Episode 148: Maria Sharapova Retires, Claire Hanna Chats about Curling, and WoSo Update

In this week's episode, Jessica, Lindsay and Shireen start the show with a conversation about the NHL team Carolina Hurricanes using relief goalie / zamboni driver David Ayers during a Toronto Maple Leafs game (2:24.) Tara is meowing incessantly in the background.

The crew talks about Maria Sharapova's retirement, the drama surrounding her career, her injuries, and what she meant to tennis(6:55).

Then Shireen interviews fellow sports journalist Claire Hanna about CURLING and The Scotties Tournament of Hearts, volleyball in the Olympics, and consulting in sports movies (26:17).

For the last segment, the team gets into women's soccer around the world. They chat, offer some updates, some social commentary, and talk the good and the bad in women's football (49:42).

As always, there's the Burn Pile (1:02:50), BAWOTW starring Sabrina Ionescu (1:13:56), and What's Good (1:16:32).

Links

David Ayres's famous Maple Leafs-beating stick now in Hockey Hall of Fame: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/david-ayres-hockey-hall-of-fame-1.5479982/

Zamboni driver turned NHL goalie David Ayres given his own hockey card: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/zamboni-driver-turned-nhl-goalie-david-ayres-given-his-own-hockey-card-1.4832575/

Maria Sharapova's so-called rivalry with Serena Williams will define her career - she made sure of that: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2020/02/28/maria-sharapovas-so-called-rivalry-serena-williams-will-define

Maria Sharapova's legacy is a polarizing one -- for fans and fellow players: https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/28787827/maria-sharapova-legacy-polarizing-one-fans-fellow-players/

NWSL finally has a new commissioner: https://www.allforxi.com/2020/2/27/21156391/nwsl-new-commissioner-lisa-baird

Saudi Arabia launches women's football league: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51635107

Finland's women's football league given gender-neutral new name: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/02/27/finlands-womens-football-league-given-gender-neutral-new-name/

Spanish top tier reaches historic contract agreement: https://herfootballhub.com/spanish-top-tier-reaches-historic-contract-agreement/

School policy forbids kids from saying 'no' when asked to dance: https://www.today.com/parents/sixth-grader-utah-couldn-t-say-no-when-asked-dance-t174793

Japan Shocks Parents by Moving to Close All Schools Over Coronavirus: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/asia/japan-schools-coronavirus.html

ESPN's Top NFL Reporter Carries Water for ESPN's Business Partner, the NFL https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dmkpk/espns-top-nfl-reporter-carries-water-for-espns-business-partner-the-nfl

Inside Sabrina Ionescu's whirlwind, record-breaking weekend: https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/28777158/inside-sabrina-ionescu-whirlwind-record-breaking-weekend

NORTH CAROLINA GIRL WRESTLER DOMINATES BOYS TO BECOME FIRST EVER FEMALE STATE CHAMPION: https://abc11.com/amp/5968831/

Transcript

Shireen: Welcome to this week’s episode of Burn It All Down. It’s the feminist sports podcast you need. I’m Shireen Ahmed, freelance writer and sports activist in Toronto, and I’m leading the toxic femininity charge this week. On this week’s panel we have the weightlifter extraordinaire, my favorite PhD candidate, croissant-maker and author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape, Jessica Luther; she’s in Austin. And we have the indomitable and brilliant Lindsay Gibbs, with the most beautiful laugh and the mightiest pen, my favorite new cricket fan and freelance sports reporter/creator of the Power Plays newsletter – sign up at powerplays.news! She’s in DC.

Before we start, I would like to thank our patrons for their generous support, and to remind our new flamethrowers about our Patreon campaign. You pledge as low as $2 and as high as you want to become an official patron of the podcast, and in exchange for your monthly contribution you get access to special rewards. With the price of a latte a month you can get access to special segments of the podcast, a monthly newsletter, and an opportunity to record on the burn pile only available to those in our Patreon community, in addition to our new vlog. So far we have been able to solidify funding for proper editing and transcripts, and our social media guru Shelby, but we’re hoping to reach our dream of hiring a producer to help us with the show. Burn It All Down is a labor of love and we all believe in this podcast, and having a producer to help us as we grow would be amazing, and we are so, so grateful for your support and happy that our flamethrowing family is growing.

We have a kickass show for you this week. We’ll be talking about Maria Sharapova retiring, we have an interview with Claire Hanna, TV news reporter with CTV in Regina, Saskatchewan, about volleyball and everyone’s favorite thing: curling! Also, we’re gonna round up the show with a really important discussion on women’s soccer. But before we start, let’s talk about something really important: Zamboni drivers. Jessica?

Lindsay: Don’t you mean “star NHL goalies,” Shireen? [giggling]

Shireen: Absolutely, but it’s rooted in the Canadian cultural classic…Everybody wants to grow up to be a Zamboni driver. Truly, it is very Canadian. It’s like my life, I wanted to drive a Zamboni. Yeah, I totally did. So–

Lindsay: True.

Jessica: That sounds very Canadian to me.

Shireen: For those of you that don’t know, the Carolina Hurricanes were in Toronto last weekend, and both of their goalies, their goaltenders–

Jessica: You can still make that dream come true, Shireen.

Shireen: –got injured, so what happens is, it’s NHL policy to be able to have a third string, meaning a backup. So David Ayes, who is the Zamboni driver at Air Canada Centre in Toronto, filled in. He filled in. He’s a 42 year old, he plays hockey, he coaches as well, and he filled in. And what happened was every person’s, who is a hockey fan, rather, their dream come alive. It was like a fairy tale. It was awesome. Carolina went on to beat the Leafs 6-3, but you know, this kind of…I don’t know if I want to say Cinderella story, but just…Jessica, Linz, what was the news about that? And Linz, you’re from North Carolina, was this a big deal?

Lindsay: Yeah, and honestly, I just feel that we, like, used Canadian culture against you, because it was beating the Leafs. I loved that part of it.

Shireen: I know, it’s meta!

Lindsay: [laughing] It was very meta! I love that you’re like, we loved this so much, and then it was like, yeah, but Carolina won. It’s just kind of fun! But it was so cool. I don’t follow the NHL as closely as I used to, but I still love the Hurricanes, and I’m glad their media, their PR people just seem like really good people on the team. I just loved following them from afar, and everyone was so happy. I feel like the Carolinas really needed that, because it has been a very rough few months in the sports land there, and it was a dominating story, it was leading everything. We love him. He is forever a North Carolina hero, so, you know, it’s just too good. I love it. But I did read that now NHL owners are having meetings, like, re-discussing these emergency goalie rules, and someone tweeted, wish I could remember who, “the only thing you know for sure about sports is anytime anything joyful happens they will take it away.” 

Jessica: Yeah, I didn't know anything about this, the rule or anything like that, and I found everything about this to be amazing, perfect. My understanding is that this is only the third time that this rule’s ever been used, and just the idea that you keep a third string goalie around just in case either team needs them, so that he can hop in, just that idea is sweet on some level. I liked the part of his story…Ayres got a kidney transplant 15 years ago, and his mom gave him the kidney, and he went on The Today Show because he’s been this big media sensation, and they surprised him by Skyping in, or whatever you’d call it, his mom. So his mom got to share that moment of him being on The Today Show and everyone celebrating him. I also think it’s really neat that his stick from the game is gonna be put into the hockey hall of fame. So, I love everything about this story.

Shireen: Yeah, it’s been really great. The one thing I did wanna say, without being super critical…No, I’m gonna be critical in one regard: he has a hockey card already made out for him, and I know that his t-shirt – because I was wanting to get one, like, this is really fun. I appreciate the Carolina Hurricanes and their hockey culture and they don't give a fuck about anything and I like that they do their own thing. I also appreciate they beat the Leafs. But also, he gets a hockey card, and then I sit back and think, women’s hockey players don’t get hockey cards. I just…You see the disparity so glaringly, and when one follows women’s hockey and sees the struggles, this guy undoubtedly, his story is wonderful. It’s really a fun, fun story. But there’s a part of me that can’t help be like, oh…I wish women could have this too.

Jess, can you talk to us about Maria Sharapova and her career?

