Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're scouring the Volleyball Championship Challenge brackets to see which of y'all slices we're looking up at and who we've got bragging rights over. It's Monday, December night. On today's show, I talked to Caroline Fitzgerald, CEO and founder of Goals Sports and host of the Business Case for Women's Sports podcast.
We talk about the moment she knew she needed to start her own marketing and consultancy business for women's sports, what she's learned from connecting brands and leagues, and more. Plus a brick wall with a magic hand enters the Good Game Hall of Fame. It's all coming up right after this Welcome Back Slices meiche has got your need to know today, Take it away, Mesh.
Thanks Sarah.
In WNVA News on Friday, the Golden State Valkyrie selected eleven players in the league's first expansion draft since two thousand and eight. The draft was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in golfer Michelle Wee west Rapper E forty in former MMBA Golden State Warrior Baron Davis announced the picks at the podium. We'll link to
the fullest of Hooper selected in our show notes. Head coach Natalie Nicasse told ESPN viewers before the selections were made that she wants her team to hang its hat on the defensive end and be composed of true competitors. If you take a look at the fullest of selections, the Valkyrie shows a lot of underrated glue players like twenty twenty four WNBA champ Kaylea Thornton, Monique Billings, and Temmy Fak Benley who fit.
The bill perfectly.
And there's one other important piece I want to note. The Valkyries did not select a player from the Seattle Storm. Now, in case you missed our brief rundown on how the draft worked, each of the twelve WNBA teams chose six players to protect, meaning Golden State could not select them in the draft. Now, we don't know officially who Seattle chose to protect, but I'd bet my car that two time WNBA League Champ Jewel Lloyd was in that mix.
Just last week, though, Lloyd requested a trade.
Out of Seattle following an investigation into claims of bullying and herne against the coaching staff. The investigation found no violations. Putting two and two together, it's possible to Storm and Valkyries could be in cahoots manufacturing a trade that would send Lloyd's south to the Bay for something in return, because if I were an exec, I wouldn't want to
give her up for nothing in an expansion draft. Lloyd still has a year left on her contract with Seattle and is one of the highest paid players in the WNBA will keep you updated on how the Valkyrie's franchise and its roster evolve. In college soccer, the NCAA College Cup Championship is tonight. It all comes down to a battle of number two seeded ACC in state foes Wake Forest and UNC at seven pm Eastern on ESPNU and streaming on ESPN Plus. This is wake Forest's first National
Championship match ever. In just their second College Cup appearance ever, the Demon Deacons will try to cap off a historic regular season. They became the first team in NCAA history to beat the top two teams in the country back to back with wins over Uva and Stanford. It was a one nil win over the cardinal in the semi finals on Friday that punched Wake's ticket to the championship.
North Carolina, however, is no stranger to this stage. This will be the Tar Hills twenty eighth national Championship match. The program maintains the record across all D one sports for the most national titles, with twenty two in total, but they haven't won one since twenty twelve. In College Hoops News, we got a sneak peek at Star LSU guard Flage Johnson's Player Edition.
Sneaker over the weekend.
Johnson, who has an nil deal with Puma, debuted the shoe on her video podcast Best of Both Worlds with Flage and gave away a pair to one of her biggest fans. We'll link to that video in the show notes. It was such a sweet interaction and the shoe looks super dope if I do say so myself. The design includes her number four in a camouflage pattern in honor of her late father, the Rapper camouflage.
It also has her.
Big four celebration on the tongue and two quotes from her mom, raised the Beast and we worked on this. To top it off, There's also a hand written note on the inside of the shoe.
It's a tribute to her brothers.
In college vibes, We're entering the third round of the NCAA Tournament, and of course we couldn't get here without some upsets. This weekend had a few, including number seven seeded Missouri's three to one win over number two seed SMU, Number six Florida's three to two victory over number three Kansas, and six seeded Texas A and M's three to one win over number three seed Arizona State. Round three of
the tournament begins on Thursday. In Pro Women's Hockey League news, the PWHL is in the game EA Sports NHL twenty five video game.
That is. Season two of the game includes a holiday.
