The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Meadowlarkers 87: The Hidden Cost of Being a Female Athlete

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

On this episode of Meadowlarkers, Howard Bryant, Kate Fagan, and Dr. Amy Bass, author of One Goal and Professor of Sport Studies at Manhattanville College discuss the Women's World Cup and the collapse and subsequent fallout of the USWNT. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. This is the Dunlabel Tarshall with the StugatSpotCas. Welcome to Metal Arc as 87. I am. Have a grand cake, Fagan is with me here. Amino has and does not. But we do have the great doctor Amy Bass professor. Manhattanville College author of them, then I get this wrong.

I was gonna say three looks, but I think it's four. I have three of them. I don't have the fourth one. Okay. Author of one goal. I'm on it. Yes. Not the, but the struggle, the book. I am currently reading right now.

Those about him remain silent. Not about the great Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois from Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It's not far from here. The fourth I do not have, which I'm not, I am not great grabbing. I'm just saying I don't have it. That's a big new for a free book. I'm just telling telling you I don't have it, which is in the game. That's a tough one to come back. We've got Dr. Bass with us here, and we're going to talk about many things. But before we do that,

we've got two pieces of business that we should talk about. The first one is that the great run of metal arc is running its course. We are going down. We've got three or four more episodes before we sail off into the sunset. So we'll be either at metal arc is 90 or 91 depending on whatever these things depend upon. What's happening in the world? Yes. We are going to be doing other things, but it has been a terrific, terrific time. But we still have more to do for episodes left, I believe. The second order of businesses, of course, on our recaptains Cate Fagan was not with us last week for Metal Arc as 86. We only did one captain last week. And that was 1986. The year I graduated from high school. And our captain was Matt Murdoch, otherwise known

as the alter ego of Daredevil man without fear because it was the year that Daredevil 233, the great epic born again saga came out. And of course, we had the Marvel, the University Paud on, so we did nothing but Marvel, we did nothing but comics. That did not mean we were sliding your number 86 New York Giants Mark Bavaro, Kate Fagan. Okay, a week late. So you know it was an end purpose. But I've been waiting 86 weeks for this honor and captain.

Amy, power can pull everybody's jersey number, who's ever played sports at any level high school or above. And I have like two that I know, Patrick Ewing 33 Mark Vavaro 86. And now that I'm saying it, there's like a 3% chance Mark Vavaro wasn't 86 hours. No, he was not 86. Yeah, it was. No, Mark Vavaro was 89. Vavaro was 89. Lionel Manipule was 86 for the New York Giants. All right, I'm going to look it up because I know you're here, right? My goodness, Kate, you actually messed that Bavaro was 89. It was 89.

Yeah. I still got time then. Exactly. Amy, don't worry, we do talk about things too, but yes, all right. And to be very quick, we will go with our honorary captains for 87, 87, obviously you can go with 87, 87. Let's go first with the late great Sean Dawkins wide receiver from Cal Baltimore Indianapolis

Colt who just passed away last week. Very sad. We also have 87 Oakland graders, Dave Casper, the great Dave Casper, 87, you can go Robert Brooks, Green Bay Packers, but of course there's really is only one 87 if we're talking in sports. And it is Sid the Kid Sidney Crosby Pittsburgh Penguins. So it's got to be 87. He is our captain for today. But we are here to talk about World Cup. We've got

we've got our championship. We have got England defeating Australia and one semi. We've got Spain defeating Sweden and the other. So we have England and Spain for, as we say in Boston, all the models. And a lot more. We really want to talk to me. I really wanted to go women's, the national team. We're going to go there first, more than anything else, for a couple of reasons. One, always fascinated by the aftermath of when championship teams do not win the championship for once and what happens after that. But especially when it comes to this

particular team, because of the transition that they've been through and also the politics surrounding it, the fraying that was happening behind closed doors and then also of course, if you follow Amy Vaz's Facebook page, the amount of response from people who you know and I know in the American people though have not watched a goddamn bit of soccer for the last however what 15 or 20 years but had so very much to say about this defeat. A lot of places to go Amy welcome. Let me throw the first thing out at you. Could you just give us a bit of your Australia

World Cup experience? And we also didn't mention your CNN coverage on this as well. But it seemed like you had quite a time in navigating both what was happening on the field and the responses that you were getting. Yeah, I'm still happy to be sort of shocked when I find out that, oh, people hate the US Women's National team. I'm shocked. How can you not be so proud and in love with the Women's National team? I had the same sort of reaction when Brittany Griner came home.

And I was like, I thought everyone would be happy. And I guess I'm happy to be a human being who was surprised that there were people who were like, you know, letter Rottendale, she deserves this. So it took me by surprise and it shouldn't and I'm okay being surprised by it because I think, you know, good people are surprised when stupid things happen like the reaction to the US women's national team losing. The only time these people care, you said about soccer Howard, I'm going to say about women's sports, right? We suddenly have these, you know, with the trans issues in the last couple of years, we have these rabid protectors of women's sports who have never thought twice about women's sports, right?

