kind of break
Speaker 2: into both the thing that fans wanted to talk about
Speaker 2: and fans wanted to pay to see. And the glow
Speaker 2: up has happened very quickly, right, and some people in
Speaker 2: the league would say, yeah, we knew this was happening
Speaker 2: all along. I think some people were surprised by how
Speaker 2: fast it took.
Speaker 1: Well, it started out really strong, and then there was
Speaker 1: some intention from some folks to vary it in ways
Speaker 1: that really affected the numbers that it started out with.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was huge when it started.
Speaker 2: The first two years. The numbers are bonkers. You're right,
Speaker 2: the attendance and viewership numbers are. We kind of always
Speaker 2: have to remind ourselves here that when you see a
Speaker 2: huge number from an attendance or a TV ratings, which
Speaker 2: we just saw for the the opening game of the
Speaker 2: Fever versus the Sky, Yeah, it's probably not a record
Speaker 2: because there's probably a record from two thousand or nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven or what right or a I did exactly? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that that that that broke it. So, yeah, the first
Speaker 2: couple of years, and I would say that despite the
Speaker 2: fact that numbers may have been higher back then, the
Speaker 2: league isn't a way healthier right business place right now? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not a new novelty, it's a It is a
Speaker 2: real thing that people really want to see and want
Speaker 2: to watch, and that companies are finally coming around to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned that investment group. I was not a
Speaker 1: part of that. I got invited and now I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: what a bit a good time to get involved, but
Speaker 1: a good investment I was. I was otherwise engaged with
Speaker 1: the with the red Stars now color neutral Stars, and
Speaker 1: you know you mentioned that group though coming in. One
Speaker 1: of the things that's interesting about the Connecticut Sun ownership
Speaker 1: is that there are teams that it feels like are
Speaker 1: not capable of continuing on the pace that the league
Speaker 1: is growing at. And that's one of them, right. The
Speaker 1: size of the venue, the investment required, the practice facility
Speaker 1: that we meet make fun of where kids are having
Speaker 1: birthday parties while they're trying to practice for a playoff game, Like,
Speaker 1: there's an inevitable growth that some people won't be able
Speaker 1: to keep up with So that investment group was partly
Speaker 1: to help shoulder the load and to carry things and
Speaker 1: growth things while the original owners had invested years earlier
Speaker 1: and were continuing to put a ton of money in.
Speaker 1: Do you see that happening more across the league where
Speaker 1: there will be old owners that either have to do
Speaker 1: a capital race to bring in new folks to help,
Speaker 1: or will choose to sell at this moment while the
Speaker 1: league is blowing up.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think it's a great question and a great point.
Speaker 2: And this is the and the NWSL is going through
Speaker 2: this in the same way, and it's just way more
Speaker 2: further along because they have essentially turned over their entire
Speaker 2: league from an ownership structure in the past five years.
Speaker 2: But there's no question, as valuations sore, it's great for
Speaker 2: all the older owners, but a lot of the older
Speaker 2: owners bought into a league that was not this, didn't
Speaker 2: have a forty million dollar practice facility requirement right, and
Speaker 2: didn't whatever the new CB says, wasn't expecting suddenly salaries
Speaker 2: to be at this point, And there's often a lot
Speaker 2: of ten You see it in men's leagues too. MLS
Speaker 2: has dealt with us for the last twenty years. There's
Speaker 2: often a lot of tension between older owners who got
Speaker 2: in at a very small price and have just have
Speaker 2: gravy on their valuations glow up and no matter what,
Speaker 2: they're making money and they don't feel they need to
Speaker 2: spend a ton. And you have young owners who came
Speaker 2: in recently paid the recent sticker price and they're like, look,
Speaker 2: if I bought this team for an NWOSLF, I bought
Speaker 2: this team for eighty million dollars or one hundred and
Speaker 2: ten million dollars in San Diego, I want to make
Speaker 2: that money back, right I. I Am not going from
Speaker 2: one million to a hundred million. I'm going from one
Speaker 2: hundred million to whatever it looks like next. So there's
Speaker 2: definitely tension in ownership groups. And yeah, I think both
Speaker 2: these leagues are are looking to turn over. The owners
Speaker 2: that look at a forty million dollar practice facility and
Speaker 2: don't say, heck, yeah, I want to do that right now,
Speaker 2: say I'm not sure if that's in the budget or
Speaker 2: that's yeah, I'm not sure if we want to do that.