Jessica: Yeah, of course. So, most people at all familiar with tennis know the name Maria Sharapova, she broke onto the world stage in 2004 when, at the age of 17, she beats Serena Williams in the finals of Wimbledon, Sharapova won her first Grand Slam championship. She then went on to win four more, including one of each Grand Slam, so the US Open in 2006, the Australian Open in 2008, and the French Open in 2012 and 2014. I’ll just say, winning all four Grand Slams in a career is a hell of a feat. She also won 36 tour singles titles, she won a silver medal singles title in 2012 – that was when she lost to Serena, which is a theme in her career. I’ll talk about that in a second. And then Serena famously did a short Crip walk afterwards at Wimbledon. And then Sharapova won the Fed Cup title with Russia in 2008, she spent 21 weeks in her career at #1, so it was a hell of a career.

This past week she announced, unsurprisingly I think, that she was gonna retire from the sport. She struggled a lot since 2016, when she was suspended for 15 months from playing after testing positive for the banned substance meldonium. She long suffered from shoulder issues which led to a shoulder operation in 2008, but still there’s been a lot of scrutiny of her game and people wondering out loud if her success before 2016 was tied to substances. I think, to be clear, meldonium wasn’t banned until 2015, so she didn’t break a rule because there was no rule to break, but I do think that’s gonna forever be a cloud over her game, though she still denies that her downturn after her suspension was anything more than a shoulder injury. To the casual tennis fan, I would guess Sharapova is best known for her dismal record against Serena Williams, which ultimately ended with Williams holding a 20-2 winning advantage over Sharapova. The media was often hyping their matchups under the term “rivalry,” though there was little doubt about who was actually going to win.

In 2017 Vox compellingly labelled the relationship a “feud,” which I liked a lot, and in the piece Alex Abad-Santos writes about Sharapova’s autobiography, which came out in 2017, quote: “When you compare what Sharapova says to reality, it seems clear that being pitted against Williams has helped her benefit from their feud, in the form of lucrative endorsement deals, magazine spreads, and preferential treatment at professional tournaments. Sharapova also disturbingly exaggerates Williams’s physical presence and anger, positing that the combination of the two is the reason Sharapova has never again beaten Williams.” Despite Serena’s domination over Sharapova, Maria, until her suspension, I believe, had more, and more lucrative, endorsement deals than Serena. For 11 years Sharapova was the highest-earning female athlete in the world, some of which was due to the fact that she was a very good tennis player, and a lot of which was due to the fact that she was tall and blonde and beautiful and white and skinny. I will absolutely remember Sharapova as an incredibly intense and competitive fighter on the court: even when she was down she played hard and with conviction. It’s inspiring, the way that she would play. She’ll also be remembered for the way she yelled every time that she hit the ball – I’ve always been Team Let Them Yell And Leave Them Alone, so I have found myself for years defending that over and over again.

ESPN ran a piece about Sharapova upon her retirement that said in part, quote, “Sharapova […] alienated as many people as she awed. She had few friends in the WTA, just rivals who existed in her eyes only to be beaten. The reaction to her retirement among her peers: an outpouring of, well, indifference.” I think this is right. The reaction part made me think about the fact that when Wozniacki retired in January it was a very different feeling. People were very sad, it was a lot of “We’ll miss you, Caroline!” Lindsay will have a much better idea of this than me about sort of the reaction from other players. Sharapova’s complicated – I liked watching her play, but in prepping for this I realize I’m not sure I’m gonna miss her…[Shireen laughing] But it also feels like she’s been gone a long time already, maybe it’s just that this announcement is a formality at this point, I’m already used to her being gone. Lindsay, how are you thinking about this?

Lindsay: I’m thinking a thousand different things.

Jessica: Yes.

Lindsay: First of all, I feel like I almost have to whisper this, but I legitimately am going to miss her, if nothing because she was just such a good antagonist–

Jessica: That’s true.

Lindsay: –and I just think in women’s sports in general, let them be villains! Let there be…Everyone had feelings about Sharapova, she had so many fans, and she had a lot of people who hated her – a lot of people who hated her for very legitimate reasons, a lot of people who hated her for very silly and superficial reasons, but people felt things about her, and every time she played that was part of the moment. As you all know, I’m Team They Don’t All Have To Be Liked For Me To Enjoy Them, like, on the court, they don’t all have to be perfect human beings. I think there’s a few things…I mean, I was always rooting for Sharapova to do well, I always thought it was a more interesting tour when her intensity was at the later stages of tournaments. I mean, for all the talk about how, yes, she’s undoubtedly benefited and exploited her white privilege and her looks and her beauty, but she’s also just one of those people that has a presence to her, she just has this gravity to her that not all attractive people have, you know, not all tall, blond people have…There’s a weight that is to everything she says and does, and it’s really fascinating.

I think a lot of that is her story. I mean, she actually does have…It’s very overlooked now, but her family grew up very poor in Russia and she was at a tennis clinic, they moved to Sochi when she was like 2 to escape the Chernobyl aftermath, and she was at a tennis clinic when she was like 5 with Martina Navratilova, and Martina Navratilova told her dad that Maria Sharapova had a lot of promise, and she should think about moving to the States. So she did. She moved here when she was really young, not knowing any English, and practiced at the Bollettieri Academy–

Jessica: Without her mom, too, right?

Lindsay: Yeah, without her mom. Her mom had visa issues, and so couldn’t come, and she said her dad spoke even less English than she did, and you know, was determined to make it. And she did. I think that part of her story, because she had success at such an early age, I mean, beating Serena Williams on her court at Wimbledon when you’re only 17 in a final, that’s a big moment. In a lot of ways, because that moment was so big, the rest of her career was trying to catch back up and justify the extent of that moment, and I think she had a very limited game for a superstar. I would say she’s one of the least talented five-time Slam winners I’ve ever seen, and for me I don’t mean that as an insult, I mean that as her determination and her fight that got her to the place that she was. Watching her play matches, there were times that she just…Like all the greats do, but I think because she didn't always have the shots and because she had shoulder issues and was working with such a limited serve and because of all of these things…Watching her refuse to lose tennis matches that she had absolutely no business winning was fun. I enjoyed it. One of the jokes about her is that Maria Sharapova has never hit a second serve in her life, like, there’s a first serve and then there’s a second first serve. It’s kind of how she approached everything, just full-on.

That being said, I understand and agree with a lot of the reasons that people find Sharapova incredibly problematic. I will never understand…I mean, every day there are more calls for diversity in the publishing industry, but the fact that her book got published with that description of Serena being so “big” and “imposing” and that didn’t get flagged as problematic? Her explanation was that she was writing that as coming onto center court as a teenager to this multi-time Slam winner Serena, and if I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt, which I probably shouldn’t, but I do understand that explanation of how Serena probably seemed to her at that time of her life. But for nobody to flag that as like, oh, this is racism, these are racist tropes, people are going to take this out of context! It’s just frustrating. And she and Serena hated each other, you know, there was that infamous Rolling Stone article where Serena said Sharapova had a black heart – she didn’t say her by name, but like…

Jessica: We all knew…

Lindsay: We all knew. They both kind of dated the same guy, Grigor Dimitrov, which is just the weirdest thing.

Jessica: I didn’t know that! That is new information.

Lindsay: Yeah, well Sharapova was in a relationship with Dimitrov for a long time–

Jessica: Oh, I knew that one.

Lindsay: There had always been rumors that Serena had dated him for a little bit beforehand, which is weird, and then Dimitrov was at the Patrick Mouratoglou Academy, and that’s Serena’s coach…Anyways, yeah. There’s all of this drama, and then Sharapova, in a press conference – this is probably when the Vice article came out – Sharapova in the press conference came out after the “black heart” thing and called out Serena for, she didn’t say by name, but for being with Patrick and breaking up a marriage…

Jessica: He was her boyfriend! Oh…

Lindsay: There were all of these photos came out of Serena and her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, you know, with their hands in each others’ back pockets, like, shopping and stuff – very intimate poses, while Patrick was married. So anyways! It’s just kind of…Shit got heavy for a while on both ends and, I don’t know, I’m also one not to hand-wring over doping stuff. I think Jess and I are kind of on the page here a little bit. I know there are a lot of people who will forever put an asterisk by her career because of meldonium, but to my mind in 2016 she was on her way out anyways. I think she probably would’ve retired in 2016 if she hadn’t gotten the ban, you know? And when she got the ban earlier that year, I think she would’ve gone through that Olympic cycle and then probably called it quits, and because of her stubbornness she said, at the beginning of the press conference that she gave to announce her meldonium ban, that she would not announce the end of her career on this ugly carpet of this random hotel room in Los Angeles, that was her famous quote.

