Episode 219: All About Athleisure

In this episode of Burn It All Down Brenda Elsey, Amira Rose Davis and Jessica Luther start the show with their favorite Met Gala looks. Then, prompted by the documentary LulaRich, they take a deep dive into the world of athleisure. They discuss the evolution of the athletic wear fashion, how multilevel marketing often (MLM) targets working class women with false promises, the politics of who gets to wear athleisure and how these apparel companies still have a long way to go in providing safe and fair working conditions.

Following this discussion, there's a preview of Amira's interview with Dave Zirin about his new book “The Kaepernick Effect." Then, they burn the garbage in sports this week on the Burn Pile. Next, they celebrate those changing sports for the better, including Torchbearers of the Week, Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Maggie Nichols, for sharing their stories and testifying against Larry Nassar before the Senate. Then the wrap up the show with what's good in their lives and what they are watching in sports this week.

This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.

Links

In women’s joblessness, multi-level marketers saw opportunity: https://www.thecut.com/2021/02/pandemic-unemployment-multi-level-marketing

Sweatshops Won’t Help the World’s Poor, but Unions Could: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/kristof-krugman-sweatshops-bangladesh

Major League Soccer has a sponsorship problem: https://www.blackandredunited.com/opinion/2015/10/16/9545229/mls-sponsor-pyramid-scheme

Transcript

Brenda: Welcome to this week of Burn It All Down. It's the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm Brenda, and today I'm joined by Jessica and Amira, and we are going to talk about athleisure: the politics of it, MLM – multilevel marketing, or pyramid schemes, nebulous – and their relationship with sports. Then we're going to burn some things that really irritated us, inflamed us, hurt us in sports; and celebrate the people who are doing the work to change it. Before we get into all – that this week was pretty fun with the Met Gala. [laughs] A lot of people had different ways to see themselves in it or to comment on it. Jessica, did anything strike you in particular?

Jessica: My favorite was Iman. She showed up in this amazing…Was it feathers? Is that what it was made out of? And it was like a huge halo around her head and then a skirt. And it was all gold. 

Brenda: It came right from the sun. 

Jessica: She looked like the sun! She looked like the sun. Like, you should just go look at it right now. Like, I couldn't look away from it. It is just spectacular. And so that was absolutely my favorite thing from the Met Gala. I just…How does a human being look like that?

Brenda: It was incredible. It was incredible. For me, a lot of people were like, gif-ing their birth year? Did you do that, Jess? Did you–

Jessica: I did do that, after you told me to. 

Brenda: What did you get?

Jessica: I'm full on eighties aerobics outfits, and then there was the gif of Whitney Houston in the, I Wanna Dance With Somebody video, which is my favorite song by Whitney Houston, so. I’ll take that one. 

Brenda: Mine was ABBA leather suits, [laughs] when I did that. It was like ABBA in white pants. And then they had these like colorful button-up things or whatever.

Jessica: And they’re back! So they’re relevant, man. [laughter]

Brenda: Yeah. They're doing some like incredible hologram tour or something. I don't really know.

Jessica: And a new album. What year is it?

Brenda: Yeah, I mean, what do they do without all those drugs from the 70s? I don't know. But my favorite was Rihanna, and no surprise, and I love that she showed up in a comforter, and ASAP Rocky also, they just looked like two comforters that I just wanted to like throw myself into, you know? Like, they looked comfy and pretty and beautiful. And I thought that was big spectacular. And then for the after party, her t-shirt dress, and…I don't know, she's always just inspiring on all the levels. I was like, please take me back to your yacht and we can smoke cigars and I'll just wake up in your comforter dress. Amira, what about you? [laughs]

Amira: The level of thirst Brenda has for Rihanna? [laughter]

Brenda: Oh, it's ridiculous. 

Amira: It's constant. I love it. I mean, you know, I loved all the Black girls who showed up in amazing things. I guess, keeping with the theme of this episode, Nia Dennis, who I just had the pleasure of talking to for a different project, showed up and brought gymnastics to the Met, did a whole like routine on the steps and splits in this…Ugh, I love her. And the band, the marching band behind her. Simone of course wore a dress that was like the same weight as her. 

Jessica: I think it was 90 pounds!

Amira: 90 pounds, 98 pounds? Well, it was ridiculous. 

Jessica: Very heavy. 

Amira: Yeah. I loved all that. But when Brenda said gif your birth year, I don't know why I heard “birth month,” and so I put in June and the first thing that came up was like Handmaid's Tale and I was like, that's not…That’s bad vibes! That’s bad vibes. But then I saw that she said “year,” so I put in my birthday, 1988, and the first gif were these two Black girls in kind of cute, very eighties outfits, like black jean jackets and a skirt and lots of buttons. Like, totally could get with that. But then I was like, should I know who these are? Like, I felt like my Black card was about to be revoked. So I went down a rabbit hole to find who these dancing girls were. And they were a rap duo name L’Trimm, and it was from their very famous music video, 1988, Cars That Go Boom…

Amira: I don't want to hear shit about mumble rap or anything from our generation, because if you listen to Cars That Go Boom, it sounds like a Dr. Seuss rap. This is now what I know in my head because of you, Brenda Elsey. 

