Speaker 1: Why what you want, win or loss, we take it.
Speaker 1: It's tough when you lose, of course, and you learn
Speaker 1: from it. But it's more than football.
Speaker 2: It's really family.
Speaker 1: Like I know people for three years now and these
Speaker 1: are my best friend and my sisters. They got my
Speaker 1: back and we do it because we happy.
Speaker 2: These players come from all walks of life. They are nurses,
Speaker 2: they are teachers, they are coaches. Oh, if you want
Speaker 2: to see women playing tackle football at their best and
Speaker 2: most athletic, this is where you would go what we.
Speaker 3: Used to bag.
Speaker 4: I'm Westksova today on the Big Take, Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 4: contributor Mary Palan asks us simple but not so simple question.
Speaker 2: Why hasn't there been women's professional tackle football? Why isn't
Speaker 2: it professionalized? Why aren't they sponsored? So women's professional football
Speaker 2: has been around in the United States for a long time.
Speaker 2: The Women's Football Alliance was formed in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: and today it has about two thousand players across thirty
Speaker 2: two states. These are women playing full contact, full tackle football.
Speaker 2: Just so we're clear, not flag, not rugby, not soccer.
Speaker 2: This is full tackle football.
Speaker 4: And it's a professional league. But these players aren't doing
Speaker 4: this full time.
Speaker 2: Correct. So there are divisions within the Women's Football Alliance
Speaker 2: for ranging from developing teams so it's brand new, you
Speaker 2: just started a team, to what they call the professional
Speaker 2: teams that are playing at a higher level of competition,
Speaker 2: usually with more experienced players, teams and coaches. Unlike the NFL,
Speaker 2: they do not have billions of dollars of marketing and
Speaker 2: sponsors behind them, so players often have to pay to
Speaker 2: cover field rental, gear, travel, hotels, the basics, and most
Speaker 2: folks are working full time jobs that are outside of football,
Speaker 2: so practices are at night and on weekends. They really
Speaker 2: really have to hustle to make it sustainable, which I
Speaker 2: think is also just a big testament to how much
Speaker 2: they obviously love the game.
Speaker 4: And we'll be visiting a practice later in the show.
Speaker 4: But Mary, when it comes to paying for their own gear,
Speaker 4: I can't think of many sports that are more expensive
Speaker 4: to suit up for than football.
Speaker 2: Yes, football is an extremely expensive sport to become involved,
Speaker 2: and anyone who's not a kid who's played football understands
Speaker 2: that as well, you've got the gear, you know, you
Speaker 2: need to have reps and officials. The other thing with
Speaker 2: football and what originally kind of interested in me in
Speaker 2: this too is physically it's extremely demanding. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of obviously head injuries, which is something I and others
Speaker 2: have written about pretty extensively. And it's a rough sport, right.
Speaker 2: You can sprain an ankle really quickly. Often you might
Speaker 2: need pain medication. So it's not just like, oh, you're
Speaker 2: popping to the gym for an hour or two. It's
Speaker 2: a very very physically demanding sport for men and for women,
Speaker 2: and it's very costly.
Speaker 4: So how does it work as compared to men's professional
Speaker 4: football when it comes to how many teams and how
Speaker 4: many games and what's the season like?
Speaker 2: So women's professional football starts where men's pretty much wraps up.
Speaker 2: You know, we had the Super Bowl earlier this year.
Speaker 2: This league is just getting started in late April, and
Speaker 2: they play throughout the spring and the summer, and it
Speaker 2: culminates in a championship that's played in Canton, Ohio at
Speaker 2: the Football Hall of Fame. In the summer, these teams
Speaker 2: are playing all over the country. They travel extensively in
Speaker 2: order to do so. And you know, obviously it's kind
Speaker 2: of day and night from the NFL, right, you know,
Speaker 2: the NFL has a massive TV deal. It has huge
Speaker 2: stadiums with corporate seats and tons of money pumping in
Speaker 2: from all sides, which is very much the result of
Speaker 2: decades of work the Women's Football Alliance. They have to
Speaker 2: work really hard to kind of conjure up their local bases.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting when I talk to a lot
Speaker 2: of these teams, the coaches and the players. A lot
Speaker 2: of smaller mid city teams are really well supported because
Speaker 2: there is not an NFL team, And unlike the WNBA,
Speaker 2: which has a partnership with the NBA, the WFA exists
Speaker 2: completely separately from the NFL. The NFL does not sponsor
Speaker 2: the Women's Football Alliance, they don't partner with them, They
Speaker 2: do not have any kind of relationship. So it's very
Speaker 2: different than what we see in terms of the development
Speaker 2: of women's professional basketball.
