We’ve Got March Madness with Hannah O’Flynn

Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today on the bright Side, we're talking women's basketball with content creator and former ESPN and NBA producer Hannah O'Flynn.

I'm so glad to be alive during this time in women's sports history. We're gonna be telling our future kids about this. Be like back in Monday, tickets were just thirty.

Bucks, just thirty bucks.

Well, we're getting into why this year's NCAA Tournament is a historic moment in women's sports, and we're all getting up to speed ahead of tonight's final four matchups.

It's Friday, April fifth.

I'm Danielle Robe, I'm Simone Voice, and this is the bright side from Hello Sunshine.

Danielle, how we feel and it's Friday.

Oh see money, it is Friday. I have to tell you, I am so glad it's Friday. Why For the past four or five years, I have been making my own schedule and is a boss. I felt like a boss and now I have bosses and it's the first time that I have this kind of schedule where I'm coming into an office in a recording studio five days a week, and now I know what people feel like like. I am excited for the weekend. No shade to the producers.

She's already sick of me, you guys, that's what she's trying to say. No, we talk every single night now. It's honestly gross. We're producing our own phone calls.

Yea.

So this weekend, I'm actually going to Buffalo, New York to get ready to see the total eclipse of the sun.

You've been talking about this since I met you.

I know you want to know why. God bless my father, God bless Charles. He has been planning this trip for about four years, since the universe told him that this was happening. So this is a big family trip. This is like a really important trip. I have so many questions.

So the first is how often do eclipses happened? What do you mean he has been planning this for four years.

It's a really good question.

I don't know how often they happen, but I think the last one was around twenty fifteen to twenty seventeen.

And who's going?

So it's my dad, my mom. I'm leaving the kids and the husband at home. Really, yes, I know it's very sad. I didn't want to, but the flights are crazy eclipscouging is real. I didn't know this was a thing. Eclipscouging is very real. So yeah, it's gonna be a cute little family trip. And I have a lot of family in that part of the country.

So that's super cool. Are you gonna aren't you supposed to look at it with glasses on?

Yep, I'm gonna look at it with glasses. I'm a big space nerd. I love space. I would go to space tomorrow.

No, no, you're not one of those.

Oh yeah, listen and still Richard Branson reached out to the bright side and was like, hey, we have a little pod, like a little egg that we could send you up to space in.

Do you want to go? You had t me children, it's safe for the most part. I do think it's so nuts. Like I love Earth, I love my life here. Why can't we fix this place? We have a lot to do here.

I know I love Earth too, but we are going to run out of resources one day. And don't you want to see Earth? Like, don't you want to just be in space and see the universe the stars?

I like the grass right here in Los Angeles. I can go to Austin Texas. You can ship me to Buffalo, New York. I'm good, don't need to see.

Space, all right, Well, cross that out of our venn diagram.

You know, I was going to tell you what I was doing this weekend, but what are you doing?

Let me ask you and be a good friend. What are you doing this weekend?

So I'm watching a show called Girls on the Bus, which I'm actually really excited about because one, I'm obsessed with the show. If you haven't seen it yet, I kept thinking of you watching it because it's about female journalists on these campaign trails, literally on a bus.

You're going to be obsessed. But I have a few more episodes to watch.

And also we're getting somebody from Girls on the Bus here really soon.

And so it's just it's so fun to watch journalism. I love.

I'm so like patriotic and I love when people are invested in the truth and it's just such a great show.

Danielle, do you have any guilty TV pleasures? Do you only watch shows about journalism or.

Eyebrow shows like The West Wing is one of my favorite shows. I'll tell the West Wing. Yeah, it's I score, just the opening score. Oh and I need to be low brow. You just talked about the score on a TV show.

That is an objectively incredible score.

Okay, any actually speaking of this, I have something funny to show you. Okay, So have you been getting I'm sure you've been getting a lot of feedback from friends, from people that are listening in your dms and texts.

Everyone's been so sweet. I love hearing from all of our listeners about the bright side.

