Speaker 1: Recording in progress.
Speaker 2: Oh hello, Caitlin, We're back to the old zoom. I see.
Speaker 3: You know, I wish we were in the same room.
Speaker 3: I wish I were in Australia as much grief as
Speaker 3: I've given Australia through the years, because it is snowy
Speaker 3: here and it is the opposite of tennis weather.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is definitely an indoor weather in New York
Speaker 2: right now. It's lots of snow. Although I'm a little
Speaker 2: bummed because it's been a while since I've seen snow
Speaker 2: in New York. Got a little bit of a smattering
Speaker 2: one day and i remember looking outside and thinking, oh snow.
Speaker 2: But now I'm in real hot weather in Australia. Although
Speaker 2: the weather down here right now has been amazing, so
Speaker 2: I'm loving it.
Speaker 3: Tell me what you've been up to in Australia.
Speaker 2: Family, seeing friends, and it's been really nice. My brother
Speaker 2: was over from New Zealand. He brought his three kids
Speaker 2: and so it was nice to see them and just
Speaker 2: you know, having a good time in Sydney. Now I'm
Speaker 2: back on the road. I'm in Adelaide, current Plaire coaching
Speaker 2: Alan Perez. She won her first round yesterday, so I'm
Speaker 2: back on the I'm on the I feel like a mouse.
Speaker 2: I'm back on the treadmill of the tennis life.
Speaker 1: You're back on the bag. How does it appear to
Speaker 1: be back coaching.
Speaker 2: Back on the bag. Yeah, it's nice. Actually, you know,
Speaker 2: you know me, I can't help myself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're a doer, you're action oriented.
Speaker 1: You got to get in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like to help. It's been great. You know,
Speaker 2: Ellen's very talented player, and been nice to sort of
Speaker 2: get on the court with her and impartant some of
Speaker 2: my wisdom and now that I'm ured, so so it's
Speaker 2: been nice. Yeah, it's good to see everybody, you know,
Speaker 2: bumped into all the players, and you know, seeing everybody
Speaker 2: is always a nice thing at the start of the
Speaker 2: year for everybody here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it seems like with the storylines coming out
Speaker 3: of a couple of places around the world, but mostly
Speaker 3: Australia and the last week, like you know, there's no rest,
Speaker 3: but there's also no break.
Speaker 2: So no rest, no break. I did you know, read
Speaker 2: a few things recently. It was an article in the
Speaker 2: New York Times, I Matt Fiderman about you know, this
Speaker 2: sort of sort of the dysfunction of tennis and we'll
Speaker 2: be like, hello, We've been telling you for a while.
Speaker 2: This is not news, but but it is interesting to
Speaker 2: see all the goings on. And there are discussions that
Speaker 2: I hear with players about various things even this week,
Speaker 2: you know, about prize money and equality and all the
Speaker 2: sort of things and what the things they're fighting for.
Speaker 2: So the start of the year year, New year always
Speaker 2: brings everybody together, and then you know, the fractions start
Speaker 2: throughout the years, throughout the year about who wants what
Speaker 2: and what wants who.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't even know if I want to bring
Speaker 3: up the most recent and controversy about some division the
Speaker 3: WTA seems to be having with one of its own players.
Speaker 3: This Elena Rabakiana situation is bananas. You and I have
Speaker 3: texted a little bit about it last week, Like holy moley.
Speaker 3: It is separation between her and the coach, the appointment
Speaker 3: of a new coach, the announcement that the old coach
Speaker 3: will be coming to Australia anyway, and then the WTA
Speaker 3: saying this coach has been banned. It does seem that
Speaker 3: the WTA an organization who has not been spared from
Speaker 3: our considerable amounts of criticism. I think is on the
Speaker 3: right side of this thing, and kudos to them to
Speaker 3: try to take what I understand to be a lot
Speaker 3: of evidence and material and turn it into something productive,
Speaker 3: which is safeguarding a player, which is how I understand it.
Speaker 3: It would be great if somebody from the WTA came
Speaker 3: out and sort of spoke to it and said, Hey, this.
Speaker 1: Is what's going on.
Speaker 3: This is why we do what we do, this is
Speaker 3: what the you know, process looks like. This is what
Speaker 3: our point of view for this player but all the
Speaker 3: other players is about. Again, we don't have that, but
Speaker 3: we do seem to have them exercising a little muscle
Speaker 3: in trying to keep this Vukov coach at least away
Speaker 3: from the player. But it seems like the player might
Speaker 3: want them to be there, or so we think.
Speaker 2: Listen, here's the thing that I see in this situation.
Speaker 2: I love how sometimes I get onto social media and
Speaker 2: you get people writing on social media, how can they
Speaker 2: do this? It's her decision. It's like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it is not necessarily just her decision. If the WTSA
Speaker 2: feels like and clearly they have evidence, they're not just
Speaker 2: gonna whim oh on a whim just be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: your banned. They have obviously done years, okay of investigation
Speaker 2: into this man's behavior. They've obviously interviewed many, many, many people,
Speaker 2: not just one or two. Like I get dragged into
Speaker 2: this because of course we talked about him years ago
Speaker 2: on the pod. I never said anything that was controversial.
Speaker 2: I gave my view about what I saw. This was
Speaker 2: years ago, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said what you saw, which is a very different.
Speaker 2: I said what I saw, okay, Yes, then making assumption,
Speaker 2: trying to just assuming because the guy gestures and carries
Speaker 2: on the way he does in the players box. This
Speaker 2: is the things I see as a human being. What
Speaker 2: I saw, so clearly, that's my interpretation of him years ago.
Speaker 2: So clearly through the years. I was not on tour
Speaker 2: in you know, two years ago, I had my Amazon work.
Speaker 2: I wasn't traveling. So clearly through the years, it is
Speaker 2: not just my observation of him that the WTA have documented.
Speaker 2: They have seen his behavior for many, many years. Obviously,
Speaker 2: who knows what's going on with the family. Maybe the
Speaker 2: family don't want him around as well. Maybe the family
Speaker 2: are trying to, you know, excavate him from her life
Speaker 2: as well. Clearly she is struggling with this relationship with him,
Speaker 2: whatever that may be, and you know, wanting to bring
Speaker 2: him back. I can tell you right now, Goran's not
Speaker 2: going to stand for it. Goren's not going to be
Speaker 2: around somebody who's going to be absolutely not. If you
Speaker 2: want to be in a dysfunctional relationship, that's up on you.
Speaker 2: But for someone like Gorn, he's not going to stick
Speaker 2: around for that. And the WTA are putting their foot down.
Speaker 2: They have had there's been silent bands or bands of
Speaker 2: other people over the last couple of years that we
Speaker 2: haven't necessarily known about in the public. But the WTA
Speaker 2: have put their foot down and said, this is not behavior.
Speaker 2: It is allowed on our tour. It's just like the
Speaker 2: NBA or the NFL certain criteria that you have to
Speaker 2: adhere to to be able to play on our tour
Speaker 2: or to be able to coach on our tour. And
Speaker 2: if there is a pattern that has been happening for
Speaker 2: years that the WTA has documented, that's why they've banned him.
Speaker 2: This is not just on a whim like, oh, we
Speaker 2: don't lie like him. He's attitude towards her. It's not
Speaker 2: good in the stance. No, no, no, this is an ongoing,
Speaker 2: consistent behavior.
Speaker 3: And the WTA, you know, is not exactly out in
Speaker 3: front on a lot of things that I wish they
Speaker 3: would be out in front on. So I think for me,
Speaker 3: the feeling is if they are putting their foot down.
Speaker 3: And to be to be clear, I'm rooting for the WTA.
Speaker 3: I'm a fan of many people who work at the WTA.
Speaker 3: We are all better if the WTA succeeds or somebody
Speaker 3: who's running Women's Tender succeeds. So it's not it's not
Speaker 3: set out of a desire to poke, but rather to
Speaker 3: sort of like encourage good stuff. And this is something
Speaker 3: I saw that I will want to encourage, which is
Speaker 3: when you create an environment that feels unsafe for your
Speaker 3: players because you allow something like a person who's disruptive,
Speaker 3: who seems and also has been.
Speaker 1: Documented in many instances.
Speaker 3: And I'm not speaking about this case in particular, but
Speaker 3: the kinds of things that would lead to a band
Speaker 3: are so frequent, severe and documented that it it is
Speaker 3: I have to imagine truly they had probably no other choice.
Speaker 3: And again we'll see how this plays out, but in
Speaker 3: my view, not only does it send a message to
Speaker 3: the actual individuals involved, but also hopefully it sends a
Speaker 3: message to anyone else who's probably in a similar situation
Speaker 3: who maybe it's more behind closed doors, you know, to
Speaker 3: say like, hey, this needs to be a safe space
Speaker 3: for us, but also for everyone to feel like, you know,
Speaker 3: we're we're it's a work environment. And if you see
Speaker 3: somebody losing their mind, whether or not there's other stuff
Speaker 3: that's going on that we don't know about.
Speaker 1: That alone is like, hey, this is not a safe.
