Plumbing and Infrastructure with Danette Leighton and Sarah Axelson

than poop in your pants. It's all coming up right after this welcome back slices. Here's what you need to know today. Let's start with the PWHL where the four team playoffs get underweight tonight, Number two Toronto Scepters hosting the number four Minnesota Frost for Game one of that semi final series. Now we know what some of your thinking the four seed in the two seed, don't most semi finals feature the number one seed versus the number four seed.

the expansion team. Over the weekend, the Dream picked up the former Maryland star off the waiver wire, so she'll be looking to make a statement in this preseason test and hope her tenure with this team sticks. Speaking of the Valkyries, the teams announced its local broadcast team for the twenty twenty five season, a group that will include former WNBA star and friend of the Show Lesia Clarendon, who will do in studio coverage for select games. Wait to Go Lay Can't wait to hear You on the mic.

Speaking of former WNBA players in the media, shout out Sue Byrd on her new podcast, Yep, another one. It's called Bird's Eye View. Unlike A Touch More the sports and culture show she hosts with fonce Megan Rapino, this podcast promises to be all about basketball. Sue spoke about our vision for the show on social media on Tuesday, take a list.

home end quote. Finally, shout out to the athletes who walk the red carpet at Monday Nights met Gala, including Simone Biles, Angel Reese, Shakeri Richardson, Flaje Johnson and Serena and Venus Williams, and the New York Liberty also well represented with John Quell Jones, Brianna Stewart and Sabrinia and Escu joining team owner Clara Wousai. Everybody, but I think

Angel Reese was my favorite. Not being a homer here, I just think she absolutely nailed the theme, which was super fine tailoring, black style, and the theme of black dandyism, in particular the Tom Brown suit dress with the middrift cutout, the retro flip in her hair, the makeup, in the styling, it was just all perfection. I also loved John Quell Jones taking a risk. She had this crocodile print jacket

and a super bold hairstyle. Her locks were like gathered and twisted straight up in there and then accented by gems and pearls.

cutting summer programs. Also how schools are being forced to spend money paying off lawsuit back pay and are choosing to spend money to keep up with like football and top men's sports demands, leaving less for everything else. It's all still very much in play, but useful to listen to that primer before you get to this combo. All right, let's get to Dinnett and Sarah joining us. Now, she's

the CEO of the Women's Sports Foundation. Previous gigs include Chief Marketing Officer of the PAC twelve Conference and VP of Business Ops for the WNBA Sacramento Monarchs. We've shared the stage in can France, and we've chopped it up at Vice President Kamala Harris's house.

just fifty one. How do you describe Women's Sports Foundation of fifty one?

So we care about youth and high school and collegiate and the elite side, which obviously you and I both have talked a lot about, which is getting so much attention, but we really tie it all together to understand why each of those levels are important and importantly why a piece of legislation has made this entire excitement and momentum in women's sports a reality that this moment in time is not a coincidence. It's five decades of both men

and women having the ability to play sports. And when each of those you know areas are functioning well, we have a really thriving ecosystem, but we have multiple areas is where there's always challenges, and that's really why this organization was created and we always do it through the lens of research everything, and that's what I've loved about this organization and will continue to do that and making sure that that research is out there to prove the model,

and the advacy work we do is all based on that research that we see, and then all of our awesome community impact work we do are just proof points of that. And so that formula we've been doing for fifty one years and we're going to continue to do it.

But the areas where we need to focus in on may have evolved differently because of the fact that there's other entities in the space that can work on some of the business side of sports and some of those valuations in data that maybe we had to do twenty five years ago that we don't have to do today.

We really want to bridge the gap in the areas of understanding that sports is not a nice to have and it's not an extra curricular and it's a really important part of our society, and that's really where our focus is.

leagues are because of great collegiate sports infrastructure. But then when it comes down to bills and policy and things like that, so often we seem to silo those things and separate them from each other without looking at the landscape the way you just described, which is it starts with kids who then become high schoolers, who become collegiate, who become a leade, who become Olympia all that other stuff. So it is so necessary that you're focused on every

aspect of that timeline. Sarah, what would you say the biggest focuses of Women's Sports Foundation are right now?