Speaker 4: And so who does pay for it? Is it all
Speaker 4: through sponsorship and ticket sales? Where does the money come from?
Speaker 2: So there isn't as much money and the structure is
Speaker 2: pretty different than the NFL. So the NFL we're pretty
Speaker 2: familiar with. You know, there's an owner or a small
Speaker 2: group of owners who owns each team. If you followed
Speaker 2: the Commander's sale. Those are extremely lucrative deals. Usually a
Speaker 2: lot of these teams are structured as nonprofits, and what
Speaker 2: that allows the teams to do is do a lot
Speaker 2: more grassroots fundraising, so they could go to a local
Speaker 2: business and say, hey, cut us a check, it's a
Speaker 2: tax right off, and you're supporting the development of women's football.
Speaker 2: And the nonprofit model also kind of changes the culture
Speaker 2: of the teams a little bit. One of the teams
Speaker 2: that I talk to, you know, they have a program
Speaker 2: where they partner with girls who play on junior and
Speaker 2: boys high school teams and they get to go to
Speaker 2: these games, and then the women who play WFA football
Speaker 2: go and support the girls at their games, especially if
Speaker 2: they hear that there's bullying or anything else like that.
Speaker 2: So it's a very different culture, I would argue than
Speaker 2: the NFL, where you've got agents, you've got drafts, you've
Speaker 2: got multimillion dollar deals individual players are negotiating. The players
Speaker 2: here have very very different headwinds. The WFA is not
Speaker 2: shy about, you know, the financial disparities here which we
Speaker 2: see across men's and women's sports. During this year Super Bowl,
Speaker 2: they did this campaign called give Us a Second, and
Speaker 2: it was kind of their cheeky way of pointing out
Speaker 2: that with a half minute ad that costs seven million
Speaker 2: dollars during the Super Bowl, a donation equivalent to what
Speaker 2: they paid for a single second. So about two hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty thousand dollars could sponsor entire season of women's
Speaker 2: pro football. That isn't just like a pay gap, that's
Speaker 2: like a pay stratosphere. That's a different, different world.
Speaker 4: And of course it's because this league just doesn't have
Speaker 4: the kind of following that pro foot problem was popular
Speaker 4: sport in America does. And if a lot of these
Speaker 4: teams are nonprofits, the players are paying for their own
Speaker 4: gear and travel and the budgets are so small, how
Speaker 4: is it really a pro sport.
Speaker 2: There's a long history of the debate around what is
Speaker 2: a professional athlete. I'm thinking of the Amateur Athletic Union AAU,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the fights that runners went up
Speaker 2: against the Olympic Committee and the nineteen seventies because they
Speaker 2: weren't being paid to race, which is crazy when you
Speaker 2: think about how many shoes Nike has sold on the
Speaker 2: feet of runners, right, So I think that they want
Speaker 2: it to be professionalized. It's like the whole mantra from
Speaker 2: a field of dreams. If you build it, they will come.
Speaker 2: Has been at the root of so many terrible stadium
Speaker 2: deals and arena deals, But here you see them applying it.
Speaker 2: Kind of that kind of thinking to a league. If
Speaker 2: you call it professional, if you increase the athleticism, if
Speaker 2: you have committed athletes, if you treat it seriously, then
Speaker 2: sponsors hopefully will as well, and fans will want to
Speaker 2: watch as well. We say professional because we want to
Speaker 2: see the best of anybody compete and playing. And as
Speaker 2: it stands now, they have the whole world of women's
Speaker 2: professional football. You know, it's them. So I think the
Speaker 2: hope is that with time that it grows and develops
Speaker 2: and that the players will get paid. One of the
Speaker 2: things I think about a lot in sports is when
Speaker 2: you show up just because things are the way they
Speaker 2: are doesn't mean it's right or the way things are
Speaker 2: going to stay. You know, if you look at a
Speaker 2: sport like tennis, Serena Williams outsells most of, if not all,
Speaker 2: of the men when she was, you know, competing before
Speaker 2: her retirement. So we have a lot of these assumptions
Speaker 2: about revenue and women's sports that aren't necessarily true or dated.
Speaker 2: You know, our women's national team outpaces our men in
Speaker 2: TV ratings all the time. You know, during March Madness
Speaker 2: with women's basketball, you saw that when they were given decent,
Speaker 2: if not equal, slots, they did amazing in the ratings.
Speaker 2: So I think that this is also kind of under
Speaker 2: that umbrella for me.