And she didn’t. She came back, she had a few big moments, but her shoulder…People in the tennis world will talk about her shoulder, and it was held together by tape and glue in pieces, she could not move her shoulder. She will never have a fully functional shoulder again. I actually heard that if you watch her, when she lifted trophies, she would always lift them straight up above her head in this weird way, like her arms would stay straight the whole time, and that’s because she couldn’t move her shoulder normally. That was actually how damaged her shoulder was, and this was before 2016. I would’ve liked to see her career go out without all of these asterisks, without all of these uncomfortable things, but that’s not the reality. The reality is Maria Sharapova is complicated. I understand why people hate her, I’m not gonna tell anyone to like her, but to me, because I’ve been a hardcore tennis fan, there was always a lot more to Sharapova than her just losing to Serena. Her presence and what I’ve gained from her career is a lot bigger than that.

Shireen: I appreciate that so much as someone who doesn't follow tennis like both of you, I mean, the only things I knew about her was that she wrote a book and that’s one of the first forays into her…She never caught my attention, I wasn’t super into tennis, I only got into it because of Venus and Serena, and now I care but very much because of racialized dynamics in the sport – and Billie Jean King, and what she’s done. But I found this quote very recently from an article about her shoulder from Tennis World, it’s just a couple days old, but just to think about what you said, Lindsay, about her shoulder, it just really stuck me because it said, this is something she said: “Thirty minutes before taking the court, I had a procedure to numb my shoulder to get through the match. Shoulder injuries are nothing new for me—over time my tendons have frayed like a string.” Just the thought of having to numb an essential part of your body to get through a match, in order to survive the pain, it’s staggering to me. I’m one of those people that will quickly villainize anyone that says anything bad about Serena, but I didn’t know all this stuff, that her family were Chernobyl survivors, I didn’t know any of this. It doesn’t make me feel like I wanna read her book, because didn't she also badmouth Serena in the book? Like you said…

Lindsay: It was her description of Serena in the book, it was problematic at best…It was racist. Like, it was racist, and I’m not saying she’s racist but it was a racist description for sure.

Shireen: Yeah, and I mean for me there’s no difference there. Like…

Lindsay: Yeah, you’re right, no, it isn’t. There’s no difference.

Shireen: Yeah, I’m not gonna be keen on that, but I mean, it’s funny Jess when you started talking about who’s gonna miss her, it’s really interesting because when athletes go there’s usually some type of fanfare, but I wouldn’t know if you guys hadn’t brought it up. I had no idea, and she was a fairly prominent figure at one point in time. It’ll be interesting to see…Do you guys have any predictions on what she’s gonna do next, like, what do tennis players do later?

Jessica: Well she’s going to sell candy…

Shireen: Candy?

Jessica: She’s been doing that for a long time. Yeah. What is the name of the candy?

Lindsay: Sugarpova.

Jessica: Sugarpova. Maybe she’s a businesswoman. 

Shireen: That sounds like something out of Parks and Rec.

Lindsay: She’s been an entrepreneur for a long time. She was on Shark Tank last night, or this weekend.

Jessica: Was she!? Okay, okay…

Lindsay: Yeah, she was one of the investors. She wanted to be a businesswoman and she’s been building to this part of her career since 2012, so she’ll be fine, but…

Jessica: I don’t know if she’ll do anything in tennis. Like, I don’t know if we’ll see her commentating or coaching or anything like that. It’ll be interesting to see what she does, how she interacts with the tennis world itself now that she’s retired.

Lindsay: I agree.

Jessica: But she’s definitely gonna spend some time making money.

Lindsay: There were crickets, I mean, it was staggering how little…I mean, she never set out to be liked. That was never her goal to be liked by her peers, and she really wasn’t for the most part. I think we also have to add to the Sharapova conversation is that when she was coming up, the way the media talked about her and to her. She was coming up in the wake of Anna Kournikova. They were both trained at the Bollettieri Academy, they both were…Kournikova had made waves as this tall blonde, people said she never won, which was way exaggerated. Kournikova had a very respectable tennis career before injuries took off, but she also had moved to the United States to follow tennis, and had gotten a lot of opportunities because of her looks and took advantage of them.

When Sharapova was coming up…She was 16, before she won Wimbledon, she was asked whether or not…It was assumed Maria Sharapova didn’t care about tennis because it was assumed that Kournikova didn’t care about tennis, and that they wanted to be models and that they weren’t elite athletes. Maria Sharapova was very sexualized at very, very young age, and dismissed because of sexism and everything. Her career has always kind of been told through these poles of Kournikova and Serena, and there’s a lot more to her than either pole. But I think what I want to end with is: Serena wins. Serena literally beat her nonstop, Serena had the best tennis career, Serena is still playing. This “rivalry” was more about brands and was more about two players who didn’t like each other and was more about the media wanting to pit women against each other and creating that and it was rooted in race and it was rooted in all of this stuff, in sexism and everything. But at the end of the day Serena wins, there’s just no doubt about it. Serena is the champion and I think that's the only way to win this. 

Shireen: Jess?

Jessica: Lindsay is so right in that Serena wins also, and that when we tell Sharapova’s story forever Serena will always be a part of it, and when we tell Serena’s story forever Sharapova will be a footnote. 

Lindsay: Yeah, yes.

Jessica: And I just think that that’s really, yes, Serena has won this.

Shireen: Next up, my interview with Claire Hanna, TV sports broadcaster and expert on volleyball and curling.

Hello flamethrowers, Shireen here! I am so excited to have my friend, Claire Hanna, on the show with us today. Claire is a sports broadcast specialist with CTV Regina, and she covers the Saskatchewan Roughriders for the CFL on TSN. Her passion for sports journalism stems from her time spent as a professional athlete with the Canadian national volleyball team. She represented Canada at the 2011 Pan Am Games in Mexico, and played professionally overseas in Belgium. Claire attended UBC, where she received her BA, and masters in business. Claire helped the UBC Thunderbirds win the U SPORTS national championship from 2008-2010, and was named the U SPORTS libero of the year in 2010. Hello, Claire!

Claire: How’s it going? This is a big moment, like, longtime listener, first time caller! 

Shireen: I’m so happy you’re a guest! We are gonna talk about lots of fun things, including one of my favorites, curling!

Claire: Yeah!

Shireen: And I will obviously pick your brain about volleyball, but first the important issues, the pressing questions that I need to ask you: I asked you what your favorite food was, and you said “tuna wiggle.” WHAT? Wh–

Claire: I’ll be honest, I actually thought it was like a password or something to log in to the podcast, and it’s my truthful answer, but it’s this…I just make a pot of pasta and then I put in tuna, capers, anchovies, olives, spinach…It sounds so weird, but it just comes together so well with lemon juice, sometimes I put parsley, it’s wild. It’s like a hipster version of tuna wiggle, if you will. It’s not KD, it’s cool tuna wiggle. 

Shireen: Wait, KD and tuna is a thing?

Claire: Yeah, I think people just make KD and put tuna in it and call it tuna wiggle. 

Shireen: I…Is this a prairie thing? Because I am from the east coast and I have never had tuna and Kraft Dinner before.

Claire: I’ll be honest, I didn’t really grow up eating it, but I think it was a thing. I might’ve had it at a sleepover or two, but anyways, this is just a different spin on tuna wiggle, I love it. If you’re a pescatarian, do it up.

Shireen: Yeah, I appreciate you, and capers are underrated in my opinion.

Claire: Agreed, agreed! [laughs]

Shireen: Onto something which I feel is equally as important as prairie cuisine, can you tell us a little bit about what is undoubtedly the most exciting time in Canadian curling, the Scotties Tournament?

Claire: Ugh, the Scotties Tournament of Hearts! Well, we just finished covering it, and this was a really exciting year, Shireen, because Jennifer Jones – she’s from Manitoba but she got in this year representing wild card because the put the top-ranked teams who haven’t qualified through their provincial championships into this wild card game, she made it in that way – she has won six Tournament of Hearts. It’s tied with the most ever, Colleen Jones, and so if she won this one she had a chance to make history, and she made it all the way. She got bronze, she didn’t win, but it’s pretty amazing getting to cover somebody like that who’s won an Olympic gold medal, she’s been the face of curling and just kind of a legend in this sport, and so it was just neat to watch her do her thing gritty, like, they didn’t have a great week and they still managed to get bronze, they just grind it out. So that was pretty cool. I haven’t even talked about a winner, but that was just my overall thoughts just on getting to cover this.