Speaker 3: Work environment for people. And as for her, I'm rooting
Speaker 3: for her. We're all rooting for her. Whatever's going on
Speaker 3: is obviously very complicated, and I think as we've seen
Speaker 3: in a lot of cases where something's clearly going on
Speaker 3: that has much complexity. Sure, and also like people who
Speaker 3: are in pretty rough situations, oftentimes it's the hardest for
Speaker 3: them to navigate that. You know, in a lot of cases,
Speaker 3: these are very young women. Sometimes these are their romantic partners,
Speaker 3: sometimes these are their parents, sometimes these are people who've
Speaker 3: been close to them since they.
Speaker 1: Were very young kids.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's I want to applaud the WTA
Speaker 3: for taking what I see is a pretty big bold
Speaker 3: step to put their foot down and so you know,
Speaker 3: I know that you and I both as well as
Speaker 3: Peco and everybody else that we know, are role rooting
Speaker 3: for Elena Rabakin on this situation, just personally, but also
Speaker 3: just in general. I want to you know, I want
Speaker 3: my tennis players to have. There's enough stress just making
Speaker 3: sure that you.
Speaker 1: Play well on the court and your body stays healthy.
Speaker 3: You know, God knows what other kind of stuff they
Speaker 3: have to deal with, and getting into any kind of
Speaker 3: a really situations that's unhealthy for them is not something
Speaker 3: that anybody should have to deal with.
Speaker 2: No, and honestly, you know, we are all rooting for her.
Speaker 2: We want the best for her, There's no question about that,
Speaker 2: and that's what everybody wants. But the WTA also has
Speaker 2: to take in consideration sponsors, what does this look like,
Speaker 2: What does this person look like in our surroundings. This
Speaker 2: is not a good look. We can't have people yelling
Speaker 2: and screaming at players, you know, and you know, and
Speaker 2: just frankly, you know, even for me over the last
Speaker 2: week being here in Adelaide and hearing this news, the
Speaker 2: amount of players that come up to me and be like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you should hear the way he talks
Speaker 2: about her. You should hear the way he speaks about her,
Speaker 2: just to other friends, just to other coaches. So that
Speaker 2: in and of itself, like the behavior and the way
Speaker 2: he speaks about her is not okay. And that's what
Speaker 2: other players here and other coaches tell me. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: there's a long list of people that could say things
Speaker 2: about this guy. And so, you know, I feel terrible
Speaker 2: for her because she's clearly put into this quandary of
Speaker 2: a disastrous you know, you know, human relationship, and now
Speaker 2: it's on a big, big world scale that she's going
Speaker 2: to be asked about at nauseum over the next month.
Speaker 2: And it's a shame because she's a great, great, great girl.
Speaker 2: She's a great player. We saw this match with Eager
Speaker 2: San Tech the other day was unreal at United Cup.
Speaker 2: Like I tweeted out, God, I hope we get a
Speaker 2: match like that at the Ustrain and Open. I hope
Speaker 2: we see them play each other again. I hope we
Speaker 2: get to see Eager and Coco again. I mean, we
Speaker 2: saw a great match with Coco. You know. The tennis
Speaker 2: in and of itself this week, particularly in the Night Cup,
Speaker 2: was awesome.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we want to be talking about the tennis.
Speaker 1: We want to be talking I want.
Speaker 2: To be talking about the tennis. How I want to
Speaker 2: be talking about Rebark. You know, how how well she's played,
Speaker 2: how good she looks, how great it is to have
Speaker 2: Gorian in her camp. So that's what I want to
Speaker 2: talk about with Elena. But unfortunately, this is going to
Speaker 2: be a nightmare Toss. Australia have said no to him
Speaker 2: as well, but he can also get a ticket and
Speaker 2: come in and watch. He won't be allowed to sit
Speaker 2: in the box. So this is just going to be
Speaker 2: an ongoing unfortunately, an ongoing situation for Rebuccian until she
Speaker 2: decides to kick this guy to the curb or I
Speaker 2: don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we'll be watching that.
Speaker 3: But yes, let's talk about the tennis, because the un
Speaker 3: coup was unreal. I mean, obviously there were some great
Speaker 3: results going on around the world. It was really cool
Speaker 3: to see Kenny Shikory back. He made the finals of
Speaker 3: Hong Kong. He just like forty rankings just overnight, basically
Speaker 3: by making a final.
Speaker 2: Can we talk about the fact that the best stories
Speaker 2: really of the week were all the losers of the tournament,
Speaker 2: like true Miss Cory, like Riley o'pelker. How great to
Speaker 2: see him back and playing well and not you know finally,
Speaker 2: I mean, I honestly I saw him a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago. He played We played in this like pro
Speaker 2: am thing in the Hampton's and we flew out on
Speaker 2: you know, playing were playing together and we got to
Speaker 2: really spend some time together. And this is when he
Speaker 2: was literally sort of not even close to coming back
Speaker 2: with the wrist, And I said, what do you think?
Speaker 2: And he said, I don't know, Dubsy, I don't know
Speaker 2: if I'm ever going to be able to play it again.
Speaker 2: You know. So for me to like actually see him
Speaker 2: get to a final and beat someone like Novak Djokovic
Speaker 2: on the way, like that story is.
Speaker 1: Unreal, so unreal, what a great way.
Speaker 2: Obviously, obviously all the matches back to back to back
Speaker 2: were accumulative and hurt him in the end, just like
Speaker 2: the other runner up, Naomi Osaka, so you know who
Speaker 2: had to default in the final. So the accumulation of
Speaker 2: matches obviously got to both of those two particular players.
Speaker 2: But it's nice to see them both, you know, have
Speaker 2: that opportunity to win a tournament. But for the big
Speaker 2: story for me was Riley. Just to see him back
Speaker 2: and playing tennis at a high level was great to see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's right back in there, which was amazing. It
Speaker 3: does seem that even though Riley did retire in that
Speaker 3: first set, he looked you know, I know he had
Speaker 3: a little back scare, so that's not nothing, but it
Speaker 3: doesn't mean But no, Naomi, I read was an abdominal tear.
Speaker 2: Oh really, I.
Speaker 1: Thought it seems way worse.
Speaker 3: I she left the court in tears, which made me
Speaker 3: feel like, oh, this might be worse than right least.
Speaker 3: But you know, obviously we want everybody healthy and feeling good.
Speaker 3: And when you take a significant amount of time offer
Speaker 3: in Nami's case, you know, obviously totally understandable, but you
Speaker 3: know it takes a while.
Speaker 1: It takes us all.
Speaker 2: I know that you're trying to find out if it
Speaker 2: was a back or a stomach. But so I'll go
Speaker 2: in here. If it is her stomach and she has
Speaker 2: strained it or torn it, it doesn't surprise me because
Speaker 2: if you have done that prior and then you play
Speaker 2: a lot of matches, particularly in the start of the year.
Speaker 2: And this happened to me because I tore my stomach
Speaker 2: muscle early in my career and always the first little
Speaker 2: tournament of the first tournament of the year, you always
Speaker 2: have scar tissue in that area, and so it's amazing
Speaker 2: how it comes back to bite you literally in the
Speaker 2: ass with your stomach. So you've always got to really
Speaker 2: take care of it. You always got to, you know,
Speaker 2: literally rub out that scar tissue every single time you
Speaker 2: go and play, especially when you come back early part
Speaker 2: of the year. So that's unfortunate, and it's something you
Speaker 2: can play on, but it's you can't really serve.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, everywhere I'm seeing has been reported that
Speaker 3: it's an abdominal injury, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well, if it's an abdominal, if it's a
Speaker 2: it's a slight niggle like tear, like minor tear, you
Speaker 2: can actually play with it. Hopefully the next like four
Speaker 2: or five days, which you'll have off before this strain open,
Speaker 2: it will settle down. She'll still hit, but she won't
Speaker 2: hit any serves whatsoever, and so it's possible to come
Speaker 2: back from that. So so hopefully you know this, just
Speaker 2: this this week alone, she'll be able to repair that
Speaker 2: stomach muscle. She won't be able to hit any serves,
Speaker 2: but listen, your serve comes back quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, she does have a week. But overall, what
Speaker 3: a great week of stories. And that's before we even
Speaker 3: talk about the United Cup.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the great individual stories. And throw it to Kim Berrell,
Speaker 2: who the little Aussie butler who got through to the quarterfinals,
Speaker 2: had a match point to get to the semifinals of
Speaker 2: her home tournament in the goal cut in Brisbane. So
Speaker 2: that was a really lovely story someone who's dealt with
Speaker 2: a lot of injuries herself throughout throughout her career. Carolina
Speaker 2: Mukhova played really well at the United Cup as well.
Speaker 2: You know, had some good wins there, particularly against Paulini.