Speaker 4: So when you were reporting, you spoke to a lot
Speaker 4: of the players. What did they tell you about what
Speaker 4: it's like to try to hold down a normal life
Speaker 4: on top of a professional football player.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting because I parallel a lot of
Speaker 2: the conversations about injuries in the sport. You know, we
Speaker 2: have this quote in the story, injuries are a part
Speaker 2: of life, and I think a lot of women feel
Speaker 2: that way. And I think it's always silly going back
Speaker 2: to assumptions. You know, you know, it's really hard pregnancy.
Speaker 2: So where do we get this idea that women can't
Speaker 2: do tough physical athletic things, because last I checked, for
Speaker 2: a long long time, women's bodies were doing all sorts
Speaker 2: of really impressive feats. And you know that said, I
Speaker 2: think most women have to juggle a ton of stuff
Speaker 2: all the time. They're so committed to this sport that
Speaker 2: they are willing to make the time in addition to
Speaker 2: caretaking duties which often fall to women, in addition to
Speaker 2: professional ambitions. And you know, there are even some people
Speaker 2: I talk to where their daughters play. Their son is
Speaker 2: playing football, so they wanted to get involved as well.
Speaker 2: So it also can become kind of a family event,
Speaker 2: the same way that a lot of sports do too.
Speaker 2: But instead of maybe you know, the dad, it's the
Speaker 2: mom who's really kind of leading the charge on that.
Speaker 4: Mary, we spoke to a wisecarver. She's the assistant coach
Speaker 4: of player development with a Portland Fighting Shockwave, And here's
Speaker 4: what she had to say.
Speaker 5: When we get visibility and accessibility in marketing and dollars invested,
Speaker 5: people show up, they want to play, they want to watch,
Speaker 5: and you can see that even like the WNBA, it's
Speaker 5: not the people this all of a sudden love women's basketball.
Speaker 5: So people can watch basketball now, but I don't think,
Speaker 5: you know, the interest is necessarily different.
Speaker 4: And Mary, she's talking about people watching. Do they pack
Speaker 4: the stands at these games? Who are the fans?
Speaker 2: Sure? So I'm based in Los Angeles and angel City,
Speaker 2: which is our national women's Soccer League team is packing
Speaker 2: out Bank of California Stadium and it's second season. You
Speaker 2: would think they've been playing there for twenty years. I
Speaker 2: think it's exactly what she's talking about. You know, it's
Speaker 2: interesting she's in Portland. So this story I reported on
Speaker 2: the heels of something Portland. I wrote about this bar
Speaker 2: called the Sports Bra, which is the first bar in
Speaker 2: the country that only play women's sports, and it's packed.
Speaker 2: It is a great neighborhood vibe. There was a line
Speaker 2: out the door and I was actually there for a
Speaker 2: Thorns game. The Portland Thorns, which is their soccer team,
Speaker 2: is really really well supported and kind of beloved in
Speaker 2: the community, and I think Portland is a great example
Speaker 2: of a community that really sports. Women's sports are trying
Speaker 2: to get a WMA team now, and exactly it goes
Speaker 2: back to kind of these bigger systemic issues in sports.
Speaker 2: Are women getting the same time slots, Are they getting
Speaker 2: the same marketing budgets? Are they getting the same ad
Speaker 2: buys from sponsors?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Leading into these events? There are all these things that
Speaker 2: go around sports. And this is an anecdotal observation, but
Speaker 2: I think people want to watch great competition men women, old, young,
Speaker 2: however you want to slice it. Sports are stories with
Speaker 2: an uncertain outcome. That's why we tune in to watch anything.
Speaker 2: And I think that that's part of why when you
Speaker 2: give an equal platform, there's drama, there's plot, you want
Speaker 2: to know who's going to win. It's like this primal
Speaker 2: thing that's wired into us. So I think that she's
Speaker 2: a great example of like you know, the shockwave is
Speaker 2: right in the heart of that, I think, and exemplifies
Speaker 2: that definitely.
Speaker 4: More with Mary in just a bit, But after the break,
Speaker 4: we head to the field to watch a women's pro
Speaker 4: football team in action.
Speaker 6: There's ladies.
Speaker 4: We wanted to see what a women's pro football practice
Speaker 4: looks like. So our producers, Michael Flarro and Mow Barrow
Speaker 4: went out to watch the DC Divas. They're a pro
Speaker 4: team that plays in suburban Virginia just outside Washington, DC.
Speaker 6: Dava Jumper, Why we did.
Speaker 4: What what? Right down?
Speaker 6: My name is Chelice EPs kangily known as Tig. I
Speaker 6: am a middle linebacker. I've been playing for It is
Speaker 6: my eleventh season playing professional tackle football. My day job.