It's been so cool.

Okay, So the listeners are really sweet, and that is so it's so fun to hear what they're gravitating towards. Yeah, my friends, not so sweet friends. Give it to me real and I need to read you some feedback from a friend.

Okay, let's hear it.

It changed how I show up on this show. So my friend Mike says all these great things. It's really punchy, it's well produced. I think I'm probably not your audience, but I love the vibe and even I was interested in it. You guys have a great cadence and voice. Here's the thing. It feels really PG like corporate, and you guys are saying what you're supposed to say.

That's so embarrassing. I kind of agreed with him. I listen back, and I think, because we.

Come from journalism, yeah, we sounded a little corporate.

Well, not to take this super deep, but you're actually getting to something that I've struggled with for a long time, and it's because of my career as a broadcast journalist. You put so much pressure on yourself when you're going on air and you're live, and you're covering these really important and breaking news stories in a time of intense political polarization, and I would get so in my head and so scared about saying the wrong thing. So that's something that I have to unlearn.

I hear what you're saying.

Well, what I love about working on the show is that it is forcing me to be more real and be more comfortable in my own skin. And thankfully I have a co host who brings that out of me. Yeah.

I feel that way about you too. I feel like safe when we're on the mic together. But I do think that that corporate thing really hit me, and so we're both going to make an effort to sound on corporate and just kind of be ourselves. I think everybody is listening and witnessing our own undoing and unraveling in a good way.

Yeah, we're here for it. We're showing you all parts of ourselves.

Folks. All right, should we get into the show. Let's go.

Okay, So we actually just did a lot of this simone. We're talking about small talk. Do you feel like you're a small talker? Are you good at this?

I feel like everyone has to be a good small talker.

How do you see? I have met people who are like I don't do small talk. I don't understand that.

What do you do?

You just you meet someone and you just jump right into childhood trauma? How does that work practically?

That's my dream.

I dislike small talk. I don't want to talk about like the weather or who went home on the Bachelor.

I want to know about if you're.

Similar to your mother or your father, or your childhood trauma, or how many times you've been in love. Like I sometimes have a physical reaction to small talk when you say you're just like jumping in. Do you have something that you jump into when the conversation is stale, or you just meet somebody and you like don't know where to go?

I never don't know where to go.

I have questions on questions I went to lunch with someone yesterday and just peppered him with questions the whole time, and I was like, it's your fault for going to lunch with a journalist. I'm sorry. He was like, no, it's great. I'm always the one asking questions. It never happens to me, so.

But I know something's so embarrassing.

Speaking of feedback, the feedback that I've gotten when I go.

On dates is like this must be good.

No, the feedback that I get when I go on dates is like she was cool, but like it kind of felt like an interview.

Where are they leaving these reviews? Is it like YELP for dating Danielle? Where are you? How many stars are you?

Guys?

I'm like in tears right now. I'm laughing so hard.

No, I think they'll tell like my friends.

You guys.

The more that I learn about Danielle's friends and their dynamics, the more questions I have.

There's no boundaries. It's a true sisterhood. I don't think that's how you define sisterhood.

Okay, wait, back to small talk. Yes, not my dating life. Okay, here's the thing about small talk that I realized because I never liked it was I don't ever feel like I'm good at it, like I really just go for the jugular.

But I realized during.

COVID that I was missing it because there were all these like low stakes interactions that we weren't half like you're Barista, your uber driver, someone at the grocery store, or a stranger you meet on an airplane, And I was like, wait, I kind of miss these moments. There is an element of small talk where you learn from people like you're on your way somewhere and you learn a great restaurant in New Mexico.

Et cetera.

Yeah, I totally agree. I think you can be thoughtful even in small talk. Yes, something that I try to avoid doing is just heading straight for the what do you do question?

Or what's your career?

Especially in a city like Los Angeles. That's so that's such a big focus in conversation, and that's only a small part of our identity.