product for me, and women's sports in particular. And I think what's really unique about this position in fundraising for the Women's Sports Foundation is to find those passionate people and to be able to tell our story and why it's so critical to invest in us, and how we play a critical role in really convening and bringing all

these different entities and groups together. So, you know, I think about our founder Billy Jean and the fact that she's able to be in this moment, but she's been putting her money where her mouth is as well as her partner for you know, for decades. I mean I always look back and it's not a coincidence either that the top you know females that are paid in women's sports are tennis players. I mean that has everything to do with what Billy did, not for herself, but for

everybody else that came after her. And we see the same problems in women's sports. We always like to say every women's sport has the exact same problems, are just one different trajectories of where they are kind of in

their lifespan. But I think one of the most critical things in understanding your product, and you and I have talked about this, is understanding how the business works and where the rights are controlled, because if you truly want to invest in women's sports, it's very different at every level. And I think that's something that I've experienced personally from spending twelve years in collegiate athletics at a former Power five, as well as working in the NBA and the WNBA.

And when you understand how it works, whether you're a brand or an individual investor, it's critical to the success of how that product's going to thrive. And I think that's one of the biggest areas of growth for women's sports personally.

understand that we're still fighting for Title nine compliance. Can you tell us a little the story of Ashley Bediz and how that speaks to the current state for so many girls and women in sport, still fighting just for basic resources.

collegiate level in terms of Title nine compliance. So Denette referenced it at the top, But we care about this so deeply because we know the benefits that sports provide, right the leadership, the health, the economic benefits to our society, and sport is a launch pad for the athletes that go through it, for boys and girls, men and women. But despite having decades upon decades of Title nine behind us.

We know many schools are still not in compliance. At the high school level, girls are still short changed one point two million participation opportunities than boys. However, if you look at girls today to boys and before Title nine and that seventy one to seventy two academic year, girls

still have not reached that level. So we're still about a quarter million opportunities behind boys in the seventies, right, which is just like it like take a moment to absorb that, right, that is absolutely insane that girls today in twenty twenty five have not reached the level of participation opportunities that were afforded to boys in nineteen seventy one. And we have had decades of this legislation, right, And now if we look at the collegiate level, women are

still short changed opportunities there as well. And there's you know, we can get into the nuances of Title nine and how participation is measured, but if you're looking to how many more opportunities men have than women, it's about eighty thousand opportunities, right, and those are opportunities for education, for leadership, for the ability to have career success. In some instances,

athletic scholarships. So that's why all of this matters. And it's not just the stats, it's the impact that it has in the long tail effect of these opportunities or the lack of these opportunities for women and girls. And so for Ashley, Ashley is a was this has been many years now. At the time that this initial case was filed, she was a high school water polo athlete in Hawaii. She was at James Campbell High School, which

is the largest public high school in Hawaii. The suit was first filed in twenty eighteen and was settled in twenty twenty three. And if you look at the facts of that case, you want to say it's egregious, and it is, but we know that this is an the only times that things like this happened. That they happen in other instances in other schools as well, But this was such a public display of some of the inequities

that persist across this country. So water polo in general, right, Like I did not grow up with water polo as a sport in my high school, but when you watch it on you know the Olympic stage, the amount of athleticism that that takes to do water polo in a pool. Right, Their high school did not have access to a pool

for this water polo team. They were practicing in the open ocean, right, So, like, just imagine the choppy waves, the wind that this high school water polo team is going through to practice in the open ocean because the school didn't have facilities for them.

threatened to cancel this season on them. Right, So you have these athletes who realize that something is wrong, and there have been stories and articles that have gone really in depth in this, So encourage folks to go and read that if they're interested in learning more, because it is a really in depth look at what happened on the ground in Hawaii and some of the things that

happened throughout that story, in that timeline, you know. One of the other things, there were fourteen In the process of doing that investigation, they started looking beyond just James Campbell High School, because all of the public high schools

in Hawaii are part of the same school district. There were fourteen schools statewide, fourteen high school statewide that had no locker rooms for girls, right, And fourteen, right, doesn't sound like that many, but in the context of Hawaii, Hawaii doesn't have that many high schools, right, So this was not an insignificant amount of high schools than Hawaii that had zero locker room facilities for their girls. And so as part of the settlement, the school you know,

appointed an independent observer. They've made some promises to adjust the circumstances at those schools and we'll see, we'll see where it goes and how things continue to progress from there. But I think the key point is that this was a group of athletes, right, it was Ashley, but it was also others who were willing to speak up, who

noticed that something wasn't right. And you see quotes from Ashley like it was She and her family just realized, like, something isn't right here, and they googled it and they found Title nine and they found the ACLU right like, and that's that's often how folks come to us. They say, it doesn't feel right. I googled it, I found you. I found Title nine, Like, tell me what I need

to know. And so I think, really what we need to take away from it is how much people need to understand their rights under the law.