Shireen: Yeah. Is this your first Scotties Tournament of Hearts?

Claire: It is! And I’ve covered the Brier, which is the men’s version, three times, just by chance because of the locations I was in as a sports reporter. So this was my first chance to cover the Scotties, and it also felt cool covering this year’s Scotties because for the first time in history Curling Canada introduced equal prize money for the women. It was equal to the men, and the men got a bit of an increase too, but both sides now, the total prize money for the winner was $105,000.

Shireen: Wait, that’s per team or per person on the team?

Claire: That’s per team, so however they want to divide it up. I think it’s probably four ways, or maybe five ways with the extra person included, or coach included, that kind of thing. But yeah, I think it’s a pretty substantial amount of cash.

Shireen: That’s fantastic, I didn’t even know. I just assumed the Brier Cup winners make more. I didn’t realize…It’s 2020 now, I’m glad Curling Canada is realizing this is so important, because the Scotties Tournament of Hearts gets a lot of viewers doesn’t it, it gets a huge amount of support for its women’s teams.

Claire: Oh, so much support. And when I spoke with some of the players, and I’ll quote Jennifer Jones here about what their reaction was when they found out it was equal prize money for the first time, what most of them said was really interesting: they said, you know what, when you look at the history of curling we’ve always had equal media coverage – so TSN broadcasts both of them nationally, same exact time slots. The grand slam of curling, which is another tour that’s international, so you’ll see Swedish teams, Italian teams; Sportsnet has always had equal media coverage, the men and the women compete at the same tournaments, so they’ll actually rotate a men’s game, then a women’s game, then a men’s game, back and forth and trade off between events who gets the primetime game at like 6pm on a Sunday, so that’s real interesting.

Shireen: Wow.

Claire: And they’ve always had equal prize money. So Jennifer Jones brought up, we actually feel like curling for the most part has always been equal to the men, this was just kind of an extra step. Again a comment that was repeated over and over was “long time coming,” but now I don’t think you can really pinpoint any differences between the two.

Shireen: Yeah, because if we’ve got exposure, like media coverage, then we’ve got…I was looking at some of the teams saying they’ve been covering the sport for years, and I think that’s important, and I think there’s always been a lot of commentators that were women. One of the first sports that I saw consistently being covered by women was curling with Colleen Jones covering the sport.

Claire: Yeah!

Shireen: That actually makes a difference because I think we take for granted how often men are covering women’s sports as opposed to women covering women's sports. But she was one of the first sports commentators I heard who was a woman on CBC ever, or on sports channels, because of her expertise. I think curling is a place that is often overlooked for this kind of thing, and I didn’t know about the pay equity thing, so thank you for sharing that. That’s kind of a big deal. Did you have a favorite moment this time?

Claire: At the curling event?

Shireen: Yeah.

Claire: Well, the final ended up being a barn-burner.

Shireen: Wait, what is a barn-burner, for our listeners, who don’t know?

Claire: So…[laughing] It was fire, it was lit. It was so exciting. At first it seemed like it was gonna be a blowout: so it was team Rachel Homan, representing Ontario – they were also at the Olympics in Pyeongchang – facing Manitoba’s team Kerri Einarson, and Homan has won this Tournament of Hearts three times. Einarson, that whole team, three of the four players have never won it. One player, Shannon Birchard, actually won it as a substitute with team Jones, Jennifer Jones, a few years ago. So anyways, two powerhouse teams going at it, and team Einarson from Manitoba was up 7-3, I believe, at one point in the game, with hammer, which is kind of like, okay, they’re gonna win this in the eighth end with just two more ends left, but Homan ended up stealing, and they pushed it to an extra end. And this last year was also a comeback from four points behind, that set a Scotties record as the biggest come from behind victory in Scotties history…Like, only down four points, but that’s a lot in curling. Again, a team was down four points in this, like, Manitoba was up four points, Homan had this comeback – Ontario, pardon me. And Manitoba ended up winning it keeping that lead, but it was just so close in the end. With curling what’s amazing is there’s so much tension building to that final rock, and when the skip is in the hack, the place is silent. You could hear a pin drop, because everybody’s just–

Shireen: When you say throw it, do you mean when the skip is literally about to set the rock going down the ice–?

Claire: Exactly. Correct.

Shireen: That’s called throwing it, okay. Because they don’t actually throw the stone, just to be clear.

Claire: It’s like they slide it. 

Shireen: They slide it, yeah. I just wanted to make sure. We have a lot of listeners who don’t know curling, but they will now!

Claire: No, thank you for explaining that. And when they’re in the hack it’s those black kind of rubber things that are in the ice, and you can put your foot in there and get some traction because when your foot’s on the ice it’s incredibly slippery. 

Shireen: Right.

Claire: So when that player is just setting up to throw that rock, and they’ll be sitting there for sometimes 10-15 seconds just motionless, because they’re looking at their target, where they need to slide that rock. The place is fully silent, it’s the eeriest thing, because usually in big moments everybody’s cheering but it’s silent and then as they deliver/throw/push the stone, as the stone moves down the ice to score or miss this energy starts building and it’s either “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, they’re about to miss!” or “Oh my gosh, they need to sweep so hard to get it down!” and it’s just electrifying. And then the place explodes when the outcome happens, it’s just such a cool sporting moment, and so unique to any sport.

Shireen: I just literally wanna jump in my car and go find a curling rink and go watch it right now! I love how excited you are about it, and that’s so important. I’m sure there’s many listeners getting a kick out of two Canadians talking about women’s curling in this matter but y’all, you need to check and literally get out there and see it, I think it would be so fascinating. I’m going to assume that Canada is probably one of the top women’s curling teams in the world, is this true?

Claire: Yeah, that’s a proper assumption. They didn’t win the world championships last year, it was actually Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni.

Shireen: Yeah, it was Switzerland, I remember that.

Claire: And also the Swedes, Anna Hasselborg, they won the Olympics, so the rest of the world, I won’t say is catching up, they have caught up.

Shireen: Right.

Claire: You can’t assume that Canada is the powerhouse anymore, and that’s actually been a topic of discussion in Canada: is there less investment in grassroots, etc, but it’s kind of fun. I think you need competitiveness internationally to grow a sport.

Shireen: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely agree there. I did want to take this and transition on the point that you’re a volleyball player, and I love that you’re talking about curling in this way, but speaking of volleyball there’s so much I wanna talk to you about. Tokyo 2020 is coming up…

Claire: Yes. Woo-hoo!

Shireen: How is that tournament looking at the Olympics? Is the qualifications the same way that…Soccer, for example, we talk a lot about on this show. There’s 12 spots in the tournament in the Olympics. How does that look, is it the same? Do you compete regionally for a birth to go to the Olympics, is it the same thing?

Claire: Yep, you nailed it Shireen. 12 teams, and it’s 2 pools.

Shireen: Okay.

Claire: So basically you play everybody in your pool, and then I believe it’s the top 2 in each pool get to the quarterfinals and then the other 6 teams play out. It’s so tough to make it, similar to soccer, because I would argue volleyball like soccer is popular everywhere on earth, it’s not like there’s just certain regions that play it. North America, South America, it’s huge in Asia, massive in Europe. I’ve named it all, you know? Africa, it’s coming along there. So it’s just really competitive and to make it to the Olympics is a huge feat. Some people in volleyball circles, and I agree, would actually say the world championships is a better benchmark of the best teams on earth, because you get the top 24. In the Olympics, because certain regions can only send one, you really sometimes miss out on some of the top teams in the world.

Shireen: So, are the women’s world championships in volleyball every year, or every two years, or how does that work?

Claire: Every four years the lead-up to the Olympics.

Shireen: Really!

Claire: Whew, I hope I’m right on that one.

Shireen: Okay.

