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