Yes, like we're protecting our girls. You've never done anything to protect girls before. And now suddenly we have all of these, you know, they deserve to lose. This is where wokeness will get you. And it's not the first time we've seen this, you know, 2018, when Lindsey Vaughn said, I'm not going to the White House. She gave that interview to CNN, I think in December. So just, you know, weeks before the game. And then she had that training run back week. And everyone was like, you know, this is God, right? Telling Lindsey Vaughn that she should have said she was going to go to the White House. Good. I hope she breaks her back.

And I'm thinking, wow, okay, team USA. And I had one comment her back in 2018 in terms of Lindsey Vaughn who said that the USOC should have like a vetting, right, to make sure that only Patriots got to be on the team. So I think, you know, it was the reaction to my piece about expectations versus belief, that, you know, we can believe that they will win, but we should never expect someone to win that that's not the way sport works. I think that that speaks volumes to the fact that, yeah, people don't always act in sort of rational ways that progress in rational ways.

You say you're a patriot, but you're against people who want equity. You say you're a patriot, but you're cheering the loss of a national team wearing red white and blue. So that's the turmoil that always comes in the wake of opine, think about these things. And I guess I'm still happy that I'm still surprised by it. I think it's been really fascinating watch this world cup for me because everything has been flipped on its head in the world of women's sports.

If you're looking at women's soccer, we have for so long had been living in this world where the women's World Cup was a pretty big deal domestically to us, generally speaking. I mean, obviously it's grown and there are still so many fights that the U.S. and the national team has had to take on. But, you know, it was pretty much to give in, we were getting to a certain stage of the World Cup and we, the U.S. had landed on a certain stage of the World Cup and we, the US has landed on a certain level. And the

rest of the world, and we can talk, we've talked on this podcast previously about all the reasons why that is, whether it's title line to the 99ers. And then to watch this World Cup and feel like not only because of the time difference, did it feel like a very quiet world cup in some ways in the US, louder in ways we can get to when it comes to the way people have reacted to this team's loss, but why did domestically? And then, I know you were in Australia, right? I was not at this point.

But other reporters who we talked to, whether they're in New Zealand or Australia, and I'm sort of like floating this concept of like, seems like a pretty wild, like a quiet world cup, doesn't it? And they're like, wait, that is the most American thing you could possibly be saying right now, because New Zealand was lit up about it. And then in the last couple weeks,

we've been happening in Australia. And then now to go into this final with Spain and England, two countries who are also going to be crucial if the women's game is gonna grow at the club level and the things we've seen in the Spanish League and the crowds that Barcelona has drawn in various places and the crowds in the EPL. And Sweden thought they were destined.

The Sweden was totally hyped about this. And so we've got like the rest of the world is now on fire for women's soccer. And the US is in this like really awkward spot now. Awkward in so many ways. When you think about 2019, right? We're not even going back to like the 99ers. 2019, the US comes out swinging against Thailand.

And oh, that's, they're not good sports. They're terrible. They scored too much. They scored too much. And then you can pass forward to the Vietnam game. And it's like, they don't score enough anymore. And it was like, you really women can't win even when they win. Women can't win even when they lose.

So it's just that opening group stage, the difference of the dialogue between 2019 and 2023 should have been, I guess, within my own head, a bigger wake up call that this dialogue was not gonna go the way that I thought it was gonna go. I think we should take this, tear this apart a little bit,

and think about, I do think we may be talking about two different things, maybe they're the same thing, but I'd love to get your thoughts on this. We started this conversation, Amy, with essentially the culture war. Essentially, that what we have here is you have a group of people. And let's just face it, Megan Repino

is the lightning rod. In any other situation, every single game or every single day of the tournament, there would be some sort of feeling about your star athlete saying to buy this, this was her last, this was her last one. And it certainly did not feel like a farewell. It certainly did not feel like something that was going to be, there's any pageantry to it, like there should have been. Considering the last, in 2019, you know, there were, you know, pose after her goals, everybody, the guys were mimicking that as well. It was, it was like the visual moment for the United States. And so there's always something a bit off about this. And there is sort of a revenge factor in terms of the response. And Kate, you talk about this a lot in terms of the, the way that the mainstream culture

sort of laying in weight for the come-up ends. And it's been really, really hard to get at the women here because they always win. How long do you think this has been, you know, is it really since maybe a 2016 thing or is that, you know, when you start talking about that sort of tearing apart on the culture war side of this? Like do you really feel like this was a, I don't know, I mean, you always know when Donald Trump gets involved, it's always going to be polarizing any way, right? But the waiting for this team to lose type of thing was really sort of jarring.

