Speaker 1: Hyatt's West Kasova. We're taking a break this week for
Speaker 1: the holidays, so here's an episode you might have missed.
Speaker 2: Why what you want?
Speaker 3: Win or loss? We take it.
Speaker 4: It's tough when you lose, of course, and you learn
Speaker 4: from it. But it's more than football. It's really family.
Speaker 4: Like I know people for three years now and these
Speaker 4: are my best friend and my sisters. They got my
Speaker 4: back and we do it because we're happy.
Speaker 5: These players come from all walks of life. They are nurses,
Speaker 5: they are teachers, they are coaches. If you want to
Speaker 5: see women playing tackle football at their best and most athletic,
Speaker 5: this is where you would go.
Speaker 3: What we here's the bag.
Speaker 1: I'm West Kasova today on the Big Take. Bloom Business
Speaker 1: Week contributor Mary Palan asks us simple but not so
Speaker 1: simple question.
Speaker 5: Why hasn't there been women's professional tackle football? Why isn't
Speaker 5: it professionalized? Why aren't they sponsored?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 5: Women's professional football has been around in the United States
Speaker 5: for a long time. The Women's Football Alliance was formed
Speaker 5: in two thousand and nine, and today it has about
Speaker 5: two thousand players across thirty two states. These are women
Speaker 5: playing full contact, full tackle football. Just so we're clear,
Speaker 5: not flag not rugby, 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.
Speaker 5: Correct, So there are divisions within the Women's Football Alliance
Speaker 5: for ranging from developing teams so it's brand new, you
Speaker 5: just started a team, to what they call the professional
Speaker 5: teams that are playing at a higher level of competition,
Speaker 5: usually with more experienced players, teams and coaches.
Speaker 7: Unlike the NFL.
Speaker 5: They do not have billions of dollars of marketing and
Speaker 5: sponsors behind them, so players often have to pay to
Speaker 5: cover field rental, gear, travel, hotels, the basics, and most
Speaker 5: folks are working full time jobs that are outside of football,
Speaker 5: so practices are at night and on weekends.
Speaker 7: They really really have to hustle to.
Speaker 5: Make it sustainable, which I think is also just a
Speaker 5: big testament to how much 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 5: Yes, football is an extremely expensive sport to become involved,
Speaker 5: and anyone who's not a kid who's played football understands
Speaker 5: that as well. You've got the gear, you know, you
Speaker 5: need to have reps and officials. The other thing with football,
Speaker 5: and what originally kind of interested in me in this too,
Speaker 5: is physically it's extremely demanding. There's a lot of obviously
Speaker 5: head injuries, which is something I and others have written
Speaker 5: about pretty extensively.
Speaker 7: And it's a rough sport, right. You can sprain an
Speaker 7: ankle really quickly.
Speaker 5: Often you might need pain medication, so it's not just like, oh, you're.
Speaker 7: Popping to the gym for an hour or two.
Speaker 5: It's a very very physically demanding sport for men and
Speaker 5: for women, 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 5: So women's professional football starts where men's pretty much wraps up.
Speaker 5: You know, we had the Super Bowl earlier this year.
Speaker 5: This league is just getting started in late April, and
Speaker 5: they play throughout the spring and the summer, and it
Speaker 5: culminates in a championship that's played in Canton, Ohio at
Speaker 5: the Football Hall of Fame. In the summer, these teams
Speaker 5: are playing all over the country.
Speaker 7: They travel extensively in order to do.
Speaker 5: So, and you know, obviously it's kind of day and
Speaker 5: night from the NFL, right. You know, the NFL has
Speaker 5: a massive TV deal, It has huge stadiums with corporate
Speaker 5: seats and tons of money pumping in from all sides,
Speaker 5: which is very much the result of decades of work.
Speaker 5: The Women's Football Alliance they have to work really hard
Speaker 5: to kind of conjure up their local bases. You know,
Speaker 5: it's interesting when I talk to a lot of these teams,
Speaker 5: the coaches and the players. A lot of smaller mid
Speaker 5: city teams are really well supported because there is not
Speaker 5: an NFL team, And unlike the WNBA, which has a
Speaker 5: partnership with the NBA, the WFA exists completely.
Speaker 7: Separately from the NFL.