Speaker 6: I am actually in the military, even in the Military
Speaker 6: Air Force for twenty two years. I've been playing sports
Speaker 6: all my life, So I started playing at I think
Speaker 6: seven years old. Man, I was on my elementary school
Speaker 6: basketball team with all guys. I've been playing sports with
Speaker 6: all guys all my life. So when I found out
Speaker 6: about the professional tackle team, I was ecstatic. It was
Speaker 6: a dream come true for me because you know, I'm
Speaker 6: finally able to actually play tackle football.
Speaker 3: You clearly love it. What's the biggest draw for you? Like,
Speaker 3: what keeps you going coming out to these practices, going
Speaker 3: to games all year?
Speaker 6: Oh Man, hitting somebody, hitting somebody, and it's nothing they
Speaker 6: can do about it. They just gotta get up and
Speaker 6: keep moving. It's a stress reliever. You know. It's amazing.
Speaker 6: It's a rush, it really is.
Speaker 7: Felicia Donaldson I played offense, line, right and left guard,
Speaker 7: and for my day job, I'm a trained lawyer and immigration. However,
Speaker 7: what I'm doing right now is in the process of
Speaker 7: starting my own nonprofit to focus on raising awareness and
Speaker 7: women in football. So today Faith Robinson and I she's
Speaker 7: on the defense, we visited Eastern Senior High School. We
Speaker 7: did a presentation for their girls flag football team, and
Speaker 7: our hope is that we continue building this relationship with them.
Speaker 2: Because there's a stereotype that.
Speaker 7: Comes along with female football players, and it's like to
Speaker 7: show like, no, actually, we're lawyers, we're chemists.
Speaker 2: Some of us work for NASA.
Speaker 7: We have engineers, we have teachers, we have law enforcement,
Speaker 7: we have. The gamut runs wild in terms of all
Speaker 7: the different kinds of careers and pathways you have in
Speaker 7: addition to being mothers, to being big sisters, aunties, caretakers,
Speaker 7: and football players. So just giving them the opportunity to
Speaker 7: understand that you can go so far.
Speaker 2: So it was just great. It felt like, these are
Speaker 2: my little sisters.
Speaker 3: What's the end goal? What does it look like?
Speaker 7: I wanted to be able to get paid to play,
Speaker 7: Like literally, that's the end goal for me. Conversation to
Speaker 7: play full recognition from the NFL and for them to
Speaker 7: embrace the women's football team. Note us as competitors, but
Speaker 7: see us as equals.
Speaker 4: In between the tackle drills. Michael and Moe also spoke
Speaker 4: to some of the Divas coaches and front office staff.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 8: Alicia Marphall. They called me coach Ghost and I'm the
Speaker 8: head coach of the DC Divas. When I was a player,
Speaker 8: I was played for the Divas for ten years I
Speaker 8: was a captain, but I was also a leader on
Speaker 8: the team. At times if we didn't have a coach,
Speaker 8: I ran the practices for the offensive line. Captains have
Speaker 8: played a huge role in this team for twenty years,
Speaker 8: really the backbone of the support for the coaches in history. Generally,
Speaker 8: our coaches have been men until past recent years. When
Speaker 8: we won national championship in twenty fifteen, Alison Fisher was
Speaker 8: the first team to become head coach, so it's a
Speaker 8: pretty monumental time for our team. That is one of
Speaker 8: my focuses is to grow women in the sport, especially
Speaker 8: our alumni. We are about six hundred strong alumni, and
Speaker 8: there's no reason why players should retire and not stay
Speaker 8: with the organization, whether it's marketing, COO. Because we are nonprofit.
Speaker 8: We have grown so much to where we have a
Speaker 8: chief operating Officer, Director of Football Ops, and things of
Speaker 8: that nature. So we're just growing and it's natural that
Speaker 8: women grow with the sport.
Speaker 9: What would you say is the difference and someone just
Speaker 9: walking up tonight like me saying what's the difference between
Speaker 9: women's tackle football and men's tackle football?
Speaker 2: What answer would you give them?
Speaker 8: The playbook that these ladies learn is a definitely at
Speaker 8: minimum a high level collegiate playbook and NFL playbook. A
Speaker 8: lot of the staff that I have, majority of them
Speaker 8: are all head coach caliber coaches or our head coaches
Speaker 8: somewhere else. But these guys are our backbone. They truly
Speaker 8: wholehardly believe in what we're doing. The difference is the
Speaker 8: learning curve. Men have the liberty to not have to work.
Speaker 8: They can train all day long. They can go to
Speaker 8: football practice, train some days a week. They have a
Speaker 8: nutrition as somebody cooking their meal, somebody driving this this
Speaker 8: big fat salary. These women out here they don't have that.