Speaker 2: So the WNWSL, very of the situation players have been
Speaker 2: in the past, they're very aware that the fans care
Speaker 2: about it, because that's not true in every league WNBA
Speaker 2: and really care about the way players are treated. And
Speaker 2: it's going to impact the w labor talks for sure,
Speaker 2: just like it impacted the NWSL ones last year. But
Speaker 2: all of that comes together to say, yeah, absolutely WNBA owners,
Speaker 2: some of them would like nothing more than to have
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of deep pocketed owners who bought it
Speaker 2: at high prices and really want to make that league
Speaker 2: soar in all the ways, as opposed to having this
Speaker 2: mix of people who came in at high prices, or
Speaker 2: people who bought these teams for thirty years ago for
Speaker 2: five hundred thousand dollars and they've lost a lot of
Speaker 2: money in the past twenty years and are just kind
Speaker 2: of trying to get their money back out of that
Speaker 2: and capture the appreciation as it happens. So there's a
Speaker 2: really interesting dynamic there, which again exists in MLS less
Speaker 2: so I think in other leagues, just because valuations have
Speaker 2: been so high for a while. But certainly something that's
Speaker 2: happening at the w level and certainly something that happened
Speaker 2: at the NWSL level for the past five years.
Speaker 1: You mentioned valuations. Let's talk about it pro sports team valuations.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the basics of like what goes into
Speaker 1: when you see that team is worth X million dollars?
Speaker 1: What are they using to calculate that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's part of it is science, right, and
Speaker 2: is like looking at a P and L sheet and
Speaker 2: seeing how many season ticket holders do they have, how
Speaker 2: long are those contracts, what does their local media deal
Speaker 2: look like, what does the national media deal look like
Speaker 2: for the league? And what shared does the team get.
Speaker 2: Some of it is that, and then some of it
Speaker 2: is kind of this more ephemeral idea of how many
Speaker 2: people want to own these teams and when one hits
Speaker 2: the market, how rare is it and how much kind
Speaker 2: of how much ego is involved in it, and and
Speaker 2: how many teams are their period because they're scarcity value
Speaker 2: involved in all these leagues. So at Sportco we do
Speaker 2: these valuations and we like to say it's like part art,
Speaker 2: part science, and the science part in some ways is
Speaker 2: the easier part because you do have a sense of
Speaker 2: what these teams are making and what the economics look like.
Speaker 2: Kind of the harder part is is that is that
Speaker 2: other stuff? It's that it's the the w and NWS
Speaker 2: are hot right now right, and when one one team
Speaker 2: goes for sales, it's okay, great there, I may not
Speaker 2: have an opportunity to get into this league for another
Speaker 2: three years, or when I do have an opportunity again,
Speaker 2: the price may be five x now because they've ten
Speaker 2: x in the past, uh in the in the past
Speaker 2: two years. That stuff is is a little bit harder.
Speaker 2: But the biggest thing that helps us in our valuations
Speaker 2: is that every time a team sells and we know
Speaker 2: the price, we have a new data point. So every
Speaker 2: time there's a new sale, you now have like an
Speaker 2: anchor price with which to kind of hinge every team
Speaker 2: above and below it on in some kind of way.
Speaker 2: So yeah, all of that, I guess to say that
Speaker 2: leagues like the NWSL actually quite easy to value because
Speaker 2: every team sells. So again, every team is sold in
Speaker 2: the past, in the past five years, so so every
Speaker 2: time that happens, it's like, okay, great, we can now it.
Speaker 2: Just all these numbers.