Speaker 5: The NFL does not sponsor the Women's Football Alliance, they
Speaker 5: don't partner with them, They do not have any kind
Speaker 5: of relationship. So it's very different than what we see
Speaker 5: in terms of the development 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 5: So there isn't as much money and the structure is
Speaker 5: pretty different than the NFL. So the NFL, we're pretty
Speaker 5: familiar with you know, there's an owner or a small
Speaker 5: group of owners who owns each team if you follow
Speaker 5: the commander's sale, those are extremely lucrative deals. Usually a
Speaker 5: lot of these teams are structured as nonprofits, and what
Speaker 5: that allows the teams to do is do a lot
Speaker 5: more grassroots fundraising, so they could go to a local
Speaker 5: business and say, hey, cut us a check. It's a
Speaker 5: tax right, and you're supporting the development of women's football.
Speaker 5: And the nonprofit model also kind of changes the culture
Speaker 5: of the teams a little bit.
Speaker 7: One of the teams that I talked to, you.
Speaker 5: Know, they have a program where they partner with girls
Speaker 5: who play on junior and boys' high school teams and
Speaker 5: they get to go to these games, and then the
Speaker 5: women who play WFA football go and support the girls
Speaker 5: at their games, especially if they hear that there's bullying
Speaker 5: or anything else like that. So it's a very different culture,
Speaker 5: I would argue than the NFL, where you've got agents,
Speaker 5: you've got drafts, you've got multimillion dollar deals individual players
Speaker 5: are you know, negotiating the players here have very very
Speaker 5: different headwinds. The WFA is not shy about, you know,
Speaker 5: the financial disparities here. Which we see across men's and
Speaker 5: women's sports. During this year Super Bowl, they did this
Speaker 5: campaign called give Us a Second, and it was kind
Speaker 5: of their cheeky way of pointing out that with a
Speaker 5: half minute ad that costs seven million dollars during the
Speaker 5: Super Bowl, a donation equivalent to what they paid for
Speaker 5: a single second, So about two hundred and thirty thousand
Speaker 5: dollars could sponsor entire season of women's pro football. That
Speaker 5: isn't just like a pay gap, that's like a pay stratosphere.
Speaker 5: 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 foot, probably most popular
Speaker 1: sport in America does, And if a lot of these
Speaker 1: teams are nonprofits, the players are paying for their own
Speaker 1: gear and travel, and the budgets are so small, how
Speaker 1: is it really a pro sport.
Speaker 5: There's a long history of the debate around what is
Speaker 5: a professional athlete. I'm thinking of the Amateur Athletic Union AAU,
Speaker 5: and a lot of the fights that runners went up
Speaker 5: against the Olympic Committee and the nineteen seventies because they
Speaker 5: weren't being paid to race, which is crazy when you
Speaker 5: think about how many shoes Nike has sold on the
Speaker 5: feet of runners, right, So I think that they want
Speaker 5: it to be professionalized. It's like the whole mantra from
Speaker 5: a Field of dreams. If you build it, they will come.
Speaker 5: Has been at the root of so many terrible stadium
Speaker 5: deals and arena deals. But here you see them applying
Speaker 5: at kind of that kind of thinking to a league.
Speaker 5: If you call it professional, if you increase the athleticism,
Speaker 5: if you have committed athletes, if you treat it seriously,
Speaker 5: then sponsors hopefully will as well, and fans will want
Speaker 5: to watch as well.
Speaker 7: We say professional because we want to see.
Speaker 5: The best of anybody competing and playing. And as it
Speaker 5: stands now, they have the whole world of women's professional football.
Speaker 7: You know, it's them.
Speaker 5: So I think the hope is that with time that
Speaker 5: it grows and develops, and that the players will get paid.
Speaker 7: One of the things I think.
Speaker 5: About a lot in sports is when you show up
Speaker 5: just because things are the way they are doesn't mean
Speaker 5: it's right or the way things are going to stay.
Speaker 7: You know, if you look at a.
Speaker 5: Sport like tennis, Serena Williams outsells most of, if not all,
Speaker 5: of the men when she was, you know, competing before
Speaker 5: her retirement. So we have a lot of these assumptions
Speaker 5: about revenue and women's sports that aren't necessarily true or dated.
Speaker 5: You know, our women's national team outpaces our men in
Speaker 5: TV ratings all the time. You know, during March Madness
Speaker 5: with women's basketball, you saw that when they were given decent,
Speaker 5: if not equal, slots, they did amazing in the ratings.