I have a question that I ask if I feel like the conversation is lagging or it's a really good one, if you just meet somebody, because it helps you remember their name. When I meet somebody, I'll take you say, simone, I'm just meeting Simone and I say, Simone, I love your name.

If I do, right, I'm not gonna lie. And then I say, like, who named you? What's the story behind your name?

Yeah, because people usually have really beautiful stories about their family why somebody named them, and it opens up a really great conversation. You get to know them, it feels approachable, and also you remember their name.

Have you read David Brooks? Yeah, of course, Okay, I talked about.

David bro he talks about that's one of his great questions.

Really, yeah, he stole it from me. Well, I want to go on record.

By the way, David Brooks is like a fantastic New York Times bestselling writer, so he probably didn't steal my question, but we we thought similarly.

I'm sure he wouldn't mind it either way.

Lace up your sneakers, Bredsiders. Hannah Oakland is here talking March Madness. Right after the break, we're back and we're talking about a huge weekend in college sports because the final four in the women's NCAA Tournament tips off tonight in Cleveland and Yukon is taking on Iowa. NC State is playing in undefeated South Carolina.

This has been a historic tournament on the women's side and a turning point in women's sports overall. I mean, Monday night's twenty twenty three championship rematch between Louisiana State University AKA LSU and IOWA drew a record twelve million viewers on ESPN, making it the most watched women's college basketball game ever.

So a huge draw has been the tournament's star players, iowa's Caitlin Clark, LSU's Angel Reese. I mean, you've been seeing their names in the headlines, but earlier this week, Angel Reese broke the Internet by announcing that she's headed to the WNBA, and she announced it with this really dope Vogue story.

All right.

Here to get us hype for this weekend's final four is Hannah O'Flynn. She's a former ESPN and NBA producer. She's a host, she's an athlete. She's one of my favorite sports content creators. Hannah, welcome to the show.

Yes, sir, welcome. Oh I'm so hyped. This is amazing, Hannah. I gotta out myself.

I don't typically follow March Madness, but this year, I mean, it's impossible not to.

Write, Oh my gosh, I mean, there's so many levels to what's going on. From a basic standpoint, there's just individual players that are going crazy. But if you dig a little bit deeper, you realize that it's so rooted in a long history of women's basketball leading up to this point. So it's very interesting on the surface. Everyone's like, Oh, it's just this year, you know, But if you actually take a few steps back, you realize the reasons why it's completely skyrocketed.

I love that you're saying, take a few steps back, because it's very clear that this moment is different from anything we've seen in the past.

But what was the lead up?

So women's college basketball has undoubtedly had a big spike in popularity, ticket sales, viewer ship. Although it seems like it's happening out of the blue, I think it's really rooted in years of growth, and I have four pretty clear reasons why.

So.

The first is social media. It encourages star power. It allows athletes to have their own voice and presence. NIL deals, which stands for Name Image Likeness, where basically you can just profit off of your own image. These deals encourage athletes to invest in themselves, in their likeness. Nike Jordan, Gatorade, bos State Farm Buick all had their first.

NIL deals with women.

Wow.

The second piece I think is the sports media outlets like Overtime in ESPN, dropping mixtapes, sharing personalities, creating familiarity of players like Page Beckers, Hailey Van Lith, people that we've been following for years since their high school days. The third reason, honestly is I think the outrage over

Yet up the competition.

So I feel like we got to start by talking about the Kaitlin Clark effect. Young boys are wearing her Jersey. I mean, she's neck and neck with Lebron James on Google search trends. There is just so much buzz around her. What makes her such a phenom?

Yeah, Caitlin is different. She's not human. Going down to like the statistics, she's the all time record holder for D one men's and women's basketball ever in points scores. So right now, at this moment, she's at three nine hundred total points.

All right?

Does that get we have to slow down for me?

Does that mean that she's the highest scorer in women's college basketball history.

And men's Yes?

Wow, I didn't know that. She's so dominant it's crazy.