Claire: But it’s usually the world championships…Pardon me, I think they might be every two years like, for example, they would be the off-years. So 2020 is the summer Olympics, it would be 2022, and then you’ve got 2024. I think that’s how it works. Usually there’s a bit of a nugget offered at the world championships for the top team or the top three teams, it’s been in the past, can qualify for the Olympics, so when I played for Team Canada we would always cheer because we typically weren’t in that final or on the podium, we would be cheering for Team USA, Team Cuba, Team Dominican Republic to get that birth to the Olympics there, because then that would open up an opportunity for us in the pre-qualifying tournaments and have a better chance because then we wouldn’t have to defeat that team to get to the Olympics. 

Shireen: Oh, because they’re already going. I got you.

Claire: Exactly, yeah.

Shireen: What are some teams…Who do you have your eye on? I love that you’re naming different countries in the world that are getting up there, you did talk about the greats like Cuba that has a very strong program, USA does…Brazil I’m assuming, or is that beach?

Claire: Yep, no, you’re correct I’d say. So actually the #1 women’s team indoors right now is China, and then 2nd is USA, 3rd is Brazil. USA is always one to keep an eye on, and I know that just them being our neighbors we would see them more in competition. They’ve got a mix of experience and youth on the team, they’re coached by Karch Kiraly, who is arguably one of the best volleyball players to ever set foot on the earth, and he won–

Shireen: Wow!

Claire: He was the only player to win a gold medal in indoor and beach!

Shireen: Oh!

Claire: He’s been coaching that squad, and I remember the first time he coached them we were playing against them, and just shaking his hand like, oh my god, I can’t believe I’m meeting Karch Kiraly! And I’m taking about a male coaching a women’s team, but he brings that dynamic of both indoor and beach experience, which is really important I think, in the indoor game. But USA has Logan Tom – pardon me, not Logan Tom. She used to be on the team. I’m thinking Jordan Larson, she’s been on that squad, I think this is gonna be her third Olympics. And the team has settled for silver and bronze these past two cycles, so USA is gonna be really hungry to win it. They always lose to Brazil. Brazil is just a mecca powerhouse in the world, and they have a different style, I love them! They’re outrageous, they’re loud, they cheer a lot. Sometimes other teams think that they kind of get in their face but I just think they own it and that they just bring a joie de vivre to the game.

Shireen: Yeah, for sure. This is so fascinating. It’s a very popular sport obviously, and it’s one that I see reflected…I didn’t know that China was #1, I find this great to see because we get a lot of focus on obviously soccer and ice hockey and basketball…Two of the teams that are going to the Olympics are soccer and basketball, so it’s really nice to know about other teams that are happening, I tend to focus on those two sports. But I’m really excited, there’s all this to be watching for now that our listeners also know who to look out for, so that’s very exciting. Also, in addition to your volleyball expertise, this is a conversation we’ve had also: when you watch sports movies, particularly one that came out called Miracle Season, I always wonder about this, because when I watch football movies – movies about soccer, rather – I’m always looking at technique. As someone who’s played at the highest levels in the world, what are you thinking about the technique? I know this may sound like a random question, but when I watch volleyball…You know my volleyball knowledge is limited beyond like my son’s playing, but are you like, “What are they doing!?” Because volleyball’s a highly technical game. Highly technical.

Claire: Yeah, I actually don’t think you necessarily need to be playing at the highest level to notice differences in the sport in a movie. But I remember, I think I was in university and I watched this volleyball movie with Ciara, and it was just awful. They screwed the sport up entirely, and I don’t think you can call it a volleyball movie when you haven’t even done your basic research! Ciara being the actress and singer was acting in this movie, but it was like somebody on a team went back to serve, and in that same rally they were hitting in the front court. And it’s like, sorry, you can literally play one hour’s worth of volleyball and know that’s never possible! Why put it in a movie? 

Shireen: [giggling] Okay, so it’s like tantamount to not doing your research and not being properly prepped with basic stuff you need to know, basically. 

Claire: It’s like watching a goalie do a shoutout in hockey or watching, I don’t know, Serena get an attempt to do three serves, it’s just clearly not the sport and you don’t have to be a genius to know this. That’s where it’s embarrassing to me watching some of these sports movies, and I’m like, why didn’t you just try? 

Shireen: Yeah, totally. Although this week in the magical world of sports a Zamboni driver in Toronto won a game in the NHL so you know what…

Claire: [laughing]

Shireen: We never know, really! But no, that’s like a magical moment, not technically incorrect.

Claire: Yeah!

Shireen: So when you see these are you cringing, like, what is happening here?

Claire: It just loses all credibility and I can’t believe anything in the movie. I’m not saying movies are meant to be truthful, but I’m like, this was clearly a budget movie where people didn’t care, why even put it on air? Why do a movie that’s done half-ass?

Shireen: Yeah, for sure. And what about Miracle Season, what were your thoughts on that film?

Claire: Okay, well this is the movie I actually worked on, so just to preface this: I was the choreographer, so I actually read the script…I would say, two dozen times. It was a big script. I would go over every single volleyball scene and I would look at how based on how the writer wrote the scene how that would look in a play. Sometimes there wasn’t even any details, it was just communication between players, and I’m like okay, this is what it could look like on the court if they’re saying this to each other. And I did the coaching too, so I did recruiting of a lot of actual volleyball players who were playing extras, but then also the actresses, who were just actresses, trying to teach them how a volleyball player would move athletically, how they’d talk on the court, how they’d have swagger. That was probably the biggest challenge because you’re taking somebody who’s not naturally an athlete, they’ve been taking classes and acting in school and trying to give them those traits, if you will.

But it was neat to finally be on the inside of a movie and think, okay, let’s get this right. And everybody seemed to be on my side, that’s why they brought in myself as a consultant to make sure they didn’t screw it up. There was some…Not liberties taken, but some corners cut sometimes because, and I try to empathize with their side, there’s budget constraints, you know? Okay, we can only do 24 days of filming because this is the budget, we cannot miss certain scenes because we don’t have time to re-film them, and so things like…In volleyball after every single set you’re supposed to change sides of the court, and I remember that was a big issue because if they change sides of the court we have to re-light everything, because there’s one team that’s the huge focus, our hero team. And so if you if you change sides of the court you have to change all the lighting and stuff, and that changing lighting can take over an hour. So there’d be things they’d try to fight me on and I just say, okay, I’m gonna offer you the facts and you do with it what you will, you make the decision after that. So it was sort of a give and take, but at the end of the day I knew I tried to do what I could to try to make it as volleyball-factual as possible.

Shireen: I love it, and when you first told me this I was like, this is incredible. I love that this is a thing and I love that they’re using you as a consultant for this, and if anyone needs a consultant for a movie about a feminist sports podcast, feel free to hit me up! But no…

Claire: [laughing]

Shireen: Seriously, like I think this is great and I’m so glad, because it brings an authenticity to the film, which is what you’re looking for.

Claire: Yeah, and Shireen, just to jump in because it’s funny, I was thinking about oh, we’re going to be talking about this, the movie was filmed in 2016 so it’s four years ago, and sometimes memories get foggy. I remember having some anxiety on the film in a female kind of way and I know that, for example, the Harvey Weinstein thing came out today and I’m not trying to make any kind of massive judgements on sexism in Hollywood, but here’s what I wrote in my notes: Helen Hunt, who’s an Academy Award-winning actress, was in this movie. And in my Hollywood observations I wrote – and remember, this is a female volleyball movie, one women’s team is trying to win the state – I wrote: “the only female who gets much input is Helen Hunt. All the producers are men. All the makeup is done by women, all the wardrobe is women, all the assistants are women. The directors and first assistant directors are all men.” I wrote, “when I speak up sometimes, I’m told ‘Let’s not fight,’ and that I’m being bossy.” And then, “people who hired me to know about volleyball are taken aback and offended when I offer my opinion and advocate for an idea on the sport.” Last thing I wrote: “most leadership roles are held by men.”

Shireen: Whoa. That’s so relevant, so telling. Whoa.

Claire: I know, and it blows my mind. It’s funny that I wrote those, like those little notes in my cellphone, August 24th 2016 at 11am in the morning, so I clearly was having a moment where I’m like, I need to write this down because there was just some times when I thought it’s just kind of backwards that all these decisions in this movie made about women is all done by men.

Shireen: Yeah, absolutely, and I’m glad that you said that. It’s all correlated to who makes the decisions and who’s in power and how that power is applied towards other people, you know? You’re there for your expertise and symbolically you’re there for what you know.