Speaker 5: So I think that this is also kind of under
Speaker 5: 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 5: You know, it's interesting because I parallel a lot of
Speaker 5: the conversations about injuries in the sport. You know, we
Speaker 5: have this quote in the story, injuries are a part
Speaker 5: of life, and I think a lot of women feel
Speaker 5: that way, And I think it's always silly going back
Speaker 5: to assumptions. You know, you know, it's really hard pregnancy.
Speaker 5: So where do we get this idea that women can't
Speaker 5: do tough physical athletic things, Because last I checked, for
Speaker 5: a long long time, women's bodies were doing all sorts
Speaker 5: of really impressive feats. And you know that said, I
Speaker 5: think most women have to juggle a ton of stuff
Speaker 5: all the time. They're so committed to this sport that
Speaker 5: they are willing to make the time in addition to
Speaker 5: caretaking duties which often fall to women, in addition to
Speaker 5: professional ambitions. And you know, there are even some people
Speaker 5: I talk to where their daughters play. Their son is
Speaker 5: playing football, so they wanted to get involved as well.
Speaker 5: So it also can become kind of a family event,
Speaker 5: the same way that a lot of sports do too.
Speaker 5: But instead of maybe you know, the dad, it's the
Speaker 5: 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 8: When we get visibility and accessibility in marketing and dollars invested,
Speaker 8: people show up, they want to play, they want to watch.
Speaker 8: And you can see that even like the WNBA, it's
Speaker 8: not the people this all of a sudden love women's basketball.
Speaker 8: So people can watch basketball now, but I don't think,
Speaker 8: 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 these games. Who are the fans?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 5: So I'm based in Los Angeles and angel City, which
Speaker 5: is our national women's Soccer League team, is packing out
Speaker 5: Bank of California Stadium and it's second season. You would
Speaker 5: think they've been playing there for twenty years. I think
Speaker 5: it's a exactly what she's talking about. You know, it's
Speaker 5: interesting she's in Portland. So this story I reported on
Speaker 5: the heels of something Portland. I wrote about this bar
Speaker 5: called the Sports Bra, which is the first bar in
Speaker 5: the country that only plays women's sports, and it's packed.
Speaker 5: It is a great neighborhood vibe. There was a line
Speaker 5: out the door and I was actually there for a
Speaker 5: Thorns game. The Portland Thorns, which is their soccer team,
Speaker 5: is really really well supported and kind of beloved in
Speaker 5: the community, and I think Portland is a great example
Speaker 5: of a.
Speaker 7: Community that really sports.
Speaker 5: Women's sports are trying to get a WMA team now,
Speaker 5: and exactly it goes back to kind of these bigger
Speaker 5: systemic issues in sports. Are women getting the same time slots,
Speaker 5: Are they getting the same marketing budgets? Are they getting
Speaker 5: the same adviys from sponsors? You know? Leading into these events?
Speaker 5: There are all these things that go around sports. And
Speaker 5: this is an anecdotal observation, but I think people want
Speaker 5: to watch great competition, men, women, old, young, however you
Speaker 5: want to slice it. Sports are stories with an uncertain outcome.
Speaker 5: That's why we tune in to watch anything. And I
Speaker 5: think that that's part of why when you give an
Speaker 5: equal platform, there's drama, there's plot, you want to know
Speaker 5: who's going to win. It's like this primal thing that's
Speaker 5: wired into us. So I think that she's a great
Speaker 5: example of, like, you know, the shockwave is right in
Speaker 5: 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, Ladies disciplin. We wanted to see
Speaker 1: what a women's pro football practice looks like. So our
Speaker 1: producers Michael Flarro and Mowbarrow went out to watch the
Speaker 1: DC Divas. They're a pro team that plays in suburban
Speaker 1: Virginia just outside Washington, DC.
Speaker 9: Dava Jumper, we did what what what?
Speaker 10: My name is Slice EPs Kinglee known as TIG. I
Speaker 10: am a middle linebacker. I'm been playing for it is
Speaker 10: my eleventh season playing professional tackle football my day job,
Speaker 10: I am actually in the military, even in the military
Speaker 10: Air Force for twenty two years. I've been playing sports
Speaker 10: all my life, So I started playing at I think
Speaker 10: seven years old and I was on my elementary school
Speaker 10: basketball team with all guys. I've been playing sports with
Speaker 10: all guys all my life. So when I found out
Speaker 10: about the professional tackle team, I was ecstatic. It was
Speaker 10: a dream come true for me because you know, I'm
Speaker 10: finally able to actually play tackle football.