And she has over a thousand assists right now. And I think a big thing that people don't realize is she really makes her entire team better. She's really dangerous from anywhere, not only because of her ability to shoot and her quick release, but also because she sees her entire team. You can see, like even last game, it's really hard to cover her.

There's something I'm seeing that I personally want to know your opinion on. Because you played basketball growing up. I have watched men's and women's sports for years. I see men throw tantrums on the court. I mean the Chicago Detroit rivalry. Actual punches were thrown on the court, and sometimes they're suspended. Sometimes nothing happens. Women get suspended, they get yelled at, they're told that they're not sportsmen, like

Do you see that?

You know? It's funny.

I feel like women have been competitive for a minute. I think people are really paying attention now and they're hyper focusing on little things. And I also think social media takes moments and blows them up. It becomes gifts, it becomes memes. The one moment when Caitlyn waved goodbye and there was like a moment between Angel and Caitlyn. They when they were interviewed about it, they were like, oh, no, like we're cool, you.

Know what I mean.

And it's just like anyone can take any moment and make it this like they got some beef now. It's all just a really positive thing for getting people more involved.

I think it's all great. Honestly, Well that's Angel Reese's perspective. I mean, she said, I will take that villain label and I will wear it proudly because she says, I know we're growing women's basketball.

Yeah.

She also had a moment during her interview right when they lost where you could tell at the same time, she's still human and she still has real emotions, and I think you could tell a lot of that gets to her and her teammate Flage said, I know who she is and the media doesn't always portray her that way.

Well, I do wonder if part of it is self preservation, her embracing that label because as a black athlete, she knows that she is going to be treated differently, that she is going to be perceived differently when she does the same things that white athletes do.

There is that dynamic at play and you can't ignore it.

Yes, no question, And even honestly, if you look at the dynamic between the IOWA team and the LSU team. Sure like LSU has a few white players like Haley Van lith is one of my favorite players growing up and watching. But you know a lot of people have like generalized those teams and also just like the whole stereotypes behind it.

You really can't ignore the racial undertones here. It's something to think about. I think we got to give credit where credits due. In terms of Caitlin Clark, I mean, the highest score in I didn't know men's and women's college basketball.

You can't, you don't.

I want to take that away from her as an athlete, But I think you also have to recognize that women's basketball in college and basketball in general is a black dominant sport, and there's been tons of these players that haven't gotten the credit that they deserve. And it's sometimes hard to watch this white woman come in and all of a sudden get almost four million dollars in brand deals, etc.

Yeah. I know.

Angel was asked in an interview question recently about people that aren't getting credit, and she brought up one of her teammates who's been killing it. And also as black, there's always a few players.

That you're kind of like, why aren't they getting the press they deserve?

And I think it's the responsibility of these media outlets to really do their research and not just pick up on who's posting a certain player.

All right, Hannah, we need to do a quick ad break, but when we come back, we want to get into the business of women's basketball.

Stick with us, all right, we're back with Hannah o Flann. So I want to unpack the business side of this a little bit more because we touched on it, but I think there's a lot here. A twenty twenty one rules change allowed players to off of their name, image and likeness. But can you talk about why that's such a game changer for athletes like Caitlin Clark, like Angel Reese and Juji Watkins.

Completely game changer. I think certain school's only profit off of players likeness.

Their jersey purchases. A lot of athletes actually who.

Had a really big social media presence had to choose between their YouTube channels or their instagrams and brand deals over a d one opportunity. So now you're at a point where you can do both, and so you can work on your own platform and your own presence. You can make sure people know who you are and also do all of these amazing brand deals, and on top of that, you can ball out and be an athlete. I think, yeah, it's it's insane how much of a difference it is.

I start thinking about how this opens up the pipeline for young girls who are playing sports too. Right, they start to see this as a real career, you know, and they start to see like, I can make this, I can make a living out of this, I can make a life out of this.

The only thing here is it's really affecting a small percentage of players, Like only the best of the best of the best, maybe like one percent of players are going to get paid in nil deals right one.