Brenda: [laughs] I’m sorry about that one. Jessica, how did we get started on this topic?

Jessica: Yeah. So, there is a four-part documentary on Amazon Prime titled LuLaRich about the company LuLaRoe, which was made famous by its sales of comfortable leggings a few years ago. And it was a big deal. I want to put this in perspective – in 2016, it reported sales of roughly a billion dollars. In 2017, there were approximately 80,000 independent distributors selling the company's clothing. But – big but! – it was a multi-level marketing scheme, an MLM, a pyramid scheme, which means that people who sold LuLaRoe gear now only purchased their gear upfront – the base purchase package was like $5,000 and they would not let you return it if you couldn't sell it – but their sellers were required then to recruit other people to sell LuLaRoe clothes as well. You then got commission off the people below you making sales, just as the person who recruited you made money off of your sales.

This is technically okay, as long as there's an actual market for your product, but it's very typical for those markets to be oversaturated and, in the case of LuLaRoe, to shrivel up when leggings start to be shipped while wet, with mold on them, and with holes in them. MLMs are always a no-win situation for everyone who is not at the top of the chain, as it is impossible to continually recruit more sellers and also continue to sell your product.

LuLaRich, the documentary, traces how the company got started and how eventually it bankrupted a bunch of people and was sued by the state of Washington for being a pyramid scheme.

A couple of things before we get into it. I just want to say, first, LuLaRoe absolutely targeted stay-at-home moms, specifically white stay-at-home moms. Second, a big part of how they do that targeting was, like all MLMs, they preach a whole game about how selling these leggings and recruiting others to do so will lead you to improve your life in all kinds of ways – to improve yourself, to improve the lives of those around you. They make all kinds of promises to you about how being part of this company will uplift you, not only financially, but also spiritually. And then the people running the MLM always blame you when you fail, even though you are set up to fail. It’s this horrible combination. And LuLaRoe is just like the perfect example of how all these things worked. But their leggings were very comfortable.

Brenda: [laughs] Amira, longer history context here?

Amira: Yeah. I mean, I think that the entanglement of leisure, sport, fashion…Leggings has a really robust history. And you might think about LulaRoe leggings, or like me confusing them with Lululemon. And it just kind of for us right now is like, leggings are everywhere! But how did they come to be that way? And I think that we can actually…There’s like a few peaks that we want to hit with this history, as early as the late 19th century, for instance. You see fashion innovations starting to happen, especially as we move into the early 20th century on college campuses, where people were converting gymwear, sportswear, sports coats into more leisurely every time fashion. And let me tell you, the old folks at that time were very mad about this, right?

This is a time where dress is infused with all these meanings. It still is. But there was a dress code for like everything – you had your before dinner outfit, and your after dinner outfit, and your sports outfit. And one of the things that we see happening is college students especially – and for more on this, read the book by Deirdre Clemente, who's a fashion historian, who wrote a book called Dress Casual about how college students changed the game here. And what you see is that sportswear, those sports coats that you might wear for like a game of squash or tennis or whatever, become what you also wear in the morning for a walk, or in the evening with your friends.

Jessica: Radical! Radical. [laughter]

Amira: But this blending of like sportswear and fashion was really troubling, but also something that everybody picked up. And so this is for instance how we got shorts as like a thing that people just wore and not just when they were playing games, but like, you could just wear shorts, right? And so that's one of the peaks that we see. Another one, and especially when we're thinking about how business gets involved, how corporates back athleisure, comes in the 1970s. And this is when fitness regimes are gaining in popularity, where companies become huge gigantic players to not only sell this, but like mass produce and market these sportswear items influenced by technological advancements. So you get lycra and spandex and nylon, and these materials that have more give, but tuck in where you want to, and can be dressed up and down.

Everybody's kind of been in that position where you have a pair of black leggings where you're like, okay, I could make this work professionally or not, right? And so I think that that's kind of what brings us to today, especially after a damn pandemic. But the idea that technological innovations have allowed athletic wear, athleisure, sportswear to have more flexibility and durability – unless it's a LuLaRoe legging, of course. But also because as, historians, like Deirdre documented, the kind of way that United States fashion especially has kind of been dressing more casual and casual through the years, but I think that that's kind of where we find ourselves now, which is this long history of sports and fashion mixing, not just on the field, but for the spectators and for people who don't even like sports, but have benefited from these technological advances and changing social norms.

Brenda: Thanks Amira. That's really helpful in terms of thinking about it with the longer trajectory. I was looking at LuLaRoe's slogan, and on their website there's a big sort of tag that says, “Creating freedom through fashion,” which I wanted to think a little bit about. We often experience sports as freedom, physically, a release of tension, of physical constraint. And yet we know it's a place of a lot of oppression. And I could see how all of the marketing appealed to people, especially working class people, the idea of being your own boss, working out of your home, getting rid of your difficult commute; you're maybe solving some of your childcare issues. So, you can see the attraction. It's not that these are just, you know, ignorant, stupid people or whatever, but there are people that want real things that make sense. And Jessica, they were specifically targeting working class women?