Speaker 2: I bumped into Jasmine here and she said, oh, Mohivas,
Speaker 2: she always plays so good against me. But you know,
Speaker 2: just some really good storylines. But but the MVP of
Speaker 2: the United Cup, Coca oh Man, putting her hand up
Speaker 2: as one of the favorites. Of course, Saberlenca wins Brisbane,
Speaker 2: so you know, those two players absolutely going to the
Speaker 2: strain and open as I would say equal favorites. Slight
Speaker 2: edge to Sabolenca because she's won the tournament in Melbourne
Speaker 2: now twice. Feels good in Melbourne, clearly playing well in Brisbane.
Speaker 2: So all the losers of the tournaments last week were
Speaker 2: really the storyline in a lot of ways. You know,
Speaker 2: we talk about Kane Kory, you talk about the youngest
Speaker 2: sister Kuda Matova, you talk about name Misaka, and you
Speaker 2: talk about Raleo o Perklart. Those were really the stories,
Speaker 2: even though the players that won well done. But you know,
Speaker 2: Towson's been around a long time and it's good to
Speaker 2: see her, you know, get a win under her belt
Speaker 2: because she's had huge potential hits the ball great, but
Speaker 2: a little bit mentally not so great on the on
Speaker 2: the court, a little bit of a bad attitude sometimes.
Speaker 2: So nice to see her get through and win the tournament.
Speaker 2: But she obviously had default technically in the final, and
Speaker 2: you know that's the way it goes. But for me,
Speaker 2: going back to United Cup, Coco is just looking unbelievable, fourhands,
Speaker 2: not missing, serving well, not double folding up a storm
Speaker 2: and her match against Eger, I mean, she outlasted Eager.
Speaker 2: Her fitness is through the roof and if anyone follows
Speaker 2: Coco on Instagram, and she kind of posted a lot
Speaker 2: of some of her training schedule in the off season.
Speaker 2: Look out, it is paying off. Unbelievable.
Speaker 3: I love that this is the second time in a
Speaker 3: row that she's been eager. I thought that was a
Speaker 3: mountain that it would take her years to climb after
Speaker 3: seeing all of those French Open results, and it seems
Speaker 3: like she's she's on her way to leveling the playing field.
Speaker 3: I mean, she doesn't have obviously as many French Opens
Speaker 3: or Slam's period as Eager, but I like what I'm seeing,
Speaker 3: and she put America a pretty considerably talented American team.
Speaker 1: Taylor Fritz also played great. Listen.
Speaker 3: Coco just really to me, got it done, and I love, love,
Speaker 3: love what I saw.
Speaker 1: In her match against Ega. I'm so excited for Coco.
Speaker 1: You're totally right.
Speaker 3: I was kind of a I love I love Coco offcourt,
Speaker 3: but on court, I've been a little bit of a
Speaker 3: Cocoa doubter to be candid, and I'm I'm happy to
Speaker 3: be around m h.
Speaker 2: H. Listen, if she hasn't missed her forehand, which she's
Speaker 2: not doing anymore, there's no where to go on the
Speaker 2: tennis court against Cocoa golf, there's nowhere to go. She
Speaker 2: runs every single ball down. She is the best athlete.
Speaker 2: We saw the two best athletes going at it against
Speaker 2: each other with Eager and Coco, and the difference is
Speaker 2: the Coco. She just gets that loop on the forehand. Now,
Speaker 2: I think you know, Eager's trying to mix up the
Speaker 2: speed on her forehand and on her ground stroke. She's
Speaker 2: trying to get some high balls in there, which is
Speaker 2: very good for her to do. She needs to change
Speaker 2: the pace, particularly against someone like a like a like
Speaker 2: a Coco, or like anybody really. But the fact that
Speaker 2: Coco doesn't miss now she's willing to move forward a
Speaker 2: little bit more than Eager. Eager has to be more
Speaker 2: comfortable coming into the net. But against someone like Coco,
Speaker 2: when she runs the ball down, she can hear the
Speaker 2: winner past you because her speed is able to get
Speaker 2: off over to a ball that a lot of girls
Speaker 2: are struggling and maybe just hitting with one hand on
Speaker 2: the back end. Coco is getting over there and hitting
Speaker 2: it with two hands, and she's passing you. So if
Speaker 2: you're not a great mover into the net and able
Speaker 2: to understand how to move at the net, you are
Speaker 2: going to be in trouble against her. But ah man
Speaker 2: like I'm I'm into it. See Rebekner, Eager, Coco and
Speaker 2: Sabalanca in the semi finals at this straight and open
Speaker 2: and those four going at it. Great, But we all
Speaker 2: still still have some great players that I are knocking
Speaker 2: on the door. Where it be Mira Andriva, whether it
Speaker 2: be Jesse Kapagoula, whether it be these players that we
Speaker 2: know that can do well in slams Now, I'm pumped
Speaker 2: for the Eulzi Open because they're all playing well.
Speaker 1: I agree, I'm totally pumped everybody's playing well.
Speaker 3: I was really I was really excited to see Taylor
Speaker 3: Fritz play super well.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, I I find.
Speaker 3: One thing I want to ask you about before we
Speaker 3: get to our dues and don'ts and set up this
Speaker 3: week's incredible interview. But to me, if you want to
Speaker 3: touch on it, should we briefly mention mister Nick curious
Speaker 3: getting after man. He will not let this YOUIX Center
Speaker 3: thing die with the.
Speaker 2: With they won't let the Exenter thing die, and he
Speaker 2: won't let even Igachionteks die like.
Speaker 3: Now, he's just going after doping accusations against both of
Speaker 3: them and putting like you know, a needle in the
Speaker 3: comments of Cruz Hewett, Lton Hewitt's son who hit with
Speaker 3: Theannick Center, who was like, ah, bro, I mean maybe
Speaker 3: he could like always say that he's joking, which is
Speaker 3: like such a cop out, and that he's going after It's.
Speaker 2: Like when you're drunk. That's when you drunk boyfriend or
Speaker 2: girlfriend you know, says stuff to you the night before
Speaker 2: when they're like wasted and then they wake up and
Speaker 2: I was drunk, and it's like, uh, usually what happens
Speaker 2: when you have alcohol is the truth serum and the
Speaker 2: ship out of your mouth is exactly what you want
Speaker 2: to say to me, except you don't have a filter.
Speaker 2: And so the problem with Nick is he has no
Speaker 2: filter at all.
Speaker 1: It's just this is a good seg.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, the problem and the issue is the system. Okay,
Speaker 2: it is the way, but.
Speaker 1: Nick's not going after the system.
Speaker 3: He's just being a but he won.
Speaker 1: Find something else to troll about.
Speaker 3: I mean to me, it's not it's not even like
Speaker 3: you and I can have a grown up conversation about
Speaker 3: how transparency and rules and applicability. And then if we
Speaker 3: get somebody like Peco on the show who's like thoroughly
Speaker 3: researched the ins and outs of you know, the water statutes.
Speaker 3: We can actually have a substantive conversation about, you know,
Speaker 3: the facts. But that's a good faith conversation about something
Speaker 3: presuming good faith on the part of almost everyone involved,
Speaker 3: which is I think probably the case here in both cases,
Speaker 3: and even if it's not, we should still have an
Speaker 3: adult conversation. And then there's doing whatever he's doing, which
Speaker 3: is like taking easy shots because he's bored or doesn't
Speaker 3: is just I.
Speaker 2: Am going after Cruiz Hewitt, the hitting with the world
Speaker 2: number one, who is coached by the guy who coached
Speaker 2: your dad. In lighton Hewitt, Darren Caylee was essentially one
Speaker 2: of the biggest and most important people in Leighton Hewitt's
Speaker 2: early life as a tennis player, including and helping him
Speaker 2: get to number one, So they have a special relationship.
Speaker 2: They're both from Adelaide, Australia, where I am right now,
Speaker 2: so there's both South Australian guys. They clearly have a
Speaker 2: very unique and special relationship. And Cruse Hewett has got
Speaker 2: a qualifying wild card in the Australian Open, so what
Speaker 2: better preparation to play with the defending champion who is
Speaker 2: going to teach you so much about how to be
Speaker 2: a better tennis player on the court, why wouldn't you
Speaker 2: hit with him? And clearly Darren said, hey, does Cruise
Speaker 2: want to hit with Yannick on senate court? Oh? Oh
Speaker 2: my god. Of course Layton's going to say yes to that.
Speaker 2: That is an opportunity that any kid would it, would
Speaker 2: want to give the guy shit on social media and
Speaker 2: go after him. It's not a joke. If you want
Speaker 2: to joke about it, then you call his dad or
Speaker 2: you call him because I'm pretty sure you have either
Speaker 2: of their numbers, and you give him shit. You don't
Speaker 2: give him shit on a public forum. That's embarrassing to him,
Speaker 2: Like it's just he just doesn't know how to stop
Speaker 2: and learn to be an adult in these situations and
Speaker 2: to go after Ega. When Boston Fashion, I think put
Speaker 2: a photo up or I don't know if it was Bush,
Speaker 2: Yeah it was Bush, and it was a photo of
Speaker 2: Or with a rolling garr not.