And that's also how it's been with the WNBA as well. If you look at like the Diane Trossi's, the super Birds, the Brianna Stewarts, they are the ones getting the brand deals. And it's amazing how many elite w players don't have as much of a presence or as much popularity as skillful as they are. Truly, the people who are getting the most press, views, involvement are the ones who are getting those deals.

It's a net positive, but I think it speaks to your point about building up these players and who's responsible for that, right, Like it's a two sided game.

I want to zoom out for a minute and just talk about how this is shifting the narrative around women's sports. I mean, you've covered basketball on both the men's and women's side, and Hannah, you were a D one athlete yourself. What do you think is the biggest difference about the conversations that we're having today surrounding female athletes versus those conversations from five years ago.

I think the biggest difference is it's not an afterthought, It's truly the main conversation you'll see even now. The last game IOWA versus LSU, the twelve point three million views was more than the men's NBA Finals last year, which is crazy to think about eleven point six million views for the twenty twenty three NBA Finals, twelve point three million views for IOLSU, and that's not even the championship. So I've gotten more texts, more dms from random people

So I love that Hannah.

This year, the ticket price for the Final four, the cheapest ticket right now is six hundred and ninety two dollars. Do you want to guess what it was in twenty nineteen.

Seventy four, two hundred thirty five dollars.

Wosh. Yeah.

So I'm so glad to be alive during this time in women's sports history. We're gonna be telling our future kids about this bee Like back in my day, tickets were just thirty bucks.

You know.

The world is catching on, you know, and I'm like, there's been talent and there's also new talent coming in. So it's not just gonna be this one moment, this one wave. It's truly like a shift and it's I'm just I really have chills even thinking about this moment in time, but also what's to come.

There's so many new eyes.

I'm so fired up. I'm fired up. I need a tunnel. Give me a tunnel. I want to run through it right now.

There are some crazy mistakes that have been made during this tournament.

Oh god.

Uh.

For example, the three.

Point lines were taped on incorrectly ahead of the Yukon USC game. It was corrected, but it's hard to imagine that happening in a men's tournament.

What's your take on that?

So the NCAA has a history of not fully considering the woman's side. The three point line a few days ago was just like, it's funny. Everyone's like, I can't believe this is happening, and I'm like, I'm not surprised. Like it's twenty twenty two. The NCAA finally made it okay and allowed us to say March madness. Before that, you couldn't call women's college tournament March madness. They only use that for the men's and the amount of weight that goes into March madness in the title. In general,

Wait I remember this. A player posted a TikTok showing the difference between the women's and men's weight rooms and it was insane. I mean, there was no comparison. It was just pathetic. It just goes to.

Show you the level of ignorance and also just like what women athletes have to deal with constantly, and this isn't just on the college basketball level. WNBA absolutely certain flights. Not every player is flying first class. The payment in

Now?

I want to see if it's the same as mine, because you're obviously much more of an expert.

No, I mean, listen, man, marsh madness is different. I looked this up so wild. The audacity we have to believe that our bracket could actually do well. If you flip a coin, you have one and nine quintillion chants of getting a perfect bracket.

What is quintillion quintillion I don't even know what that's a Harry Potter number.

No one has ever made a perfect bracket, did you get close? I have Iowa in South Carolina in the finals, so they're that's exciting. Overall, the bracket isn't doing super hot, but I don't. I don't know anyone who's doing well right now.

You know, I'm already out. I had USC and LSU.

I mean that's good though.

That's a good guess.

So you have Iowa, that means your your money's on Caitlin Clark.

My money is them being in the finals. The one thing we haven't really fully talked about is the total domination of South Carolina. The last time they lost a regular season game was December thirtieth, twenty twenty one. This is the fourth consecutive appearance they're having in Final four. I genuinely going to this tournament thought they're the team to be, and I still do. Their offensive rebounds are insane.

Players right now.