Speaker 11: You clearly love it. What's the biggest draw for you? Like,
Speaker 11: what keeps you going coming out to these practices, going
Speaker 11: to games all year?
Speaker 10: Oh man, hitting somebody, hitting somebody, and it's nothing they
Speaker 10: can do about it. They just gotta get up and
Speaker 10: keep moving. It's a stress reliever. You know, It's amazing.
Speaker 7: It's a rush, really.
Speaker 3: Is Felicia Donaldson.
Speaker 12: I play offensive line, right and left guard, and for
Speaker 12: my day job, I'm.
Speaker 3: A trained lawyer and immigration.
Speaker 12: However, what I'm doing right now is in the process
Speaker 12: of starting my own nonprofit to focus on raising awareness
Speaker 12: and women in football. So today Faith Robinson and I
Speaker 12: she's on the defense. We visited Eastern Senior High School
Speaker 12: we did a presentation for their girls flag football team,
Speaker 12: and our hope is that we continue building this relationship
Speaker 12: with them because there's a stereotype that comes along with
Speaker 12: female football players, and it's like to show like, no, actually,
Speaker 12: we're lawyers, we're chemists, some of us work for NASA.
Speaker 12: We have engineers, we have teachers, we have law enforcement,
Speaker 12: we have The gamut runs wild in terms of all
Speaker 12: the different kinds of careers and pathways you have in
Speaker 12: addition to being mothers, but sisters, aunties, caretakers, and football players.
Speaker 12: So just giving them that opportunity to understand that you
Speaker 12: can go so far.
Speaker 3: So it was just great. It felt like, these are
Speaker 3: my little sisters.
Speaker 11: What's the end goal? What does it look like?
Speaker 12: I want them to be able to get paid to play,
Speaker 12: Like literally, that's the end goal for me. Conversation to
Speaker 12: play full recognition from the NFL and for them to
Speaker 12: embrace the women's football team, not see us as competitors,
Speaker 12: but 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 10: Right.
Speaker 3: Alicia Marphall.
Speaker 2: They called me coach Ghost and I'm the head coach
Speaker 2: of the DC Divas.
Speaker 3: I was a player.
Speaker 2: I was played for the Devas for ten years. I
Speaker 2: was a captain, but I was also a leader on
Speaker 2: the team. At times if we didn't have a coach,
Speaker 2: I ran the practices for the offensive line. Captains have
Speaker 2: played a huge role in this team for twenty years,
Speaker 2: really the backbone of the support for.
Speaker 7: The coaches in history.
Speaker 2: Generally, our coaches have been men until past recent years.
Speaker 2: When we won national championship in twenty fifteen, Alison Fisher
Speaker 2: was the first Dave to become head coach, so it's
Speaker 2: a pretty monumental time for our team. That is one
Speaker 2: of my focuses is to grow women in the sport,
Speaker 2: especially our alumni. We are about six hundred strong alumni,
Speaker 2: and there's no reason why players should retire and not
Speaker 2: stay with the organization, whether it's marketing, COO. Because we
Speaker 2: are a nonprofit. We have grown so much to where
Speaker 2: we have a chief Operating Officer, Director of Football ops
Speaker 2: and things of that nature. So we're just growing and
Speaker 2: it's natural that women grow with the sport.
Speaker 13: What would you say is the difference and someone just
Speaker 13: walking up tonight like me saying what's the difference between
Speaker 13: women's tackle.
Speaker 7: Football and men men tackle football. What answer would you
Speaker 7: give them?
Speaker 2: The playbook that these ladies learn is a definitely at
Speaker 2: minimum a high level collegiate playbook and NFL playbook. A
Speaker 2: lot of the staff that I have, majority of them
Speaker 2: are all head coach caliber coaches or are our head
Speaker 2: coaches somewhere else. But these guys are our backbone. They
Speaker 2: truly whole hardly believe in what we're doing. The difference
Speaker 2: is the learning curve. Men have the liberty to not
Speaker 2: have to work. They can train all day long, they
Speaker 2: can go to football practice, train some days a week.