Update that makes all six p WHL teams selectable in a few of its different modes, and in Season mode, players can even compete for the Walter Cup. This is a result of the PWHL's multi year partnership with EA, otherwise known as Electronic Arts Incorporated, forged back in November. We'll link to visuals of the PWHL and NHL twenty five in our show notes and to where you can purchase it for yourself or the gamer you love.
This holiday season. Thanks Misha, We got to take a break. When we come back.
We talked the business Case for Women's Sports, with Goals founder Caroline Fitzgerald.
Joining us now.
She's the CEO and founder of Goals Sports, a marketing and sponsorship consultancy focused on growing women's sports. She's the host of the Business Case for Women's Sports podcast and a contributing writer at Forbes dot com. Recently named a Sports Business Journal twenty twenty four power player in Women's Sports. She's got a BA from Penn State and a master's from NYU.
She's a former hoops coach, an.
Avid runner, and the Rad Neon sign in her office inspired the Rad good Game sign I've got behind me.
It's Caroline Fitzgerald. What's out? Caroline?
Hi, Sarah, thank you for having me and your neon looks amazing.
Thank you.
Nothing but good things to say about it.
Uh, love it, love it. I want to start with your sports background. Tell us all about the sports you played growing up.
Yeah, Sarah, So, I think, like a lot of people that a lot of women in women's sports and a lot of women that grew up playing sports. I didn't have a ton of opportunity growing up to play the sports I loved on teams with all other girls. So my first team sporting experience was I was the only girl on an all boys baseball team. And it's funny now that I share this story, I hear so many other women saying, like, that's how that happened to me too,
And they all have their own story of this. But I'll just give you my quick kind of I call this my villain origin story, if you will, of how I got into this line of work. It happened at the age of seven. Again, I was the only girl on an all boys baseball team. It was me and my brother Tanner were just signed up to play on the boys team in the neighborhood. And I remember getting there on our first day and almost immediately all the boys on the other team started teasing us and taunting us,
saying things like girls can't play baseball. We're gonna crush this team. They have a girl playing in the infield, and we're gonna get them. And I was determined to prove those boys wrong. So we took the field in the first inning and I couldn't have scripted this better.
Sarah every the first three boys on the other team all hit ground balls right to me, and I threw them all out on grounders, and I walked off the field at the age of seven, which such confidence and swagger, just with this feeling like never again was anybody going to tell me that I couldn't do something, especially in sports, because I was a girl and I was just hooked from there. I loved sports, played every single sport beyond baseball. Basketball ended up becoming my main sport. I still run,
like you mentioned, to this day. I spent a lot of time working in the running industry as well, but basketball has always been the core sport. I still play basketball every Wednesday night and in all women's league here fun where I'm based, and it's just a lot of fun. Sports have been with me for a long time and hoped to keep playing as long as possible.
So you worked in sports and a number of capacities before you decided to launch your own shop. So what was the pivot point or the moment that you recognized that there was a need for goals?
Yeah, it was pretty clear. It was kind of an AHA moment. During the twenty twenty WNBA Wubble season and seeing what the women of the WNBA did that season for racial and social justice while they were also playing the best basketball in the world under some pretty tough conditions during the global pandemic, being the second pro sports league to return to play during you know, those really unprecedented times, and I was really just blown away what those women were doing, like I said, both on and
off the court. And you know, I think, like a lot of people during the global pandemic, I certainly am very privileged and was able to work from home and keep my full time job working for the Dick Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon at the time. But I just did some soul searching, if you will. And I've always in my life knew that my north star was to do something professionally at the intersection of sports and business and feminism.
And when I graduated from college in twenty twelve, there wasn't a super clear career path of what that could look like. So I put myself on a path to become a marketer and sell sponsorship sales and work in sports if I could, and you know, all of my experiences just kind of came together, and when I had that aha moment, just being blown away by the twenty WNBA Leble season. You know, I just decided kind of to go all in. It didn't happen quite like that.