Speaker 1: Accordingly, so evaluation. You mentioned most of these, but revenue streams,
Speaker 1: so that's media rights, licensing, merchandise, tickets, corporate sponsorships, market
Speaker 1: size comes into play. How much growth could they have
Speaker 1: based on where they are? Brand value, how do people
Speaker 1: know their logo, their stuff, whatever, assets, stadium facilities, intellectual property.
Speaker 1: That comes into play to what do they own? What
Speaker 1: do they already have built? So we kind of get that.
Speaker 1: That makes sense to me. Where I get lost sometimes
Speaker 1: and you kind of articulated a little bit you started
Speaker 1: is the relationship between valuation and revenue and how we
Speaker 1: can have leagues and teams losing money valued in the
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars. And I think the scarcity,
Speaker 1: the vibes, all of that is part of it. But
Speaker 1: can you walk us through that because it is sort
Speaker 1: of fascinating to me, And the lack of transparency, especially
Speaker 1: in the WNBA in terms of financials, makes it very
Speaker 1: hard to argue with people who are like, look at
Speaker 1: how much money they lose every year, and you want
Speaker 1: to be like, look at how valuable they are, and
Speaker 1: you're like, how do those go together? And how do
Speaker 1: you have a thoughtful and smart conversation about why you
Speaker 1: could lose money and still be very valuable.
Speaker 2: You're totally right, and American business, business worldwide is littered
Speaker 2: with companies like this, right, Uber lost money forever, right,
Speaker 2: Draft Cacks, Netflix. Right, there's a very and a lot
Speaker 2: of people who give you that argument that, oh, we
Speaker 2: lose money are doing that knowing that they're kind of
Speaker 2: it's smoking mirrors to a degree, right, because yeah, if
Speaker 2: your team pick an NWSLF team goes from two million
Speaker 2: dollars to one hundred million dollars of net worth in
Speaker 2: in in five years, right of valuation. Yeah, that's ten
Speaker 2: years of ten million dollar losses operating losses every year, right,
Speaker 2: just captured in that appreciation. So a lot of people
Speaker 2: who make that argument, I think are know what they're doing, right,
Speaker 2: and are trying to kind of rhetorically shift the conversation.
Speaker 2: I think the other side of that is that the
Speaker 2: NBA has lost a lot of money on the w
Speaker 2: in the past thirty twenty five thirty years, Right, It's
Speaker 2: hundreds of millions of dollars. But yeah, I think the
Speaker 2: easy answer is, like some of this is just sports economics.
Speaker 2: Manchester United loses money. It's one of the most valuable
Speaker 2: sports teams in the world. It's worth four or five,
Speaker 2: six billion, whatever you want to call it. It's worth
Speaker 2: billions of dollars. Yeah, that team loses money. Angel City,
Speaker 2: the most valuable NWSEL team, loses a lot of money
Speaker 2: a year. This is the thing that maybe scares me
Speaker 2: about Nwoslifi was an investor, is like, this team is
Speaker 2: like the paragon business wise. Everybody points to them. They're
Speaker 2: super valuable, even they're not making money, right, They're making
Speaker 2: so much in revenue, but they're also spending so much.
Speaker 1: But you just said that about Manchester United. Are you
Speaker 1: worried about them?
Speaker 2: Honestly? Yeah, I think the economics of European soccer for
Speaker 2: an investor terrifying. There's no cap on pay right right?
Speaker 1: So do you think there could be a bubble burst?
