Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. You have gone through transition. Obviously.
Speaker 1: I love that you're an author. I was reading somewhere
Speaker 1: that you kind of knew it was time to go,
Speaker 1: that you were thinking a lot about storytelling. Have you
Speaker 1: always been a writer? I have. I've been practicing writing.
Speaker 1: I started writing my junior year in high school, and
Speaker 1: when I got to the NBA, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of downtime in travel and hotels and things of
Speaker 1: that sort, so I would just write. And a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that I used to write were just ads.
Speaker 1: I would write advertisements. I had an ad agency that
Speaker 1: I found in and we did a lot of work.
Speaker 1: Once some someone wards would be in a small agency.
Speaker 1: And then when I retired, it was like, okay, well
Speaker 1: what am I going to do now? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I enjoy writing, and um, I'll write a film. So
Speaker 1: I wrote Deer Basketball and I was very fortunate for
Speaker 1: that to be successful, and then just continued on. And
Speaker 1: how is it different from what you know, how many
Speaker 1: years you played in the n b A. I mean,
Speaker 1: what are you learning kind of about yourself in doing
Speaker 1: this well, how much I enjoy teaching and like passing
Speaker 1: on information to the next generation. It feels much much
Speaker 1: better than any championship that can be won, because it's
Speaker 1: it's it's more lasting. Right. If I can do something
Speaker 1: that inspires a kid in some way, or it gets
Speaker 1: the kid to view something differently in some way, and
Speaker 1: then he goes through his life, she goes through her life,
Speaker 1: and then in turn they inspire someone else. You create
Speaker 1: this domino effect that is far greater than any championship
Speaker 1: that can be won and huge. Jue. You know one
Speaker 1: thing I want to ask you about, and I guess
Speaker 1: it's kind of near and dear to both of us,
Speaker 1: but we think about equality in sports and we've been
Speaker 1: talking about how tennis seems to have figured it out,
Speaker 1: but a lot of other sports happen. What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that? Absolutely, and that's probably, like I won't
Speaker 1: say probably, it is our mission, uh to do something
Speaker 1: about them. I have four girls, oh you know, the
Speaker 1: first two are definitely athletes, the third one in the
Speaker 1: fourth phone we'll see, still too young. But if I
Speaker 1: had to bet, I'd say they'd be athletes as well.
Speaker 1: So it's important to fight for that and make sure
Speaker 1: that when they come of age that they are ready
Speaker 1: to get equal pay right and fight for what it
Speaker 1: is that they deserve. Why has it been such a struggle?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's a great question. I do not know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like there's a lack of investment. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. Like its like in basketball, for example,
Speaker 1: the w n B A and saying, okay, well, the
Speaker 1: dum n B A is not as popular as the NBA. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I can remember the NBA when it first started, and
Speaker 1: I remember some companies putting a lot of money behind
Speaker 1: marketing players, and through marketing those players, the popularity of
Speaker 1: the game picked up. You guys are sitting here and saying, okay,
Speaker 1: you're waiting for the w n B A to become popular. Well,
Speaker 1: we're waiting on the investment from corporations to start telling
Speaker 1: the stories of some of these young women that have
Speaker 1: unbelievable stories, unbelievable inspirational stories to tell, and they're not
Speaker 1: being told. Why right, and so we're gonna get there.