Speaker 2: They have a nutrition as somebody cooking their meal, somebody
Speaker 2: driving this this big fat salary. These women out here
Speaker 2: they don't have that. They don't have that. All of
Speaker 2: them have come from a very very long workday. Majority
Speaker 2: of them are mothers and high ranking professions, you know.
Speaker 2: So it is a hard task to carrying. They're out
Speaker 2: here until sometimes eleven thirty twelve o'clock at night.
Speaker 3: That's the difference.
Speaker 2: I think we work a lot harder because it's not
Speaker 2: given to us. Man.
Speaker 6: My name is Susannah Brown aka Susie Brown. I am
Speaker 6: one of the offensive line coaches, and I am an analyst.
Speaker 6: I think one of the things that is unique about
Speaker 6: women's sports period, and I think you saw it a
Speaker 6: lot during COVID, you know, with the bubble with the
Speaker 6: WNBA versus the NBA. We have a lot more kids around,
Speaker 6: and you know, because it's a lot more likely that
Speaker 6: you have women who are going to be the primary caretaker.
Speaker 6: So like the fact that we have kids on the sideline,
Speaker 6: you know, during games, at practices and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: Like that's something that I think is unique to adult
Speaker 6: women's sports.
Speaker 11: Has anyone ever been taken them back? When they're like, oh,
Speaker 11: you say you played tackle football, women's tackle football? What
Speaker 11: do you say in response? How does the conversation go?
Speaker 6: Usually there are lots of follow up questions. They automatically
Speaker 6: want to see if I'm aggressive. That's usually some questions.
Speaker 6: I was at a music festival and there was a
Speaker 6: guy who's like, oh, can you hit? And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 6: I could hit. I play that like I was. I
Speaker 6: think I just made the All Star team that year,
Speaker 6: and he is like, prove it. So like I literally
Speaker 6: got out of my and like he got down in
Speaker 6: a defensive line stance. And I drove her right back
Speaker 6: and he was like, okay, all right, let me try akad,
Speaker 6: let me try again. He's like, I wasn't ready.
Speaker 7: I wasn't ready.
Speaker 6: But it's definitely you get people who are non believers
Speaker 6: until they see it, you know, sort of got to
Speaker 6: see it to believe it because they've never seen it before.
Speaker 6: I was a very aggressive basketball player and so finding football.
Speaker 6: The reason I play football and not basketball is the aggression. Like,
Speaker 6: the aggression is the reason and for like, you know,
Speaker 6: being able to hit somebody and like assert your dominance
Speaker 6: over somebody and just like it's it's a rush on
Speaker 6: like no other.
Speaker 7: I'm Lois Cook.
Speaker 13: I'm vice president and defensive back of the GC Divas.
Speaker 7: My day job is to grow the game.
Speaker 11: For someone who's never been to a women's Fallow game,
Speaker 11: what do you say to them? Like, what do you say,
Speaker 11: like why they should come out to watch a game?
Speaker 13: First of all, it's a fun experience. We are a
Speaker 13: family friendly organization.
Speaker 7: We have contests and giveaways. We have kids come down
Speaker 7: and do.
Speaker 13: Dance offs, and you know they do a uniform race
Speaker 13: where they try to hurry up and put on the uniform.
Speaker 13: But what you get is you get women out here
Speaker 13: who are not only a lot of things during the day,
Speaker 13: but then they all come together at night to play football.
Speaker 13: And when you have that type of determination, you know,
Speaker 13: despite all the odds, the challenges with lack of resources.
Speaker 13: As you see, we're practicing late at night. There's kids
Speaker 13: out here, you know, and sometimes you know, childcare is
Speaker 13: an issue, and so you know it's a hurdle, but
Speaker 13: we're out here still doing it. And when you have
Speaker 13: that type of determination and that type of perseverance, no
Speaker 13: matter the obstacle that women aren't still out here playing
Speaker 13: this game, you see that translate on the field. You
Speaker 13: see the passion, you see the intensity, and you see
Speaker 13: the grid. It's interesting because women who play this game,
Speaker 13: they start playing typically they start playing at eighteen years
Speaker 13: or older. So we didn't grow with the game. We
Speaker 13: didn't have anything to funnel into this sport. So recruiting
Speaker 13: and just finding people who want to play is it's
Speaker 13: a big deal. We got to find them so and
Speaker 13: it's a lot of word of mouth, so a lot
Speaker 13: of the players have friends and family. We put a
Speaker 13: you know, social media as a big thing. We have
Speaker 13: multiple tryouts so that people do have the opportunity maybe
Speaker 13: they didn't see the first one. We have three to
Speaker 13: four tryouts throughout the fall season so that we can
Speaker 13: get more people in here. Pre season will typically be,
Speaker 13: you know, with most of the teams January through March,
Speaker 13: where we'll.