Speaker 3: Saying she does her you know, she does her prep,
Speaker 3: she does her homework. And then I mean and then
Speaker 3: he said he, yeah, what else is she doing? And
Speaker 3: it's like, dude, Also, I asked you going into this
Speaker 3: next year to put uh, you know, some dues and don'ts,
Speaker 3: some ins and outs because I want us to. You know,
Speaker 3: it's easy to get like riled up about something that
Speaker 3: the curious does in the internet. That's net that's stupid,
Speaker 3: because that's the whole point of it and that's why
Speaker 3: he's doing it. But I asked you to make a
Speaker 3: list just because I feel like, you know, we can
Speaker 3: make some generalizations here and uh, for me, it's less
Speaker 3: about him and I don't want to give him any
Speaker 3: more attention. But like, to me, out is clowning on
Speaker 3: social media and in is to talk ley you're actiate
Speaker 3: to the talking or don't like show up to play
Speaker 3: be fit or don't. But like, we don't need another commentator.
Speaker 3: We don't need any more, like clowns, we don't.
Speaker 1: Need any more.
Speaker 3: Like uh, position people have positions of power being you know,
Speaker 3: kicking down. Kicking down is out if you're gonna keep.
Speaker 2: Kicking that's the thing. Yeah, I agree. You know, the
Speaker 2: outs for me are going on social media and putting
Speaker 2: stuff like this out. And also if you're gonna go
Speaker 2: on social media, like just think about what you're putting
Speaker 2: out there. You know, you're sitting behind a keyboard. There's
Speaker 2: people that get affected by this stuff, you know, I
Speaker 2: just I keep thinking, I don't we don't know the truth, right,
Speaker 2: we we don't know the truth. It's not like I'm
Speaker 2: going and trailing behind Yannick Center every day of my
Speaker 2: life and not going behind Egistrion Tech every day. I'm
Speaker 2: not going behind Simona Hallup every day of my life. Like,
Speaker 2: we don't know the truth. So you can have an opinion,
Speaker 2: but you don't know the truth. So the fact that
Speaker 2: you are so adamant. Now, let's go back to the
Speaker 2: Vukid situation. Right, I saw with my own eyes, Okay,
Speaker 2: with my own eyes his behavior. I can make a
Speaker 2: comment on what I saw. I don't know for a
Speaker 2: fact if Ynix Inner doped. I don't know for a
Speaker 2: fact if Yanix Inner did not dope. I don't know
Speaker 2: if Egos Jantek did not dope. But my assumptions are
Speaker 2: of what I read from the reports that these people
Speaker 2: researched it. They did their research, and this is the
Speaker 2: conclusion they came to, and that's what I'm going to
Speaker 2: talk about. So they have been found innocent. That's it.
Speaker 2: Let's move on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm just said to see what he's going
Speaker 3: to do with his racket this year, and I'm not
Speaker 3: that interested to see what he's going to do with
Speaker 3: his keyboard. All Right, we have an incredible interview to
Speaker 3: get to today. You had the chance when you were
Speaker 3: in Malaga, Spain to sit down with Corey march Cisoto.
Speaker 3: And Corey is the chief marketing officer at ELF Cosmetics.
Speaker 3: Elf is the embodiment of something I want to see
Speaker 3: more of in in my in list in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five is supporting tennis and supporting women's sports. And ELF
Speaker 3: has put their money literally where their mouth is in
Speaker 3: terms of sponsorship of women's sports across the board, not
Speaker 3: only tennis, but basketball, soccer.
Speaker 1: They've been doing it.
Speaker 3: They've been walking in the walk and talking the talk,
Speaker 3: which is what you guys talk about. Just give us
Speaker 3: a little color about this conversation. How it came to
Speaker 3: be you ran into her in Malaga. She was obviously
Speaker 3: there sponsoring the billage and king Kup and supporting on
Speaker 3: behalf of ELF Cosmetics. What's the context for this conversation?
Speaker 3: And I can't imagine you would disagree that we need
Speaker 3: to spend more money on tennis and more money in
Speaker 3: women's sports. But that's my in for what I want
Speaker 3: to see more brands doing like ELF has been doing
Speaker 3: with what their support for women's sports.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what it comes down to. You know,
Speaker 2: I was over at Billy Jean King Cup and there've
Speaker 2: been some great sponsors through the years with Tannis, but
Speaker 2: and I just think ELF is the as you said,
Speaker 2: it's the embodiment of equality really, whether it be on
Speaker 2: their boards with you know, their their so many women
Speaker 2: that are part of their company, whether it be all
Speaker 2: in their c suites, it's it's dominated by women. And
Speaker 2: you might say, well, it's a it's a company, that's
Speaker 2: a it's a cosmetic company. Of course they're going to
Speaker 2: have a lot of women. No, that's not the case.
Speaker 2: You can look at a lot of other cosmetic companies
Speaker 2: or you know, you know creams and you know beauty
Speaker 2: products and all this sort of stuff. They're dominated by
Speaker 2: men in the C suites. That's not the case with ELF.
Speaker 2: And so as you said, they put their money where
Speaker 2: their mouth is. They have a great relationship with Billy Jean,
Speaker 2: and they went to Billy Jean, they said, who's the
Speaker 2: embodiment of what we want to embody as company inequality,
Speaker 2: and that's Billy Jing King. So they talked to Billy
Speaker 2: and Billy said, look, would your sponsor be one of
Speaker 2: our sponsors of the Billy Jean King Cup. They're not
Speaker 2: the only sponsor Billy Jean King Cup, but Elfe is
Speaker 2: a huge sponsor now and the Billy jan King Cup
Speaker 2: hopefully is going to grow and grow and grow. With
Speaker 2: the amount of money that they're now offering to the
Speaker 2: players to go and play is extraordinary. I was talking
Speaker 2: about it, yes the other day actually with Sam Stows
Speaker 2: about how much money now is on offer for the
Speaker 2: Billy Jing King Cup. It's crazy. And so yeah, they're
Speaker 2: just a wonderful sponsor and it's interesting to hear her
Speaker 2: story and also how this relationship with Billy Jean and
Speaker 2: the Billy Jean King Cup came about. Well, if you
Speaker 2: were also may I add, and also may I add
Speaker 2: a huge sponsor with iHeart the Women's Sports Network. They
Speaker 2: are the biggest sponsor for them, and so that's another reason,
Speaker 2: because that's obviously the platform that you and I are on.
Speaker 3: Amazing, all right, thanks for the background. I think that's
Speaker 3: a pretty good end list for twenty twenty four twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five. Why don't we check in as the Australian
Speaker 3: Open is getting underway in one short week to talk
Speaker 3: about some previews, who's looking good, who's in fine form?
Speaker 3: And where we can hear you on our TVs here
Speaker 3: in the US.
Speaker 2: Yes, and when we do our next podcast, we will
Speaker 2: all already be a day in to the Australian Open,
Speaker 2: so we are fully, fully pumped for it. I'm going
Speaker 2: to ask you before we leave, your favorites to win
Speaker 2: the Australian Open.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, I hate doing this. I think I hate it.
Speaker 3: It's still not the point for me. I hope somebody
Speaker 3: weird like Beya hadaj maaya.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: Well, not with that attitude. I hope she doesn't listen.
Speaker 3: All right, So I mean my pick is probably Arena Savolenka,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, of course, and Taylor Fritz,
Speaker 3: the same people I picked for the US Open front
Speaker 3: and I came within two sets of being right.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna pick Yannick Senna, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to go not because it's not on limb anymore. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna say that I think Cocoa can win this strain open. Well.
Speaker 1: I hope that if.
Speaker 2: I hear it's faster in Melbourne that it was in Sydney,
Speaker 2: so that will help Arena if it's a bit quicker.
Speaker 2: But let's let's let's just go. I'm gonna go Coco.
Speaker 2: It's I do slightly think that sable Anka might be
Speaker 2: the one, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say
Speaker 2: Coco might.
Speaker 3: Get it if I am right and bear har Dodge
Speaker 3: Mayo wins, I'll.
Speaker 2: Cook you dinner for a week. No and your family.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, I don't want that.
Speaker 2: Oh that's not allowed.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's I'll think of something good.
Speaker 2: But uh, I'm bring a back of towel from the
Speaker 2: strain and open. How about that? All right?
Speaker 3: Bring me back a towel from the Australian Open.
Speaker 2: Tower goes in, a tower goes out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna have to figure out which of my
Speaker 3: towels from pas renee Bets are going out?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: Enjoy this or interview with Coury Matrisoto.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to the show.
Speaker 3: We're so excited to be back in twenty twenty five
Speaker 3: and Renee Happy Australian Open Eve.
Speaker 4: Thanks Mite Doak soon all right, bye listening, Bye the month.
Speaker 5: March is so then, got it good?
Speaker 6: All Right, Hi everybody, welcome to the Renee Subcenters podcast.
Speaker 6: I have an interesting guest today, somebody that you probably
Speaker 6: didn't expect to hear from. Corey March is so so. Corey,
Speaker 6: first of all, thanks for joining me today. We are
Speaker 6: in Mulliga, Spain. First of all, thank you for providing
Speaker 6: me to be over.