The whole concept and business model of goals evolved. But the first thing that I decided to go all in on was creating a podcast, The Business Case for Women's Sports. And it really was sparked from this curiosity. I saw everything happening with the WNBA, and I really wanted to learn more about it. I wanted to listen to a podcast that talked about the state of the women's sports industry and kind of break down why the gender gaps
in's professional sports are. So I don't need to tell you all these stats, Sarah probably don't need to tell your listeners, but things like four percent of media coverage at the time, one percent of sponsorship dollars. Don't get me started on the pay gaps and women's sports and men's sports. So, you know, I wanted to understand, like, what, why are we not treating women's sports like a business
like this? Look at this business of men's sports. What is going on that we're not that we're ignoring women and we're not treating this like the industry that it is so anyway, that's that's kind of how Goals came to be. That's how I got into this. But it really did that I think, like a lot of people, I mean Power of a Dream watch the documentary, A lot of people were inspired by that season. But that was really a big catalyst for me.
Yeah, I mean, I think, first of all, there was so much that was thought provoking and inspiring that came out of that twenty twenty summer, that initial global pandemic shutdown. That is, there's clear lines there of watching and experiencing for the first time some of the racial reckonings, some of the ways that some of these folks had to balance their job, and then standing for something in a moment when we were all shut down and.
We had all eyes on them.
But I think there's also something we need to be thoughtful about, which is that people had time, and during that time, so many people came up with their life's passion, their life's work made a big change. We are such a hustle culture that unless we are literally forced to stay in our homes, we will not look at all of the research and all of the language that tells us shutting it down, slowing down giving ourselves time to be creative and thoughtful will actually be effective for us.
So every time I get another guest done, that's as well.
It was the summer of twenty twenty, and that's when they came up with this big thing. I'm like, oh, I gotta be reminded of that because I'm so bad at slowing down.
Okay, So tell me more about the company.
How you work on behalf of women's sports teams, how you sort of organize to use these value aligned corporate sponsors to meet them with their matches.
Yeah, totally. So at the core of what we do is we try to demonstrate the social and economic value that comes along with investing in women's sports. So we do that mostly in two big buckets. Soh Like I said, goals started as a podcast. Truly, I never podcasted before, but I wanted to listen to a podcast about the business side of women's sports that made the business case for why we need more money into women's sports. So
I created the podcast. Maybe it was a little self serving, but I also thought the industry could benefit from hearing some of those conversations. So we are a media company at our core. So the podcast and you know. I'm a trained marketer, so I knew I just couldn't create a podcast without having some marketing channels to market the podcast. Otherwise it would only be my mother and my father
and my siblings listening to it. So created the brand goals to ultimately house the podcast and create content that would align with those conversations that we were going to have on the air again around making the economic and
social case for investing in women's sports. So when you come to our channels, you're going to find the data, the facts, the stats, the anecdotal stories, all the evidence that you need to make the business case either internally at company for investing in women's sports, or if you're just a person that goes through their daily life and finds themselves having to defend women's sports to people in
their lives. We're going to give you the data to arm you to tell people that actually, everybody does watch women's sports and a lot of people care about women's sports. So that's what you're gonna get from us on the media side. The other side of our work is consulting work.
So for the last three years, we've had a consulting practice that's rooted in brand partnerships, so trying to link professional women's sports teams and leagues with values aligned brand partners that sponsor them and can derive that value from
associating with women athletes and women's sports properties. And then we also do a variety of growth growth strategy work, so basically working with brands, teams, leagues, media networks that want to get into the business of women's sports and need some help figuring out how to optimize those investments and how they should show up in the women's sports space. So, you know, our business certainly has evolved since the women's
sports industry evolves pretty much every single week. As we're growing, we're very much in startup mode. We know how startup culture and action plans shift all the time. I see the women's sports industry still very much in startup mode. So we're a startup operating within a startup, So we shift as well to meet the needs of the industry. But at the end of the day, we're really here
to serve the industry. We want to help bring more money into women's sports and help people go out and get more money into their respective parts of women's sports.
It's so necessary because to your point, when you first looked at the landscape and thought, why are we not treating this like a business. This is so strange, And I think the comparison to men's sports always created this wrong idea that it was a charity, where As if it had been in any other business, any other industry, making the money that it did, showing the potential that it did, we would be clamoring to get involved.
But because of the giant gap.
Between men's and women's we saw it as this little thing instead of this really powerful thing. And part of that also so was when brands would get involved, they would not operate in the way that they would in any other space. They didn't do the research, They copypasted from the men with completely different demographics, completely different market research, and then they said it didn't work.
So it must be the product.