Speaker 7: Have three practices a week.
Speaker 13: We'll also combine that with virtual practices, so maybe there's
Speaker 13: one to two days virtually and then three days on
Speaker 13: the field, and then when we get into the season,
Speaker 13: we have two days per week on the field with
Speaker 13: the game day being on a Saturday, and then we'll
Speaker 13: have film study and then we'll have unit meetings virtually
Speaker 13: as well, so we pretty much use up our whole week.
Speaker 13: I personally have four sons. They're ages three through sixteen,
Speaker 13: and so it is a juggle, but you find a rhythm,
Speaker 13: you know, when you are passionate and when you want
Speaker 13: to do something and you have the love for this game,
Speaker 13: you find a way to make it work. And so
Speaker 13: whether you're having your kids out here with you or
Speaker 13: whether you are you know, doing the crock pod in
Speaker 13: the morning because you know you're going to be at
Speaker 13: price this at night, you find these little things to
Speaker 13: just kind of support the game. We used to play
Speaker 13: on grass fields where we had to use our headlights.
Speaker 7: From our cars.
Speaker 13: And this is real talk, to shine light on the
Speaker 13: field just so that we can get that practice time in.
Speaker 13: We used to practice in a parking lot with no grass,
Speaker 13: just doing walkthroughs because we didn't have the resources. So
Speaker 13: we have come a long way, and it's so important
Speaker 13: to have the support of our community and those around us,
Speaker 13: those who support the men who play. You know, a
Speaker 13: lot of people say that they want to see women
Speaker 13: with these big, powerful hits, and just like the men do,
Speaker 13: and guess what, we do it too. We have those hits.
Speaker 13: But if you want to see the women do better,
Speaker 13: you have to invest in us.
Speaker 8: There you go, they're going, 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.
Speaker 5: Game, definitely, and I think love of the game also
Speaker 5: drives the men's side. I think most people don't realize
Speaker 5: the average NFL career is about three years, and that's
Speaker 5: if you're lucky enough to make it to the NFL,
Speaker 5: which obviously the vast majority of D one players do not,
Speaker 5: and the vast majority of high school players do not
Speaker 5: make it to a Division one program. But with the women,
Speaker 5: that's not even on the table as a carrot, and
Speaker 5: that changes the dynamics a lot. It isn't a D
Speaker 5: one scholarship sport, and there isn't some big paycheck and
Speaker 5: a flurry of agents that will represent you and get
Speaker 5: you millions of dollars for you to earn by a
Speaker 5: pretty young age. So I think that heart you really
Speaker 5: feel it when you watch and you see thecices, and
Speaker 5: just from a time management standpoint, I mean, it's really incredible.
Speaker 5: Part of what the Women's Football Alliance also has to
Speaker 5: work on is when you go to the NFL, you've
Speaker 5: had years of basically being in a feeder system, you know,
Speaker 5: whether it's Pop Orner or your college. They often have
Speaker 5: to take players who are rugby players, soccer players, etc.
Speaker 5: And really educate them on the game, on plays, on
Speaker 5: the way you move your body being very different obviously
Speaker 5: with this kind of padding, you know, I talked to
Speaker 5: some rugby players who were like, we think it's crazy.
Speaker 5: There is padding, you know in rugby, we just go
Speaker 5: out there, and some say even more dangerous.
Speaker 7: I don't know. I haven't seen the data.
Speaker 5: So there's an educational component that also has to happen
Speaker 5: on top of it, and I think to do something
Speaker 5: like that on top of work and family and all
Speaker 5: these other things really shows that folks really love it.
Speaker 5: And it's not surprising to me that the WFA has
Speaker 5: been this huge feeder system for female coaches and refs
Speaker 5: in the NFL. All the more surprising to me, honestly
Speaker 5: that the NFL doesn't back it, because it's been this
Speaker 5: incredible pipeline of talent for them, for women.