But he did get involved in 2019, right? He called her out. She said she wasn't going to the White House. Yeah, exactly. Called her out. They had, you know, he had, he was still allowed to be on Twitter then. And she got under his skin and she was on fire, right? Not 2019, Megan Rapinoe, you know, couldn't, you know, she was a goddess. Could move, exactly. Her Herculean, you know, celebration pose.

Little boys are doing it on the soccer field, which for some reason always seems to be our marker of like the women have made it because little boys are idolizing them. So yeah, that's four years in the making for him to be able to finally launch on truth social or whatever it's called his launch about, you know, woke Rapinoe finally bringing this team down and and yes, she missed a penalty and, you know, instead of just saying, this is an athlete who hasn't missed a penalty since 2018. And of course, he was going to put her in there to do this. We're just talking about exactly what you're saying, that the spark was finally kindled,

and the loss in it was a gateway. It was a gateway into a hell mouth. Yeah, and there was a lot of, I mean, I mean, not telling you anything, you don't know, same Howard, like there's like a number of pieces to this, where this US women's national team has found itself after this World Cup. There's a lot of people that even though we supposedly

celebrate in America people fighting for what they think they're worth, there's a lot of people who were pissed, separate from the Trump thing, but pissed that the women got equal pay with the US men's national team. I mean, they're just like angry about it. You know, even though like that seems to be a pillar of American capitalism is like fight for what you're worth and whatever you can get, whatever the market will bear that you can get is what, you know, what the market has told you your worth, but there was, there was a huge blowback, I think, to just the intricacies of what that pay structure is, and the headline just being like, right, waltk culture, the women just pressure,

the, you know, pressure the US national team, and so they got their equal pay, instead of, like, understanding some of the intricacies of it. And then, like, and how, do you know how we're talking about this offline? Just, if you're sticking out on Megan Rapinoe, like, there's also, there's also all of these layers of questions where it's like Just if you're sticking on Megan Rapinoe, there's also all of these layers of questions where it's like when you're making the roster for the US national team and the final roster and how the US national team and women's sports as a whole is so often can be a hamstring for lack of a better word. But like if you have people who are named recognition, they carry a lot of weight on how you're gonna sell that team,

how you're gonna be able to like sell friendlies after the World Cup, who was on that team for media recognition. And how would you even say that like maybe I'm not even thinking like this is still happening in men's sports, but like some women's sports it feels like we it wasn't an equal playing field. There are players even historically in the US women's national team and you can go back and you can see this pattern like the people who built the team.

They always have that one world cup where you're like, should they be on the team or shouldn't they be on the team? But you know exactly. Yeah, exactly. They're a builder of it. And like the name recognition lies with these group of people or this handful of people. And so the U.S. Women's National team is always like,

I've always seen as a canary in the coal mine, a harb and shit. It's always dealing with the things that female athletes are going to deal with, like ahead of when other female athletes and other these deal with them. Yeah, well, the one thing I was gonna say about that too is that our good friend Dave Zyron over at the nation had written about how, you know, I think he had written something

like I think August 10th. Why the right wanted the US Women's National Team to lose? He says conservatives want everything Meghan Rapinoe represents feminism, queerness, anti-racism, reproductive choice, women's strength, simply with her away. And that's a hell of a burden to carry underneath just being a great team. So like this is that sort of the, this is that culminating moment and the point that you were making earlier, Kate. And I think we're just getting to this is, was this team even constructed as their best team? Like do you need, because you still need those players

to maintain that name recognition. So, you know, it's like in other sports where, okay, you may want to retire Joe Demagia, but we still need you, you can't go just yet. Well, and I think there's two layers to add to it before thinking about quality roster, you know, bringing up all of the things, you know, the laundry list of the woke agenda

that you're gonna heap on the back of Megan Rapino, you're also talking about someone like Alex Morgan who brought the receipts in the Paul Reilly case, right? So there's been a lot of trauma outside of just what does Rapino and herbended knee and solidarity with Kaepernick, which is years ago at this point. But the Paul Reilly case came down and it was Alex Morgan,

who sells more jerseys at that point than anyone else playing soccer in the United States. Alex Morgan, who brought the receipts to bring Paul Reilly down. And then you have the Amicus brief that they sigh that they took part in. And the US women's national team, they were not the only athletes who took part in the Amicus brief leading to the dog decision, but certainly Megan Rapinoe was one of the most vocal about signing on to that Amicus brief, and speaking about that Amicus brief, and then when the Supreme Court decision, not the leak, but the actual decision came down, you know, using a pressster to cry and be thoroughly emotionally, you know, just devastated by that decision.

You want to talk about single issue voters in the Mago world. Now you've got abortion on the table and health, reproductive rights and women's health, and where does Title IX figure into that? How are athletes? Reproductive health is absolutely part of Title IX and the healthcare part of Title IX and what Title IX encompasses. So I think it's even hard to outline everything that this team was carrying in terms of those kinds of issues.