So frustrating, right, So that's why what you do is just so important. You keep saying, Wei, is there a WI now at goals or just you still yeah?
We I use the Royal WI a lot. How our business model is set up so I'm the only full time person, but I tap into a number of consultants on various projects all the time.
So there is a Wei, but I am still the only the Royal weed and sometimes the Royal Wii. Yeah, exactly what was that economic opportunity that you saw and you thought most others weren't seeing or taking advantage of, especially when it comes to sort of just a little bit of resource and investment.
I mean, yeah, for me. You know, at the time, I was working in a full time job that candidly I absolutely loved. I was the senior vice president of Sponsorships at the Dick Sporting Gets, Pittsburgh Marathon and P three r were essentially they are the organization that put on every major road running race that happens in the greater Pittsburgh area. And I loved that job. I was thriving in that job. I was doing really well. But
I starting to look at the women's sports industry. I just saw this absolute plethora of white space, and people were quite frankly, just ignoring all the untapped potential of an entire industry. I think because of misogyny and you know, some really antiquated beliefs about the capabilities of women athletes
both on and off their respective field of play. And I thought, oh my gosh, I need to create a business to serve this industry right now, because all of the data, all of the numbers, everything says that this is just going to keep growing and everything happening, you know, just with women outside to sports. During twenty twenty, in
the pandemic, social justice and especially gender equity. Racial justice, social justice and gender equity really came into the global conversation in a way that we hadn't seen it in a few years. And just the way women have been using the power of social media and just you know, coming in and saying we are here and we demand
to have equal rights and access and opportunities. It just only made sense to me, as a feminist scholar and you know, somebody who was looking at what was going on in the sports industry, that women's sports would naturally continue to grow. So I just thought, this is the time I bet big on women's sports when I started this business four years ago, and I'm glad I did.
At the time, a lot of people see me as an early adopter of the women's sports industry, which is so funny to think about because I see early adopters of women's sports as people like Billy Jean.
Yeah, that was fifty years ago.
What are we talking about, like women's sports are not a new guy.
There was this big pivot point for four or five years ago, and you're a part of that. You know. I, by virtue of the PSA that I did more than me talking about the online treatment of women in sports, I've ended up having to speak on the topic of engagement on social media for years and years, and it's
something I'm happy to talk about. And also because I'm sort of was previously known for my troll clapbacks, I don't really do it as much anymore because I don't want to incentivize or add value and actual money in the pockets of said trolls anymore, the way that Twitter
is now set up. But one of the things that really got me thinking about was how social media removed gatekeepers and so, as terrible as it is, what we often had was the same decision makers as editors of papers, program directors at television and radio stations, predominantly being middle aged white men, deciding for people what they should be
interested in. And if you brought them a story idea, or if you wanted to talk about something on a radio show, you first had to get through those people who were deciding what they thought mattered, and with social media, when those gatekeepers were removed, there were content creators, individuals who said, this is something I care about, I'm going to make it and then watch the people flock to it.
And the same goes for what you just said about athletes and brands and leagues saying we can create something here that I don't have to buy TV right space for the way that you know the digital marketplaces, you just make something and put it there, and it lives there whether anyone.
Shows up or not.
And what we saw was so many people showed up and so as terrible as the Internet is and as much as I am trying to spend less time on it, it has also been incredibly powerful in democratizing the stuff that people care about, and when you can prove that they do care, like with this year's WNBA season that had more social engagement than the NBA season, those data points and those numbers really allow you to push investment and really allow you to push growth in a way
that subjective opinions didn't four years. So I guess thank you Internet for some shit, but not most of it.
I saw you do an interview with.
Someone and you talked about how a quote from WNBA Commissioner Kathy Engelbert kind of gave you this light bulb moment. She said, if these two facts are right, eighty four percent of sports fans are interested in women's sports, and women control eighty five percent of US spending power, we should be able to transform the way.
Women's sports are valued. Why did that strike you so much? What was the light bulb moment there?