Speaker 8: They don't have that. All of them have come from
Speaker 8: a very very long workday. Majority of them are mothers
Speaker 8: and high ranking professions, you know. So it is a
Speaker 8: hard task to carrying. They're out here until sometimes eleven thirty,
Speaker 8: twelve o'clock at night. That's the difference. I think we
Speaker 8: work a lot harder because it's not given to us.
Speaker 1: Oh you man.
Speaker 10: My name is Susannah Brown aka Susie Brown. I am
Speaker 10: one of the offensive line coaches, and I am an analyst.
Speaker 10: I think one of the things that is unique about
Speaker 10: women's sports period, And I think you saw it a
Speaker 10: lot during COVID, you know, with the bubble with the
Speaker 10: WNBA versus the NBA. We have a lot more kids around,
Speaker 10: and you know, because it's a lot more likely that
Speaker 10: you have women who are going to be the primary caretaker.
Speaker 10: So like the fact that we have kids on the sideline,
Speaker 10: you know, during games, at practices and stuff like that.
Speaker 10: Like that's something that I think is unique to adult
Speaker 10: women's sports.
Speaker 3: Has anyone ever been taken back when they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: you say you played tackle football, women's tackle football? What
Speaker 3: do you say in response? How does the conversation go?
Speaker 10: Usually there are lots of follow up questions. They automatically
Speaker 10: want to see if I'm aggressive. That's usually some questions.
Speaker 10: I was at a music festival and there was a
Speaker 10: guy who's like, oh, can you hit? And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 10: I could hit. I play that like I was. I
Speaker 10: think I just made the All Star team that year,
Speaker 10: and he was like proven. So like I literally got
Speaker 10: down of my stance and like he got down in
Speaker 10: a defensive line stance and I drove her right back
Speaker 10: and he was like, okay, all right, let me try again.
Speaker 10: Let me try again. He's like, I wasn't ready.
Speaker 2: I wasn't ready.
Speaker 10: But it's definitely you get people who are not unbelievers
Speaker 10: until they see it, you know, sort of got to
Speaker 10: see it to believe it because they've never seen it before.
Speaker 10: I was a very aggressive basketball player and so finding football.
Speaker 10: The reason I play football and not basketball is the aggression. Like,
Speaker 10: the aggression is the reason and for like, you know,
Speaker 10: being able to hit somebody and like assert your dominance
Speaker 10: over somebody and just like it's it's a rush on
Speaker 10: like no other.
Speaker 2: I'm Lois Cook.
Speaker 9: I'm vice president and defensive back of the DC Divas.
Speaker 2: My day job is to grow the game.
Speaker 3: For someone who's never been to a women's fallow game,
Speaker 3: what do you say to them? Like, what do you say,
Speaker 3: like why they should come out to watch a game?
Speaker 9: First of all, it's a fun experience. We are a
Speaker 9: family friendly organization.
Speaker 2: We have contests and giveaways. We have kids come down
Speaker 2: and do.
Speaker 9: Dance offs, and you know, they do a uniform race
Speaker 9: where they try to hurry up and put on the uniform.
Speaker 9: But what you get is you get women out here
Speaker 9: who are not only a lot of things during the day,
Speaker 9: but then they all come together at night to play football.
Speaker 9: And when you have the type of determination, you know,
Speaker 9: despite all the odds, the challenges with lack of resources.
Speaker 9: As you see, we're practicing late at night. There's kids
Speaker 9: out here, you know, and sometimes you know, childcare is
Speaker 9: an issue, and you know it's a hurdle, but we're
Speaker 9: out here still doing it. And when you have that
Speaker 9: type of determination and that type of perseverance, no matter
Speaker 9: the obstacle that women aren't still out here playing this game,
Speaker 9: you see that translate on the field. You see the passion,
Speaker 9: you see the intensity, and you see the grid. It's
Speaker 9: interesting because women who play this game, they start playing
Speaker 9: typically they start playing at eighteen years or older. So
Speaker 9: we didn't grow with the game. We didn't have anything
Speaker 9: to funnel into this sport. So recruiting and just finding
Speaker 9: people who want to play is it's a big deal.
Speaker 9: We got to find them so and it's a lot
Speaker 9: of word of mouth, so a lot of the players
Speaker 9: have friends and family. We put a you know, social
Speaker 9: media is a big thing. We have multiple tryouts so
Speaker 9: that people do have the opportunity. Maybe they didn't see
Speaker 9: the first one. We have three to four tryouts throughout
Speaker 9: the fall, season so that we can get more people
Speaker 9: in here. Preseason will typically be, you know, with most
Speaker 9: of the teams January through March, where we'll.
Speaker 2: Have three practices a week.