Jessica: Yeah, yeah. They went right after women in particular, which…It’s so interesting hearing Amira do that whole history, and thinking about the shift towards athleisure over time. And like, so much of that has gotta be connected to doing exercise at home? Like, that you're working out at home as well, that you're not going out to do it. And just thinking of like how that's continued. And you think about these women in their homes and wanting to be comfortable and wanting to make money and trying to participate in their household. But also, just, you can't overstate how much they went after, like, “this will make you a better person.” And I just think that’s so seductive. And especially couple that with the promise that you could possibly make a lot of money and go up in class by doing this as well. So, yeah, they absolutely went after women.

Brenda: And it's a big market, Jess? This isn't like a small thing.

Jessica: Yeah. It's huge. People want this clothing. In 2020, the US market was something like a hundred billion dollars. There's even a magazine called Athleisure Magazine. And my favorite part about it is that it describes itself as being about athleisure culture, which is apparently a thing we've all learned about now. There's an athleisure culture. 

Amira: There is athleisure culture, but there's also all these kinds of meanings that are projected onto those who wear athleisure. And sometimes these meanings are overlapping and sometimes they're contradicting. I know for instance, at the middle school that me and Jess's kids go to, there's like a group of girls that are nicknamed The Lululemons because of their dress style, and it's meant pejoratively by their peers, but I think it's interesting, right? That that is coded in that way, that they're wearing expensive things, they they're all kind of dressing the same. And I think that you see that with the idea of like yogalates moms with their Starbucks cup and their Lululemons – and that's absolutely about class, but it's also about race, right? Because one of the things we're also seeing here is that if you are not white, if you are not skinny, if you are not kind of in this mold, then athleisure doesn't hit the same for you, right?

There's controversy when people are saying, hey, for instance, can we have more size variety in a lot of like Lululemon leggings or like Old Navy leggings. And people will say, "Not everybody should be in leggings,” right? “Not everybody should be in yoga pants.” And the reality is that for some people you can wear yoga pants and have a Starbucks cup and be read as upper middle class, mom, you know, whatever stereotypes come with that. But if you're Black, if you're overweight, et cetera, if you're young or if you're old and you're in that same outfit, you're going to be read in a very different way, right? It could be seen as sloppy, or you don't have the luxury of using athleisure.

Now, I live in athleisure. Absolutely. But I'm also well aware that I don't have the luxury of being read in it professionally in certain spaces. But I think that that meaning is also something that people can aspire to. So when you're buying a pair of leggings, you're not just buying it, you're buying the dream, you're buying all the rhetoric that's infused around it. And then I also have to say, Jess, you talked about the rise of working out and working at home. I think, again, one of these things where, first of all, the way that time works for people now, it's absolutely…Even if you're not working at home, you might be running from a meeting to the gym to this, and then you just end up in your athleisure all day.

But then on the other side of that, there's people who have had changing bodies for a number of reasons, whether they're having babies or they're gaining weight, or they're losing weight, especially in the pandemic. And you can see how pants that grow and shrink and give are different than like putting on jeans. And we all joked during the pandemic, like, when's the first time you wear jeans in this pandemic? Like, how long did that take? So I think that there is something there too about comfort, but then the other side of that is like, who gets to access comfort, and who doesn’t? 

Brenda: And speaking of working out at home, Amira, in terms of athleisure, what has like Peloton, for example, been up to?

Amira: Actually just this week they dropped a re-invigorated Peloton apparel line, and I think it's really interesting because you can see how it coincides with their boom over the pandemic, where people were turning to home workout space. And so therefore Peloton rose, like, they were everywhere. They turned into this kind of laughing joke to like everything. And when I joined Peloton right at the beginning of the pandemic, you could not get their apparel. Like, it wasn't something that they stocked or invested in. They had partners with a few brands, like Lululemon, partners with Spiritual Gangster, Nike, where you could get like one piece. But everybody knew that when they announced a drop of new stuff, you had to get it because it would sell out in two hours, because they just weren't investing in production.

And over the last year and a half, it's been very interesting to see as they've re-imagined themselves, not just as like a home fitness company, but like they're expanding greatly. They've actually chose to invest in their apparel line. So, not only announcing a new partnership was Adidas, still working with Nike and Lululemon. But they do stuff like around Black History Month they paired Black artists with Black instructors and they came out with their own designed Black History Month apparel that gave proceeds to Black organizations. And then just this week, they announced their line that they've tested and invested in that is going to be fully stopped. And just over 18 months you've seen athleisure become something that was in the back of their kind of brand to now forefront, because when you're walking around with Peloton apparel on, you're also walking around as like advertising billboard for the company. 

Brenda: With the rise of these incredibly lucrative athletic wear companies, and thinking about it as a culture, LuLaRoe is certainly not alone in the way that it’s tried to encapsulate a whole lifestyle and spread that message. Jess, what about ZYIA? (“Zai-yah”) Is that how I say it?