Speaker 1: Because it feels to me and this is something I
Speaker 1: said ten years ago. I think at ESPN they did
Speaker 1: a survey of like would what's a good idea you
Speaker 1: think someone should do it? Deep dive on? And I
Speaker 1: was like, will the bubble ever burst? Like how is
Speaker 1: it possible that it's the only market that seems to
Speaker 1: grow exponentially every single year?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's I've been saying a resets coming
Speaker 2: for a while. I wrote a column last year called
Speaker 2: Divest from Sports that a lot of people criticize me
Speaker 2: for yeah, the changes in media are the big thing
Speaker 2: that I would point to, right, that's so much of
Speaker 2: and in a way kind of the w and NWSL
Speaker 2: are not. They're valued on something that's more than just
Speaker 2: the media, whereas, like you look at the NFL, like
Speaker 2: the media deals are are the central thing. But the
Speaker 2: way that local media is changing, and a lot of
Speaker 2: teams in baseball and in the NBA and the NHL
Speaker 2: are cashing a much smaller local media check than they were,
Speaker 2: and who knows what that looks like. And then the
Speaker 2: layer on top of that the fact that every league
Speaker 2: now is talking increasingly with Amazon and Netflix and Apple,
Speaker 2: and in ten years when they are the bidders and
Speaker 2: the local traditional broadcast cable networks are doing less of
Speaker 2: the bidding. That would really scare me if I'm a league,
Speaker 2: because Amazon doesn't need the NFL and Netflix doesn't need
Speaker 2: the NFL, Fox needs the NFL, CBS needs the NFL.
Speaker 2: The companies that used to bid for sports rights the
Speaker 2: big deals were companies that they're essentially livelihood depended on
Speaker 2: them getting these deals. We wrote something a number of
Speaker 2: years ago, right after the previous NFL deals were signed,
Speaker 2: someone at Fox told us my priority the day after
Speaker 2: these deals are signed, are extending my NFL deal in
Speaker 2: eight years, right, Like, that's still my priority. There's no rest. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but when you're talking to Apple and Amazon, these companies
Speaker 2: don't need you, right, and that gives them a leverage
Speaker 2: at the negotiating table that kind of flips the dynamic
Speaker 2: a bit. So Yeah, I am I bullish on sports
Speaker 2: team valuations long term. I honestly I'm not again because
Speaker 2: I think that there's a root awakening coming for one
Speaker 2: of the biggest revenue streams.
Speaker 1: It's complicated because everything you just said is accurate, and
Speaker 1: also when we have a divided attention where almost nothing
Speaker 1: has brand recognition anymore because there's eight thousand pieces of content.
Speaker 1: The few things we do rally around watch live care about,
Speaker 1: sit through the commercials for our sportsndred percent and so
Speaker 1: it has this elevated presence in a much more bifurcated landscape.
Speaker 1: But it also is, you know, still affected by all
Speaker 1: the changes that you just mentioned.
Speaker 2: And there's scarcity, just real quick, They're scarcity. So there
Speaker 2: may be thirty four NFL teams in twenty years, but
Speaker 2: there's probably going to be thirty two maximum there's going
Speaker 2: to be thirty six, right, Like, we're not going to
Speaker 2: create a ton more of these things and for the
Speaker 2: men's side, and that really that drives it, right that
Speaker 2: that is one of the things the NFL has going
Speaker 2: for it is that there's you can't just create a
Speaker 2: football team and eventually hope to be the Dallas Cowboys.
Speaker 2: We know what they are and they only sell once
Speaker 2: every five years. And that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, so couple follow ups for you. And this
Speaker 1: might be a dumb question, but I did tell you
Speaker 1: I prefer to skip the math portion of the assignment
Speaker 1: as often as possible. So, if the teams are losing
Speaker 1: millions of dollars every year, and they have been for
Speaker 1: some time, how are they operating? How do you pay
Speaker 1: your bills? How do you pay your employees? How do
Speaker 1: you So they're just it's like the US government, We're
Speaker 1: just incurring debt until we like, do we have a
Speaker 1: clock somewhere?
Speaker 2: For women's sports, most teams are not just like occruing
Speaker 2: this in debt. Most teams are just paying the losses, right.
Speaker 2: I think I think if you were to ask anyone
Speaker 2: who's buying into an NWSL team now, yeah, they're thinking about, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, I'm going to lose X million dollars a
Speaker 2: year hopefully for the next five years and not the
Speaker 2: next thirty five years. But they understand that there are
Speaker 2: losses associated.
Speaker 1: So it's essentially another investment, but not an investment because
Speaker 1: it's gone immediately to pay off.