But yeah, I think I want, truthfully, I want to see Iowa win. I think it would be insane. I think Kaitlin Clark's legacy is already so established. But the top scorer in college basketball history leads her team to the championship and wins, and then she goes number one drafted in the WNBA, Like I just that's the story I want. Honestly, you can't go wrong either way, and both are just fantastic.

Hannah, I have one more question for you. You grew up playing basketball. Your career now surrounds basketball. For parents out there who have little girls, yeah, what has basketball given you?

Oh my god.

I think the biggest thing that people need to realize is not only the value that sports has on making you a better teammate, but the value it has in making you a better person. I am more confident because of basketball, and honestly, track and soccer and every other sport that I played growing up. Sports has given me the ability to feel like Number one. I deserve to be there, I belong. So if you invest your kids in sports from a young age, that's investing them in the.

Future of the world.

Like women being involved in higher places. Starts in gaining that confidence and realizing consistency is important, realizing being good teammate is important, and just seeing your full potential. And I think that's something that parents can't teach. I think kids have to go experience that and learn it themselves. And I think that's why you should get your kid involved in sports and see how into it they get.

Hannah, thank you so much. You got me fired up girl.

You guys are you guys are awesome?

So are you. Thanks for your time and for your heart.

Anytime, of course.

Hannah O Flynn is a host, producer, and basketball super fan. Find her on IG and TikTok at O'Flynn stone Danielle, I wasn't kidding. I'm feeling fired up right now.

Yeah, I feel fired up because of what she said at the end of our conversation. You know, I hope it came through in the interview, but if you were in the room with us, I could feel her sincerity. She was saying, like, I really feel beautiful when I'm moving my body, and maybe it stuck out to me because I feel the same way, like I lift weights. Yeah,

Well. I also love fitness and sports because the attention most of the time is not on a woman's appearance. Whenever she's playing a sport, it's on her potential as an athlete. It's on how much she can lift, how fast she can run. It's achievement based, and I just get so tired of living in a society that prioritizes our appearance. It's refreshing to be in sport and to see women celebrated for something other than physical beauty.

So this is an interesting insight.

Yeah, the top ten most followed athletes on Instagram are all men. Okay, so people don't care about female athletes as much yet on Instagram, but the top ten most followed people in general on Instagram are predominantly women. And so to your point, I think it's mostly performers. It's like Ariana Grande, Kim Kardashian. I think we're so used to seeing women's bodies perform, and we're used to men's

I keep coming back to this idea of us being at an inflection point with women's sports, and specifically this one thing Hannah said when she was talking about the history of women's basketball being undercovered and underfunded, and that is this, Remember, your value doesn't decrease based on someone's inability to see your worth. So I'm taking that with me today. Yeah, I'm packing it up, We're leaving, throw.

It in the suitcase. I love it. We really want to hear from you. Are you all watching the Final four?

This weekend, tell us who you're rooting for and email us at Hello at the bright sidepodcast dot com.

And on Monday, we're talking to another one of the show's grand old grand to hear some much needed parenting advice from pediatrician turned TikTok star. Ask Bobby Okay, that's it for today's show. We'll be back Monday with your daily dose of Sunshine. Listen and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The bright Side is a production of Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts and is executive produced by Reese Witherspoon.

Production by Arcana Audio. Courtney Gilbert is our associate producer. Our producers are Stephanie Brown and Jessica Wank. Our engineer is PJ. Shahamat, and our senior producer is Itsy Qinthenia.

Arcana's executive producers are Francis Harlowe and Abby Ruzka.

Arcana's head of production is Matt Schultz.

Natalie Tulluk and Maureen Polo are the executive producers for Hello Sunshine.

Julia Weaver is the supervising producer and Ali Perry is the executive producer for iHeart Podcasts. This week's episodes were recorded by Graham Gibson.

The theme song is by Anna Stump and Hamilton Lighthouser.

Special thanks to Connell Byrne and Will Pearson.

I'm Simone Boyce. You can find me at Simone Boice on Instagram and TikTok.

And I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's r O b A.

Y See you Monday fam. Keep looking on the bright side.