Speaker 7: Here, because this is beautiful.
Speaker 2: We are over here for the Billy Jean king Cup,
Speaker 2: something that is near and dear to my heart. I'm
Speaker 2: actually the longest serving Australian member of the Billy Jean
Speaker 2: King Cup for Australia, so it's nice to be back here. Sadly,
Speaker 2: the Austrains lost yesterday, but we're here to talk not
Speaker 2: only about Billy Jean King Cup and the importance of it,
Speaker 2: but also ELF Cosmetics, which you are the CMO of,
Speaker 2: and also I am on iHeartRadio, which is the women's
Speaker 2: sports network, which is also a huge You are a
Speaker 2: huge reason why we're on that with ELF.
Speaker 7: So Corey, first of all, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 8: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: You started by saying, I'm an interesting guest. I don't
Speaker 5: know that I've ever been introduced as an interesting guest,
Speaker 5: So tell me why interesting was your word choice.
Speaker 6: You're an introducing guest on the tennis podcast that I
Speaker 6: do because normally I interview obviously tennis players or you know,
Speaker 6: I talk a lot of random stuff about tennis, and
Speaker 6: being here at the Billy Jean Kincup, we wanted to
Speaker 6: make sure that your voice was heard, particularly this week.
Speaker 6: The importance of sponsorship in tennis for me is We've
Speaker 6: had some great sponsors in women's tennis through the years.
Speaker 7: I don't need to go back to some of them.
Speaker 6: Someone them were a little controversial, some provided smoking for people.
Speaker 7: But I think with ELF now.
Speaker 6: Doing what they're doing in women's tennis and women's sports
Speaker 6: overall is just tremendous.
Speaker 7: Clearly because of the reasons why.
Speaker 6: I want to know before we talk about this week
Speaker 6: your story a little bit. What is your background? What
Speaker 6: made you get into it? Because it always fascinates me
Speaker 6: how people end up where they are. Me clearly grew
Speaker 6: up wanting to be a tennis player, But what about you?
Speaker 5: I think when we look back at our lives and
Speaker 5: we reflect on all of the bright stars in this
Speaker 5: guy that come together to make a constellation.
Speaker 8: You actually see a rich tapestry.
Speaker 5: It's never one thing that makes something true, series of
Speaker 5: things that leads to these eventual moments. And I think
Speaker 5: we all send out unique frequencies that overtime attract things
Speaker 5: into our particular orbit. So sitting yesterday with Billy Jean
Speaker 5: watching the tennis tennis match last night, she asked me
Speaker 5: about my feelings on tennis, and I instantly went back
Speaker 5: to being a child, which I never thought about, which
Speaker 5: I never thought about having anything to do with why
Speaker 5: we're here.
Speaker 8: But I grew up.
Speaker 5: Watching Billy Jean, King, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert and Yvon
Speaker 5: Lendel and Boris Becker and all of these things because
Speaker 5: my parents the only sport they actually cared about was tennis.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: So it was kind of this full circle moment for
Speaker 5: me last night, which had nothing to do with how
Speaker 5: we ended up here.
Speaker 8: But then you think about it and you say.
Speaker 5: Well, maybe it did somehow. So if I connect the
Speaker 5: dots to the story of where I'm standing right now
Speaker 5: with the championing of equality and the work and energy
Speaker 5: that we put to putting underrepresentation in the highest seats
Speaker 5: of power. It really stems from the fact that growing
Speaker 5: up I didn't see people who look like me, neither
Speaker 5: in my family nor in my broader circle. And I
Speaker 5: never really understood why men had all the power and
Speaker 5: women were just supposed to obey them. So for me,
Speaker 5: the path out of that was get an education, get
Speaker 5: a corporate job, become a business person, and change the world.
Speaker 7: And that was just like that.
Speaker 5: It was that simple for me because whatever I saw
Speaker 5: it was do the exact opposite and.
Speaker 8: You'll get an opposite result.
Speaker 5: And early on in my career I was always the
Speaker 5: only woman in the room. As I got higher and
Speaker 5: higher on the ladder, I realized how few women were
Speaker 5: actually in those positions. So for me it was how
Speaker 5: do I get as high as I can, as fast
Speaker 5: as I can, so I can change this. And when
Speaker 5: I got to l five and a half years ago,
Speaker 5: it was pretty extraordinary because the first my first meeting
Speaker 5: was a board meeting, and I remember looking around the
Speaker 5: room and saying, Wow, this is different. More than half
Speaker 5: this room is women. So there's a real magic here.
Speaker 5: And I have found a kindred spirit in Terangamine, who's
Speaker 5: our CEO, who cares about putting women and diversity in
Speaker 5: the highest seats of power? So how do we use
Speaker 5: this platform we created, this democratization of access not only
Speaker 5: to the best of beauty, but to the highest seats
Speaker 5: of power, and take it steps further.
Speaker 8: And those steps further for us have.
Speaker 5: Been in gaming, in leveling the playing field in sports,
Speaker 5: and in many places we haven't even figured out yet
Speaker 5: as we ask ourselves, where are they? Where are the underrepresented?
Speaker 5: And how do we go find them and use our
Speaker 5: platform to rise them up.
Speaker 6: So sitting next to Billy watching a tennis match is
Speaker 6: an experience in and of itself. I have done it
Speaker 6: many times, and Billy couches from the sidelines some of
Speaker 6: the interesting conversation.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's why you're laughing.
Speaker 6: You're like, uh, yeah, that's exactly what I experienced yesterday.
Speaker 7: But what was it like for you?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 7: Is one of the questions I wanted to ask you
Speaker 7: what you would tell your twenty year old self. I
Speaker 7: love asking that question. Would you have told your twenty
Speaker 7: year old self?
Speaker 6: Yeah, in twenty years time or plus, you're going to
Speaker 6: be sitting next to Billy Jean King discussing equality, diversity,
Speaker 6: your company's her vision.
Speaker 7: Still she doesn't stop.
Speaker 6: First of all, I've never met anyone her age, or
Speaker 6: maybe there is a few I did bump into and
Speaker 6: had the joy of having dinner in a group setting
Speaker 6: with Hillary Clinton not too long ago, and I thought, wow,
Speaker 6: you know, they just don't stop people like this. So
Speaker 6: how much is someone like sitting next to her watching
Speaker 6: a tennis match? How much of a full circle moment
Speaker 6: did you sort of sit there going I can't believe this.
Speaker 6: Actually you're kind of a big deal as well in
Speaker 6: your industry.
Speaker 2: So was you.
Speaker 6: But it's almost that moment where you like, I feel
Speaker 6: like I'm twelve again.
Speaker 8: She says pressure is a privilege.
Speaker 5: I am definitely in a position of privilege, and I
Speaker 5: felt that lad night, very honored, very privileged, And even
Speaker 5: when I think about this week. This morning, I was
Speaker 5: listening to the podcast of Alicia Keys and Jayshetty and
Speaker 5: alisiha Keys is a business partner of mine, and I'm.
Speaker 8: Like, WHOA, how did that happen?
Speaker 5: How did one of my idols at you know, nineteen
Speaker 5: twenty years old become a business partner. Christian Amanpur is
Speaker 5: here on Wednesday, and I'm going to be on the
Speaker 5: stage with her at the Women in Power Summit, and
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm going to pass out before that
Speaker 5: moment happens.
Speaker 7: Christian Oh, I'm the same with her.
Speaker 5: Obsessed absolute hero, and last night I'm sitting with Billy
Speaker 5: Jin King.
Speaker 8: So I think what I appreciate.
Speaker 5: Is I'm so grateful.
Speaker 8: I don't see any.
Speaker 5: Of this as a given. I see all of this
Speaker 5: as an absolute privilege. And I wake up every morning
Speaker 5: and say to myself, I am so grateful that I
Speaker 5: get to be in this place. I'm so grateful that
Speaker 5: I get to be surrounded by these people. I'm so
Speaker 5: grateful that I get to learn from their greatness and
Speaker 5: some of their fairy dust will be sprinkled on me
Speaker 5: so that I can.
Speaker 8: Carry their torch forward.
Speaker 5: And when I think about Billy Jean King and the
Speaker 5: impact she's had on me since we met probably about
Speaker 5: two years ago now, so many of the stories I
Speaker 5: tell come from the roots of things that she said
Speaker 5: to me. And I'll give you a perfect example, because
Speaker 5: it just I could cry every time I think about it,
Speaker 5: and it resonates so deeply. She said, I've been fighting
Speaker 5: for women's equality for seventy years.
Speaker 8: Yeah, seventy years.
Speaker 6: It makes you feel lazy, right, You're like, yep, I
Speaker 6: can still do this. You got to get up every day,
Speaker 6: particularly now with some of the world environment what we're
Speaker 6: dealing with. Yes, with our eye rolls that we gave
Speaker 6: to one another. Just then, don't worry.
Speaker 7: We talk about it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 6: My usual podcast partner refuses to talk anything politics because
Speaker 6: she said does she loses sleep over it. But those
Speaker 6: are things that I'm sure now you're also thinking about,
Speaker 6: like in the bigger context, and someone like Billy, you like,
Speaker 6: seventy years, I've got a lot of work still today.