aware that they're being violated. Because in those cases like you're talking about her, there's been really standout cases where a coach has to like get all the goose poop off of a public field so her team can try to play softball and there's holes and cigarette butts and drug paraphernalia and puddles and it's you know, open to the public all the time except for the one hour her team gets to use it.

Sometimes it's a really well informed parent or athlete or coach who goes to the school with the facts or the school board with the facts to say this isn't right, this is the law, this is what you should be doing, and it takes persistence, and it takes a willingness to speak out and put yourself out there. Oftentimes it's parents of you know, juniors or seniors who are getting ready to depart the school who say, this is my last kid.

I'm doing it for the kids behind them. You know, they weren't necessarily willing to rock the boat at the time that their child was a at the school, but they're not willing to let it go unaddressed. And so I think for folks listening like it doesn't have it doesn't necessarily have to be a lawsuit. Oftentimes sometimes it'll get to that, but it can also be addressed by having a well informed conversation and being persistent with it as well.

And so I just put a petition on the door of our locker room and had all the athletes from the men's and women's track teams sign it, handed it back and said we weren't interested in changing our attire for the sake of the football team, and they should get them to focus on their workouts in some other way unrelated to us.

sports lawyers a couple episodes ago. But basically, it gives college athletes back pay to those who've already graduated from a large lump settlement and payment going forward to current athletes based on a percentage of TV right deals. So that's money that financially and finally acknowledges the revenue that students name, image and likeness and athletic performances bring to schools. You combine that with nil money from outside brands, and we're looking at a whole.

the last podcast. It was great, But I want to kind of remind people if we look at how we look at college athletics and why it keeps us up at night, and I look at it through a few different kind of umbrella areas. The first one is we

have an antiquated system. So you we talk about it's not if we talked about the storytelling before, Well, I'm going to talk about why it's so important to understand the plumbing and the infrastructure because in college athletics that is essentially was driving all of these challenges, and there's more and more that are coming. So you have an antiquated economic system that has been created and was based

on a very old model. That model has had to evolve now because you have all of these new things that have come into the space, whether it's anile individual, whether it's nil collectives, whether it's multiple different legal lawsuits like house or whether it's things like antitrust and labor laws, and we could go on and on and on and on right, So there's multiple things that are impacting this

entire system. In addition to those realities of kind of a bad economic model that needs to evolve, there's never really been true investment in women's sports and men's Olympic sports through the lens of how you would look at as a business. So when we compare like the business side of sports, like coming off of whether it's a professional model to a collegiate model, they're very different in how they're structured. And a lot of that is because

of where the rights are controlled. And so it's really important to understand the nuances of the plumbing of how and who controls the rights in the collegiate model to really know where you can make a difference in how you invest. So there's components of what you can do, but there's also components of how it's structured, which is why you need to understand, like you say, get under

the hood. And I think this was something that I saw so strongly because I worked on this side for so long, working for the twelve schools that I worked for in the Pac twelve. In addition to that, this impacts broad based sports. It's not just women's sports. This impact. This will impact men's Olympic sports as much as it will impact women's sports. And it's really important to know that at the Women's Sports Foundation, we care about both.