Speaker 9: We'll also combine that with virtual practices, so maybe there's
Speaker 9: one to two days virtually and then three days on
Speaker 9: the field, and then when we get into the season,
Speaker 9: we have two days per week on the field with
Speaker 9: the game day being on a Saturday, and then we'll
Speaker 9: have film study and then we'll have unit meetings virtually
Speaker 9: as well, so we pretty much use up our whole week.
Speaker 9: I personally have four sons. They're ages three through sixteen,
Speaker 9: and so it is a juggle, but you find a rhythm,
Speaker 9: you know, when you are passionate and when you want
Speaker 9: to do something and you have the love for this game,
Speaker 9: you find a way to make it work. And so
Speaker 9: whether you're having your kids out here with you or
Speaker 9: whether you are, you know, doing the crock pod in
Speaker 9: the morning because you know you're going to be at
Speaker 9: practice at night, you find these little things to just
Speaker 9: kind of support the game. We used to play on
Speaker 9: grass fields where we had to use our headlights from
Speaker 9: our cars, and this is real talk to shine light
Speaker 9: on the field just so that we can get that
Speaker 9: practice time in. We used to practice in a parking
Speaker 9: lot with no grass, just doing walkthroughs because we didn't
Speaker 9: have the resources. So we have come a long way,
Speaker 9: and it's so important to have the support of our
Speaker 9: community and those around us, those who support the men
Speaker 9: who play. You know, a lot of people say that
Speaker 9: they want to see women with these big, powerful hits
Speaker 9: and just like the men do, and guess what, we
Speaker 9: do it too. We have those hits. But if you
Speaker 9: want to see the women do better, you have to
Speaker 9: invest in us.
Speaker 5: There you go, they're going.
Speaker 2: That's how you run.
Speaker 4: When we come back. Mary Palan talks about what it'll
Speaker 4: take for the Divas and other women's pro football teams
Speaker 4: to make it big. Mary, when you look at men's
Speaker 4: professional football, so much of it now is about money,
Speaker 4: huge salaries, television deals, sponsorships. With women's pro football, it
Speaker 4: seems to still be mostly about love of the game.
Speaker 2: Definitely, and I think love of the game also drives
Speaker 2: the men's side. I think most people don't realize the
Speaker 2: average NFL career is about three years, and that's if
Speaker 2: you're lucky enough to make it to the NFL. Which
Speaker 2: obviously the vast majority of D one players do not
Speaker 2: and the vast majority of high school players do not
Speaker 2: make it to a Division one program. But with the women,
Speaker 2: that's not even on the table as a carrot, and
Speaker 2: that changes the dynamics a lot. It isn't a D
Speaker 2: one scholarship sport, and there isn't some big paycheck and
Speaker 2: a flurry of agents that will represent you and get
Speaker 2: you millions of dollars for you to earn by a
Speaker 2: pretty young age. So I think that heart. You really
Speaker 2: feel it when you watch and you see the practices,
Speaker 2: and just from a time management standpoint, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: really incredible. Part of what the Women's Football Alliance also
Speaker 2: has to work on is when you go to the NFL,
Speaker 2: you've had years of basically being in a fee system,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's pop order or your college. They
Speaker 2: often have to take players who are rugby players, soccer players, etc.
Speaker 2: And really educate them on the game, on plays, on
Speaker 2: the way you move your body, being very different obviously
Speaker 2: with this kind of padding. You know, I talked to
Speaker 2: some rugby players who are like, we think it's crazy
Speaker 2: there is padding.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: In rugby, we just go out there, and some say
Speaker 2: even more dangerous. I don't know. I haven't seen the data.
Speaker 2: So there's an educational component that also has to happen
Speaker 2: on top of it, And I think to do something
Speaker 2: like that on top of work and family and all
Speaker 2: these other things really shows that folks really love it.
Speaker 2: And it's not surprising to me that the WFA has
Speaker 2: been this huge feeder system for female coaches and refs
Speaker 2: in the NFL. All the more surprising to me, honestly,
Speaker 2: that the NFL doesn't back it, because it's been this
Speaker 2: incredible pipeline of talent for them, for women who really
Speaker 2: know the game and really want to be immersed in it.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about that physical aspect of the game, because
Speaker 4: a lot of these players are not in their young twenties.
Speaker 4: They have a whole range of ages of people who
Speaker 4: are showing up to play nationally.
Speaker 2: Obviously, we're having a lot of conversations about head injuries
Speaker 2: and just overall safety in men's professional football and men's
Speaker 2: football at all levels. And a lot of the conversations
Speaker 2: I had with players about safety were very similar to
Speaker 2: those I've had with men playing the game. They love
Speaker 2: the game. It's also part of the exhilaration and the
Speaker 2: high of it. I think one of the things that
Speaker 2: shifted is kind of what do we know about the risks?