Jessica: I think it’s ZYIA, yeah. And I feel like we're going to just see this over and over again, as we move forward in time, but there is an MLM called ZYIA that I found when I was prepping for this. And this is how they describe themselves. They say, “ZYIA Active is an active lifestyle brand. It is also a culture–” There's that word again! “–that believes in embracing activity with excitement, vigor, and delight. We feel that pushing your body and mind is easier and more fun with friends and family. Our mission is to inspire and uplift by making activity a fun and essential part of life.” And when I was reading this, it was so interesting to me, the first thing that I thought of while I was reading this description, it was “Dare to shine,” which everyone will remember was a much maligned slogan of the 2019 Women's World Cup in France. And it's that same kind of rhetoric and language that we use to market, a lot of the time, market women's sports to women. And I think…I don't know what to do with that, but I think that is fascinating, that all of that language is exactly…Like, you could just swap it out, right? And like you would have it over and over and over again. And so there is something here of just about how we talk to women and about women that…It was just fascinating to me. 

Brenda: It is, and I mean, the relationship between sports and MLMs pyramid schemes is a longstanding one. I think about the Orlando Magic playing in the Amway Center, and I don't know if that many people know about Amway, but I grew up in Michigan and that's where it was founded, and it was incredibly powerful as an institution. The De Vos family owned the Magic and it was totally built on this idea that working class people could have their own businesses, and this is how small businesses worked. It was sold as a family product, as bettering your family, doing something for your family. A little bit different than what we see with the “Dare to shine,” right? It's built on this idea that your family could build an empire, you know? And could do this for you. Again, still working class women, single moms totally as the target, but a little bit of a different twist. And of course the De Vos family has given us the reprehensible Betsy De Vos. I mean, these are people like knee-deep in politics too, and they're not the only one out there. Jess?

Jessica: Yeah, we see MLMs pop up all over the place. So, Mina Kimes did a big piece in 2016 on AdvoCare, which is a quality nutrition company, an MLM, started by a former Kansas City NFL player and backed by a ton of athletes, including Drew Brees. So like, her whole thing was really about Drew Brees as the face of AdvoCare. The guy who founded the company, according to Mina's piece, decided early on that AdvoCare would focus on sports. And so he enlisted coaches from nearby Southern Methodist University to work for him. That's like how he started the company, going in that angle. And it's interesting because I was thinking about this and I'm wondering if sports and nutrition, it works well as MLM fodder, because you can be roped into the unending wellness/improving yourself rhetoric that we're talking about here that's associated with MLMs. And then speaking of AdvoCare – they’ve been connected to Major League Soccer since 2015, first as an official sports nutrition partner with the league and, as of last year, they were on FC Dallas’s jersey.

But they're not the only MLM connected to the MLS. Real Salt Lake – which is interesting, there's a lot of MLMs that come out of the Mormon community – Real Salt Lake has long been in bed with LifeVantage, which is a supplement company that has an MLM compensation structure similar to LuLaRoe. And the LA Galaxy's jersey sleeve this season features Herbalife Nutrition, which…I feel like everyone's seen Herbalife somewhere. It's a company that the FTC technically decided was not a pyramid scheme back in 2016, but it did so by telling the company it had to change a bunch of things in order to have to be a pyramid scheme! [laughs] So, it's just interesting, that little overlap there in that particular league.

Brenda: Oh yeah. I think it's more than a coincidence, because I feel like the MLS is based on a Ponzi scheme, on the original investors making their money off of the new…You know, as it expands, they essentially were able to carry a loss by the initiation fees required of expansion teams – Austin.

Jessica: Wow. Look at that.

Brenda: That’s how it works. And so it's just the idea that you constantly constantly expand and that the original teams would benefit down the line from these new initiation fees and the influx of cash from recruiting new franchises. So for me, I felt like of course the MLS would do that, [Jessica laughs] because that's how MLS works! It is an MLM! 

Amira: Well, I mean, at the heart of what you guys are both describing is that…I saw this tweet that was like, “it's so hard sometimes to separate like these schemes from capitalism, because capitalism is already a giant fraud,” right? And part of the reason why you can really sell supplements and fitness or whatever, because we already live in a society that tells you you have to be smaller, you have to be smaller, you have to be smaller, you're lazy or this or that, whatever. And that kind of pressure of productivity and of appearance is already shaping so much of how capitalism is running our society, about what people reach to or how they need to be pressured to work, et cetera. And so I think about like why people would want to buy supplements or leggings or slimming, you know, panels in their leggings or whatever, right? It's because we're constantly inundated by these pressures and these expectations. And then when I think about what you just said about the MLS, right?

It's like, why do people want teams? We know this, we know one of the first things that emerging nation states did in the era of decolonization was try to get into the Olympic movement. One of the first things they did at University of Hawaii when it became a state, and this is what I write about, is like they had to build up their athletics, because these are the modern markers of belonging, right? Sports is used in this way. And so when we're talking about sports intersecting with this stuff, it's like they are functioning to sell a dream, to keep those reaching fingers who are reaching for what is deemed as acceptable or good or whatever, just…It’s like the carrot on a rope. And so I think that, you know, just listening to you guys describe these things, I can see why they're so effective. 

Jessica: Can I just say like, you're totally right that it is capitalism at its most refined in some way. It’s in the same way that a monopoly is, right? And like, it's so capitalism that we have to create laws and regulations in order to make people not do it. We don't actually care enough to actually regulate these things, but we know we should, that we know that they're bending too far in one direction. But they're like, they're so capitalism that we recognize the way that they messed up the free market or whatever.

Amira: But here's the thing about it, right? It's so baked into our society that I find myself kind of thinking about how fine that line is and how it overlaps. Because I know obviously I'm in Peloton, which is a mini cult. We always say it's the best cult! But I think that, like, there's all these jokes like, “You're in a MLM,” right? Just being on your own social media, and the way that we have technology now, you're able to quickly post your workouts or you’re sharing clips or whatever. You're wearing this activewear that we're talking about. It is, in many ways, you do the work of marketing, except I think about that, like when I think about Peloton…I'm not being facetious at all when I say that it like literally saved my mental health during a pandemic, but it also brought me to a space where I found these incredibly generative digital communities. And the way you interact with these digital communities is in social media, is by these posts, is by these interactions. And I'm aware that what that looks like then is also this kind of long-ranging marketing thing. And I asked Brenda and Jess, like, how do I know if I'm in a MLM? [laughs] 

Jessica: If you have to recruit other people to keep your membership in Peloton, you get out. 

Amira: Right. [laughs]

Jessica: [laughs] That's how you know. That's how you know.

Amira: I did just win Shireen a bike! [laughter] 

Jessica: But that's different. If they're going to kick you out of Peloton if you don't recruit someone, then you get out. [laughs]

Amira: But I think that it does speak to, like, I get it right? Like, I get it. And I get why it's so hard to then regulate. And then I talk about this with Nike all the time, and their commercials are like that, right? They're so inspiring. It's fricking inspiring. We know how they treated track runners like Allyson Felix and Alysia Montaño. We know this. And then they put out their stupid mother commercials about how mothers are like the only athletes. And I was even giving a talk this week where I was saying how Allyson was like, “We don't see the fight here.” But that little baby check under the big check makes me cry every time. Yet it's Nike, and they're terrible. 

Brenda: Yeah. I don't think that we can close this out without me talking a little bit about the production of all of this, whether it's the Peloton bikes and the manufacturing, or the clothing. And not get too Marxist, but definitely to get real Marxist. I think about commodity fetishism, right? This idea that all of this cultural inspiration and production – which is real, and mobilizes all of our emotions, our insecurities, our hopes, and our dreams – are there to hide the fact, or function as a sort of veil, between what we're experiencing and the way that these goods are produced. And the way that they're produced is horrific. It's slave labor. I know this is so bad, I'm so sorry, because probably my kids will be in therapy forever, but I remember tying their Nike's and saying, “For kids, by kids.” I just can't help going back to that.

And Nike, you know, 20 years ago, it was a big conversation, right? Sweatshops and Nike, and how did they get to the point where they became the face of Kaepernick? Where they became, you know, boosters for Allyson Felix? How did they even get there? And they got there because they had to save their image at a particular point. And there were all kinds of people helping them along the way, and I just want to call out one more time: Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, that wrote an article – I can not even say this without wanting to burn everything – in which they said, “While it shocks Americans to hear it, the central challenge in the poorest countries is not that sweatshops exploit too many people, but that they don't exploit enough.”

And that's what they said. They said sweatshops would help them grow economically. It was wrong then, it's wrong now. And so there was this whole reimagining of Nike doing some good in the world. And we know now, I mean, it doesn't take a long time to Google and find this out, but if anyone's interested, there's the Clean Clothes campaign, cleanclothes.org. You can check it out. There are people and unions working on this. Last week, the international accord for health and safety in the textile and garment industry was…It’s not passed. It's international. But people sign it, countries sign it, companies sign it. The US is the worst, including Walmart, The Gap, JC Penny, that refuse to even attempt to do things like regulate labor in Cambodia.

So, I know that that is not fun, but I know what this does. And what this does is it prevents us from seeing how the stuff is made, all the time. And I think we just have to come back and see these campaigns for what they are – and it doesn't mean they won't inspire us because we're human beings with real emotions, and we're not bad people because we're inspired by it. But I don't think we should lose sight of that. And COVID, just to end maybe on not the most depressing note, COVID maybe has shaken up surprisingly in unintended ways the supply chain for some of this. We’ve seen some companies have to buy manufacturing facilities in the US because of the disruption. Amira?

Amira: Yeah, absolutely. This is exactly what Peloton did, for instance, when there was such a big demand for the bikes during the pandemic and shipping became a huge problem. People were waiting months because of the supply chain that Brenda's mentioning. And so they invested a hundred million dollars into both helping that supply chain, but they ultimately decided to break ground in Ohio and build a huge manufacturing campus there. Chelsea, the Black yogi that I've talked about before who is from Dayton, Ohio, went and helped broke ground there. They've been doing a lot of community partnerships around it. And this, I don't think it's a stretch to say that that wouldn't have happened pre-pandemic. It just wasn't even going to be on the table. And so I think it is interesting to see how the pandemic has disrupted many things, but labor production as well, and what possibilities might be there. But because it's, you know, the world and capital and whatever, I don't think that it’s, oh, yay, all possibilities, people are doing the right thing. I think it’s just, what is the next kind of level of exploitation happening? [laughs]

Brenda: Well, I mean, you know, I do think the closer that we are to the manufacturing of the product, the more we can keep our eyes on it, and the more that we can regulate it, and the more we can unionize it. And so I believe that all that goodwill and all of that vision boarding comes from a place that will care about people if we just think that we can effect the change. And so I do think NordicTrack getting a Utah facility, you know, doing these things closer to home, hopefully will be a step in the right direction. Check out our interview on Thursday when Amira talks to Dave Zirin about his new book, The Kaepernick Effect, which tells the story of athletes and teams across the country who contributed to the rising tide of political action via sport. They also talk about what it's been like to write about sports and politics in this moment, the impact of celebrity and cultural capital, and the joy and pain of coaching your kid's sports teams.

Dave Zirin: The name I heard a lot more than Colin Kaepernick's when they talked about their motivations was Trayvon Martin, because then like speaking to them, it's like, okay, so it was Trayvon that was in your heart. Where does Kaepernick come into it? And then it's oh, he gave us the method, he gave us the how. And I think that that's important because otherwise people will just drill it down to a cult of Colin kind of argument, which doesn't really serve us. And it doesn't tell the truth.

Brenda: Now it's time for the burn pile, where we take the rest of the garbage out and put it on the proverbial flames. Amira?

Amira: Yeah. [laughs] So, about a month ago now, the NCAA announced the committee that they had formed to overhaul its constitution. They appointed many people – no academics, really. You can see that the level of influence there is not coming from, you know, experts, faculty on campus, whatever. A lot of it is power players, and the person who is heading the charge is Robert Gates. And if you're thinking Robert Gates, like the Pentagon dude? Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Former defense secretary, Robert Gates. Former CIA dude, Robert Gates. Also of course, was president of Texas A&M. And I think it also, just as a reminder, if you want to go down that list of people involved in this committee, how much sports and politics are intertwined – and it's never like Department of Ed folks who are intertwined! It's always like Condoleezza Rice or the director of national intelligence.

It's just like, at this point, we're just parody. Like, it's just kind of ridiculous. But why I'm bringing this up is because there is a brand new interview with Gates, which is his first kind of at-length interview about the direction he intends to take this investigation or task force. I don't know. He has a million task forces and committees and all of the things, because the NCAA is an organization that would rather publish like a hundred page report to say absolutely nothing at all, or form a task force and the committee and then a sub committee and then like another investigative committee, only to come to the same sorry-ass conclusion that they actually can't do anything.

I mean, Jess made this point so eloquently recently when we saw them do absolutely nothing around Baylor. And the point that she raised is, like, actually, there's nothing they can do, because they're not set up to do shit except throw their power around. And then the other dance that we're seeing of course is school presidents who use the NCAA as cover are now the ones like, oh yeah, it's completely a mess, they should reform themselves. And it's like, you're all bound up together! And so here's Gates now in his first interview, saying cutesy shit like, “Well, the organizational charts of the NCAA and the FBI are both incomprehensible…” and, “You know, I can do this in three months. Like, during the cold war, I had less time…”

Like, no, no, no, we don't need this. We don't need this Venn diagram of bullshit. It just tells you a lot about this organization that would tap and seize somebody like Robert Gates, right? Who has been a college president, who has been on the board, who has overseen the CIA and been in the FBI. Like, these organizations are also fucked up! And that that is who inspires confidence in you tells you everything you need to know about the propensity for change in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Is that what they're called? I don't know. In the words of J Cole: don't save her, she don't want to be saved. Burn it all down.

All: Burn.

Brenda: I'm going to burn metaphorically the Bolivian football federation. This week, they canceled a friendly between the Dominican Republic and Bolivia. They were going to travel to Bolivia, it's the women's team and they canceled it at the last minute. They were already convoked. They had already traveled, taken off work, et cetera. And at the last minute canceled due to budgetary issues. This is the same federation who's president, the last president, was arrested mid-match for corruption by the Bolivian government, because he refused to leave his job as the president of the FA. And so this is a disaster, and they all signed a letter, the members of the team, all the women, and officially sent it to the federation. CONMEBOL said nothing, FIFA so far has said nothing. And it may seem small to people…You know, you just canceled the match, we'll just reschedule it or something like that. But it's on the spectrum, as we've discussed on this show, of sexism where people…Like, what does it have to be?

I mean, this is the same pass that you're going to give them for graver things. And do you think they're not doing that? Do you think that their total neglect and dismissal of women in football isn't having other effects in other places, in other teams that are more serious? And even if it's not, why should they put up with this bullshit anyway? The Bolivian FA was perfectly fine to fund the men's team just last week to play three different matches. So whatever about that. And where did your FIFA forward development money go? Where are you, Mauricio Macri, the ex-president of Argentina, who's one of the most corrupt ex-officials in the world – and I'm sure about to get a position at the Harvard Kennedy school any day now. This is some serious bullshit, and you all need to go to jail for corruption and for sexism. It’s the same thing and it's gross, and I want to burn it. So burn.

All: Burn. 

Brenda: Jess.

Jessica: Yeah. So, content note that I'm about to talk about sexual assault and sexual abuse, child sexual abuse. On Wednesday, four gymnasts – Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman – sat before the Senate judiciary committee on Capitol Hill here in the US, and once again told their stories of abuse at the hands of Larry Nassar, and also the myriad of ways that USA Gymnastics, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and specifically the FBI let them down once they reported those crimes. Here’s a part of Aly Raisman's opening statement.

Aly Raisman: Over the past few years, it has become painfully clear how a survivor's healing is affected by the handling of their abuse. And it disgusts me that we are still fighting for the most basic answers and accountability over six years later.

Jessica: The point of the hearing was mainly to pinpoint the way in which the FBI failed them all. This summer, the Department of Justice released a 119 page report showing that FBI officials in Indianapolis used extremely poor judgment when they investigated reports about Nassar. People in the FBI not only made false statements – false statements! – but they failed to respond for months after getting initial reports, a delay that led to Nassar sexually abusing more than 100 other gymnasts. And at the time, special agent in charge, W. Jay Abbott, was talking to then USAG president, Steve Penny, about a job with USAG. It’s all so fucked up, and it's right there where we can all read it. It's known information. This is not the first time gymnasts had appeared before Congress asking for answers and asking for change.

And yet after these women each read damning and powerful opening statements, almost every single Senator on that committee spent their time reacting to their testimony not by telling us what they were going to do to change the FBI's culture, or make sure that light is shed on every last dark corner around the response to reports of Nassar. They didn't really promise much of anything beyond some lip service. They mainly told these women that they were “brave” and “inspiring” which, while true, is not why these women showed up. Congress controls the pocket books of the USOPC and USAG. The director of the FBI has to go before the Senate appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and related agencies, because Congress has to approve their funding.

The very people who could do something seem to instead want to use this hearing as a PR moment, to use the pain of these women as an opportunity to put some fluffy words out into the world. I just wanted them all to shut up – shut up and do something. Asking for that continues to feel like shouting into the wind, even with a high profile case like this one. I will forever applaud survivors who continue to advocate for a world that is less harmful to those who are abused. They do deserve our respect. But the best thing we can do to show them how much we respect them, the best thing Congress can do to show them, is to change the fucking world. So get to it, and please join me in burning all of the senators’ weak-ass responses. Burn.

All: Burn.

Brenda: All right, let's move on to happier tales, people doing the things to change those awful things that we just burned. I want to start out with honorable mentions for torchbearers of the week. The champions of solidarity, the Portland Thorns and Nabisco. Nabisco workers are currently striking, and the Portland Thorns have been incredibly supportive. Many players – at least eight – have shown up on the picket line, and have talked about how important it is for them to support the workers of their city. And fuck yeah. Amira?

Amira: Yes. Our fire extinguisher of the week is Hawaii’s Carissa Moore, who won her fifth World Surfing League title, adding to the ones she won in 2011, in 2013, in 2015 and 2019. And of course, because Carissa Moore won the Olympic gold, she now is also the first surfer ever to win Olympic and world titles in the same year. Congrats to you, Carissa.

Brenda: Molotovs of the week are US women's national team members – those that kneel! They announced this week that there will be the same contract offered to the men's and women's team. And even saying that makes me weepy. It was so public, their struggle. We watched it all. I don't know why it's not bigger news, but I'm just so excited by this. And I want it in every field, in every profession. Jess?

Jessica: Fire-spitters of the week: the university of New Mexico and New Mexico State College football game last week was the first ever D1 game with both play-by-play and color commentary broadcast in Navajo. 

Amira: That’s fucking cool. 

Jessica: Yeah. Cuyler Frank and Glen King, both veteran radio men, called that game. 

Brenda: And for our torchbearers of the week, can I get a drumroll?

[drumroll]

Yeah, it's going to be those gymnasts. Jessica already told you why. That's it. And in dark times, we like to talk a little bit about what's good in our world. I'm going to go first. This was easy for me. So, our town has something called Hardscrabble Day, which was canceled because of COVID–

Amira: What the hell is Hardscrabble? Do you take shots?

Brenda: Hardscrabble Day…The town I live in is not as arable land as the towns next to it. So, in the beginning of the 20th century, they called themselves Hardscrabble. So, it was like the sad, you know, neighbors of Tivoli and Germantown. And so they have this Hardscrabble Day, which is about our sad harvest. 

Jessica: This is not the board game? [laughter] 

Amira: Oh, so you're not playing Scrabble.

Brenda: Nooo!

Jessica: [laughs] Okay. 

Amira: That’s what we thought you were talking about! [laughs]

Brenda: Like, a town festival to I guess celebrate that shit is hard?

Amira: I thought you were taking shots of hard liquor while playing Scrabble!

Brenda: That would be amazing, and I'm sure a lot of people around here would be up for that, but no, it's like a kid’s…There’s bands, you know, it's just a fun kind of thing. And it was canceled. Also, today I am going to the end of a minor league baseball game, the affiliate of the Yankees, the Hudson Valley Renegades game, because I do love minor league baseball and I'm really excited about that. And I'm also coaching u-9, my daughter Julia’s team. So I'm excited to listen to you and Dave talk about coaching your kids' teams, Amira. I really love it, honestly. We won yesterday 3-1, and it felt really good because my overall average is really bad in terms of coaching. So, I needed that W. 

Amira: Like, I picture Brenda as like a Roy Kent coach of nine-year-olds. [Jessica laughs]

Brenda: That's probably not totally inaccurate, but yeah. [laughs] But I mean, they respond to it! So, you know, it's effective so far. All right. Yeah, Amira, what's good in your world?

Amira: I went on the road for the first time in like a year and a half to give a talk. I first popped back to Penn State and I did an on the field coaching thing for the football team. It was really great to see some of my students. And then I went down to Auburn to give a talk there – and thank you so much, Auburn history and athletics, for hosting me. And it was just kind of cool to be on campus again, just even walking through campus. And then of course Auburn and Penn State played last night for the first time in like 90 years. So, it was kind of a coincidence. It was a thrilling game and we won and that was great. Also, Samari got into the pre-professional program at ZACH Theater here in Austin, which is really tremendous, and like a really big achievement. And so that's kicking off, and it's just like really fun to celebrate her in that way.

And then my last one's goods are all internet videos that are making me very excited. The first is incredibly specific, but the social media team for UT volleyball is amazing, and they played a big match with Texas A&M this week, and before the match, Texas A&M, a few players posed with their horns down, their fingers pointing down, and said, you know, “Beat the horns off of UT.” That picture didn't age well at all! And the social media team took that picture, played Drake's Daddy's Home, and then posted all these clips of UT volleyball just like spiking it in their face. And then took all the multicolor thumbs of like Drake's album cover and then turned them down, thumbs down, which is a reciprocal diss to A&M. You have to go watch it, because it's just a vibe.

And my other internet video that I'm obsessed with is the planet raps that Keats does. All the planets are rapping, including Perseids, the meteors. And Pluto gets cut off when he’s going off. And after NASA tweeted, “Poor Pluto has bars though,” everybody was like, ohh! Like, you have to let Pluto finish! So Pluto also got a freestyle.

Brenda: Awesome. Jess? 

Jessica: Yeah, well what's good is–

Amira: OH WAIT, NO! Wait! Sorry. Also, Sex Education season three came out, and I finished it all, and it is the best show ever. And it gives me all the warm and fuzzies.

Jessica: I was shocked that you had not said Sex Education. 

Amira: And then as soon as it went to you, I was like, if Jessica takes my thing…But I know you haven't watched yet. 

Jessica: I have watched three episodes, and it's amazing.

Amira: Okay. I’ve watched all eight, and I did want to say, you know, I got Brenda to watch it, and Brenda is very Maeve-like. And I have to say I had this moment when I was watching Maeve that I was going to call you, but I just decided to tell you right now, I just adore you. And I'm so proud of you. And I think that there's a way that we don't always witness people's journeys because we just like kind of work with them. But I was thinking and reflecting on it as I was watching Maeve, and I was thinking like, damn , Brenda is just such a badass. And I just have to say, from the glimpses of your journey that you share with the public and that we get that, I am just like so incredibly grateful for you in all of our lives. And I just wanted to tell you that you're like fucking really cool. 

Brenda: Oh, that really makes me weepy. Thank you. Now I have to go watch it. [laughs]

Amira: You’ll like it.

Brenda: Oh, thank you. I love you too. Jessica?

Jessica: Wow, so now I'm going to go. Okay. It's Virgo cake week in this house, so that's good. The cake is really good. I just want you all to know that. [Amira laughs] We're on our second, we're halfway through the second cake, and we're doing just fine. I did want to mention, I know it's difficult, but Brooklyn Nine Nine ended its series this week, and I have long loved it. It's like the perfect group ensemble. But it is a cop ensemble. So, the show tried to figure out how to deal with that in the last season, and it's clunky, but it's still the best group ensemble. And the final episode is beautiful and I definitely cried. But I do specifically want to mention, their cold opens are amazing. And the third episode of the final season, that cold open, Aaron and I have watched it probably 25 times if not more. Like, we will just go and watch it like six times in a row. I don’t understand how it's so good, and it's so stupid, but it's just hilarious. And so that is what's good, is the cold open of episode three, season eight of Brooklyn Nine Nine. It's very specific, but it has brought us so much joy.

Brenda: Alright. Everybody's got their tasks. Now we know what to watch. And come next year for Hardscrabble. [laughs]

Jessica: I think we should have our own Hardscrabble Day that involves shots and Scrabble. [laughter]

Brenda: It's true. That sounds even funner actually. Okay. What we are watching this week includes Liga Mexicana Femenil: Monterrey and Tigres are tied for first! So get yourself some Forza football app if it's hard for you to follow their schedule, and watch it on ESPN+. Also, WNBA playoffs start on September 23rd. So, those are two great things to watch. On behalf of all of us on Burn It All Down, that's it for this week. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard, total wizard.

Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and TuneIn. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You'll also find a link to our merch at our Bonfire store. And thank you to our patrons – your support means the world. If you want to become a sustaining donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. Burn on, and not out. Thanks again.

Shelby Weldon