Speaker 7: Who really know the game and really want to be
Speaker 7: 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 5: Obviously, we're having a lot of conversations about head injuries
Speaker 5: and just overall safety in men's professional football and men's
Speaker 5: football at all levels, and a lot of the conversations
Speaker 5: I had with players about safety were very similar to
Speaker 5: those I've had with men playing the game. They love
Speaker 5: the game. It's also part of the exhilaration and the
Speaker 5: high of it. I think one of the things that
Speaker 5: shifted is kind of what do we know about the risks?
Speaker 5: You know, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, you had a
Speaker 5: professional league that was in many cases denying outright that
Speaker 5: football is dangerous. I think that's you know, shifted pretty dramatically,
Speaker 5: especially with the big settlements that have been paid out.
Speaker 5: You know, I grew up in a house my brother
Speaker 5: played football, my dad played football.
Speaker 7: I grew up in Eugene, Oregon. Football as part of life.
Speaker 3: And when I was.
Speaker 5: Reporting this story, and what originally interested me in it
Speaker 5: was like, well, what are our assumptions about men, men
Speaker 5: and boys playing this sport that we know can be
Speaker 5: really harmful. So if we're saying it's okay for boys
Speaker 5: and men to do it, why are we not saying
Speaker 5: women are doing it? And I think we live in
Speaker 5: this interesting time with our assumptions about female athletes.
Speaker 7: You know, mixed martial arts is a sport I've.
Speaker 5: Written about, and Dana White, you know, has been the
Speaker 5: face of the UFC for a long time. I mean,
Speaker 5: he told me he didn't think people would want to
Speaker 5: watch women beat each other up. And then Ronda Rowsi
Speaker 5: and Holly Holms show up and all these other you know,
Speaker 5: amazing women, Ronda Rowsi being a professionally trained judo athlete like,
Speaker 5: and she.
Speaker 7: Made more money than the men you know for a
Speaker 7: while there.
Speaker 5: So I think that that's also something that's shifting as well.
Speaker 5: And also it reflects the huge fan base that the
Speaker 5: NFL has actively cultivated of women who've been fans of
Speaker 5: men's football.
Speaker 7: The NFL's job is to grow the game of football.
Speaker 5: They have pumped a ton of money into trying to
Speaker 5: cultivate female fans in the face of paying cheerleaders to
Speaker 5: seventy five an hour, in the face of horrible domestic
Speaker 5: violence cases, and I think they've been successful in a
Speaker 5: lot of ways. So it's this interesting tension to me
Speaker 5: between people wanting the money and the eyeballs of female fans.
Speaker 5: But when it comes to them getting on the field,
Speaker 5: there's still a stigma. There's still something unresolved there. And
Speaker 5: these players are just smack in.
Speaker 7: The middle of it.
Speaker 5: You know, they're out there playing and they don't care
Speaker 5: about any of that. They love the game and they
Speaker 5: 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 8: The fear is if there's an injury, regardless of what
Speaker 8: it is, and I don't think it's football specific, it
Speaker 8: interferes with your entire life. If you're a mother, if
Speaker 8: you work on your feet, there's like lots of reasons
Speaker 8: why you would be considering that. But the opportunity to play,
Speaker 8: I think the ROI in that is so much higher
Speaker 8: that I don't think it's a pervasive concern that keeps
Speaker 8: people from playing. Not by the time they make it
Speaker 8: to the field.
Speaker 1: Mary, I think that idea of the ROI, the return
Speaker 1: onun 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 5: Yes, I think the ROI of women in sports, you know,
Speaker 5: you can't underestimate that.
Speaker 7: I mean, we live in a culture that's.
Speaker 5: Constantly telling women, including professional athletes, you have to look
Speaker 5: a certain way. Often sports is shot by men and
Speaker 5: through a male gaze, whether it's your sleek ad or
Speaker 5: it's the broadcast you see on TV, and I think,
Speaker 5: you know, I can't even tell you how many women
Speaker 5: I've talked to across all sports, football and otherwise where
Speaker 5: it's part of the empowerment of I'm using my body
Speaker 5: 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 5: I think it's a little unclear kind of what the
Speaker 5: goal is. But I think you know, when you consider
Speaker 5: that they call themselves professional football, when you consider that
Speaker 5: they are going to have their championship game on ESPN two,
Speaker 5: you can read between the lines and see that you
Speaker 5: know they do want to be right up there, and
Speaker 5: that's not a crazy goal. Look at where the WNBA
Speaker 5: was when it started in the mid nineties and where
Speaker 5: it is today.