Speaker 2: You know, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, you had a
Speaker 2: professional league that was in many cases denying outright that
Speaker 2: football is dangerous. I think that's you know, shifted pretty dramatically,
Speaker 2: especially with the big settlements that have been paid out.
Speaker 2: You know, I grew up in a house. My brother
Speaker 2: played football, my dad played football. I grew up in Eugene, Oregon.
Speaker 2: Football is part of life. And when I was reporting
Speaker 2: this story and what originally interested me and it was like, well,
Speaker 2: what are assumptions about men and boys playing this sport
Speaker 2: that we know can be really harmful. So if we're
Speaker 2: saying it's okay for boys and men to do it,
Speaker 2: why are we not saying women are doing it? And
Speaker 2: I think we live in this interesting time with our
Speaker 2: assumptions about female appas plates. You know, mixed martial arts
Speaker 2: is a sport I've written about, and Dana White, you know,
Speaker 2: has been the face of the UFC for a long time.
Speaker 2: I mean, he told me he didn't think people would
Speaker 2: want to watch women beat each other up. And then
Speaker 2: Ronda Rowsi and Holly Holms show up and all these
Speaker 2: other you know, amazing women, Ronda Rowsi being a professionally
Speaker 2: trained judo athlete and she made more money than the
Speaker 2: men you know for a while there. So I think
Speaker 2: that that's also something that's shifting as well. And also
Speaker 2: it reflects the huge fan base that the NFL has
Speaker 2: actively cultivated of women who've been fans of men's football.
Speaker 2: The NFL's job is to grow the game of football.
Speaker 2: They have pumped a ton of money into trying to
Speaker 2: cultivate female fans in the face of paying cheerleaders to
Speaker 2: seventy five an hour, in the face of horrible domestic
Speaker 2: violence cases, and I think they've been successful in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways. So it's this interesting tension to me
Speaker 2: between people wanting the money and the eyeballs of female fans.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to them getting on the field,
Speaker 2: there's still a stigma. There's still something unresolved there, and
Speaker 2: these players are just smack in the middle of it.
Speaker 2: You know, they're out there playing and they don't care
Speaker 2: about any of that. They love the game and they
Speaker 2: love playing.
Speaker 4: Asia Wiskarfer, she's the assistant coach in Portland who we
Speaker 4: heard from earlier, also talked about balancing that risk of
Speaker 4: injury in football.
Speaker 5: The fear is if there's an injury, regardless of what
Speaker 5: it is, and I don't think it's football specific, it
Speaker 5: interferes with your entire life. If you're a mother, if
Speaker 5: you work on your feet, there's like lots of reasons
Speaker 5: why you would be considering that. But the opportunity to play,
Speaker 5: I think the ROI in that is so much higher
Speaker 5: that I don't think it's a pervasive concern that keeps
Speaker 5: people from playing. Not by the time they make it
Speaker 5: to the field.
Speaker 4: Mary, I think that idea of the ROI, the return
Speaker 4: on investment of the game and everything that they get
Speaker 4: out of it is worth that injury risk when they
Speaker 4: do the calculation.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think the ROI of women in sports, you know,
Speaker 2: you can't underestimate that. I mean, we live in a
Speaker 2: culture that's constantly telling women, including professional apps, you have
Speaker 2: to look a certain way. Often sports is shot by
Speaker 2: men and through a male gaze, whether it's your sleek
Speaker 2: ad or it's the broadcast you see on TV. And
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I can't even tell you how
Speaker 2: many women I've talked to across all sports, football and otherwise,
Speaker 2: where it's part of the empowerment of I'm using my
Speaker 2: body as a tool. I'm using it as a machine.
Speaker 4: Mary, you've talked about how the stands are full of fans,
Speaker 4: that people who are aware of the sport and watch
Speaker 4: it really love it. What is the ambition for this league?
Speaker 4: Do they set their sights on an NFL for women
Speaker 4: at the same level.
Speaker 2: I think it's a little unclear kind of what the
Speaker 2: goal is. But I think you know, when you consider
Speaker 2: that they call themselves professional football, when you consider that
Speaker 2: they are going to have their championship game on ESPN two,
Speaker 2: you know you can read between the lines and see
Speaker 2: that you know they do want to be right up there.
Speaker 2: And that's not a crazy goal. Look at where the
Speaker 2: WNBA was when it started in the mid nineties and
Speaker 2: where it is today. Look at women's soccer. I grew
Speaker 2: up watching me a Ham and now there actually is
Speaker 2: a sustained, viable league after many you know, starts and stops,
Speaker 2: and so I don't think that's a crazy idea that
Speaker 2: there could be a league that has its own fans,
Speaker 2: it has its own stars, that has its own contracts
Speaker 2: and things so I see no reason why they can't
Speaker 2: follow in the footsteps of these other leagues that have,
Speaker 2: you know, since blossomed.