Claire: Yeah.

Shireen: Wow, that’s such a powerful point. I feel like we could talk forever, and we probably could, but I do really really wanna thank you for being on Burn It All Down to talk about this multitude of things and sharing your expertise with us. And yeah, it was an absolute pleasure to have you on, Claire, I’m a huge fan of yours.

Claire: Thank you so much, I love your podcast. Keep burning it.

Shireen: Thanks so much, Claire.

Linz, can you talk to us about women’s soccer, please?

Lindsay: Yeah. Every now and then we like to do a little trip around the world and look at the state of women’s soccer, and I think there’s some interesting stories to kind of touch on. First of all, the NWSL finally has a new commissioner in Lisa Baird. I’m actually very excited about her. A lot of the things she’s been talking about remind me of Cathy Engelbert coming to the WNBA. She has a very good marking and business background, which are two things that are very very important to taking the league to the next level. She comes into the league as…Her most recent position was the chief marketing officer at New York Public Radio, and before that she was the chief marketing officer for the US Olympic Committee and the board of trustees for the Women’s Sports Foundation. She’s literally called being commissioner of the NWSL her dream job and so it took way too long to get here: we’re just a few weeks from this season beginning and there have been these things where, like, she doesn’t start for another couple of weeks and there have been these deals where, like, there are these possible trades sitting out there and people are like, “Who has to sign off for them?” Are we literally just waiting for a commissioner to sign off on these things?

Jessica: For real?

Lindsay: Yeah.

Jessica: Wow…

Lindsay: And we’re waiting to finalize a deal with CBS and everything like that.

Jessica: Huh.

Lindsay: The league needs a commissioner, you know, for these things to be finalized. I think it’s very good, it took way too long, and I’m glad it’s a woman – that was not a guarantee, by any means. So yeah, the NWSL is getting ready to kick off in a few weeks here, it’ll be very interesting to see how this season goes, but we also have the US women’s national team’s gender equity lawsuit, a lot of court details coming out on that, which could go to trial as soon as May, and we mean trial! This is getting real. We’ve also got the Finland women’s football league who’s been given a gender-neutral name…You know, I’m always in favor of that. We also have Spain getting a new deal after a strike, we just had them as our badass women last week. But I would love to start with Saudi Arabia, who launched a women’s football league. Shireen, I just want to hear you talk about this.

Shireen: I mean, we had Bireen Sadagah on our show and she was part of the Jeddah Football League, and this new league that’s launching in Saudi Arabia is not actually the first. It’s the first domestic women’s league, meaning it’ll be national or all-over where there was a more…I guess you could say semi-professional one that was the Jeddah one, and we had Bireen on before. So this is great, I mean, I will be pro-anything that sort of amplifies and gives opportunity to women in sports, particularly in these regions. You know, I was on Twitter complaining about the coverage, because all the reports and all the stories are the same pattern of reporting on women in Saudi Arabia, about how they were not allowed into stadiums but now they are, talking about how they can’t drive and now they can. Like, you need to get over those things and I get it that it’s part of the history, but everywhere in the world we look there’s some type of systemic misogyny and I just feel like…Also, the people complaining about it are always the same people, and I’m like, come on, let’s find something else. Let’s do it in a different way that’s not so reductive. That always irritates me, you know I always rant about it on Twitter. 

But getting back to football this is a really big deal. I feel like Saudi Arabia’s following the examples of other places, and something that I don’t wanna understate is Spain. This new deal is a really, really big deal. It’s a huge deal. There’s this momentum, this weight, it could be a ripple turning into a wave globally of the recognition of women and the importance of them having contracts that are legitimate, and they’re getting paid. There’s no shortage of money in Saudi Arabia, there’s really no shortage of money. I feel like the women can do this and get a living wage. Also keeping in mind that the league in Saudi Arabia does cater to people from a higher socio-economic stratus, so I mean, access to sport is for…I’m not gonna say middle-income, I would say upper, wealthy. I’m just gonna say privileged. So also to keep that in mind, but at the same time there are organizations doing really great work at grassroots levels with underprivileged kids. I wanna see all of that develop, I don’t wanna just see…I wanna see the development and consistency of access to football for young girls who aren’t part of those clubs, who don’t have access to those facilities and those resources.

So I’m really happy about this, and I do really respect the fact…This has to be said, in a lot of parts of this league there will be spaces that are women only, which means there’ll be women trainers, women officials, women coaches. Not having access to men, I don’t find a problem with this. People are making noise that it’s not fair that men can’t watch – men fucking get everything all the time! If you can’t watch I don’t care, I really don’t. So if women prefer not to have men there, fine, it’s their choice. I would rather women have options. As a practicing Muslim woman, as someone who still does exercise in a gym where there’s no men: men, shut up! I don’t wanna hear it. Just give us the money and step the fuck outta the way. So that’s how I feel about that.

Jessica: Breaking news: Shireen doesn’t care about men’s feelings! 

Lindsay: That is my favorite quote of all time: “Give us the money and get the fuck out of the way.” [laughing] Oh my god. Shireen, what is the financial situation in this league? They are all being paid? Do we know how much? Do we know how professional or full-time this is for the players?

Shireen: Yeah, it’s gonna be a shortened league, obviously – shortened time because it’ll be during what we know as the winter months. Obviously playing outside in 45 degree Celsius heat is not possible or plausible, but it’ll be anywhere from what I understand, and this is not confirmed, anywhere from I think $8,000 USD to $18,000 depending on the level of the player. They don’t have sponsorship deals as such for more notable players but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen, and this is something I would love to see, more mainstream…I mean, a lot of political and cultural, even within the country, leniency, in other places. Like if you go towards the coast on the eastern side it’s a little bit more lax, you know what I mean? But in terms of more conservative cities, Mecca or Medina, you’re not gonna see women athletes in shorts on billboards. You’re gonna see them but they’ll be fully covered, right? They’ll be in pants and whatnot. And even in some places it depends.

So that whole idea of how much they can make out of this is sort of unclear based on where they are. So I would be really interested to like, I will dig deeper into this. So I don’t have a lot to report back yet but I think this is a great step. How it affects the Jeddah Women’s League is, I think, one will be folded into the other but it also means that I’m not sure how many of the people in the Jeddah Women’s League, from what I understand, wasn’t as competitive as this might be. I don’t know if all of them will be able to find a spot, but what it does is open up women’s football centers and offices in different parts of the country, which I think is crucial and creates jobs. So I am happy about that.

Lindsay: That is so important. You were talking about how we need to make sure that we don’t look over what’s happened in Spain, and I just want to highlight, once again, it was a labor movement from the women that got this new deal.

Shireen: Yeah.

Lindsay: I wrote in ThinkProgress last year, and I’m far from the only one, you know what I mean, what we are seeing right now is unprecedented amounts of labor solidarity and women fighting across the globe for more in sports, and we’re especially seeing it in soccer. All these achievements are happening not because men decided to do the right thing one day, it’s because the women realized their worth and fought for it. The women in Spain…These negotiations have been dragging out for 18 months to finally get this first ever collective bargaining agreement. I think they had to strike for 8 games, or 8 fixtures, and they’d gone on strike in November of last year. I look back at what they’ve gotten…It’s just infuriating that they had to do so much to get so relatively little. I don’t mean to bemean what they achieved through this by that, but you know, part-time players are expecting a 50% increase in wages from €8,000 to €12,000, and there’s a minimum salary of €16,000 for full-time professionals. They were also able it seems – I haven’t seen the CBA obviously – but they were also able to achieve maternity, injury and holiday provisions. We’re talking like, how much money does Spanish football have, right? Like..? So much! 

Jessica: No shit.

Lindsay: Their big thing was to get from €8,000 to €12,000 for part-time players? Like…[laughing] It’s actually mind-boggling when you think about it. And once again, I don’t say any of this to belittle what these women accomplished, because they had to fight for this. I’m so glad they got the benefits and they got the improvements in their lives that they did, but I’m just so mad when you compare it to the amount of money that the men are getting. It can be a little infuriating.

Shireen: Jess.