Speaker 8: We have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 5: And even though it's been seventy years for her, she's
Speaker 5: said she will continue to fight the good fight until
Speaker 5: her last breath.
Speaker 8: To your earlier.
Speaker 5: Point, she's not done yet. She's got a lot more
Speaker 5: work to do and she's doing it. This woman works
Speaker 5: harder than anybody I know at eighty one years old.
Speaker 5: The part though, that she said to me that really
Speaker 5: gave me pause and I reflect on it almost every day,
Speaker 5: is she finally feels we're at the precipice of a
Speaker 5: sea change because for seventy years, she felt that it
Speaker 5: was all about women as a charity, and even if
Speaker 5: she got the investment, even if she got people to
Speaker 5: move money across the line, it was for charitable reasons.
Speaker 5: And she said, now she finally feels like women are
Speaker 5: an investment. And that's where ELF is standing. We believe
Speaker 5: women are an investment. We believe in championing the underdog.
Speaker 5: We believe in democratizing access. These are things that are
Speaker 5: really meaningful to us. And when you put out those signals,
Speaker 5: when you say to the world and you send out
Speaker 5: a frequency that says we are about democratizing access. We
Speaker 5: are a symbol of the overlooked. We are a champion
Speaker 5: of the underdog. That signal starts penetrating. And then you
Speaker 5: get people like Billy Jean King into your circle. And
Speaker 5: it's just been really extraordinary for us because she's like
Speaker 5: rocket fuel. She gives us the gas and the inspiration
Speaker 5: and the motivation to keep flying.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, trust me, I get it.
Speaker 6: I think I was still playing well teen tennis at
Speaker 6: the time, which, of course Billy founded based on equality
Speaker 6: based on women's singles, women's doubles, men's doubles, men's singles,
Speaker 6: mixed doubles all.
Speaker 7: Being the same.
Speaker 6: They meant the same, And it was such a beautiful
Speaker 6: concept that she came up with so long ago, And
Speaker 6: I think about that all the time when it comes
Speaker 6: to Billy. But so, why then Elf, which is, you know,
Speaker 6: a tremendous cosmetics line. You guys are killing it in
Speaker 6: the industry, growing expondential. Congratulations on that.
Speaker 7: But why sports? Why women's sports?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think I could probably answer that already
Speaker 2: without asking you. But and then why tennis? Why the
Speaker 2: Billy Jean King Cup? How did that come about?
Speaker 6: I know you've had the relationship with Billy for a
Speaker 6: couple of years, but how did all this conceptionally come
Speaker 6: about for you?
Speaker 5: For you guys, it's a journey. Yeah, And if you
Speaker 5: asked me five years ago if we'd be hanging out
Speaker 5: in Malago with Billy Jan King at the BJK Cup,
Speaker 5: I would have been like, you're insane. Well, but if
Speaker 5: you follow the journey, it actually makes perfect sense. So
Speaker 5: if you go back twenty years to the beginning of ELF,
Speaker 5: the genesis of the company was to democratize.
Speaker 8: Access to the best of beauty.
Speaker 5: Why couldn't people have high quality cosmetics? At an affordable price.
Speaker 7: Yep, so thank you. Yes.
Speaker 5: So our founders set out to change that and they did.
Speaker 5: Since the last ten years, we've actually broadened the idea
Speaker 5: of democratization of access. So the democrat democratization of access
Speaker 5: that we felt really strongly about was to the highest
Speaker 5: seats of power, to the c suite, to the board
Speaker 5: of directors. So when we realize that we are one
Speaker 5: of one out of four one hundred publicly traded companies
Speaker 5: in the United States, one of one, say that again, Yeah,
Speaker 5: we are one of one out of four one hundred
Speaker 5: publicly traded companies in the United States that as a
Speaker 5: board of directors that is seventy eight percent women and
Speaker 5: forty four percent diverse.
Speaker 9: One of one.
Speaker 5: Now, the first thing you do when you hear that
Speaker 5: is you take a victory lot.
Speaker 8: Whoa, Yeah, we're one, and then.
Speaker 5: You do sixty seconds later you're like, you're pissed. Whoa wha,
Speaker 5: whoa one? How is there only one out of foury
Speaker 5: one hundred. So when we knew those stats, we decided
Speaker 5: we needed to change the board game. So we went
Speaker 5: out on this mission to change the board game. And
Speaker 5: the first part of changing the board game is to
Speaker 5: shock people into awareness. So we asked ourselves who could
Speaker 5: be the spokesperson for us to shock people into awareness
Speaker 5: about the lack of equality, and that was Billy Joking.
Speaker 5: And when I met Billy to talk about this endeavor
Speaker 5: and would she come with us on this journey and
Speaker 5: whatd she helped us change the board game? She looked
Speaker 5: at me and she goes, do you realize that ninety
Speaker 5: six percent of C suite executives.
Speaker 8: All played sports?
Speaker 5: I'm like, I had no idea, but now it's all
Speaker 5: starting to make sense. So when you start that journey
Speaker 5: and she served facts. Our campaign together with Billy was
Speaker 5: her serving facts to let people know that only twenty
Speaker 5: seven percent of board members are women, and yet women
Speaker 5: are fifty percent of the workforce. And yet get this,
Speaker 5: boards that have gender diversity are twenty seven percent higher
Speaker 5: and performance, yeah, so why are there not more women
Speaker 5: or you know, more gender diversity. So all the stats
Speaker 5: prove out, but nobody seems to be making the change.
Speaker 7: Have you had conversations?
Speaker 6: I want to know if people have contacted you from
Speaker 6: other companies, other women from other companies, whether it be
Speaker 6: on boards, whether it be in C suites, But it'd
Speaker 6: be just you know, everyday worker at a company has
Speaker 6: approached you, emailed, you, texted, you found a way to
Speaker 6: get in touch with you and being like, how.
Speaker 7: Do I A work for ELF or B?
Speaker 6: How do I That's the first question I would ask
Speaker 6: is how can I come and work for you guys?
Speaker 7: But also.
Speaker 6: Have people actually come to you and say how do
Speaker 6: you do this? Like what's the what is the blueprint?
Speaker 6: What's supply book for us to do this? Have you
Speaker 6: had men do that?
Speaker 5: So we didn't actually know the answer that question ourselves,
Speaker 5: so we found it. So when we embarked on this
Speaker 5: change the Board Game initiative, the first thing was know
Speaker 5: your elfing numbers. As I like to say, yeah, what
Speaker 5: are we actually talking about? So, yes, we're one of one.
Speaker 5: There's got to be more data points here for us
Speaker 5: to be able to carry this torch and get other
Speaker 5: people to come along the journey. So we entered thirty
Speaker 5: six thousand board members into a database so that we
Speaker 5: could slice and dice the data to figure out how
Speaker 5: to come up with the right messaging. Thirty six thousand
Speaker 5: board members, we found out that there are more men
Speaker 5: named Richard, rich or Dick than there are entire groups
Speaker 5: of underrepresented people.
Speaker 7: This was the greatest campaign I've ever seen go ahead.
Speaker 5: So we came out with a campaign called so Many Dicks,
Speaker 5: so Few of everyone Else. We not only came out
Speaker 5: with the campaign and put it out with a major roar,
Speaker 5: we put it on Wall Street in the oculus, where
Speaker 5: two hundred and fifty thousand people come through every day
Speaker 5: on their way to the New York's oct Change. So,
Speaker 5: to answer your question, that's when the phone started ringing.
Speaker 5: That's when people started asking questions saying whoa. First of all,
Speaker 5: I had no idea. Second of all, how can I
Speaker 5: get involved? Third of all, how can I serve on
Speaker 5: a board? So we then took the next step and
Speaker 5: we partnered with the NACD, which is the National Association
Speaker 5: of Corporate Directors, and they have a program that's called Accelerate.
Speaker 5: And the Accelerate program gets people bored ready because board
Speaker 5: seats don't just open up on a regular basis.
Speaker 8: They're pretty tight.
Speaker 5: It's kind of like the Supreme Court.
Speaker 8: So you have to be bored ready. Yeah.
Speaker 5: So what we what we were able to do is start
Speaker 5: by sponsoring twenty candidates, women and diverse individuals that we
Speaker 5: are sponsoring for board readiness, so that was one step.
Speaker 5: Then the NACD turns out does a conference every year
Speaker 5: for fifteen hundred people who come and either they want
Speaker 5: to serve on boards, or they are serving on boards,
Speaker 5: or they're influential and serving on boards. And we did
Speaker 5: a keynote there and the first question people were asking
Speaker 5: when they saw.
Speaker 8: ELF is why is ELF here?
Speaker 5: And then they heard our story and they asked, how
Speaker 5: can I get involved?
Speaker 6: So it's funny that there's such a I also believe
Speaker 6: in sort of common things that happen for a reason.
