A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
2024 has arguably been the best year ever for professional women's sports.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #1: Oh, Caitlin Clark. Rookie on rookie crime right there.
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #2: Here is Wilson, A'ja Wilson, back in the game with 22 points, 9 boards and a basket.
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #1: What a catch and finish finish. Angel Reese.
MARTÍNEZ: The WNBA led the way, as we heard in those highlights that aired on WNBA League Pass, Bally Sports North and ESPN. The league's television ratings and attendance at all-time highs this past season, and the basketball league will have three new teams by 2026 in Golden State, Portland and Toronto.
SUE BIRD: I mean, I love it. It's something that we've all been working towards.
MARTÍNEZ: Sue Bird played for the WNBA Seattle Storm for 20 years and is a five-time Olympic gold medalist. She's now one of the owners of the team, but she's there cheering on all the new stars. Sitting courtside next to Bird is her partner, former United States Women's National soccer player Megan Rapinoe, with whom she co-hosts the "A Touch More" podcast.
MEGAN RAPINOE: Like, it's hard to understate the lack of money that these teams and leagues have really had over the time.
MARTÍNEZ: I spoke with them about what it's been like to see women's sports grow in popularity, starting with Sue Bird.
BIRD: The best part about what's happening now is it's no surprise because the game itself, the product on the floor, has always been there and has always continued to get better and better, and now people are seeing that product. Hopefully, that'll continue to happen, and things like new franchises, things like the media coverage we're getting, things like the media deal we just got, that's just going to continue to help everybody push things forward and change those systems that have been holding us back for so long.
MARTÍNEZ: That media deal Bird's talking about - the WNBA partnering with Disney, NBC and Amazon Prime Video on a package worth a total of $2.2 billion with games being distributed on various platforms, including streaming.
I used to work in sports radio for a long time, and I would always hear the argument that, well, women's sports will never achieve the level of success that men's leagues do. And I kept thinking, well, I mean, I can watch a men's sports league any time I want, pretty much in any way I want, but I can't necessarily do for a women's league. But I think digital distribution might have maybe leveled the playing field a little bit. Sue, I mean, are the traditional gatekeepers now gone where fans can access what they want more easily, and that maybe has led to the boosting of professional women's sports?
BIRD: A hundred percent. You know, there's stats around this. For a really long time, women's sports was getting - of the, like, larger media coverage pie, women's sports was only getting something crazy like 4 or 5%. And then, to your point, you had people being, like, oh, it's just because nobody wants it. Well, how do you know that (laughter)? It's never been available. It's never been able to be easily accessed.
And as we know, that's not just the games themselves. We know that storytelling drives fandom, especially in women's sports, and we've just never had the chance. Now, the good news is, I believe that percentage has ticked up to somewhere in, like, the 15, 16% range, but we still are not even close to getting, you know, even a quarter of it.
MARTÍNEZ: In light of that big new media deal, the WNBA players' union recently opted out of their collective bargaining agreement, hoping for a better deal. Now, since Sue Bird is in the ownership group of the Seattle Storm, she did not want to speak on that issue. But I remember when Megan Rapinoe's U.S. women's soccer team took a stand on pay equality, so I asked her what the risks are for WNBA players to make that move.
RAPINOE: Of course, there's a risk. I mean, I guess the risk is you don't come to a deal, and you get locked out and then you can't play. Or you strike, but those are ultimately awful for both sides of the labor negotiation. I like this. I like the idea of trying to appreciate and capture, you know, what's going on in the business, the way that it's growing. Obviously, a new media deal is kicking in. There's new teams coming in. I don't think probably the old CBA is the best fit for the W or for the players right now.
MARTÍNEZ: Right. I mean, you've got to take advantage of when you're at your hottest point - right? - to try and get...
RAPINOE: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: ...The most for your value. But here's the thing, in every single labor stoppage in sports that I've ever covered, it's the athletes that take the brunt of the abuse from fans. Fans don't want to hear about it. Is that the risk to, like, lose all that kind of momentum that, say, a league like the WNBA has built over the years?
RAPINOE: The thing is that's putting the lens of men's sports onto this, which I actually don't think works at all. I think the W and the players are much more on the same team than, like, the NFL players in the NFL. That - players don't want to hear about an NBA player making $45 million a year and being like, I want more. I think in women's sports, both sides are, like, much more aligned in, like, growing the business and continuing to have agreements that allows the league and the players to continue to grow. So I think this is a good branding move for the league, and then obviously, the players continuing to be able to participate in the upside of this growing business, which they really are, like, hugely responsible for.
MARTÍNEZ: A few years ago, I think it might have been 2018, the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, was talking about why maybe the WNBA wasn't doing as well as he had hoped it would be, and he put the blame on women's sports fans, and that the WNBA is supported by mostly men watching the sports because men just like watching sports and maybe women don't. How much truth do you think there was back then, and does that still hold up at all?
BIRD: Fandom in really all sports and all sports leagues, it kind of has these, like, three different categories. There's the die-hards who love you no matter what. There's the people that don't care, that they don't want to watch your sport no matter what. But then there's this larger group, which is, like, the casual fan, and the lack of coverage and the lack of storytelling. There was no way for this casual fan to connect to women's sports. So we weren't able to get them to invest in our league, to buy season tickets. It's been really difficult. But now you're seeing, oh, more people who are just kind of casually into sports are tapping into women's sports because it's there. It's available.
RAPINOE: Yeah. If I can just add a little.
BIRD: Yeah. Go ahead, Megan.
RAPINOE: It's the way in which it's seeping into everybody's daily life. We talk about this all the time. I know everything there is to know about LeBron, not because I want to, not because I went to, like...
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
RAPINOE: ...You know, lebron.com and reading, but just because it's in the air. And now, with the increased coverage, you're capturing more of the casual fan who just is, like, getting women's sports through osmosis now instead of having to, like, find the little niche community that, like, has all the information.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird, hosts of the "A Touch More" podcast. Thanks, you two.
RAPINOE: Thank you.
BIRD: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHIKA'S "DEMIGOD")
CHIKA: (Rapping) I'm already great. I'm not waiting on flowers. That is s*** is a scam. Consider my ego my line in the sand. Won't sit at your table. At this point... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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