It's an endless list. It is. Never mind to circle back to it. You just said Kate, one of the sort of pithy things to say as they were heading towards that historic collective bargaining agreement was that the women made, you know, the men made more to lose than the women make to win. So, unfortunately, right, that was one of the things that people who didn't want to get into the intricacies of that collective bargaining process and the court cases that were involved in and what have you, that's

what they like to say. So now what do we say that the women have lost? Yeah, and let's also not forget internally, Harley Lloyd, as a commentator. Yeah, and not everyone agreed. Yeah. Exactly. And more of that get aired out as well. Go ahead, Kate. Yeah, the, I have to summarize what I think we've been saying in those last few minutes is what what I always think of when I watch them and female athletes as they are getting later in their careers. It's the hidden cost of being a female athlete. When I'm watching the penalties against Sweden and you see Kelly O'Hara miss and you see Megan or Pino miss. I'm not going to sit and say like, it's that's the way of everything they've done, but like did it cross my mind?

That like these athletes who have been carrying like everything Amy has outlined over the last 10 years, for people to understand how much pressure has been on the shoulders of some of these women on the national team for like so many generations of world cups in Olympics. It's really hard to quantify. On one hand you could say it weighs nothing, right? The game starts and it doesn't matter. But on the other hand, it's unfathomable what they have been carrying and doing. I mean, to illustrate this is like when they want to work up in 2019 and then COVID happened,

a lot of people I knew around the team were like, were like actually somewhat relieved that the Olympics were postponed a year because they just weren't ready, right? Like they had been, that the workup win was so big and there was like so little time to refocus for it. And so I feel like there's been something about this team that like has the older generation

has had to carry so much. And then you see these like young Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smiths, who like don't have that burden yet. And like there's a freedom that I see them playing with. And it was juxtaposed with like with the, with some of like the veteran players and like the way down pressure of this past world cup.

No, can we also sort of one other thing out here too, which I've always found sort of interesting, especially when you're talking about and you know, in soccer's not a four-year sport, but it always you know, when you're heavily weighted on World Cup and Olympics, it feels it can feel like one, even though it's not. waited on World Cup in Olympics, it can feel like one, even though it's not. Baker, you know, 38 years old. Right. You know, that was more than 34 years old. I mean, isn't this also the shelf life of a professional athlete, no matter who you are. This is the, this is the transition year for this team. Yeah. And if you're looking at them, they are, they went through all of the things, which is a good way to transition into the, into the on field stuff.

This is what happens. They weren't going to play forever. Nobody plays forever. And to be perfectly honest and watching their matches and then you follow what was happening, were they that good this year? You know, were they, you know, in addition to all of the other weight at some point, you know, it was like the time I was in, I remember I was in the clubhouse with the late great Tony Phillips of the Oakland A's back in 1999 and they were playing and they were really trying to get to the postseason and they just were out of time and they just didn't quite

get it together. And he was like, no, man, you're after all this, this is what we are. And if they're looking at the Portugal game and after looking at Sweden and the Netherlands, they didn't score where they was it simply just the fact that this team had run its course. I mean, look at the the Wales sendoff team. I thought was a big alarm. It obviously wasn't a full force kind of friendly, but that Wales game was terrible.

And then you look at the drought. And I think, this is where I think we can say the burden isn't nothing when you hit the field. The lack of finishing, right? They dominated Sweden. That first half, I mean, my God, what time of the day was it on the East Coast? It was brutal watching that game, but they dominated that first half, but soccer, I mean, this is why we love soccer,

and I think this is why a lot of people don't understand soccer. You can dominate. You can have nine times the number of shots on goal, but a hot goalie, which Sweden had, and it's my dear high school, you know, coach Mike McGraw, he says, a hot goalie changes everything, and Sweden had a hot goalie, which Sweden had, and it's my dear high school coach Mike McGrawy, says a hot goalie changes everything, and Sweden had a hot goalie that day, but the inability to finish, right? Watching Kelly and Megan shoot those balls into the sky, that's where I think you can say, what is going on that everything hits the post,

everything gets saved, everything skies. That's where I think that little, you know, that millimeter, which this game came down to a millimeter. No one person that didn't affect luckily was a listener for the first part to, you know, should just, we should name our children that for the next few years. But I do think that that finish the finishing, right, which how many minutes did they go without scoring a goal 207 it's the longest efforts the longest out in the world cup history. Yeah, that's where I think we put these two things together What happened on the field and what was going on off the field? Yeah, I mean I have to say that when I saw the announcement about the Netflix doc I kind of I gulped yeah, like I know it's ridiculous, but I was, you know, how would you saw that Netflix bought

a doc? They're doing a, they did a follow on this World Cup. These were his national team. And then in September, they're releasing, I'm sure what they thought was going to be, and maybe it will still be incredibly interesting because of all of the behind the scenes, but it was probably going to be more progressive throughout this tournament than it ended up being. But I say I gulped just because, like, you know, these hidden costs and then you add another one on top of it.