Speaker 2: Yes, and as we said, if things continue to grow
Speaker 2: valuation wise for these women's leagues, these owners are going
Speaker 2: to get their money back. Right. The five million or
Speaker 2: ten million dollar annual loss is going to kind of
Speaker 2: wash out in the the LP stake that you can
Speaker 2: sell or when you sell the team in the future.
Speaker 1: And this is why it's so important and perhaps why
Speaker 1: the NWSL and it was criticized at the time and
Speaker 1: part because it pushed out a lot of women that
Speaker 1: were interested in ownership. But they changed their policy and
Speaker 1: required that the majority owner be able to shoulder all
Speaker 1: of the financial load buying a new team, and that
Speaker 1: they had to be a billionaire, which is like, we're
Speaker 1: down to like Oprah, whichever jen or is currently selling
Speaker 1: a lip kit from then life on, that's really it, right,
Speaker 1: And so that sucked when there were groups of women
Speaker 1: who wanted to come into ownership and operate the way
Speaker 1: that women's sports have promised and want to instead of
Speaker 1: it always being dependent on one super rich dude and
Speaker 1: the culture and toxicity that sometimes follows. But you also
Speaker 1: understand why they do that because essentially, not only do
Speaker 1: you have to have enough to buy it, but you
Speaker 1: have to have enough to keep pouring in when you're
Speaker 1: not making anything back year after year for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2: We had an interesting conversation with Jess Berman, the NWSL
Speaker 2: commissioner after Sixth Street bought the essentially was the control
Speaker 2: owner of the the Bay Area expansion team, and asking
Speaker 2: some of these questions about why are you comfortable with
Speaker 2: a kind of nameless, faceless institutional fund as the person
Speaker 2: and her What she said is that they basically put
Speaker 2: in guardrails to make six Street more like a person,
Speaker 2: and they wanted Alan Waxman, who runs Sixth Street, they
Speaker 2: wanted him sitting on the board, and they wanted him
Speaker 2: personally tied to the money decisions so that instead of
Speaker 2: if something were to if COVID were to happen again
Speaker 2: and suddenly like the league shuts down for a year
Speaker 2: and now every owner has to there's capital calls and
Speaker 2: every owner has to put in twenty million of their
Speaker 2: own money just to float the league to the next year.
Speaker 2: That that's a one person's decision. That's Allen's decision. That's
Speaker 2: not the cow fund that at Sixth Street kind of
Speaker 2: deciding as a board to make those decisions. So in
Speaker 2: some ways, yeah, they are treating some of these institutional
Speaker 2: funds like individuals for a lot of the reasons that
Speaker 2: that that that you're talking about.
Speaker 1: It's like the corporate personhood argument totally. And that is
Speaker 1: super PA.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned earlier the kind of the rhetoric around
Speaker 2: losing money. It's one of the main things that a
Speaker 2: lot of these groups use in their labor talks, right
Speaker 2: and it's central in the NBA labor talks right now.
Speaker 1: But right so, I want that was one of my
Speaker 1: other follow ups is when Adam Silver talks about losing
Speaker 1: money publicly in a way that most other leagues, like
Speaker 1: the MLS otherwise won't offer up. Is he doing that
Speaker 1: to be intentional about lowering their costs and getting leverage,
Speaker 1: but also doesn't it hurt the product he's ultimately trying
Speaker 1: to sell.
Speaker 2: I think it's maybe a little bit of both. The
Speaker 2: w is slightly. As I said, it's kind of a
Speaker 2: different situation that the NBA has like really lost money, right,
Speaker 2: They've really lost money, and their owners, the ones who
Speaker 2: owned teams, have really made money from at least from
Speaker 2: evaluation standpoint, in the last few years, right. And I
Speaker 2: think the W is in this place where things are
Speaker 2: really strong right now. I think a lot of fans
Speaker 2: think it stronger than it is financially. And the opposite
Speaker 2: is also true that like the rhetoric around the way
Speaker 2: some NBA owners talk about what they've lost, et cetera,
Speaker 2: is maybe underselling just how strong things are right now.