You know, I think for a long time, Sarah, we've had this missing data problem around women's sports, where we haven't had the information necessary to make the business case for investing in women's sports. And that has changed a lot over the last four years. We have incredible reports like the Fan Project that have come out that talked about women's sports fan behavior for the first time ever
where we have this comprehensive report. The collective at Wasserman has done a tremendous amunt of research, Parody has done great research. Nielsen's coming out with great research. But at the time when Kathy said that, Commissioner Engelbert, I I hadn't seen a lot of data that was stacking up
to make the business case for women's sports. So, you know, That was just one of those moments where to me it made sense where I'm like, oh, okay, this many people care about women's sports and women control consumer spending. Certainly together that's going to help us make the business case for women's sports. So to me, that was the start of this quest to find the data, to find the information to help people. Again, I keep saying it, but make the business case for women's sports.
It's so smart, and yeah, that absence of data is across the board. I remember Sue Bird writing a Player's Tribune column about how if they didn't get advanced statistics in the WNBA, it prevents people from having better barroom conversations, media and TV conversations because we don't know who the best corner three shooter is because we don't have that data. And the same goes for so much of the business
side too. And I remember being in meetings at ESPN company wide, you know, town halls, where the only data they had was men eighteen to forty five, and I'm like, wait, what about all the other people? What if there's millions of people in a different data set listening, watching, viewing.
You don't want to monetize that. You don't want to track that.
You don't want to know how that's working for you, And it was incredibly frustrating, particularly for shows that I was doing where I'm.
Like, wait, what about the women? Are there women paying attention and listening.
What has surprised you the most about the work of connecting brands and teams?
Yeah, Sarah, And you know, I'm generally a very positive person, but the thing that has surprised me the most here has been kind of negative. It's still that it's taken It's taken a long time to get more brands to buy in and invest in women's sports. There was a report that came out recently that said only six percent of Fortune five hundred companies are currently sponsoring professional women's sports or athletes. We know the global number that one
percent of sponsorship dollars are going towards women's sports. I haven't heard an updated version of that number for a while, but until we have more data, that's the one I'm leaning on. So you know, to me me as somebody who for the last four years has had over one hundred podcast conversations with brilliant leaders like yourself from across the women's sports industry, to make the business case for
women's sports. I can stack up every single data point, factual reason why it's good for brands to sponsor women athletes and to invest in women's sports, from brand affinity to ROI to social good to every single reason, and yet we still see that it's so slow for brands to come in. And that's not to say it's not changing. We have so many great examples of brands that are stepping up and they're going in big when they do.
But I want to see brands invest in women's sports like they've invested in men's sports, go all in on a whole city, invest in sponsor more than just one team or one athlete. And again, I think it's changing, But I, as somebody who has all the data and all the facts, it has shocked me to see that this hasn't happened as fast as I think that it should.
You are a very positive person, which is why I was surprised to discover via your Instagram your recent absolutely bitch and purchase of a doormat that says off. But I was inspired by that, and I was like, even Caroline sometimes needs.
That energy to get through her life.
Even positive, shiny Sunny Caroline and it felt relatable.
So congrats on the purchase.
Thanks Sarah. Yeah, I needed that every once in a while.
I need it every once in a while.
And there are plenty of people right now that I absolutely want took off. So if they show up at my door, I want them to get that message loud and clear. How do we get upper level executives to pay attention to the changing data around women's sports, get rid of the idea of it being a charity as opposed to a good business investment. I have asked this question of so many people because it does feel like
there's so much positive movement around here. You could get into these amazing spaces at WNBA All Star, at NWSL Championship, at big conferences and be surrounded by people who get it, and those people have to go back into space with a top brass that isn't putting in the time and work to understand the data, and the answer becomes no, because they just don't know the business case for women's sports. How do we infiltrate the front offices the top spaces.