Speaker 7: Look at women's soccer.
Speaker 5: I grew up watching me a Ham and now there
Speaker 5: actually is a sustainable, viable league after many you know,
Speaker 5: starts and stops, and so I don't think that's a
Speaker 5: crazy idea that there could be a league that has
Speaker 5: its own fans, it has its own stars, that has
Speaker 5: its own contracts and things. So I see no reason
Speaker 5: why they can't follow in the footsteps of these other
Speaker 5: leagues that have, you know, 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 7: Like it or not.
Speaker 5: Sports are business, even though we kind of talk about
Speaker 5: it with like a religious passion, and it's a multi
Speaker 5: billion dollar industry, and right now, the folks who write
Speaker 5: the checks for professional sports are by and.
Speaker 7: Large white men.
Speaker 5: That means that a lot of things like the women's
Speaker 5: ball lines can get ignored. And you need sponsors to
Speaker 5: grow the sport. You need it to pay players, you
Speaker 5: need it to pay coaches, you need it to procure venues,
Speaker 5: you need it to make sure that doctors are around,
Speaker 5: And there's a lot of room to grow there. Right now,
Speaker 5: players are doing basically their own fundraising at a very
Speaker 5: grassroots level. You know, when you start a sport, that's
Speaker 5: often the case. It's hard to imagine, but you know,
Speaker 5: once upon a time the NFL was like a small
Speaker 5: niche thing. As well, nothing's huge out the gate, we
Speaker 5: like it or not. We live in a capital society
Speaker 5: and money determines a lot of how and when things grow.
Speaker 5: You know, at some point sponsors realize like, wow, women
Speaker 5: are fifty percent of the population and they might be
Speaker 5: interested in this. And millions of people, women and men
Speaker 5: watch football and are really interested in it, and so
Speaker 5: often sponsors. It's interesting they're often late to the game
Speaker 5: when it comes to women's sports. The track record is
Speaker 5: not great in terms of sponsors and broadcasters, right, So
Speaker 5: there's a lot that still needs to happen.
Speaker 7: And you know, who knows. I think that you.
Speaker 5: Know, sports is really behind in terms of representation off
Speaker 5: the field of play, and that obviously impacts what happens
Speaker 5: on the field of play. So it'll be interesting to
Speaker 5: see as this generation of Women's Football Alliance players kind
Speaker 5: of moves on in their careers. We already know they're
Speaker 5: in the NFL and coaching capacity, so it'll be interesting
Speaker 5: to see kind of how these players and the alumni
Speaker 5: end up affecting the finances of this that they very
Speaker 5: much have lived. When you watch the game, it makes
Speaker 5: you realize how many assumptions you have about football, and.
Speaker 7: When you watch women playing it.
Speaker 5: To be honest, I went to the Cali War practice
Speaker 5: and it was surreal to me because I have never
Speaker 5: seen people who look like me play tackle football. I
Speaker 5: can't even tell you how many hours of tackle football
Speaker 5: I watched over my lifetime, right, and it made me think, well,
Speaker 5: why haven't I seen this? You know, I read about
Speaker 5: sports for a living. I grew up in a football mecha.
Speaker 5: I grew up in a football house. Like, why has
Speaker 5: it taken thirty some odd years for me to see
Speaker 5: something like this, especially when women have made such strides
Speaker 5: in combat sports. So I think it's a I think
Speaker 5: it's one of those stories. You know, when you're writing
Speaker 5: a piece for a magazine or newspaper, part of your
Speaker 5: brain is always like, how will this age?
Speaker 7: And I hope that this is like a period piece.
Speaker 5: I hope that I look back on this story and
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh my gosh, I remember when I wrote
Speaker 5: about women's football, when people had to pay when they
Speaker 5: were scrambling for sponsors, when they were scrambling, you know,
Speaker 5: and that happens in sports all the time you write
Speaker 5: about like the rookie and then they go on to
Speaker 5: win a US Open or a big title or whatever.
Speaker 5: And so I very much felt like that when I
Speaker 5: was writing about this, that even though it's been around
Speaker 5: since two thousand and nine, it's like this timestamp piece
Speaker 5: of like, here's this snapshot of where this sport is
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 7: Who knows where it's going to go.
Speaker 1: Mary, Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 7: Thanks for having me. This is fun.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.
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