Speaker 2: And this is what all labor negotiations are. It's like
Speaker 2: trying to meet in the middle, right and trying to
Speaker 2: figure out And someone told me once that that basically
Speaker 2: all of these labor talks you basically know where they're
Speaker 2: gonna end the minute you start, and sometimes they take years,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you lose preseason games or you lose parts
Speaker 2: of seasons, and it like kind of ends up roughly
Speaker 2: in the middle. So I yeah, my feeling on the
Speaker 2: W labor is that like they're gonna get players are
Speaker 2: gonna get a great deal, everyone's gonna get paid a lot,
Speaker 2: a lot more, which they very much deserve. It's going
Speaker 2: to be less than what players I think probably think
Speaker 2: they want or what they deserve right now. It's going
Speaker 2: to be more than what the league right now wants
Speaker 2: to give them, I think. But they're gonna meet in
Speaker 2: the middle, and I think they're gonna do so because
Speaker 2: this is just such a moment, right and it would
Speaker 2: be such a catastrophic shame and also business mailpractice, I think,
Speaker 2: to lose games at this moment when nobody is there's
Speaker 2: never been more talk and more conversation about the league.
Speaker 2: I will say that within that context, WNBA players have
Speaker 2: more leverage and more power than any modern men's union.
Speaker 1: Why are the valuations in the NWSL so much higher
Speaker 1: than the WNBA Angel cities at two hundred and fifty million,
Speaker 1: the aces I think are the current highest at one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty million. What contributes to that?
Speaker 2: I think there's a few things. I think we've talked
Speaker 2: about some of them. One, the equity structure of the
Speaker 2: WNBA is different than it is in NWSL, so I
Speaker 2: think that's one. I think, in some kind of long
Speaker 2: term tail, if both these leagues become insanely popular. Let's
Speaker 2: say the fan base doubles in the next five years.
Speaker 2: The WNBA teams are going to be playing in fifteen
Speaker 2: thousand seed venues, right. NWSL teams can play in way
Speaker 2: bigger venues, Right, So there's upside economics. I think they're
Speaker 2: to a degree. I think the NWSL's getting through its
Speaker 2: its labor talks and also a totally different structure than
Speaker 2: we've seen in any other major American sport at all,
Speaker 2: but of hewing its way more towards the way that
Speaker 2: that labor exists in European soccer, both men's and women's.
Speaker 2: I think that's a big opportunity.
Speaker 1: Getting rid of the draft, putting themselves on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think all that stuff I think gives gives
Speaker 2: a lot of upside. I wouldn't be shocked to see
Speaker 2: the w NBA numbers continue to tick up. And who
Speaker 2: knows it is? It is funny to me. I've talked
Speaker 2: to it Kurt, who does our valuations about this that
Speaker 2: for a while they were like basically the same numbers.
Speaker 2: You could like interlace the NWSL and the w NBA
Speaker 2: like this, And I was like, that doesn't like all
Speaker 2: they have in common is that they're just women's leagues, like,
Speaker 2: doesn't doesn't make sense that they're basically all worth the same.
Speaker 2: And you're right that the NWSL has has ticked upwards. Yeah, again,
Speaker 2: I also think that if in a world where like
Speaker 2: the NWSL, the W NBA ownership turns over and it
Speaker 2: can't happen in the full way because there's NBA owners
Speaker 2: involved here.
Speaker 1: But right, that's part of it too, is it gets
Speaker 1: bigger by virtue of just the resale.
Speaker 2: Of exactly and and the and the NWSL ownership meetings
Speaker 2: right now have very impressive, powerful people like Willow and
Speaker 2: Michelle Kang and Alan Waxman, and people who have made
Speaker 2: a lot of money both in other sports and also
Speaker 2: in other parts of business, and that's really valuable. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think there's a there's a few things
Speaker 2: that at play there. But again I wouldn't I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be shocked to see w numbers continue to tick up.
Speaker 2: The power of Caitlin Clark and and Angel Rees and
Speaker 2: others as well. There's nothing like that in in the NWSL,
Speaker 2: right the name.
Speaker 1: Recognition the individual players yep.