We've always cared about men and women having equal opportunity to play sports at every level, and what is about to happen in college could really reduce that one piece of Title nine in this conversation, Title nine protects the amount that that school needs to be able to be compliant, right, so it is never going to protect if an institution carries thirty sports, they don't have to carry at thirty sports. I think it's sixteen currently, and FBS Division one, I

think it's fourteen and other divisions. So right now, that's all you have to carry, but you can keep reducing. So I know some of the strongest Olympic team USA producing institutions are ones that carry a lot more than that. If you look at different institutions that have carried the most Olympians as an example, we're already seeing the pattern of reduction of sport opportunities, reduction potentially of dropping down divisions. So again I keep there's layers and layers and layers

to this. So I think it's really important to understand that this legal patchwork, the NI collectives and NIL are very different from each other, and how you have to

look at it. The lack of data transparency, the reality of a very antiquaid economic model and then knowing how it works is really critical to what's actually happening in college sports, which is why we have a lot of concerns about what this could look like when you see the long tail of it, and we want to make sure that we're not looking in the rear view mirror going,

oh my gosh, what just happened. And we also know that each of the institutions, if I'm sitting as a division ie FBS athletics director right now, we also know how hard it is for them too. I don't want to not have empathy for what they're going through because it's a very different landscape for them than it was

for their predecessors twenty years ago. You've had a model that was based on one sport for a very long time and how that revenue was generated, and you had control of where that money came from because you were able to control it from the top on down. Now that money is being spread out everywhere, so you have to think about how can we continue to evolve. And again, I'm the biggest college football fan. I love college football,

but we have no expense caps in college athletics. It is very strange, and you come from professional sports and realize that doesn't exist in college and so because of that, we have to work within the framework of knowing how the business model works to know how you can affect change.

And one of those biggest things that I think you can affect change on is the reality of understanding how you can invest if you are an individual philanthropist or you're a brand in college athletics, and being very direct and deliberate and deliberate in where you want that money to go. Because of how rights are controlled, it usually is you give money at the top of the athletics department,

that money gets spread out. But if you want your money to go to the women's basketball program, or you want your money to go to that women's water polo program, you have to be very intentional and you have to understand who controls the rights, even on the media right side. Most people don't understand what the NCAA controls on the media right side and what they don't. They don't control college football media rights contracts. They control the NCAA media

championships like the basketball tournament. So it's again understanding and college has a tendency to not essentially like to take a lot of risk remember it's still under a higher education model, and athletics departments are one piece of a central campus of a university, so the controls are also usually divided up and different rights holders are giving the access to be able to control those rights for a

given institution, whether that's sponsorship or ticket sales. So I've always been worried that there hasn't been an investment in what's called the publicity side, or we might call on the business side of professional sports side, selling sponsorship, selling tickets, creating fan bases, doing all the things that we know are the metrics, but have empathy on the collegiate side because they're trying to do that for not one facility,

but fifteen or twenty sometimes and also multiple sports. So I think most people don't understand the nuances and for living on both sides, I've learned to have respect for both and have empathy for both, which is why it really is going to take a collaborative effort. But consumers need to understand the plumbing, which isn't as sexy, but when you understand it, you can make change.

et cetera as the reason you don't invest. It's a roboros of bullshit, right because if we're not investing, we never see it get better. And then if it never gets better, then we have a reason that we say we're not investing. Before I move on really quickly, I want to ask you, and you can't predict the future, but for folks who are maybe never going to dive into the plumbing, it's five or ten years down the road.

What's the worst case scenario here in terms of programs being disbanded, women's sports not being invested in, money deciding to be given from all these different things to just the men.

your money. So I do think the one part that I'm very concerned about with House, the piece that I don't like, is it's one thing for the formula or the model they're creating for the back pay, it's another thing that formula is going to utilize as investment into

the future. I don't like that at all because there hasn't ever been a fair market value in the areas you just described, the lack of funding that has gone towards the sponsor side, the marketing side, the publicity side, that side, just because women's sports and men's Olympic sports have always been defined as non revenue generating sports my least favorite word ever, and so there has never been

a fair market value. So the reality of that is we've already been behind the game for a long time, and so but we have these great examples of models that are proving that you can be that now, which is some of the momentum you're obviously seeing at the top of the ecosystem. So that's why I think if you understand some of the plumbing. It's just about being intentional where you put your dollars. We always talk about there needs to be more brands involved. There needs to

be a lot more brands to create the ocean. But when those brands need to be you know, they also need to understand how the system works so they know how they can utilize their marketing dollars. So I would say that, like, my biggest concern is can a very significant reduction in broad based sports for both men and women Olympic sports, that's my biggest concern. I think that you will see less opportunities than you see today if