Jessica: Yeah, I wanted to go back to Lisa Baird really quickly. I’m excited; I think the potential with her as commissioner with all of the experience…She has extensive marketing experience, an incredible marketing background. One of the things I think is interesting in thinking of this season of the NWSL, they’re going to have a 12-day break around the Olympics, if the Olympics happen. But they’re supposed to have a 12-day break around the Olympics and it’s a moment, right? We talked a lot about whether the NWSL capitalized on the World Cup last year; here’s another opportunity to take the fervor that’s gonna come with the USWNT competing again, and I assume doing really well, and what will the NWSL do with this moment in time. I think it’s really interesting that they’ve hired a woman to be in charge who has so much expertise in marketing, I hope that we will see better choices around all that stuff that we’ve been waiting for. They have Budweiser sponsoring them now, Lindsay mentioned CBS sports are probably gonna pick them up, someone just needs to sign that!

Lindsay: [laughing]

Jessica: So I’m interested in that, I also just wanted to mention…When I was prepping for this and I was reading around, Meg Linehan – flamethrower, friend of the show – she wrote an interesting piece not that long ago about the USL, which I’m not even going to pretend like I understand much about the USL, but it’s a division-II professional league kind of thing in America. They used to have a women’s league, it folded in 2015, they haven’t done much with the women’s game since then, but they recently hired (Meg has a great piece about this) former US national team midfielder Angela Hucles as a senior consultant, and it looks like the USL might be expanding into the women’s game, which would be really exciting. Maybe not as competitive necessarily as the NWSL, maybe it’s gonna create the league that will feed into the NWSL, but just the idea that there’s more expansion, I think that’s really cool. 

Shireen: Next: onto our favorite segment of the show. Jess, can you get us started on the burn pile?

Jessica: Yes, so I just made a joke about whether or not the Olympics are gonna take place this summer, and that’s what my burn is kind of about. So on February 26th, Wednesday of this last week, a member of the International Olympic Committee speculated to the AP that if the coronavirus continues to spread, the Tokyo Olympics this summer are mostly likely going to be cancelled rather than postponed or moved. This set off a lot of denials from so many people involved in the Tokyo Games, saying that the games are. going. to. happen. To the point where a few days later Thomas Bach, the IOC president, did a conference call with three of Japan’s main media outlets to reassure everyone that the Games! are! happening! On the intervening day between Wednesday when this IOC member said this and then when Thomas Bach did his conference call, so Thursday of last week, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe surprised a lot of Japanese parents when he announced that all schools would be shut down through the end of March. He also requested that a lot of major sport or cultural events also be postponed or cancelled. Earlier this morning they ran they Tokyo marathon, and they actually…I mean, this is one of the six major marathons in the world, and they cancelled it all except for the elite runners, so that they didn’t have 37,000 people coming to town. But it’s the school closings that I just wanna focus on for one minute.

It’s a weird decision because Japan itself is not a hotbed for the virus and children seem to be less affected by the coronavirus than other populations. It appears that the decision to keep children from their education was an overreaction to the fears about what will happen to the Olympics. And look, I’m not the leader of a country, I don’t wanna be, but I’m not someone trying to navigate a possible pandemic. The school closures might be warranted and looking back people may see this as a move that is smart and pragmatic, but there’s something about the fact that we all believe very much that a country would sacrifice their children’s education to make sure the mega-event money-swallowing Olympics can go on, that we all know that countries are willing to do whatever it takes to host these things once they commit the outsized resources to it, that the IOC would put incredible pressure on planning committees to do whatever it takes to make sure these games happen. And that’s wild if you think about it at all, and it should beget another red flag about the Olympics and the priorities that swirl around them. But I doubt it will be, and so because of that I just want to burn all of this. Burn.

All: Burn.

Shireen: I’ve got a couple of things – obviously a couple, because I can never just have one – that I wanted to burn, and just very quickly the first one that I’ll mention is I found the International Football Association, which is a segment of FIFA, and they’re the governing body, they actually make up the rules, the laws. It was literally all white men. And Rob Harris tweeted this, like, this is so ridiculous. I had mentioned that this is the same group of people that had decided bans including when hijabs and turbans were not allowed in the game of football, and you know, it’s funny because somebody mansplained me that that’s different. Anyways, my point is that that’s just a continuation, I’m not gonna dedicate it to the burn pile, because it’s always on our burn pile.

What I’m really upset about – and I’m very upset about this – I don’t know if it necessarily carries into sport, but in Utah there is a rule at this school, and this mother went online to talk about it: her daughter came home from school that day, and I found this in an online news magazine, the school policy actually forbids the girls from saying ‘no’ when they’re asked to dance. So the girls or boys…When someone asks you to dance, which in this traditional school set up is traditionally boys asking girls to dance, the school administrators decided that it’s “too negatively affecting the boys’ confidence” so the girls are not allowed to say ‘no.’ Apparently one principal witnessed a girl say ‘no thank you’ when a guy asked her to dance, and the boy was not nice to her and said “No, no, no” and literally shooed her to the dance floor. I’m quoting the article here: “She politely said, ‘No thank you,’” and this is a rich middle school in Laketown, Utah. So the principal, whose name is Kip Motta, intervened, and he said, “No, no. You kids go out and dance.” So he shooed her onto the dance floor with someone she didn’t want to dance with.

What are we saying here, that bodily autonomy, consent, means absolutely fucking nothing? This is terrible. I say that this did qualify under the sports category because it’s dancing, it’s exercise, it fits into our burn pile, plus I’m really just mad at this. It’s terrible. So it’s been elevated to the rich district’s superintendent and he didn’t respond immediately, but this principal stood by the school policy. “We do ask all students to dance. It is the nice thing to do,” NICE THING TO DO? “and this will continue to be our policy.” He went on to allude that there’ve been previous situations where someone has felt uncomfortable, but that the issues were “discreetly handled.” DISCREETLY HANDLED? You’re shooing a girl who said ‘no’ onto the dance floor against her will. This is bullshit. It’s bullshit, it’s unacceptable, and in the world today when a girl says ‘no’ it means no. That’s it. It’s really that simple. I don’t care what this principal says. I was appalled by this, and I want to burn it all down. Burn.

All: Burn.

Shireen: Linz.

Lindsay: Yeah, I want to torch the NFL and reporters carrying water for the NFL in particular. So the NFL and the NFL players association are in the middle of contentious negotiations over their new CBA. It won’t expire before this upcoming NFL season, so there’s no immediate look at a possible strike or sit-out or losing games or anything like that, so it doesn’t carry quite as much drama as a lot of negotiations, but the NFL itself really wants to go ahead and get this locked in so they can negotiate their next television deals and such with labor peace on the horizon. But that means we’re getting close to a deal on the table right now, which would give 48% of revenues to the players – so, not 50%! 45% is not 50%, I dunno if you guys knew that! And also at the same time force the players to play an extra game, so move the season from 16 games to 17 games which, in the middle of a sport that’s so dangerous and we’re learning the dangers of on the brain and the body, we’re learning more about them on a daily basis, adding an extra game is actually kind of a mind-boggling direction for me for the league to go.

Look, these CBA negotiations are never that simple. There’s a lot of players who want to sign it, who think this is actually a good deal, who are kind of your rank and file players. There’s a lot of star players who think they should hold out for more and keep fighting. Labor negotiations are never simple, they’re always complicated, but what’s making me the most angry is there’s so many reporters who clearly have close relationships with the NFL and NFL owners, who are tweeting out how good of a deal this is. I’d like to focus on Adam Schefter, the ESPN NFL breaking news reporter who has like 8 million Twitter followers and is one of the most powerful people in the business. He tweeted this week, quote: “If ratified by majority of players, new deal would give them the highest percentage of revenues of any American professional sport, going to 48% and eventually could climb higher than 48.5% depending on media rights. That would mean more than $5 billion in new money to players.” But Adam Schefter’s tweet is completely wrong! That’s not at all true! If the NHL CBA guarantees the players an even 50-50 split the MLB’s kind of floats, but the minimum is 48.5% to the players – sometimes it’s gotten higher than 50% of the players. In the NBA players also fluctuate between 49 and 51%. Laura Wagner at Vice wrote about this, and she asked for comment and Adam Schefter kind of added a clarification onto his tweet saying something along the lines of talking about how the NBA and NHL have expenses deducted from revenues, basically saying that yes, actually his tweet was factually correct, he just didn’t specify it was net revenue he was talking about.