That's such a great question, and Sarah, I think it's complicated, but I think it's a couple of things. One is, I think we need to have more women sitting in these leadership and decision making roles. We know one data point that we've known for a while about women's sports is that ninety four percent of women C suite leaders in the US have played sports growing up, and they've played at a pretty competitive level. Most of them have
played in college. And I think if we can have more women in those decision making roles, they're going to inherently understand the value that comes with investing in women's sports. We see example, I love to give the example of Andrew Brimmer from ally played soccer in college, is now the CMO and chief pr at Allies gone way big into women's sports. You know, it's just if we can have more Andreas in those roles of companies, I think
it's going to happen. You Know what I think, Sarah is there's a lot of chatter sometimes in the women's sports space that we're talking to ourselves that we're in a bubble and we're just we have our adopters and we just keep going round and round saying the same things to each other. But I'm really big on that
being important. I think we really need to build up this raving fan base of women's sports fans of course, but also people working in the industry, because people in general are so attracted to groups of people that have passionate fandom of anything and that are all in and when they see somebody with conviction, they want to hear about it, they want to learn about it. It's magnetic. So you know, to me, I think we just need to like keep beating that drum. We need to keep
saying invested women's sports. We need to keep saying everybody watches women's sports, all the taglines, and it's just going to keep attracting more people because at the end of the day, the product of women's sports is incredible. I mean, I don't know anybody who's actually watched women's sports and then said that wasn't cool or that was like, it's amazing.
So if we it's sports, we love sports, so yeah, it's good.
It's sports truly.
Yeah.
So if we can just keep like growing that raving fan base, casual fans are going to be attracted to it, and it's just gonna go from there, and that's going to filter into decision makers on and on and on. So it's so Smar just got to keep beating the drum.
And I think that's so true.
Yes, of course, get outside of the bubble and try to change the minds of people who have not already agreed. But also the louder and prouder and more fun, you know, people see us having, the more they want to be
a part of it. I always think about European soccer in that sense that for Americans the game wasn't a thing that we loved, but we looked over and we were like, wait, they've got chants and scarfs, and they do marches to the stadium together, and they fill the bars and they're angry enough to like light flares on each other. That part we can leave behind. But what is it about this thing that they're so obsessed with? Let's give it a shot, right, And that's the same
with women's sports. I think this is another Sue burddhism, but I remember her talking about she just felt like it was going to be this drip, drip drip until one day it became cool, and being cool was going to be the flip that was necessary because it had been the butt of jokes and there were so many men in predominant spaces with a lot of following that we're using it as the butt of a joke, or that we're unwilling to even allow for the idea that
it might be entertaining in a good watch and people might be into it. And honestly, we could do endless research papers about the insecurity of men not just ignoring women's sports but deciding to actively try to tank it in a way that they don't with other things that they're not into. They just leave those things alone. But women's sports, let's take our tiny, little fragile egos out and try to make sure we can, you know, ruin
their fun. But that pivot point where it became cool to wear the orange w hoodie to where everybody watches women's sports shirt to go to the games, to root for the players, to know who they are, that's a huge important moment. And the more people who talk about it and wear the merch and invite their friends to games and watch stuff and go to the bars and ask for them to put it on, that pushes people forward, and even the people in those top C suites end
up feeling that push. Run out of time here, last two, what kind of guests can people expect to hear from on your podcast? And what are one or two episodes that people should start with who haven't listened before to get into it.
Great question, and the type of guests, you know, leaders in the women's sports industry, people that are working, you know, starting a company, working for a team, athletes, people that are in the industry, working to grow the space. You're gonna hear a lot of different types of episodes leaders truly, from media to multimillion dollar investments in leagues. You know, it's just it covers everything. Two episodes i'd recommend is number one, our episode with Sarah Spain, Oh.
Wow, which was ready for that one?
You true you set me up for that, but truly it's a great episode.
Sarah.
I have to say, like it's one of my favorite episodes I've ever recorded. You just I'm obviously a super fan of yours, but you're just always so real and you provided such great insights and knowledge on that episode, so I often find myself going back to listen to it, So everybody check out that episode. And then my favorite episode of all time remains our very first episode, which is an interview with EBB Jones who is the person
behind the WNBA orange hoodie? And I knew when I was going to start this podcast that I wanted that to be the first story that I told. And so I just got on Twitter and I said, does anybody know who's responsible for the orange hoodie? And everybody was like, you have to talk to Ev, you have to talk to eb And nobody had ever asked Ebb before how this came about. No one knew the story behind the
orange hoodie. And eb came on and she told the most amazing story of how she built this incredible campaign with a zero dollar budget, and she tells the story of how she essentially like Kobe, was in the WNBA office and she slipped him an orange hoodie for him and his family on his way out the door, and then he shows up wearing it ye court side the
next week, and it's just incredible. So I'm always grateful to Ev for allowing me a new podcaster who was not in the space before she came in and essentially like broke that story on my Untested podcast.