we don't pay attention. And there's enough examples of those already of athletics departments, you know, not continuing to play no matter what division and at what level they are,

sports being going away men's and women's. And the reality is we've got a really beautiful system because it's tied to our education model and the legislation that is allowed for so many of those men and women that never go on to be on Team USA, but just have a great opportunity to be able to play at whatever level in college and be able to earn their degree. So I do think we should feel a lot of pride in that part of the collegiate system and recognize

that we can make we can make change. And my goal and objective is to see some of these sports, both men's and women's Olympic sports, be able to pay for themselves so they're not on the chopping block and so not seeing a reduction in investment, but an increase in investment, but having empathy and understanding the challenges athletic administrators are under and recognizing that the private sector can play a big role on this and making sure that

they make those investments. Because everybody loves college athletics in the United States. We all have rama mater, we all have you know, the school that we follow in our own community. This is relevant to everybody, and I think that's something that I'm hopeful we can rally everybody to understand just progress made isn't necessarily a progress progress to come, So let's let's not let it get there.

a fraction of the opportunities that they currently have. And while they're currently minimum sponsorship requirements at the NCAA level, to my knowledge, all it takes is a vote of membership to say, you know what, sixteen is too much? Right Maybe it's sixteen right now, but who says five years down the road, they might say, you know what, sixteen's too much, We actually need it to be ten.

And now you're looking at schools severely diminishing the number of sports that they're carrying and just investing much more in fewer sports, which to some extent is their prerogative when it comes to the current offerings. But you know, as we said, we want more student athletes to have access to sports because we know the lifelong benefits that they provide.

And so if you're in that situation and you have the ability that you have to stay here because this sport is allowing you to generate this much money, and why would you ever start to invest in the other sports if you're just trying to hold on because you used to be able to control how the money is distributed. You don't get to control that anymore because of all things that we just described, Because it's going out to nil individual, because you have the lawsuits.

So it's also a matter of is that money that used to be a booster that's going somewhere else now going to a quarterback and so that money might have gone to the top of the athletics department before, and so they did have the ability to distribute that to the softball team. So that's why you have to look at each of these layers to understand that it's almost

like a restricted grant. Is a very important way to think about it if you're thinking about funding different sports properties because in college, because then it's a guarantee to

get to that. That's why I think individuals and brands can say this is the only place where I want my money to go, and this is why And I think that's going to be really important in the future because I do think brands and individuals can help drive infusing more cash into the system that will help women's sports and men's Olympic sports, which ultimately is what's needed anyways, because we haven't really done what we need to do to get those women's sports, in particular to have the

right types of promotional tools to actually build fandom. I've always said, done all this great work in women's sports with essentially our hands tied behind our backs. We've never controlled the rights. The disruption and media has allowed us

to be in different places. I just think that the opportunities are here because of all that disruption, and so it's why you have to be able to play and work the system to understand where you can make an impact, because it's going to be one of those challenges at the end of the day that schools are going to have to decide and if your budgets are looking the way, they're looking a certain way, you're going to have to make our choices and what's the easiest choice to make.

the school doesn't run it. Players get employment contracts, they can activate the free education associated with the school whenever they want, while they're playing or after, and it sort of becomes a minor league for the NFL, but with affiliation to schools that people are so clinging to because of what Dannetti said, we all love our alma mater, we all love that experience, and the schools love the

money that comes with it. Is that the only way to do this because the number of roster spots for football and the outsized money there is really what keeps us from trying to have a more balanced ecosystem.

is where I want my money to go. And on the women's side, that's going to be super helpful because maybe there's not as much investment by the schools. But I want to give the caveat that regardless of where the money comes from, as long as the school allows that benefit to be passed along to the student athletes, they are responsible for making sure that their student athletes

are treated equitably. Right, So you can't say, well, it came it's a restricted it's restricted money, it came from over here, so therefore it doesn't matter in factoring in

the Title nine compliance aspect of it. So and the same as of right now and how things are structured is true for football, right and that debate happened long ago on you know the floors of Congress of whether or not football gets spun off and kind of becomes its own thing and isn't under Title nine right now in the way things are structured attached to our educational programs.