Speaker 6: And people that listen to my podcasts and they have
Speaker 6: thankfully thank you for listening to lease. But I have
Speaker 6: a lot of listeners that have listened for years and
Speaker 6: they come up to me and I had a hashtag.
Speaker 6: I came up with a story because my partner that
Speaker 6: I do my podcast with, Caitlin Thompson, was a college
Speaker 6: tennis player and she told the story about her coach
Speaker 6: day when she came and she had awful cramps and
Speaker 6: she came and it's just like tearing you know, a
Speaker 6: quad or rolling over your ankle or having a shoulder injury.
Speaker 6: You have terrible period pain that is part of life
Speaker 6: as a woman. And her coach at the time was
Speaker 6: a guy, and she said, listen, you should drop me
Speaker 6: down to like five or six in the team because
Speaker 6: she played two or three. And he said why and
Speaker 6: she said, oh, I've got the worst cramps. I feel terrible,
Speaker 6: and he said gross. And so we came up with
Speaker 6: the terminology.
Speaker 2: Hashtag dick kicks, because I said, men don't realize every
Speaker 2: month that we have to deal with us, and it's terrible.
Speaker 7: And I had very bad period pain.
Speaker 6: I one time had to pull out of the Olympics
Speaker 6: because I was literally on the four throwing up and
Speaker 6: had to go to hospital. And so I said, for
Speaker 6: men to understand this, we get to kick them in
Speaker 6: the deck every month. So then they understand that that
Speaker 6: kick is coming every month and they just have to
Speaker 6: take it.
Speaker 7: And I said, so we want a hashtag dick kicks.
Speaker 6: And so for me, that's it's just funny that you know,
Speaker 6: poor old Dick, you know he's in Richard's getting a
Speaker 6: hard time, but it is it's making people understand, as
Speaker 6: particularly men, this is.
Speaker 7: What we deal with.
Speaker 6: This is what women deal with on board, This is
Speaker 6: what women deal with in business. This is what women
Speaker 6: deal with when they have to play a professional tennis
Speaker 6: match that sometimes you know, Wimbledon had to change its
Speaker 6: underwear policies because it's all white, right, and we had
Speaker 6: to explain to them it's really hard for women to
Speaker 6: wear all white sometimes during their period. So they finally
Speaker 6: Wimbledon changed the rule to have underwear that was colored.
Speaker 6: And so it's having women like yourself or companies like
Speaker 6: l or even like my little podcast, to make men
Speaker 6: realize that.
Speaker 7: It's there's stuff out there that's difficult.
Speaker 6: For women and they don't even think about it.
Speaker 7: So I think that was a great ad that you did.
Speaker 7: That was amazing.
Speaker 5: I think that what we learned from that is most
Speaker 5: people didn't know. So do your ap point, do they
Speaker 5: think about it?
Speaker 8: Do they understand? And one of.
Speaker 5: Our goals with boards of directors is almost like you
Speaker 5: wouldn't buy a cereal without turning it over on its
Speaker 5: side and looking at the ingredient label. You should don't.
Speaker 5: You should not be buying a product without asking questions
Speaker 5: about who are the people behind this product, what are
Speaker 5: their values? And what I love about gen Z and
Speaker 5: even jen Alpha is they are asking those questions. They
Speaker 5: are voting with their wallet.
Speaker 9: They do want to know.
Speaker 5: And we had gotten some signals from our community when
Speaker 5: we do our earnings calls, which we do every quarter,
Speaker 5: we realized that people were popping in and asking questions
Speaker 5: about earnings on our social channels and we were like,
Speaker 5: wait a minute, gen Z is watching our earnings.
Speaker 8: That's fascinating.
Speaker 5: Then we put out it's fascinating right. Then we put
Speaker 5: out an impact report, which usually is built for ratings
Speaker 5: and reviewers, esg and things of that nature, and we
Speaker 5: started getting questions in from that realize that we're underestimating
Speaker 5: our community. They do want to know this stuff. They
Speaker 5: do appreciate that we put women in diversity in the
Speaker 5: highest seats of power.
Speaker 8: They do care about the values. They do care about.
Speaker 5: The things that move beyond and transcend a product transaction.
Speaker 8: So that gave us the.
Speaker 5: Confidence to put marketing dollars behind a campaign called so
Speaker 5: Many Dicks and put it out across every single one
Speaker 5: of our platforms. Ninety nine percent positive sentiment, ninety nine.
Speaker 5: We had people coming into our common pool saying I'm
Speaker 5: a dick and I approve of this message. The number
Speaker 5: of men, especially internationally, I did a talk earlier this
Speaker 5: year in London and the uproar from the men was extraordinary.
Speaker 5: They all came to see me after and like, how
Speaker 5: do we get involved, how do we help you change
Speaker 5: the game?
Speaker 8: How do we bring this to the UK?
Speaker 5: So I think a lot of times it's just having
Speaker 5: the curve bridge to start and then coalitions.
Speaker 7: Start to form.
Speaker 6: I think he's having the courage to start and actually
Speaker 6: introspectively looking inside of what's important. But also I mean
Speaker 6: as a business it makes sense. And you know, beauty
Speaker 6: products are bought by women mostly, you know, and so
Speaker 6: I think that's just a no brainer in so many ways.
Speaker 6: But like you said earlier about investing in women is
Speaker 6: now starting to rather be a charity, it's actually an investment.
Speaker 6: We're seeing that so much with the NWSL, the WNBA,
Speaker 6: with tennis. Through tennis has been We've been very lucky
Speaker 6: in a lot of ways because we've had a lot
Speaker 6: of equality through the Grand Slams for a number of years.
Speaker 6: But there's so much opportunity, especially for tennis worldwide. So
Speaker 6: as a business person, as somebody looks at this as
Speaker 6: a not only is somebody who's a woman who wants
Speaker 6: a quality, diversity all the things that else stands for.
Speaker 6: But what is it about women's sports that you now
Speaker 6: see as a CMO of a company?
Speaker 7: What do you see with women's sports? And what would
Speaker 7: you what do you tell it?
Speaker 6: Do you want to go almost keep it like a secret,
Speaker 6: like we're the ones benefiting for this, not you or
Speaker 6: are you saying would you say to other companies you're
Speaker 6: you're starting at a company. It's almost like starting at
Speaker 6: a startup company that you know is going to be successful.
Speaker 6: It's like women's sports is that like get in now?
Speaker 6: Like you know, if someone said to me ten fifteen
Speaker 6: years ago, have you heard of this company called Uber?
Speaker 6: Like you're going to get in someone car randomly?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: It's like things that people don't look for in the future.
Speaker 6: What would you tell a company? What would you tell
Speaker 6: another CMO about women's sports in general? And the experience
Speaker 6: of working with people like Billy and.
Speaker 8: Alana doupe that.
Speaker 5: So we just came out with a campaign called doup
Speaker 5: that because we believe the things we're doing are worth duping.
Speaker 8: And that's our board of directors that's.
Speaker 5: Championing equality and inclusivity, that's choosing the right ingredients inside
Speaker 5: your products. That's standing for the things your community cares.
Speaker 5: That's you know, getting behind women in sports. We put
Speaker 5: our blueprint out there for everybody to follow, because if
Speaker 5: everybody did what we were doing, the world would be
Speaker 5: a much better place. And as it relates to women
Speaker 5: in sports, if you think about what I said about
Speaker 5: democratizing access to the boardroom, that's not the only place
Speaker 5: we democratize access. Even before that, we went into gaming
Speaker 5: because we knew that seventy seven percent of women were
Speaker 5: reporting being bullied in the space and we didn't like
Speaker 5: that at all, and we said, well, what can we
Speaker 5: do about that? So we created a channel called elfeu,
Speaker 5: which is a safe space for predominantly women and underrepresented groups.
Speaker 5: The LGBTQ community, for example, was really important because women
Speaker 5: and underrepresented groups were actually coming into the platform with aliases,
Speaker 5: so people didn't know they were women, and we.
Speaker 8: Said, elf that, elf that.
Speaker 5: So the LFU channel was built for you to come
Speaker 5: as you are and we want to celebrate you in
Speaker 5: your infinite greatness. So that was our actual first step
Speaker 5: into gaming, which we do believe is a sport.
Speaker 8: So we're in the gaming world. We're partnering with these
Speaker 8: incredible gamers.
Speaker 5: We're understanding that we're actually making a very big difference
Speaker 5: in people's lives. So then you say, well, how do
Speaker 5: I cast a bigger net? Where are the other places
Speaker 5: that I could show up? And for us, the Indy
Speaker 5: five hundred was one of the first places.
Speaker 7: That we went into the ELF car.
Speaker 8: We had the elf.
Speaker 5: Car with Catherine leg and when you think about it,
Speaker 5: it just makes perfect sense.
Speaker 8: You've got the biggest spectator sport in the world.