So I'm grateful to her. And it's amazable story. Okay, I'm listening to that one. I'm downloading that one right after we get off here. All right, last question, are there sports leagues areas of growth anything you're particularly excited about from your recent research or a recent guest you had on Is there something that you're like, ooh, this is the next thing.
So many things emerging sports, Softball, lacrosse, women's baseball, volleyball, you know, all these sports that haven't quite reached WNBA and WSL level yet. People that look at valuations of WNBA teams and think, oh my gosh, I should have invested two years ago, or NWSL teams and think I should have invested three years ago. This is your time to invest now for those emerging sports. They're only going
to pick up. So lacrosse, softball, volleyball, women's baseball, you got to get in right now.
I love it.
We're going to start our twenty twenty five with capsule episodes for each of the new leagues to like everything you need to know. Here's how you get in, Here's who you want to root for, Here's how to watch because there are so many new properties that are going to give people opportunities to watch great women's sports.
Caroline, you're the best. You're crushing it.
I've just loved watching you continue to show up all over women's sports spaces and really lead the way.
So congrats on all your success and thanks for joining us.
Thanks Sarah, Thanks again to Caroline for joining us.
We got to take another break.
When we come back, a listen theyer enters the Good Game Hall of Fame Welcome back slices. Last week we witnessed a Listenayor's final two games and a US women's national team kit. So it's a great time to add a tale about the legendary keeper and certain future Hall of Famer to the hallowed halls of the Good Game
Hall of Fame. Yes, the Good Game Hall of Fame, where we celebrate women's sports lore, the kind of legendary stories that we should all know by heart, the same way we all recognize the phrase win one for the Gipper or shout Kobe when we toss a ball up piece of paper into a waste basket from deep.
We got some catching up to.
Do in women's sports, so grab another plaque and let's find a good place on the wall. Today we've got our newest inductee. Now there are countless highlight moments from Nahor's career, but the Hall of Fame is for lore storytelling that goes beyond x's and o's, and Nayor's lasting legacy won't be just as an incredible goalstopper, but as a goal scorer too. We don't have to go too far back for this lore. Two of her biggest dual threat moments both against Team Canada in February of this year.
In the twenty twenty four CONCACAFF w Gold Cup semi final, Nayor bounced CONCACAF rivals Canada by making three penalty kick saves and bearing her own shot. The US women's national team went on to win the inaugural trophy against Brazil.
Then the US met Canada.
Again in the twenty twenty four She Believes Cup and Naor did it again. I guess we're calling it the Listenair Special. At this point, three saves and a converted penalty kick of her own, watching her dive for a save, walk out of the goal, calmly bury her shot, then walk back into net and make another save legendary.
Nayor's ability to stack dubs.
On both sides of penalty kicks is the stuff of legend, the stuff of lore. Future goalkeepers, if there are any, who can score penalties instead of just saving them, will no doubt inspire references to nay Or during the broadcast and on socials, And for that reason, the Listenayor Special is the latest inductee into the Good Game Hall of Fame. We love that you're listening slices, but we want you to get in the game every day too, So here's
our good gameplay of the day. Subscribe to the Business Case for Women's Sports podcast and check out those episodes that Caroline mentioned, especially mine. Plus follow at Goals Underscore sports Underscore on Instagram. You always know we love to hear from you, so hit us up on email Good Game at Wondermedia Network dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two oh four fifty seventy and don't forget to subscribe.
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Easy watch keeping an open mind, rating five out of five.
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Life can harden us sometimes or make us sort of rigid and stuck, and understandably so, the lives we lead are long held perceptions. They might cause us to have preconceived notions about a lot of things or people or experiences before we've even tried, met or done them. And of course there are some things you should never keep an open mind about, like literally any form of bigotry
or I don't know, deep fried butter. But sometimes when you allow yourself to see outside of what's native to you, you could be pretty surprised by.
The ways the world opens up to you. See not that hard. Subscribe, rate and review yourself. Thanks for listening slices. We'll see you tomorrow.
Good game, Caroline, Good game, Melissa, you antiquated ideas about the business case for women's sports. Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, app, 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, Grace Lynch, and Lindsay Cradowell.
Production assistants from Lucy Jones and I'm your host, Sarah Spain