Football is part of Title nine compliance, and schools need to make sure because at the end of the day, right it's still students at that school who are receiving the benefits the educational opportunities. Title nine is an educational law, and we need to make sure that we're treating folks equitably under the law.

And I think what we don't want to see happen is that there are great things about college football at all levels that has really benefited young men to have the ability to go earn their scholarships. And how the business model works again is so antiquated because it's built on something that worked a long time ago that isn't necessarily working today in twenty twenty five. And so I think our concern too is to see the reality of what potentially could happen, but it's not the same. Like

I worked at a Power five conference. I know who controls the media rights, and I worked at one of the Power five conferences that went away and so you know that isn't the same one and had the most

prolific women's sports Olympic programs of the entire country. So I worked with those institutions for over a decade to know the work and you know, for me to see a conference that entire women's sports olympians were stronger than anybody else in the country, and to see it, you know, be where it is today's very hard to swallow in the collegiate model, you know, I spent I'm a West Coast girl and spent time as a PAC ten, Pac

twelve kid and graduate. So to go through that process of seeing all of that and seeing where we are today and really seeing a conference that was all about the conference of champions and recognizing those strengthen women's Olympic sports. But I think it's important for people to recognize that it's so different from even within Division one.

This is about the strength of the field on the Olympic stage and the number of athletes who come through US systems benefit from Title nine at the high school or collegiate level and then either go back to a home country and play for a national team or go to a country of where they have heritage, and they're able to play even if they're born here. Right Like

Title nine has elevated the global game. And we also can't gloss over the impact that this could have not just on Team USA, but globally the athletes and the training grounds that we have in our collegiate system right now.

the time in which they compete. It is essentially fueling our economy with the future leaders both men and women, as well as all the amazing preventative health measures that happen when girls and boys both play sports. So we have to continue to make sure this isn't a nice to have. And that was way long.

interested in attending. Athlete Ally is holding its fifth annual Athlete Activism Summit from June twelfth to the fifteenth in Portland, Oregon, with registration open now through May ninth. The four day summit is open to any college athlete, coach, or administrator who's looking to make their school's community more inclusive and welcoming with panels, discussion groups, and outings to local games

and activities. We're big fans of athlete Ally here at Good Games, so even if you can't make the event, be sure to check out their work. We'll link to their website and the event registration page in the show notes. And you know, we always love to hear from you, so hit us up on email. Good Game at wondermedianetwork dot com. Don't forget to subscribe a rate and review, y'all.

It's really easy. Just take it from former triathlete and ironmanwinner Sarah Gross, who called in with a guest review on some recent news.

on the Big Island of Hawaii. Many people in the sport cheered. I mean, I can understand the appeal of having everyone together racing at the same time, but when you dig into the details, you realize that these changes come at the expense of all the forward progress Iron Men has made for women over the last two or three years. Since twenty twenty two, women have had their own race, meaning there were no men on the course with them. This ensured that women had a clear, fair

course undisturbed by the men's race. Like Chelsea said at the time, there aren't men on the court during the women's Wimbledon final, so why should there be men on our race course? And it's been incredible being in Kona for these races, with all the media focus on the women's race, and watching a woman cross the finish line first in an Iron Man so many shivers. But this change back to a single day of racing has come

at another cost as well. As you can imagine, when men and women each had their own race, there were equal numbers of available race spots by gender. But under this new system, which is really an old system, recycled slots will be handed out based on participation numbers. In practice, this means that twenty five percent of the athletes racing and in twenty twenty six will be women and a whopping seventy five percent will be men. Now I'm sure, you can imagine lots of people were upset about this.

It seems clear and obvious from where I sit that women having half the slots is not just the right thing to do, but also the only option if you want to develop the women's side of the sport. So what do we do about it? Iron Man has shown consistently that they are willing to listen, so let them know what you think. If you want to dive into this topic more deeply, or help us spread the word slide into my dms. I am Sarah at Sarah with

noh dot gross on Instagram. I would love to hear from you, so thanks again Sarah for letting me share this unfortunate news. Myself and everyone at Feisty Media do not want to see iron Man quietly get away with this. I'm going to keep banging my drum and I hope to have a positive update next time we talk.

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rutterer, Britney Martinez, and Grace Lynch. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and I'm Your host Sarah Spain.