It’s all fucking bullshit, like, he should not be putting his hand on the scale in this way for NFL owners, neither should all these reporters who clearly value a closer relationship with NFL owners and their sources than they do with reporting on the sport they make their livelihoods off of. They make their livelihoods on the backs of the players kind of like the owners do, you know? It’s all that business. Look, reporters every day have to balance what information from sources they’re putting out there, they have to balance relationships, it’s always a balancing act when you’re a reporter, especially when you’re a beat reporter, but in this case these guys are actually putting their hands on the scale and that is complete bullshit. ESPN and Adam Schefter and all reporters doing that, they should just be ashamed. Burn.

All: Burn.

Shireen: After all that burning it’s time to lift up some incredible people. First, I would like to mention Sophia Floersch who is now the first woman F3 racer only 18 months after a horrific crash.

I would like to mention Heaven Fitch. She became the first girl to win a North Carolina High School Athletic Association individual wrestling state championship last weekend in Greensboro.

Team Manitoba – yay, curling – lead by Skipper Kerri Einerson – more about that in the interview you just heard – won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. This team will actually represent Canada at the World Curling Championships in Prince George, BC, which starts on March 14th.

Congrats as you heard to Lisa Baird who was named the NWSL commish.

Namita Nandakumar has been hired as a Senior Quantitative Analyst at NHL Seattle, and this will help build a team. We just love seeing women in these roles.

Congratulations to Chelsea women’s side beat Arsenal 2 - 1 to win the Continental Cup.

Heartiest congratulations to NWHL players Anya and Madison Packer who announced their expanding family! The fabulous women’s hockey duo are expecting a son in September 2020.

Can I get a drumroll please? [laughs]

Jessica: That was good!

Shireen: Okay, I will give you that, it was excellent. It was totally excellent. Sabrina Ionescu, who is no stranger to this list, made history again. On Monday, she spent the morning speaking in front of a worldwide audience at the memorial service for Kobe and Gigi Bryant. Less than 12 hours later – while battling the flu – she led the Oregon Ducks to a resounding road win over Stanford, the No. 4 team in the country, with the 26th triple-double of her career. Along the way, she became the first player in D1 basketball history to amass 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists. Congratulations, Sabrina. We will see you again for sure in this list.

What’s good? Jessica, tell me what’s good.

Jessica: What’s good? I don’t even know what’s good. It’s one of those weeks I feel…Last night one of my very good friends Emily, who listens to this podcast!, we went out for her birthday with a bunch of friends and that was a ton of fun. I don’t know. This week we had some nice weather, Ralph and I went for multiple long walks in the sun, and that was very nice so that’s what’s good.

Shireen: I’m gonna go next. I always have a ton of things – Stephanie Yang came to visit me earlier this week, and that was wonderful. Y’all know Steph from her fabulous work at SB Nation, one of my favorite favorite sports commentators/soccer writers/etc. We went for Korean barbecue which I’d sadly never had before and went to Koreatown in Toronto where we had these amazing little walnut cookies. Now, if you know Korean food you know these walnut cookies of which I speak, they’re life-changing. They literally look like walnuts, and they’re not, they’re little cakes that look like walnuts. So red bean filling, walnut filling, almond filling; my favorite was not red bean and I know that’s absolutely not acceptable to people who are really legitimate, but it’s not my favorite, okay? It’s just not. But that’s okay, loved everything else about it. I just had a wonderful time. While Steph was visiting we went to the Aga Khan museum, which is a museum of Islamic history in Toronto, and while Steph and I were talking around, and it’s this absolutely gorgeous, stunning building, just gorgeous, somebody approached us and said “Are you Shireen?” and hi, Naheem. So he said, “I’m a listener since day one, I’m a flamethrower, I contribute.” And I really wanna appreciate that because it was wonderful, and I didn’t think that–

Lindsay: Jess is gassed.

Jessica: I love it!

Shireen: I don’t often think of our flamethrowers as brown men, because I don’t, and I should because I do really appreciate the flamethrowing community consists of everyone, and that’s exactly the point. So Naheem, thank you so much, I was really, really flattered and a little shocked, I’m sorry if I didn’t seem as enthusiastic. I was just really, really surprised and really really really appreciated you so much for coming up and talking to me and talking about how much you love…The one thing Naheem said, and I really hope it’s okay that I share this, because I’m about to, was that you said you were tired of watching sports but after listening to our show it gave you a new lens through which to look and appreciate sports and that meant everything.

Lindsay: [swooning]

Shireen: Yeah.

Jessica: That’s my what’s good too!!

Lindsay: [laughing] Same!

Shireen: That interaction for me makes it worth it, that people feel like this and appreciate this and we’re normal people, we’re five normal women running our hustle and doing things, and then that moment for me lifted up again what I know inherently about this podcast but it just made it so worth it. So Naheem, thank you so much. I’m just so, so appreciative of what you did, and thank you, you were so sincere and lovely. There’s a photo that I would like to share with everybody, and that would be great. Anyways, that’s my what’s good. Linz…Are you okay?

Lindsay: Yeah, that’s…You know what the biggest upset though is, that Shireen did not immediately voice note us this entire interaction because Shireen voice notes us everything! I’m very shocked!

Shireen: I know, I wanted to keep this a surprise! This was such a big moment!

Jessica: It was!

Lindsay: I didn’t know you could keep secrets like that Shireen!

Shireen: It was so hard for me. I did tell Claire before I interviewed her. She was so excited. I had to tell somebody, so…

Lindsay: It’s so amazing. Yeah, so my what’s good, first of all, I know that there is so much crossover because I hear from you all between the Burn It All Down listeners and the Power Plays readers, and I just want to sincerely, sincerely thank you all. Last week I talked about how scary it was going into this past week when I launched paid subscriptions for Power Plays, and basically was trying to figure out if I had wasted the last four months of my life with that. Anyone who’s been around me the past few months has known that I have not been myself, I have been a disaster of a human being. Launching something new is really scary, especially when you’re launching it hoping that it’s going to be…With the goal of having it fully supporting you as a human being, and the first week of paid launch went really well, the support has been overwhelming and I feel that…Sorry, now I’m going to get emotional. I haven’t talked about this because I haven’t let myself really exhale yet, but just to feel that the work I’m doing hasn’t been for nothing, and anyone who’s been around me these last few months knows that I’ve kind of been a mess of a human being and my co-hosts in particular have been ridiculously patient beyond what any human being should have to be towards a colleague, but just…

The paid launch has gone well, the support has just been overwhelming. I can’t exhale yet, there’s a little ways to go before I kind of reach the number I need to really reach, so if you’re listening there’s still time to subscribe, to join the community, but I do just want to sincerely thank you. When I get emails from people that are like Burn It All Down listeners and longtime listeners and now you’re subscribed to Power Plays, it’s like Shireen said, it’s hard to really put into words what that means because you just feel like you’re in an echo chamber sometimes. I don’t get to get out, I don’t get to interact with people. It’s just so…Anyways, I’m so grateful and bowled over, honestly, about the sport. So thank you all. Also, I’m in the middle of New Jersey right now, I’m having a weekend of women’s hockey, I’m taking myself on a reporting trip for Power Plays newsletters. I was at a NWHL game last night between the Riveters and the Buffalo Beauts, that was phenomenal. And then today I’m going to the PWHPA’s event in Philly, so I’m excited for that. It’s been great to see all the women’s hockey.

Shireen: Yes, thank you so much. This was a really beautiful what’s good. I know I’m here for all of that. That’s it for this week in Burn It All Down. Although we’re done for now, you can always burn all day and all night with our fabulous array of merchandise, including mugs, pillows, tees, hoodies, bags. What better way to crush toxic patriarchy in sports and sports media than by getting a pillow with our logo on it? We have a Teespring store and it’s https://teespring.com/stores/burn-it-all-down. Burn It All Down lives on Soundcloud but can be found on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and TuneIn. We appreciate your reviews and feedback, so please subscribe and rate to tell us what we did well and how we can improve. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram @burnitalldownpod, and on Twitter @burnitdownpod. You can email us at burnitalldownpod@gmail.com, and check out our website, https://www.burnitalldownpod.com/ where you will find previous episodes, transcripts, and a link to our Patreon. We would really appreciate you subscribing, sharing, rating our show, which helps us do the work we love to do and keep burning what needs to be burned. As Brenda always says, burn on and not out.

Shelby Weldon