You know, just like this other, you're, you know, you're around sports long enough and you're like, you know, all the coaches, they won't, they have got all their, their superstitions and they won't let you do this and they won't let you do that. And they're like, they're just so micromanaging every small little thing. And part of the legacy of this team and the greatness of this team has been everything they're able to do off the pitch. But there are times when you're like, well, how do you create a unified culture when this team has had to fragment itself in so many different ways

to fight battles on a lot of different fronts. And then you put a roster together where your only objective is not, the sole objective is not like, what is the best team? There are more objectives than that for the US-Toman national team than just that, right? It's not just the coach in isolation thing.

What 23 players do I want? It's like the amount of variables that are being taken into account are like, myriad. And how are I, I just find this fascinating, like this meganopino question of like, if I'm her and I'm walking up to take that last panel to kick, there's like that gambler part of me that's like, well, if you stick at the table long enough,

you're gonna lose. And like, like just I just felt so deeply for her because I was like should she have been in the game in those last 30 minutes right? Like obviously she wanted to be but I was like I didn't know if it was the right decision for the team and also like for for Megan in the long run as somebody who like then had to step up again and perform after having done so a dozen times in high pressure situations. Yeah, when you're Megan or Pino, you got to be out there, right? You want to be out there, but if you're if you're if you're me watching, you're like, what stock did either of you take into the Carly Lloyd commentary? And I bring it up because she came back the other day and said, well, you know, of course I stand by what I said, I was the only

one brave enough to say it. So she is now vindicated. What were your thoughts about the commentary itself? And then also that is another example of the sort of culture fragmenting while you're expecting to win. Yeah, the Carly-Loy question is just like, okay, we can pull it apart as much as we can because I do think, I think we'd all agree that part of what made the women's final four and basketball interesting was just people's opinions. Yeah water cooler Yeah, we've been saying for decades like what fuel sports and that women women need it And so like what comes what comes in the door when you have that is like a bunch of shitty opinions too I mean that's just like there's a lot of shitty opinions in men's sports and so women's sports like we want all of the opinions and And yet there is still that kind of like protective

mechanism that you can't like if you've been in the women's sports world you can't help it be like coming from inside the house sometimes like a Carly Lloyd where you know that there's different motivations beyond just trying to speak some sort of unvarnished truth. I'm just keeping it real Katie. Who's keeping it real? I am or is? Car. I'm just keeping it real, Kate. Who's keeping it real? I am or quality is. Karole, I'm just keeping it real. Right, exactly. And I guess the keeping it real hidden behind like an agenda that gets your voice louder than other voices.

Like it just becomes very, very complicated. I want criticism of women's teams and female athletes. But like, you do know when you feel like those criticisms are coming from a place of like somewhat objectivity versus like a pursuit to establish yourself as like the contrarian voice to this team and it feels a little contrived and I think that's where we're especially if it's politically contrarian as well. I don't know where you land on this, Amy. I think I'm packing it, you know it into little tiny pieces is actually super useful. So I appreciate that Kate.

I think first of all, Carly's previous comments about some of the culture issues in this team and what she was and wasn't comfortable with. Leah Foundation, that means we have to take that into consideration when considering what she said, right? She has, I don't think she's ever called the team woke, but she has certainly talked about being uncomfortable with the statements and the politics

that this team has evolved to end. I think the second thing is, some of it was just flat out hypocritical. When she sort of criticized Rapinoe and the retirement announcement, and this is Megan's last call, Carly Lloyd said goodbye longer than Derek Geter did. It was ridiculous when Carly Lloyd retired.

So I think there's some hypocrisy that has to be looked at. I think you do have to respect that Carly Lloyd is one of the greatest people to Donnie, U.S. women's national team uniform. You know, her hat trick is legend. She's, you know, she's a great player and she has a lot to say about soccer. And there were some cohesion problems in those earlier games that weren't difficult to call out. So I can't give Carly Lloyd all that much credit for for sitting. They don't look cohesive.

No one thought they looked cohesive. There was a lot of ugly soccer being played in the group stage. But I think that we also can't take Carly Lloyd out of the context in which she is giving these comments. She is sitting next to Alexi Lawless, whose entire mode of operation is to have people talk smack about him and pretend that he doesn't care. She is sitting in Fox, granted in a sport context, but I think that the very word Fox, Fox sports commentator, Carly Lloyd, I think we can't get rid of all of that. And there were certainly some folks who went far and saying, you know, is Fox Sports trying to become the Fox News of the sports world? And I think that's a fair question when you have Alexi and Carly saying some of the things that they were saying. I mean,

and is that why they're there? Right. Well, that's what I'm saying is, you know, this is David Niel's last hurrah. Apparently, he's retiring after this world cup. Did he put together this team? He talked extensively in the recent interview about why he wanted Carly in there and how he had to persuade her. But I think, do they want to become the Fox News of the sports world? Is a legit question? Does her commentary play into that?