Speaker 5: Three hundred and fifty thousand people show up every year
Speaker 5: at the Indy five hundred. Fifty percent of that audience
Speaker 5: as women. Nobody's talking to them. There is no company
Speaker 5: that is inviting you to celebrate your femininity if you're
Speaker 5: a female driver. And guess what, there's only one and
Speaker 5: that's Catherine Leg. So we came in to support the
Speaker 5: only female driver in the race, but not only support
Speaker 5: the only female driver the race, support the entire audience
Speaker 5: is there that's never been spoken to before. So after
Speaker 5: the ND five hundred, which was very emotional for us
Speaker 5: because we realized what it meant to serve the underserved,
Speaker 5: then we said, well where else can we be So
Speaker 5: when we were doing this partnership with Billy Jean. She
Speaker 5: was talking about the Professional Women's Hockey League and how
Speaker 5: nobody cares about these poor girls who were playing hockey
Speaker 5: and how important it was for them. So we said, okay,
Speaker 5: we'll partner with you on this, and once again we
Speaker 5: saw the raw emotion people had to be sponsored by
Speaker 5: a company like ELF. So then we took our partnership
Speaker 5: a step further and that's how we ended up here.
Speaker 5: So again you just see this beautiful tapestry that comes
Speaker 5: together as you build these moments, and each moment gives
Speaker 5: us the signal that says, keep going, press further, there's
Speaker 5: more to be done here. The emotional connection with our
Speaker 5: brand has transcended everything we could have ever imagined. ELF
Speaker 5: has almost become an ideology.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 5: It is a stamp of the underrepresented. It is a
Speaker 5: symbol of the overlooked, and that has unbelievable power that
Speaker 5: we I don't think realized how much power we actually have.
Speaker 7: It's funny you say that.
Speaker 6: You know, I go back to the sponsorships, for example,
Speaker 6: in women's tennis, and you know, Virginia Slams obviously is
Speaker 6: one of the most well known it really helped start
Speaker 6: the Women's Tennis Association.
Speaker 7: So our you know, our.
Speaker 6: Reverence for that company is different to it's a spoken company, right.
Speaker 6: It was more like they supported us. They were like
Speaker 6: they got it, they wanted to help.
Speaker 7: Clearly that was.
Speaker 6: Selling something that was not conducive to playing sports. But
Speaker 6: they are an incredible company because they got behind women's
Speaker 6: women's tennis. And I think, you know, for those of
Speaker 6: us at a certain age range like myself, you know,
Speaker 6: Billy obviously, Chrissy Abott, Martina, it's like you you form
Speaker 6: a bond with companies like that because and a lot
Speaker 6: of actually a lot of the women that were there
Speaker 6: are a lot of people that work there were women,
Speaker 6: and I just feel it's important for companies and for
Speaker 6: sports when you get a sponsorship from a company that
Speaker 6: really believes in you. And also, I don't know, I
Speaker 6: don't know how to describe it other than like a
Speaker 6: perfect partnership like for me, Elf Cosmetics in Women's Sports
Speaker 6: Network at iHeart too.
Speaker 7: You know what you're.
Speaker 6: Doing in in you know, the racing industry, what you're
Speaker 6: doing with now getting involved in tennis like that is
Speaker 6: a I feel like that's a partnership that a lot
Speaker 6: of other companies should concentrate on is really you know,
Speaker 6: so many companies just throw money, as you know, so
Speaker 6: well throw money because they're like, Okay, it's an opportunity
Speaker 6: for us to be in this space, but they don't
Speaker 6: really invest in it with the right, right like reasons.
Speaker 6: And I feel with women's tennis, I think that's an opportunity.
Speaker 6: Like Logic is the main sponsor of the WJN.
Speaker 2: I was just thinking, you know, when got my mamogram
Speaker 2: like a couple of weeks ago, and here I am
Speaker 2: getting my boobs smashed in there and I see ho
Speaker 2: Logic like everywhere, and I was thinking, that's a synergy
Speaker 2: that works, right, that's a synergy that we should embrace.
Speaker 7: It's the same with Elf.
Speaker 6: It's like that's a company that we should or women
Speaker 6: in every sport, in anything should embrace that company, like
Speaker 6: buy ELF products because they're supporting women's sports, they're supporting
Speaker 6: all the right things. So I'm like, what would you
Speaker 6: say to a CMO in that regard, like sponsor things
Speaker 6: and put your money behind something that really means something
Speaker 6: to you, that actually it feels good to you.
Speaker 5: It all has to start inside your organization. So I
Speaker 5: wouldn't tell a CMO anything. I'll show you the blueprint
Speaker 5: and you can take pieces do that, and you can
Speaker 5: take pieces and parts that are right for your company.
Speaker 5: But the first thing is it has to ring true
Speaker 5: inside the walls of your organization. If it doesn't ring
Speaker 5: true inside the walls of your organization, it is going
Speaker 5: to fall flat on the outside.
Speaker 8: And I think that's why a lot of them do.
Speaker 5: And when you think about the power that ELF has
Speaker 5: when we show up for the BJK Cup, look at
Speaker 5: how many of us are here. From iHeart, from ELF.
Speaker 5: We're bringing tons of press. We're making this a massive moment,
Speaker 5: like we did at the Indie, like we did at
Speaker 5: all the sports.
Speaker 8: It's because we care, deep, deep.
Speaker 7: In our right here.
Speaker 5: We have an allergy to a logo slab. You will
Speaker 5: never find ELF just putting their logo on something.
Speaker 9: We come.
Speaker 5: We come full throttle, full heart, all the way in head,
Speaker 5: heart and soul. Right The head is the data says
Speaker 5: we should be here because there's an opportunity. The heart
Speaker 5: says we deeply care about this, and the soul is
Speaker 5: the kindred spiritism with people like Billy Jean King and
Speaker 5: Alana and others that we work with in the field.
Speaker 5: So the the thing that the cmos have to do
Speaker 5: is think about what is true to the company that
Speaker 5: they represent, what is true inside those four walls, and
Speaker 5: how do you then radiate that on the outside. Inside
Speaker 5: our company, we truly believe in every single thing that
Speaker 5: we stand for, from our CEO, our board of directors,
Speaker 5: all the way through all the walls of our organization.
Speaker 5: So all we're doing is turning that inside out. And
Speaker 5: that's why it rings true. That's why it's authentic. That's
Speaker 5: why when Elf shows up, people know that we're wearing
Speaker 5: our hearts on our sleeves.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm a big believer in being authentic and I
Speaker 6: have passion tattooed on my arm. So I feel like
Speaker 6: that's what people need to have authenticity with their sponsorship,
Speaker 6: passion for it, which you do. Last question, how's your
Speaker 6: tennis game?
Speaker 8: My tennis game is terrible, really terrible. It's absolutely terrible.
Speaker 8: You know, I am not getting on the court with
Speaker 8: you anytime soon.
Speaker 7: Well, I was thinking, but Billy's a good teacher. She
Speaker 7: loves to still hit the ball around.
Speaker 8: She taught me so much.
Speaker 5: Sitting next to her last night to your point about
Speaker 5: her coaching from the sideline, I had anxiety.
Speaker 8: While she was talking during the serve. I'm like, Billy, quiet.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna easy to be quiet.
Speaker 8: You're giving me anxiety.
Speaker 7: It's impossible, absolutely impossible.
Speaker 6: Alana always says, you know, Billy and I would We
Speaker 6: shared a house at Wimbledon, which we often, you know,
Speaker 6: did for a couple of years, and we were watching
Speaker 6: the Women's World Cup soccer and Billy and I screaming
Speaker 6: at the television, Billy screaming ideas for the coaches, and
Speaker 6: Alana just sitting there just going, oh my god, you
Speaker 6: two are impossible. She's like, there are two people in
Speaker 6: the world, those that say, you know, three thousand words
Speaker 6: a day and those say fifty thousand, and that's you
Speaker 6: and Billy Jean. So I get Billy a big time.
Speaker 6: But we thank Billy Jean for all the work that
Speaker 6: she's done through the years. I mean, her passion, her
Speaker 6: authenticity for the right thing, for equality. She's my shero,
Speaker 6: She's she's my north star. I call her whenever there's
Speaker 6: anything controversial in my life. I call Billy and I go,
Speaker 6: what would you do here? It's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 6: instead of what would Jesus do? What would Billy do?
Speaker 2: You do?
Speaker 7: So that's my mantra.
Speaker 6: But Corey, thank you, thank you to elf thank you
Speaker 6: to the sponsorship not only the women's Sports network on iHeart,
Speaker 6: but of course for the you know, the money that
Speaker 6: you're putting now into billaging Kin Cup, into women's tennis.
Speaker 6: We hope we can keep bringing you into women's tennis.
Speaker 6: And there are a couple of other cmos from other
Speaker 6: companies that I know women and they make such a
Speaker 6: difference in the world. And you know, going back to tennis,
Speaker 6: what would you tell your twenty year old self and
Speaker 6: what would you tell a twenty.
Speaker 8: Year old live your bold truth?
Speaker 5: There you go and shine up for wideage and I'll
Speaker 5: elfing believe that.
Speaker 7: All right, Coli, thanks so much for Johnny. Today we're
Speaker 7: going to go watsin tennis late.
Speaker 5: We are thank you for having me