Speaker 4: When you're talking about trying to build out this league
Speaker 4: and making it into really a more professional league, a
Speaker 4: lot of that has to do with sponsorship. Where's the
Speaker 4: money coming from right now and where do they need
Speaker 4: to take it?
Speaker 2: Like it or not, Sports are business, even though we
Speaker 2: kind of talk about it with like a religious passion,
Speaker 2: and it's a multi billion dollar industry, and right now,
Speaker 2: the folks who write the checks for professional sports are
Speaker 2: by and large white men. That means that a lot
Speaker 2: of things like the women's football lines can get ignored.
Speaker 2: And you need sponsors to grow the sport. You need
Speaker 2: it to pay players, you need it to pay coaches,
Speaker 2: you need it to procure venues, you need it to
Speaker 2: make sure that doctors are around. And there's a lot
Speaker 2: of room to grow there. Right now, players are doing
Speaker 2: basically their own fundraising at a very grassroots level. You know,
Speaker 2: when you start a sport, that's often the case. It's
Speaker 2: hard to imagine, but you know, once upon a time,
Speaker 2: the NFL was like a small niche thing as well.
Speaker 2: Nothing's huge at the gate we like it or not.
Speaker 2: We live in a capital society and money determines a
Speaker 2: lot of how and when things grow. You know, at
Speaker 2: some point sponsors realize, like, wow, women are fifty percent
Speaker 2: of the population and they might be interested in this,
Speaker 2: And millions of people, women and men watch football and
Speaker 2: are really interested in it, and so often sponsors. It's
Speaker 2: interesting they're often late to the game when it comes
Speaker 2: to women's sports. The track record is not great in
Speaker 2: terms of sponsors and broadcasters, right, so there's a lot
Speaker 2: that still needs to happen. And you know, who knows
Speaker 2: I think that you know, sports is really behind in
Speaker 2: terms of representation off the field of play, and that
Speaker 2: obviously impacts what happens on the field of play. So
Speaker 2: it'll be interesting to see as this generation of Women's
Speaker 2: Football Alliance players kind of moves on in their careers.
Speaker 2: We already know they're in the NFL and coaching capacity,
Speaker 2: so it'll be interesting to see kind of how these
Speaker 2: players and the alumni end up affecting the finances of
Speaker 2: this that they very much have lived. When you watch
Speaker 2: the game, it makes you realize how many assumptions you
Speaker 2: have about football, and when you watch women playing it
Speaker 2: to be honest, I went to the Cali War practice
Speaker 2: and it was surreal to me because I have never
Speaker 2: seen people who look like me play tackle football. I
Speaker 2: can't even tell you how many hours of tackle football
Speaker 2: I watched over my lifetime, right, and it made me think, well,
Speaker 2: why haven't I seen this? You know, I read about
Speaker 2: sports for a living. I grew up in a football mecha.
Speaker 2: I grew up in a football house. Like, why has
Speaker 2: it taken thirty some odd years for me to see
Speaker 2: something like this, especially when women have made such strides
Speaker 2: in combat sports. So I think it's a start. I
Speaker 2: think it's one of those stories. You know, when you're
Speaker 2: writing a piece for a magazine or newspaper, part of
Speaker 2: your brain is always like, how will this age? And
Speaker 2: I hope that this is like a period piece. I
Speaker 2: hope that I look back on this story and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: my gosh, remember when I wrote about women's football when
Speaker 2: people had to pay, when they were scrambling for sponsors,
Speaker 2: when they were scrambling, you know, And that happens in
Speaker 2: sports all the time. You write about like the rookie
Speaker 2: and then they go on to win a US Open
Speaker 2: or a big title or whatever. And so I very
Speaker 2: much felt like that when I was writing about this,
Speaker 2: that even though it's been around since two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: it's like this timestamp piece of like, here's the snapshot
Speaker 2: of where this sport is in twenty twenty three. Who
Speaker 2: knows where it's going to go.
Speaker 4: Mary, Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. This is fun.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.
Speaker 4: It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 4: shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 4: wherever you listen. And we'd love to hear from you emails, questions,
Speaker 4: or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The
Speaker 4: supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicki Ergalina. Our
Speaker 4: senior producer is Catherine Fink. Our producers are Michael Falerro
Speaker 4: and Mobarrow Build de Garcia as our engineer. Our original
Speaker 4: music was composed by Leo Sidron. I'm West Kasova. We'll
Speaker 4: be back tomorrow with another Big Take.