Was it intentional in terms of playing into that? I'm fine to be in a space that asks that question, and I think that the response, again, Alexi had that one tweet that, you know, launched 1,000 folks in response, including, you know, some of my colleagues in the academic world, that, you know, the only reason that you're tweeting that kind of garbage is to, you know, be the person that people love to hate. He'll turn. So that's, you know, I think that I think there's a bigger context outside of just who

Kareli Lloyd is and what she has said in the past. I think we have to look at the machine that is actually broadcasting games and ask questions of that machine. How difficult is it as a sports fan? Kate and I were talking about this offline, Amy, about how it's hard to be a woman, a fan of women's sports when you can't, it's not the same as just being a sports fan because some of these sports are so well established that criticism is simply criticism.

Whereas here, you're even hostile territory. So there are going to be some areas where you want to criticize the game or criticize the team or criticize what you're watching. But you know, you can't because of what your adversaries are going to do with that criticism. Suddenly, it turns into, okay, you're not going to use my criticism to shoot it all over again. You don't even watch. So it makes it very difficult to simply, I can criticize the silvic and how they play against the heat. No one's going to say, oh, this is proof that the NBA shouldn't exist. You know what I mean? So how is it then there's a protective layer that you have to have an advocacy layer that you have to have what the same time we're still supposed to do a lot of journalism here too. So it puts it puts the

the female game in a very different space. Um, in terms of in terms of critique. Yeah, I mean, you're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. Just like the U.S. women's national team that we're talking about has been. You know, like to your point, Howard, like, you know, you hypothetically and a thousand other people could take a bat to the foundation of the NDA and you're like, no one's concerned that it's tumbling.

Whereas like, you know, the U.S. women's national team is probably the representation of the strongest foundation we have for a for women's team in the US. 100% that I am pretty sure everybody puts on this jersey. We'll reach a level of financial and exposure that is unmatched across except maybe the WTA and that is just only a couple people. And not a team sport. Exactly. And so, you know, but that doesn't mean that I don't think a thousand people with bats or

however many you extrapolate could shake the foundation of the U.S. It's not equivalent to the NBA in terms of generational inheritance and in terms of like of the longevity of what they've built, like the roots so deep that let the masses at them and it's fine, I don't feel that way about it. I feel much more secure about the US women's national team ability to maintain relevance and all of that than I do pretty much any other place. But like as a journalist, I still feel like there's certain mantras that I'm absorbing about what my job is and some of that is to speak truth to power about women's sports.

And I, but I always, I mean, even on this podcast, I've caught myself being like calling women's sports, we where I'm sure I've done it more often than I thought I was doing it and I try and rein it back, but I, I don't know how you approach it, Amy. I kind of like bounce between, I guess I should try to separate myself, but then I don't know how you approach it, Amy. I kind of like bounce between, I guess I should try to separate myself. But then I don't know how these things grow if the people who understand them intricately don't write about them, speak about them in it. Well, you know about the bad actors, Kate. You know, it's like how I feel.

Like, for example, like little secret, and we all know it very rarely do black journalists or black commentators criticize other black commentators. Why? Because we know what white people are going to do to it. We know what we know how those comments are going to be distorted. So sometimes when you have something to say, you ended up saying nothing, so you're not going to take my snippet and turn it against the game or turn it against the athletes or do something to it that was not the intention. It reminds me of when I was in Vancouver at the women's gold medal game between the United States and Canada and hockey and both of those teams had been killing everybody by 10 goals, 15 goals and then they play each other and it was a classic and so what is the head of the IOC say? Well, if these games aren't more competitive, maybe we shouldn't have the sport. I'm like, wait a minute. The US men's basketball team has destroyed every single

team up until post-stream team. And nobody said that basketball shouldn't exist at the Olympic level. Softball, same thing. You know, it got thrown in with baseball, but just exactly that. I think, I think the space that we're occupying is actually part of the story, which makes everything sort of technological and self-fulfilling and it makes your head hurt because part of the problem is exactly what you've articulated. And as we know, in terms of women and equity and the United States, it's not just in sport, right? This is just, you know, in the office place, solidarity. You're not supposed to call out your rotten female colleague

because you're both really lucky to be there. And I think, you know, I think that we see it when we have moments like Kim Aing, right? You're heading to the front office. All right, we have the first. So many stories about firsts, which tend to be stories about firsts and onlys, right? And onlys aren't good because when that one goes away,

you might be last. First and last. And Kate, you wrote about this so beautifully that, you know, when do we get to tell the superhero stories about women and sports? Why are we all so much of what we write about is the pathbreakers and the breakthroughs and the finally, finally won the right to do this and finally won the right to do that. It is still a story of struggle and contest and how are you, you're, you know, you just made me think of, I think it's Ralph

Ellison who said, you know, I can't be a reaction to everything. And I think that that's the space that you're looking at with female journalist writing about women's sports is that normalizing the critique, honestly, we're not there yet, because of exactly what you're articulating, that that piece is also part of the bigger picture, just like female coaches are still, oh my God, there's a female coach. That's right.