Speaker 2: So and more people watch on TV the W than
Speaker 2: watch NWSL at least right now. So there's definitely some
Speaker 2: business levers that are interesting. But if you're looking to
Speaker 2: buy a w NBA team, again, the fact that that
Speaker 2: that you're only buying into a forty two percent pool
Speaker 2: of the league and not one hundred percent pool of
Speaker 2: the league which you are in NWSL, Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: that also serves as kind of a not a cap,
Speaker 2: but it's definitely pressuring down valuations to a degree.
Speaker 1: I learned a billion trillion, Evan. Thank you for saying
Speaker 1: it in a way that even I could understand, and
Speaker 1: hopefully our listeners to thank you so much for the time.
Speaker 2: We'll do the Lightweight Football Pod next time, right, Okay.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we got to take another break. When we
Speaker 1: come back, I bid farewell to the show that gave
Speaker 1: me my favorite job ever. Welcome back, slices. We always
Speaker 1: love to hear from you, so hit us up on
Speaker 1: email good game at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us
Speaker 1: a voicemail at eight seven two two four fifty seventy
Speaker 1: and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. It's real easy.
Speaker 1: Watch the final episode of Around the Horn, airing tomorrow,
Speaker 1: rating zero out of zero stars to whoever canceled this
Speaker 1: legendary show review The Show that Changed My life will
Speaker 1: air one final time tomorrow after twenty three years on ESPN.
Speaker 1: Some of you may be around the horn, diehards watching
Speaker 1: since the early days of Woody Page, and others may
Speaker 1: be newer fans just catching the recent days of still
Speaker 1: somehow Woody Page. And maybe a few of you have
Speaker 1: just caught a glimpse of the show, maybe at the gym,
Speaker 1: the airport, at the bar, the now instantly recognizable snapshot
Speaker 1: of four panelists in boxes surrounding a handsome, smiley Italian
Speaker 1: host wearing all black. Well, the show is ending, and
Speaker 1: not because of ratings. They're still great. In fact, no
Speaker 1: one seems to have a good answer as to why
Speaker 1: the show won't continue past tomorrow. And while we're all
Speaker 1: very sad that host, the incredible Tony Reality and everyone
Speaker 1: else involved, from producers to panelists to fans, have at
Speaker 1: least been given time to mourn and to celebrate. The
Speaker 1: last several weeks have seen the return of old panelists
Speaker 1: like yours truly, and the opportunity to remember the funniest
Speaker 1: and most ridiculous moments as well as the times Tony
Speaker 1: shared his humanity and heartbreak and made everyone watching feel
Speaker 1: seen and less alone. We all everyone involved with the
Speaker 1: show call it a family, and really it was a
Speaker 1: rare space in this business that felt supportive, empathetic, nuanced, clever,
Speaker 1: and also always in search of diverse, thoughtful opinions. It
Speaker 1: was somehow a game show with a winner, and yet
Speaker 1: still the least competitive space in sports. Everyone wanted everyone
Speaker 1: else to shine, mostly thanks to Tony, who knew not
Speaker 1: only every sports stat, score and reference, but also every
Speaker 1: pop culture joke or reference we would drop on him,
Speaker 1: from Whitesnake to Animal House, West Side Story to Austin Powers.
Speaker 1: The show was the best. It changed my career and
Speaker 1: it changed my life. And no matter what mood I
Speaker 1: was in when I went to sit down, I always
Speaker 1: left happy. So I'm really going to miss it. Go
Speaker 1: watch tomorrow five pm Eastern on ESPN. There are some
Speaker 1: pretty awesome surprises planned. At least one of them is
Speaker 1: someone you're gonna really really like. Now it's your turn,
Speaker 1: rate and review. Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good game, Eban,
Speaker 1: good game around the Horn, you whoever decided to cancel
Speaker 1: Around on the Horn. Good game with Sarah. Spain is
Speaker 1: an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue
Speaker 1: Sports and Entertainment. You could 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 Rutter, Britney Martinez,
Speaker 1: Grace Lynch, and Gianna Palmer. Our associate producer is Lucy
Speaker 1: Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain