Episode 223: The Power of Expansion Teams

In this episode, Shireen Ahmed, Lindsay Gibbs and Jessica Luther delve into expansion teams. But first, they share their favorite Halloween treats. Then, inspired by the newest NHL team, the Seattle Kraken, they discuss how expansion teams come to be, what makes them successful and how they can bring fandom to new places. They also explore challenges to expansion, including why the WNBA has been unable to add teams in recent years despite the remarkable talent.

Following this discussion, there is a preview of Jessica's interview with race car driver Sabré Cook. Then, the team burns all the garbage of sports this week in the Burn Pile. Next, they celebrate those bringing light and goodness to sport, including Torchbearer of the Week, Dawn Staley, who clinched an incredible contract as head basketball coach at the University of South Carolina. They end 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.

Transcript

Shireen: Hello, flamethrowers, Shireen here. Welcome to another week of Burn It All Down. It's the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm joined by Jess and Linz. This week, we will talk about expansion teams. We will talk about, are they good for sports? Good for culture? Or just good for lining the pocket books of owners? Before we start that, I think there's an important conversation that needs to be had in this particular month, also known as the favorite time of year of Brenda Elsey: Halloween. Let's talk candy, folks. Jessica, your favorite candy? There is no judgment.

Jessica: Ha! Yeah there is. I love candy corn, love the candy corn pumpkins in particular. I understand that people don't love them. They can mail them to me. My family will eat them.

We destroyed a bag this week. And then my very particular thing…Last year, I had the Reese’s…Like, Reese's are a big deal just in this family in general. And last year we got the Reese's peanut butter cup white ghosts, which is like the white chocolate on the outside. And they're spectacular. And I have tried to eat other Reese’s peanut butter cups with white chocolate, and it's not the same. There's something about…It’s like that particular balance is the right one. Only the ghosts. And the only place that I found them was at Sam's. So like, I hunted. So I did yesterday finally get my Reese's peanut butter cup white ghosts, and I'm very excited about it.

Shireen: What I love about this is that your talent and genius as an investigative reporter got you these specific treats that you love.

Jessica: Yeah. I went to my normal grocery store, HEB, which people now know because of the Texas apocalypse or whatever. They did not have them at all. They had 400 different kinds of Reese's peanut butter cups, and none of them…It’s like Tressa’s a supplier for HEB, because I know she's not a fan of this particular candy. But I found them yesterday, so everyone can calm down. 

Shireen: Also, I didn't know there was 400 different types of Reese’s, and I know peanut butter is important to your family, Jess, but I didn’t…I feel like I'm a little behind on this. Lindsay?

Lindsay: I'm sorry. I'm still stuck on Jess liking candy corn. [Shireen laughs]

Jessica: I love it. I love it!

Lindsay: I don't trust people who like candy corn!

Jessica: Uh oh! [Shireen laughs]

Lindsay: It is wax. It’s wax!

Jessica: It's like honey.

Lindsay: It’s wax. I just like…I'm a chocolate person. I just love chocolate. I just don't understand wanting any candy that's not chocolate. Twix is my favorite. So you get Twix or like, I mean, the technical best is like getting the mini candy bars, right? And getting a few of those. But the real best is the people who just say fuck it and give you the full candy bar. Just nothing beats that nothing beats that. Nothing beats it. 

Jessica: That’s like a hero.

Lindsay: They're just heroes. They're just heroes. So, be hero, everyone.

Shireen: I just want to shout out my mom here, because my mom not only does full candy bars, she gives cans of pops to teenagers. [Jessica laughs] So, she's that person.

Jessica: Of course!

Shireen: My mom…Like, it's her favorite time of year. She gets over a hundred kids every time, and she will assess the age of the person attending and offer something to the parent accompanying, and like, she's invested. They have ghost noises. She loves teenagers generally, and she's like, they need to be feted. And cars of teens will pull up to my parents' house to get this can of pop. So, mom, I love you. And I aspire to be the full candy bar giver. A couple of years ago I got no kids, and I ate a whole box of chips – which brings me to mine, is that although my name in Farsi actually means sweet, I'm a savory girl. [Lindsay laughs] You can give me chips, give me French fries any day. I don't like milk chocolate. I feel like gagging. And also–

Jessica: What, I'm sorry, what?! 

Shireen: I don't like milk. I like dark chocolate, and I will say this – and my British Canadian friends up there, you know what I'm saying. Our chocolate is superior. I'm sorry, American people. I love you very much, but Canadian and British chocolate is…If you haven't had a Flake bar, what are you doing with your life? But you know, I'm not a connoisseur of chocolate like Lindsay maybe, but Lindsay, when you come to Toronto, you'll know what I'm talking about. 

Lindsay: Shireen, this is the type of stuff. This is the pitch you should've given me a long time ago. [laughter] You have been leading with the cuddles. You should have been leading with the chocolate, is all I'm going to say.

Jessica: Flake bars, apparently.

Shireen: Oh yeah. Now, moving on to other most important intersections of things, we will be talking about expansion teams today. For those of you that know or don't know, expansion teams are new teams in the realm of sport. For example, Las Vegas. Even saying Las Vegas, when speaking about hockey, seems weird to me. I'm a lifelong hockey fan. Las Vegas, it’s a place of casinos and Cirque du Soleil shows, but hockey? But it shouldn't be weird. Growth and longevity are important. And so is expansion. Now, of the big four – the MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL – the NHL has actually had the most amount of expansion teams since 1992. And so they've added 10 new teams to the league. The original six teams – Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago team, and the New York Rangers. They had comprised the NHL between 1942 to 1967. And since then, the most recent being the Seattle Kraken, who started their journey facing off against another expansion team: the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

But let's talk about Seattle Kraken. Seattle, my friends, is a place of expansion teams. It's not just the birthplace of Starbucks. It is literally an important center space in a place where the Kraken has worked so hard to change toxic hockey culture, from a front office that does include racialized women to having a disability ambassador, including Chanel Keenan, who we had on the show in January, 2021. So, she's a DEI and intersectionality ambassador. And they're also the first team, the first NHL team, to sign the Black Girl Hockey Club Get Uncomfortable pledge, which focuses on anti-racism within the sport. Their lead NHL writer, Ryan Clark, is one of the few Black hockey writers in the entire country. And all of this to say, that in sports where expansion teams can make a difference, we get into the deep weeds – or seas of the Kraken – [Jessica laughs] to talk new teams. Jess, why do leagues expand? 

Jessica: I think it makes general sense. You just imagine the popularity of a sport or a league, it grows. People want to go see games in person, and cities are going to cash in on this desire. One of the best examples of this was the geographical expansion of Major League Baseball in the mid 19th century. It went south, it went west. It was a major realignment at the time, but it now just seems natural. Like, what would baseball be if it didn't have teams in California? But there was a point in time when the MLB did not, right? I think Seattle is so interesting because it is essentially a sports expansion city – except for the NWSL. It did have one of the original eight teams. But otherwise it's a city that has all of its professional sporting infrastructure through expansion. Seattle had an American League baseball team for one year, in 1969, and then they left. They went to Milwaukee and became the Brewers.

The Mariners played their first game in 1977, which was just a year after the NFL team, the Seahawks, played their first game. They were one of two expansion teams that came out of the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. The Seattle Storm, WNBA, were part of the first WNBA expansion in 2000, and the league then had 16 teams – which we'll come back to. And the Sounders were an MLS expansion team in 2009. And of course, perhaps most famously, or maybe most infamously, was the arrival of the NBA to Seattle. In the late 1960s, the NBA expanded from 9 to 14 teams, which included the Supersonics in Seattle, a team that eventually of course left and is now in Oklahoma City. And I think the town is still mourning that. I'm imagining our Seattle flamethrowers will let us know.

But one does wonder when the league has hit its maximum number of teams. So, you can understand the popularity growing, leagues expanding, but there's a point where you’re like, okay, big enough! The NFL last expanded in 2002, a full two decades ago, but it has 32 teams, which is a lot of teams when you think about it. There’s been rumblings about them expanding across the pond to England, or possibly south of the border into Mexico City. I think that's an exciting idea of expansion. Similarly, the NBA has been the same size, 30 teams, for about 20 years now. But the WNBA has been sitting at 12 for a while. One question I do have when we're thinking about expansion teams is, like, what does it mean for one of them to be successful? Like, winning? Longevity? I know we each have our own relationship to an expansion team that makes us question what success is with these teams. Shireen, what is yours?

Shireen: And I'm not just saying this because I'm actually wearing a Toronto Raptors hoodie at the moment, but I will add that the Toronto Raptors came to town in 1995, and also coincidentally the same time I moved to Toronto. And I was busy obsessing over San Antonio because of Tim Duncan. But the Raptors minus Drake have brought me much, much joy, particularly…I may have mentioned it, but you might not remember that in 2019, the NBA champions were the Toronto Raptors. [Jessica laughs] So, I think there was a lot of conversation about legitimacy for basketball in Canada to begin with, and it really took a championship. And that's absolutely been amazing. And I remember this moment and I remember how it impacted the team at Burn It All Down so fully and completely, because Jessica, you were there beside me as I watched them win, on a laptop. You were asleep–

Jessica: I was sleeping. I slept through it.

Shireen: –with noise-canceling headphones. But she was still moved. [Jessica laughs] And I know Lindsay was crying tears of joy somewhere, and I'm sure Amira and Brenda were feeling the same way. Maybe I'm projecting. But all this to say, there’s been a lot of joy and excitement. And we have conversations about who's the best Raptor and this and that and Toronto being the center of basketball in this country, which is important. In addition to that, on April 22nd, 2020, the new Toronto PHF, formerly the NWHL, franchise was officially announced. So, the Toronto Six – we’re talking women's hockey now – was officially announced as a sixth team. And the first original expansion team, the Minnesota Whitecaps, had initially joined the league’s four teams after initially being independent. But before the Six, there was no women's hockey team or league in this country with its home in Toronto. And that's really important to note as well, because if we’re talking about longevity, and that's something important when we talk about women's sport.

Jessica: And I think that's so interesting, Shireen, because you're talking about Toronto winning a championship in 2019 is like, oh, we are now a successful expansion team! Which was a long time coming at that point. I live in Austin, obviously, and I've talked about this on the show. We have a new MLS team that is in its first season, and they're garbage, we are fully in as fans. And in part that's because we have a professional sports vacuum in this city. Like, it's a city that loves sports, it's known for the Longhorns especially, but we don't have professional sports here. And so even thinking back on what you're talking about with the Seattle Kraken being very intentionally inclusive and how they are building…Which I think is such an interesting idea for an expansion team. Like, they have the ability to think broader than the sort of traditional structure that exists. And Austin has tried, at least on the supporter groups. They're amazing, and they've tried very hard to be incredibly inclusive from the jump. And that's very exciting.

But when I'm thinking about success here, I don't doubt that Austin FC will be here for a very long time. Like, the city is so, so excited about this garbage team. [Shireen laughs] It does not deserve sort of the level of fandom that it has at this point based on what's happening on the field. But if they have to win an MLS championship to be considered a success, I feel like maybe we’re a little ways…Like, I’m not sure when that would happen, but I will say we're just, you know, months into this at this point, and it already feels incredibly successful for the city. Lindsay, I know that an expansion team though is a huge part of your fandom, like in general. Is that correct?

Lindsay: It's really wild, you know, I had grown up as a daddy's girl. I would watch golf on the weekends with him, especially the Majors, and watch kind of the big things with him, but I wasn't really as obsessed with sports until the Carolina Panthers were formed in…Well, they started in 1995, and 1995 they played in South Carolina, but in ’96 when the stadium was built in Charlotte and ready to go, I went to a few games with my dad and just became obsessed. I mean, listening to sports radio, watching ESPN all day, waiting for them to talk about it, you know? Like, I could not get enough. And there were no professional sports teams in the Carolinas. Oh, I guess there was the Charlotte Hornets. We did love Muggsy Bogues very, very, very much. But like, for baseball – and this is still the case – if you watch baseball, you watch Atlanta. And then the Washington NFL team was the team that everyone had grown up rooting for because they had been on the TVs, which,  that’s like 500 miles away, you know? [laughs]

So it's really kind of wild to think about how much that impacted my life, this expansion team. It was going to those games in person, and it was the Panthers being really good. I mean, that helped. Their first year they were about 500 and their second year they made it all the way to the NFC championship game. I mean, I got to go to a playoff game where they beat the Cowboys. I think the Cowboys at the time were the defending champions. It was just so exciting and so intoxicating, and it's led to a lot of misery in my life, but I also… [Shireen laughs] Who knows, like, would I be a sports reporter today? Do you know what I mean? If it hadn't been for that. I really don't know.

Jessica: Yeah.

Shireen: For those that don't know, the way that expansions actually happen is via their draft. And there are more happening obviously, but I'll use the example of the NHL. And to do this, I actually ended up calling friend of the show Julian McKenzie and being like, I need you to break this down, because it can be a little bit confusing. So, the traditional drafts in the NHL are drafts for younger players and players that are newer to the league and whatnot, usually for players under the age of sometimes 20. And the expansion draft, it's where a new franchise gets the opportunity to acquire new players or existing players. And I will use the example of the Golden Knights, Las Vegas. And the Seattle Kraken.

What ends up happening is the NHL has specific rules about this, so each team gets an opportunity to protect 9 to 10 players. So that can look like 7 forwards, 3 defense and one goaltender, or it can be a melange of everything. Those are the protected players, meaning the new teams cannot acquire them. And there is wheeling and dealing here. It wouldn't be an NHL draft if it wasn't an expansion draft, if those negotiations weren't part of it. So essentially what happened: Seattle at this point needed a whole new roster, and Vegas is like, well, we'll give you this guy, but we don't want you to take this guy. So there's a lot of that negotiation happening.

Expansion drafts happen a week before free agency, which at this time is around July, but COVID had thrown everything off. So, you know, it wasn't textbook the way it usually tends to be. And ESPN decided to televise the expansion draft this time. But what ended up happening was hockey insiders kept leaking the information all day, so by the time you actually got to the televised stuff, there was nothing new. I mean, there's a little bit of drama around it, but essentially expansion drafts happen when new teams come up and then they get folded into the regular NHL draft the year after. So when there's no expansion teams, you will not have an expansion draft. So they are unique opportunities, but that's just what the mechanics are. 

Lindsay: I was going to say, it's very interesting because…And this is where expansion teams really differ from just when franchises just move, right? Because in many ways you're trying to create a new culture and everything and market to a new city, but you're bringing players with you. So, you know, one thing that's interesting is the Carolina Panthers and the Jacksonville Jaguars were both expansion teams the same year in the NFL, and they both made it to the NFC and AFC championship games respectively in just their second year. That’s a ridiculous a level of success so quickly. And I remember, because of course I wanted the Panthers to make the Super Bowl, but I remember there being a lot of fear that it was going to be, like, what if this is an expansion Super Bowl in the markets of Carolina and Jacksonville? [laughs] It’s going to be so bad for the league, right? Like, you had people freaking out about it.

And, you know, what you really saw was after Carolina and Jacksonville, which had five combined playoff appearances in their first five years, the next two expansion teams were the Cleveland Browns and the Houston Texans for the NFL, and the rules changed for them. They didn't get quite as many draft picks, and there were more restrictions on what players were made available, and also salary caps were a bigger deal by that time. If you look at Cleveland and Houston, there's only been one combined playoff appearance in their first five years. So, that's a huge, huge difference. You know, it's not always rules. Like, you know, you need a GM that can be creative. You need some luck, you need blah, blah, blah. But I think it's really interesting that you're kind of choosing how successful these franchises can be from the get-go. And you're trying to balance a lot from that, because all the other owners I'm sure don't want these seems to be good at all. But it's really bad for the league if these teams are terrible for a long time! [laughs] 

Jessica: That's so interesting, just this whole idea of the way that expansion teams can reset stuff, right? The fact that you are pulling players from other teams and you are unsettling all the teams that already exist in some way in order to form a new team. And then, again, just thinking back to the way that the Seattle Kraken are being inclusive from the jump, just the idea that expansion allows for possibilities, in part because it's disrupting all the other teams that already exist. I don't know, I find that fun.

Shireen: Oh, we love disruption up in here. I mean, all for it.

Lindsay: If you can’t tell from “Burn It All Down,” [laughter] our subtle name that shows how much we respect the status quo. [laughs]

Shireen: So, switching gears a little, let's talk about women's leagues and women's sport. What I will do is just sort of drop a little bit of NWSL in here. It actually started in 2012 with eight teams, and the first expansion team was the Houston Dash. There are now 10 more, with more coming in 2022. Orlando Pride was 2016, the Western New York Flash became the North Carolina Courage in 2017. We did also see the disbanding of the Boston Breakers, RIP for them. Steph Yang, thinking about you, friend of the show. She loved that team. Also, FC Kansas City effectively became Utah Royals, back to Kansas City in 2020. And now this is the year of 2021.

So, Racing Louisville played their inaugural game, and we had a special Patreon segment, I did an interview with Emina Ekic from Racing Louisville. And now in 2022, we're looking for Angel City FC, which is in Los Angeles, and then potentially San Diego in 2022 as well. I do want to say here, Canada has no domestic women's leagues. I've talked about this. I had Diana Matheson on the show in August talking about wanting to create sustainable sports in Canada. And the NWSL has the support of the Canadian national team players, including Ashley Lawrence, Janine Beckie, Shelina Zadorsky, Adriana Leon, and more – who are also Olympic gold medalists.

Now, the idea is with expansion teams, I do want to quote Julie Stevens, who is an associate professor of sport management at Brock University. And she said in an article in the Toronto Star, “If the traditional model of an American professional sports league is forced to redesign itself, then the door opens for women's commercial sport, which is typically and traditionally been rejected by this very dominant professional sport model.” So the idea here is we're talking about disruption and movement and going forward; women’s sports can actually be a place where this happens, and there can be sport where there was currently none for women. 

Jessica: Linz, I am wondering specifically about the W. Like, at some point this league had 16 teams, and now has 12. And I feel like the unending conversation around the league is the fact that there's too much talent and not enough places to put these players. And so the way to fix that is to expand the league. But unlike the NWSL where I feel like it's constantly there's a new team and I'm trying to keep up, that's not happening with the W. So like, where is it with its expansion?

Lindsay: So yeah, I mean, the first couple of seasons of the W were very successful and very quickly it expanded. I believe it was by the year 2000 when you had four new teams come into the league: the Miami Soul, the Portland Fire, the Indiana Fever, and the Seattle Storm. All of a sudden you had 16 teams, and it was just kind of…I think at the time it was way too much. [laughs] And I think you had owners who took on these teams, NBA owners at the time, it was all NBA. You had to be an NBA owner to be a WNBA owner as well. And both of Miami Soul and the Portland Fire only lasted through 2002, and then they completely folded. A year later you had the Cleveland Rockers, which was an original franchise, fold. And I think that it was too much too quickly, and I think since then there's just been a real hesitancy for new teams to be added. And it's really sad.

We have seen relocations, of course. The Utah Stars were an original team, they were became the San Antonio Silver Stars, which were then just the San Antonio Stars, which are now the Las Vegas Aces. But ultimately four original teams have folded completely in the W. Only four of the other original franchises are around. Since the flurry of additions in 2000, you've only had two new expansion teams – in 2006, the Chicago Sky, and then in 2008, the Atlanta Dream. And zero since then. And I think it's really sad because, once again, we talk about how important it is to see sports up close, right? To have a team to root for. Also, there's too much talent, you know? I mean, to think 20 years later, there are fewer teams for these players when they're getting out of college to be drafted to. I mean, I'm sorry, no disrespect to the players in 2000, but the women's college game is way deeper, as is the women's international game right now.

So I think it's just really sad, and I hope that this hesitancy to expand ends very quickly, because there's just so many. I mean, there's no Bay Area team right now, right? Which is just absolutely ridiculous. There's no Philly team. Other than Atlanta, there's nothing in the south. There's no Florida teams. And I should note that now they changed it in 2003, so now you can own franchises independently from NBA teams. They basically changed that just for Connecticut because they really wanted a team in Connecticut, because UConn. But you now see other teams, like both the Chicago Sky and Atlanta Dream, even though they're in NBA markets, they're not co-owned by the teams. The Storm, of course, once that NBA team left, the owners stepped in and bought the team itself to keep that franchise in the league.

And I want to add, another really important thing is that the NWSL owners – and actually it was Meg Linehan, always shoutout to Meg, on her podcast, talking about how these new NWSL owners are kind of breathing new life into the league, right? Because they don't have the same baggage – by that I mean fear, right? When you've lived through all these teams folding, of course you're gonna be more hesitant to take any sort of risks, right? Of course you're going to be more cautious. But you know, you've got the Los Angeles owners coming in and just kind of being a little bit brash. And I think all leagues need a combination of the two, right? You need the history, but you need the fearlessness towards the future. And I think it's going to be very good for the NWSL. I think it will be really great for the W if you can get more of that. And I'm just so hopeful seeing what Seattle's doing, like the Kraken. I just love your stories about the things they're doing right. And I just think that the W could use that so much.

Shireen: Coming up later this week, Jessica interviews Sabré Cook, an Indy race car driver competing this weekend down in Austin, Texas in the W Series. They talk about how Sabré got into motor sports, barriers to entry for women in the sport, and what she finds most challenging about racing.

Sabré Cook: I guess when you get to a track and there's like a section that you're struggling with and you've got to push yourself to do it, once you do it, it's just like one of the greatest feelings in the world. I mean, that's true for anyone, you know, when you do something that challenges you, or maybe scares you, or you're a bit uncertain about. Once you do it, it gives you this great feeling about yourself. It gives you confidence and, yeah, it's the same for a driver on a track. 

Shireen: Next up: everyone's favorite segment, the burn pile. Linz, what are you torching? 

Lindsay: Well, [laughter] I don't really have a torch big enough for this one. So right after recording basically, last week, news broke about Jon Gruden's emails. So, Jon Gruden, now former coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, it came out on Friday via the Wall Street Journal that he had used racist language and racist caricature to describe the leader of the NFL Players Association, DeMaurice Smith. And then Monday, the New York Times released reports from many of his other emails, which basically…There was not really a group left unscathed. We're talking racist language, we’re talking speaking out against the NFL drafting Michael Sam, making fun of women, at referees, saying any players that were protesting should be off teams. You name it, it was there.

Jon Gruden has resigned, but a couple of particular burn-worthy things. First of all, it's important to know that these emails were found in an investigation into the Washington Football Team's culture. So, these were all emails that Jon Gruden was sending to Bruce Allen. Also, NFL counsel was receiving some of these emails. Also, the president of Hooters or the CEO of Hooters was on some of these. Talk about just an old boys network behind the scenes being kind of exactly what your worst fears tell you they are. I'd also like to burn the anonymous source saying that nobody else was really implicated in these emails, that Jon Gruden was the only person who looked bad in all of these emails, which is literally hard to believe.

And I'd like to burn the Raiders allowing him to coach last Sunday, and the fact that he was just allowed to continue on, spew his bullshit and pretend that this isn't who he was until more emails came out. You know, to the Black players on the team and to Carl Nassib who of course is the player who came out; he took a mental health day this week, and the team let him, which I think…I just can't even fathom how difficult and how lonely that must be. But I just want to burn Jon Gruden, and I want to burn this toxic masculinity. I want to burn the sports patriarchy, the white cisgender, heteronormative patriarchy, because we know this bullshit is not just in Jon Gruden's emails. Burn.

All: Burn.

Shireen: Jess.

Jessica: So, we got a back-to-back dose this week of the hell that is access journalism in sports. We've talked about this particular flavor of sports media before. Access journalism is when so-called journalists bend ethical – and, I believe, moral – lines in journalism, in order to ensure that they can maintain their access to people in power. An oft-quoted phrase about what journalism's goals should be is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. To say that the point of journalism is not to do PR for powerful people is an understatement, and yet it still happens, especially in sports where people are rewarded lucrative contracts and lots of praise for breaking stories that, in my opinion, often have little value – things like trades, or retirements, or how a player is still trying to win or whatever. And part of what gets me as a journalist is people who are out here doing PR for powerful people are not necessarily telling their readers that this is what is happening. So it obscures that this is a transactional relationship, new scoops in exchange for, I guess, your fucking integrity.

One of the things we learned, or perhaps more accurately had reiterated to us, this week, from the slow drip of emails in the Washington Football Team's investigation, which Linz was just talking about, is that ESPN’s NFL insider, Adam Schefter, has no problem trading his integrity for access to powerful people. In July 2011, Schefter sent former Washington Football Team president Bruce Allen, who also received a bunch of Jon Gruden's emails, the draft of an unpublished story that he had yet to file and wrote, quote, “Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked. Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust.” This is egregious. The piece was about labor negotiations between players and owners in the NFL, a deeply unequal relationship! And Schefter was giving a dude on the more powerful side a chance to “add, change, or tweak” whatever was going to go into a piece that Schefter hadn't even sent his own editor yet.

In fact, he called Allen “Mr. Editor,” which even if a joke is only one that reveals the truth of the relationship, a wink, wink, that is really like a barf-barf or something! [laughs] Just…Ugh. It's one thing to read back quotes to a source to let them expand on them or clarify a point or to even read that quote in context of maybe the sentence before it or the sentence after it to make sure you've got it right as a reporter. It’s a whole other thing to just offer them up copy! And the kicker: Allen isn't even named or quoted in the piece. [Lindsay groans] He gets to remain an “anonymous NFL owner” in a piece about negotiating with the players and their union. People reading Schefter’s report didn't even know whom Schefter had talked to. And on top of that, Allen got editorial control to make sure it was how he wanted it to sound. That is truly gross shit.

On the anonymous sourcing front, we've got a real pile of crap from Shams Charania at The Athletic this week about why Kyrie Irving refuses to get vaccinated. For more on that particular dynamic, Amira talked to Dr. Candis Smith, Dr. Courtney Cox and Dr. Brooklyne Gipson recently. Go listen to that. How Shams reported this is what I want to take issue with today. It's one of these “Sources say…” pieces where it feels pretty clear that he just talked to Irving and his camp but wasn't allowed to quote them for whatever reason and just acquiesced to that. And so we learned from “multiple sources” that Irving “is not anti-vaccine.” And then this sentence. Quote, “Kyrie wants to be a voice for the voiceless, one source said.” One source said?! [Lindsay laughs] Who! And also, what!? Just uncritically putting that out into the world? And the source isn't even man enough to put their name on it? And Shams is cool with just reporting that?

It's absolutely spineless, a real capitulation to maintaining a relationship with someone who can feed you information later in exchange for literally serving as that person's mouthpiece. You can tell that this makes me incredibly heated. I was typing very hard on my computer last night when prepping for this. And I think in the end it's because my problem with access journalism is that it feels like it exists in direct opposition to the work that I personally do. And these are supposed to be my colleagues in this effort, right? As I tweeted earlier this week, it's just a real bummer to imagine your so-called colleagues doing this PR mouthpiece bullshit reporting while you are out here trying to reveal the harmful ways that power recreates itself. And so I just want to burn all of this. Burn.

All: Burn.

Lindsay: Burn! Burn, burn, burn. 

Shireen: I wanted to thank my co-hosts for doing that because you laid it out so nicely, so we can effectively torch and destroy and decimate all of that. But also, this is a personal one, folks. A couple of weeks ago, I was one of the racialized women in Canada in journalism who were targeted with online hate. It was sent to me through my website, and it was extremely jarring. It was extremely graphic and violent and terribly upsetting. And we've talked about this on the show. Like, I'd been the target of another thing a couple of years ago. That one in the UK, this one specifically using ProtonMail, which is based out of Switzerland, which has very specific rules about not caring about, you know, police investigations into this kind of thing. So, essentially, ProtonMail is a tool of the right wing extreme to propel hate. And that was the platform used to send this to me, and from what we know at least 14 other people.

I'm just out here to say that the community that I'm part of journalistically is very important to me, and when things like, you know, access journalism and stuff impedes that, what Jessica said about going in opposition to what we do and the type of journalism that I practice, at the intersections of race and gender in sport. It’s not a sexy beat. It's not something that's fancy. It's often underpaid and thankless. You know, whether it's investigative reporting on those issues or anything or sharing personal anecdotes. It's exhausting. I'm here to say, not to be a poster girl for trauma porn for other people either. I made a conscious decision not to talk about it, but to do it on my own podcast with my team, because this is where I felt safest to do it. I don't want to go out there and peddle other people's narratives about it, but to say that it's shitty. It’s shitty to have this distract from the work that I actually want to do.

We know that women and racialized women in particular get the worst kind of abuse, whether it's homophobic or xenophobic, and in my case gendered Islamophobia. It's violent and it's jarring. And I had been reassured – which is a weird reassurance, it’s not actually the people who you hear from that you should be scared of, it’s the ones you don't hear from. Which wasn't really comforting to me. But then again, we get into situations where I report it to authorities, which puts into my own experience of dealing with police who have traditionally harmed my community and communities that I'm a part of. And how does this happen? But if I don't report it, it doesn't get documented, and then nothing happens. So you get criticism for those who don't think you should be working at all with that. All this to say, it fucking sucks.

What ended up happening as a result of that is it took away my time to do the work that I actually need to be doing. And this isn't an “oh, poor me.” I'm here to say that I fucking hate it, and I can say that while recognizing there's a wall of people behind me and I feel that. So, if you're out there and you feel alone, you feel targeted, and you feel discouraged from this industry, I will say this: this industry needs you. And if you're on those margins and at those intersections, and you feel you're not heard, this as the place for you. There are people here that will support you. And at the same time, this is a collective burning of all those things.

So I want to take this and I want to burn all that abuse of various types under white supremacy that try to threaten and try to silence. And just about Shams Charania's point about voice for the voiceless; I will say this, and I say this a lot, that Arundhati Roy is an Indian feminist and a thinker, and she says there is no such thing as the voiceless. There is only the deliberately silenced and the preferably unheard. So I want to take all that shit and I want to burn it all down. Burn.

All: Burn.

Shireen: Now, as we've burned all those terrible systems of oppression, we are going to light up what needs to be lit. To start, I would like in memoriam to talk about our eternal flame, who has Agnes Jebet Tirop, a Kenyan Olympian and world class cross-country champion, who was murdered by her husband in her home in Kenya. This is so tragic for many reasons, including that she was an extremely talented athlete, and just this past summer she was fourth in the 5000 meters in Tokyo and set the women's road 10k record in 30 minutes and 1 second. She’s a double bronze medalist at the IAAF championships in the 10k. Rest in power, Agnes. Linz, who is our bright new star?

Lindsay: That is Tanisha Wright, former WNBA player who was hired this week as the new head coach of the Atlanta Dream. So excited!

Shireen: Jess, who is our flashy, vibrant fishy? 

Jessica: Chloë McCardel. She's an Australian marathon swimmer. She has now swum the English Channel a record breaking 44 times. No one has done it more than her. It took her more than 12 years, 450 hours and at least 1.5 million strokes to do it.

Shireen: Linz, who is our bright, bright light?

Lindsay: It is Ons Jabeur. We've talked about her before, the Tunisian tennis star, who made it to the semi-finals at Indian Wells and became the first Arab woman to crack the top 10 of the WTA rankings. That is huge! We’re so excited.

Shireen: Can I get a drumroll, please? 

[drumroll]

I really want to insert Bitch Better Have My Money by Rihanna here, Tressa, if that's possible. Dawn Staley, friends! Dawn Staley, South Carolina's Dawn Staley has received a seven year, $22.4 million extension contract through the year 2027-2028 season, making her the highest paid Black head coach in her sport and one of the highest paid women's coaches in the entire country. Get them bags! Tressa, this is where we can put it. Bitch Better Have My Money.

Jessica: [laughs] Please just leave Shireen in here saying that.

Shireen: Linz, what is good? 

Lindsay: Well, I'm currently in Chicago somehow. I caught a last minute chance to go to Chicago and go to game four of the WNBA finals. So, we'll all know the result of that by the time you’ve heard, but it is currently Sunday morning. I could literally see Wintrust Arena out my hotel window. And so, that's great. You know, it's been just a whirlwind few weeks of travel, and as unused to this as I am, and as tiring as this all is, because I just am not very made up for it. I’m just feeling very, very, very blessed.

Shireen: I love that for you, but I also love that for us. And I kind of put it in Linz’s ear to go, “SLOOT THERE IT IS!” because that's actually my favorite saying now. I did want to say that I went and attended the Ricky Martin and the Enrique Iglesias concert, [Lindsay gasps] which was–

Jessica: When did this happen?

Shireen: Which happened a week ago, and two weeks ago–

Jessica: I received zero text messages about this!?

Lindsay: How does Shireen send us text messages about everything, and then this we get nothing? [laughter] I feel like you owe us these voicemails, Shireen. [laughs] 

Shireen: I did, you know, it was actually something that I had put in the what's good and then we had to take out because of what happened, and I'm not allowed to geolocate for a while anyway, just as a precaution. And so I wasn't allowed to tweet it out, but let me tell you, when Enrique gets up there and takes some tequila and goes, you know, “Toronto, fuck everything else, let's have a good time tonight!” it was on pure unadulterated joy. I haven't been into a concert in two years. The last one I went to was Shakira here in 2019, and it was just formidable to be in a place. Everybody was double vaxxed. You were encouraged to wear your masks if you weren't eating. And it was dancing, it was fun. Enrique played all the greats. I kept sending my children videos of me singing. They're like, okay, you need to calm down. But it was…I will send those videos actually. [Jessica laughs] It was so fun! And then Enrique sang Bailando, and then Ricky sang the song, the Olé Olé Olé song from the Euros back in the early 2000s.

It was just wonderful, and it carried me for a really, really, really long time, particularly because things had felt a little heavy. They were formidable. And I will say this, there was a bit of discussion. I went with my friends and we kind of felt like Enrique who went first was a bit of…Like, it was the better performance. Ricky is awesome also, and he's a dancer, but just there was something about Enrique who is just…He gets on his knees and does this thing and then just like, oh my. And we just all swooned. He smolders. And you’re like, what is happening?! And anyways, it was excellent. I feel like that's all I'm going to say. I was going to talk about my daughter being home for reading week, and I loved that, and she went apple picking and brought me McIntosh apples, but I'm still thinking about Enrique’s smolder. [laughter]

Jessica: Wow. Wow. Y'all have really good what's goods. Mine is like, work is good. Yesterday I ordered advent calendars. Real excited about this. Got a coffee one–

Shireen: Did you get the Bonne Maman one?

Jessica: I did not, but I did – spoiler for my family – I did order some for my family. You can still order them, by the way. They still exists, the Bonne Maman one; little jelly advent calendars, they’re spectacular. I got one that is supposed to be a different cookie to bake every day in December. So I'm very excited about that. I also ordered family pajamas. I heard that there are supply chain issues, so I was getting it in early, my Christmas family pajamas. [Shireen laughs] The other thing that's good is I am giving a talk on Friday, October 22nd at Union College in Schenectady, New York, in case any flamethrowers are in that area and want to show up. I don't know exactly what time. I tried to look this up, but I sometime in the afternoon. I'll be talking at Union College.

So, I'm excited to do that. It's been a really long time since I have done one of these talks. It’s based off of Unsportsmanlike Conduct, which feels like six lifetimes ago. So it'll be interesting to see how it all goes, but I'm always excited to talk to college students because they always inspire me and give me hope, and they're my little torchbearers in my life. So I think it'll be really fun.

Shireen: What we are watching this week: Champs League, men's and women’s, are in play. Very important. NWSL is on. MLB playoffs, and the NBA starts October 19th. And that's it for this episode of Burn It All Down, and this episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. Burn it All Down is the part of the Blue Wire podcast network.

Follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and TuneIn. And for show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. And you'll also find a link to our merch at the Bonfire store. Thank you to our patrons. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your support means the world. And if you want to become a sustaining donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. We could not do this without you. Burn on, and not out.