Female broadcasters, oh my God, there's a female broadcaster. Yeah, there's still an advocacy building piece of this. Correct, and as long as the activist and advocacy piece is still there, Oh my God, there's a female broadcaster. Yeah, there's still an advocacy building piece of this. Correct. And as long as the activist and advocacy piece is still there, it's beyond a rock in a hard place. It's just a hard place. Yeah, I remember thinking about this when they lost,

actually the game against enough villains, I remember talking to a friend of mine, and I was like, they're just not that good. I'm like, this reminds me of the 2001 Yankee team I covered. They had won three straight world series. You could see that the thing was sort of declining. We knew that they were going to be in a transition year. They gave one last

valiant classic world series against Diamondbacks and they lost in a classic game. But this team was not afforded that sort of elegiate goodbye into that next phase because of all of this stuff. You really, in a lot of ways, this was a team that you probably should have celebrated winner lose for all they had done. Right? Because when you are looking at the new players, whether it shouldn't be Rodman or all of them, it's going to be a new team, you know, in 2027 or it's going to be a new team. But that thing, I think when, you know,

messy in the US women launched on the same night, right? So I wrote about it that night. And my end game was it doesn't, it actually doesn't matter what this, what this US women's national team does because they should have nothing left to prove and they should have no one left to answer to. Exactly. And then, oh my God, again, I was, you know, fuckingly wrong. Yeah, because it turned out they have a lot left to prove and they have a lot left to prove, and they have a lot of people who they might not feel the need to answer to, but these are people who are demanding answers.

Yeah, Kate, go ahead. Circling back around to, you know, at the top, talking about how this World Cup has been flipped on its head, and now, kind of quiet domestically, you know what I'm saying, quiet in terms of us watching it and chatting about it, not the USWM's national team, but around the world is exploded. Like, to the point of what this US women's national team has been about, there is, there is, a lot of that doesn't happen the way it's happened

if not for the US women's national team. And if not for a lot of the players who have gone to different countries and been a part of different, you know, whether it's the Premier League or what they have done in terms of how they have fought for things here. I mean, they are like, they're not just the model for what how a women's team can be supported here in the, in the US, a team sport, but they're also like the reason that a lot

of soccer has exploded across the world. They are the dream team in a lot of ways. They're the equivalent of that in terms of growing the sport. NCAA play. Yeah, how many people are playing in the NCAA from other countries? And so when you also take that piece into account and then you see how this team has been treated,

like any reasonable person should be thinking, what other variables are at play? I've got a bunch of, I've got these players who have won two World Cups and Olympic gold medals in any other context. They are given a swan song. And so what are the variables? I mean, and they're all the ones that we've been talking about.

Like to me, that seems like a reasonable conclusion to come to when you look at what these players have done. Yeah, Amy, you put up a note. I remember, you know, I was just, just stocking your page one day. And there was, you know, because the, because the matches were overnight, numbs, you know, I will say I refer to the, the Australian open as no sleep January because of the 14-hour time difference.

I didn't make it through a lot of these. But the, I remember there was one I woke up to, and obviously I missed the rest of the match, and you had a post and it said something like, I don't want to hear that the rest of the world is catching up. No, no, no. What did you mean by that? Because I thought, that's actually sort of a good thing in some ways. This is part of, isn't it part of the ritual here that they are gonna catch up if you have that much influence in people start? What did you mean by that? My thought, and it was no sleep.

So I really appreciated the conversation that ensued. My thought is that it's not done yet. In that, you know, yes, you look at the 12 teams that started the first inaugural World Cup and now we're up to a bracket that's three times in size. And none of these games were smashing blowouts, although I have to say today, Australia England was a different game than I thought we were going to see. But we didn't have the Thailand U.S. game of 2019. We, you know, England, my gosh, right? And its group stage was barely squeaking by some of it.

Was it England Haiti? Was there first match? Was one zero. I think the catching up thing is the idea that you have, you know, Spain and the final with some of their best players still home, you know, a controversial coach situation. You have Columbia whose federation is a disaster

for these women and these teams. Again, some of the best players left at home. You have Jamaica that had to crowdsource to even get there. You have the French hijab nightmare, which, I had said the post-colonial gods, it's mild down on this world cup when you looked at who was facing the...

He was playing home, right? He was just crazy thinking about, the post-colonial gods, it's mild down on this world cup when you looked at who was facing the news. It was just crazy thinking about, you know, you've got Morocco in France and France is, you know, forbidding a job in sport and other places and that's a conversation to think of. So I think, you know, there's so many of these stories that, you know, catching up to what? Because it isn't just about the competitiveness. It's that bigger picture of federations paying their teams, federations, treating their players equitably, coaches having

relationships that aren't abusive sexually or otherwise. It isn't just about the score. So this is the sort of historian in me that says, we always have to look at this bigger picture. And the US is just a little space away from this historical active bargaining agreement, one that the Netherlands had years ago. And so what is catching up mean? And so I would like us to just be a little bit more precise when we're sort of evaluating and assessing

the state of global women's sport. I actually thought it was really interesting from the standpoint that suddenly there's a lot of experts out there about a game you don't watch. I mean, I was just going to add that like in some ways the US hasn't even like, we haven't even lived up to the promise of what the US women's national team. I mean, we are only a year removed from our own domestic lady having the scandals and the types of behavior patterns that we have seen in other places all across women's sports across the world. I mean, so it's just like seeing this US women's national team and knowing the backdrop of

what women have to do to place for it. And it's just bonkers. Right. So catch up to what? It's just bonkers. Yeah, I took it literally. I just took it as on on field. Right.

Now, in some people did, in some people, you know, my English friends were all like, we've invested a ton of money and it's like great. But, you know, there's still those federations out there who are saying, show us the results and then we'll fund you. And, you know, that's the chicken and egg question. Do you wait for results to fund or do you fund it and support to get results? And one of the things, you know, to just sort of bring it back to that thing you were talking about with the NBA and you know, you can't take down the NBA, the public amnesia about the amount of support men's sports have received. It's crazy for generations.

We have obliterated that. The public funding in stadiums and teams, it's just, come on. Not just that Amy. And let's close this up with some final thoughts, but not just that Amy, but Kate and I talked about this on the show many moons ago. Well, let's not forget how many years it's taken. The National Basketball Association 40 years ago was on its last legs. They needed an influx. This

wasn't, it's not a given. They were playing double headers in the cities that didn't even have NB 18s to try to get people interested. Major League Baseball has been around since 1883. So when you're looking at this, this idea, whether it's women's basketball, whether it's soccer, whether it's any of it, this idea that you can, to your point, any about the chapter being written, they're in the prologue in terms of looking at this, taking any sort of long view. But Kate Fagan, final thoughts on a Metal Larker's 87. Yeah, I mean, not the Mark of Warro episode that I thought we were going to have. Soon to be. No, I mean, you're using the book analogy and like there's a small part of me that's like, has the real book even started because it's like everyone's just sandbags, women's sports at every turn possible. Like, have we even had a stretch of time

where it was funded and invested and supported beyond like a blip here or there? I mean, it's just at times, I mean, I know we're already in the book and I know this is just the way the book is going to be. It's going to be a rocky roller coaster of a book when it comes to women's sports, but like the book is going to be. It's going to be a rocky roller coaster of a book when it comes to women's sports. But like, we still haven't even gotten to a place where I can see any uninterrupted time where it hasn't just been people going out of their way to shit on women's sports. Going out of their way. It's just like, it's a never ending story with women's sports. Dr. Bass, last word. Same in the same and ditto. It's sort of like how I felt during this whole long 50th anniversary of Title IX piece where everyone was like, what is it done?

What is it done? What is it done? What is it done? And I thought, well, once it's fully enforced, let's assess it. But we are so not even close. Yeah. That assessing Title IX means you're assessing a work in progress. You're not assessing some finite thing You know whether we're talking about legislating justice which is title nine or Living justice which is sort of this conversation that we've been having about the US women's national team It's a process and I don't want to hear about progress. Yeah, and by the way, it's done a lot Yeah, you know, let's go back to 1972. It's done a lot.

And once again, that's what I mean about the bad actors. I mean, one of the reasons why I'm making a point to decide very, very succinctly, who am I talking to? And do I feel like talking to you about this because of the number of bad actors out there. But we've got two good actors here, Amy Bebes, Kate Fagan. Thank you so much for this. We will be, what are we doing next week? We've got numbers to think about.

We've got thoughts to think about. We've got a few more shows to do our best. Maybe I can convince you to watch the Angel City doc, Howard, we'll say, we'll do a back to back. Well, why would you need to convince me that? I mean, I wouldn't have to convince you would just be like, let's do it and you'd be in. It's true. It is true. All right. All right. I'm Howard Bryant for Amy Bass, Kate Fagan and the departed Amino Hassan. This is Metal Larker's 87. We will see you next week.

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