Episode 225: Receipts on Gender Inequity in the NCAA
In this episode, Lindsay Gibbs, Amira Rose Davis and Jessica Luther dive into recent reports published about gender inequity in the NCAA. But first, they start the show with dad jokes.
In the main segment, the team dissects an external review of gender equity issues in the NCAA and specifically the DI basketball championships. They dive into what the report says about the lack of investment, accountability and valuation of women’s sports by the NCAA as well as the report's proposed solution the inequity. For the super extended conversation on this report, become a patron.
Following this discussion, you'll hear a preview of Shireen's interview with Rick Westhead of TSN on his reporting about sexual abuse in the NHL. Then, they burn all the worst of sports this week in the Burn Pile. Next, they celebrate those changing sports for the better, including Torchbearer of the Week Josh Cavallo, who is the first openly gay male professional footballer. They wrap up the show with what's good in their lives and what they're 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
Full Report 2 on other championships
Transcript
Lindsay: Hello, hello, hello, flamethrowers! Lindsay here. I will be your captain for today's episode of Burn It All Down. Thanks so much for listening to the feminist sports podcast that we think everybody could use a dose of these days. I am joined today by our Austinites, Amira and Jessica. Hello, you two!
Jessica: Hello, hello.
Amira: Hello!
Lindsay: Today, the three of us are going to really dive into these reports about gender inequity in the NCAA that have come out over the past couple of months. This is a subject that the three of us follow very closely, and yet there's still a lot in these reports that we think is worth taking a second to dig through. Of course, we'll have a burn pile. We've got some great torchbearers this week. And we'll finish with what's good. But first, I gotta admit, it has been a rough, rough week in the news – which is nothing new. So, I would really like you all to tell me a dad joke, please, to get us started off. [laughs] Jess?
Jessica: Sure. And I went to my source for dad jokes, which was my dad. So, thank you, Andy Walcott, for this joke. He said, “It is inappropriate to make a dad joke if you are not a dad. It’s a faux-pa.” [laughter] Thanks, dad.
Lindsay: I love that. Okay. When does a joke turn into a dad joke? When it becomes a parent. [laughter]
Amira: I love this.
Jessica: Wow. There's a part of me that is like, I can't believe how funny I think that is. [laughter]
Lindsay: Amira?
Amira: Well, this is exactly my type of humor, if anybody knows me, because I'm always, like…Puns do something to me. Like, Scooby, his outfit is he's looks like a little Ravenclaw thing from Harry Potter and I'm going to caption it, “Ravenpaw.” And I've been laughing about that for like 48 hours. [laughs] So anyways, but when I thought about dad jokes, I thought…I dunno if anybody knows on TikTok @fitdadceo. We'll put an example of his jokes in here, because he has music and he has like a certain cadence he says it in. But I went to his page because he has a bunch of sports ones which are funny. And so I found one especially for Lindsay and Jess, because it's tennis. He said, he told his son never to date a tennis player, because love means nothing to them. [laughter]
Jessica: Oh geez.
Amira: But my favorite one is about why teenage girls walk in packs of three, five or seven – but I'm dropping that audio for you right here so that you can all hear how he delivers it, because the funniest thing to me.
@fitdadceo: I said to my son, why do teenage girls walk in groups of three, five, and seven? He said, this is such an odd joke. I said no, dummy, it's because they literally can't even.
Amira: [laughing] Oh god, he's so funny.
Lindsay: Maybe we should start regularly with dad jokes. I like this. [laughs]
Jessica: Yeah. I actually think that's a brilliant idea. That's what this podcast needs.
Lindsay: If you all remember back in March during the NCAA women's basketball tournament, Sedona Prince released a video…
Sedona Prince: I got something to show y'all. So for the NCAA March Madness, the biggest tournament in college basketball for women, this is our weight room. Let me show y’all the men's weight room.
Lindsay: …That exposed that the weight room for the women's team was a tiny rack of yoga weights that looked like about 1/10th of what is in an orangetheory class, while the men had state of the art weight room that you would see in a pro suite. And, look, it went viral and it really reignited the conversations about gender inequities within NCAA sports. And the NCAA got a lot more backlash and they usually do, because we know this is nothing new, and it led to the NCAA retaining the law firm of Kaplan Hecker & Fink to conduct a comprehensive and thorough external review of gender equity issues in connection with the NCAA. Its focus was really on NCAA championships. So the initial report, which was released at the end of August, really focused on women's and men's basketball and the gender equity issues there.
The second phase, which was just released this week, provided a pretty broad examination of the remaining 84 NCAA championships. There was also a corresponding report on sponsorship and finances, which was done by Desser Sports Media, a leading sports media consulting firm. So, I really didn't expect these reports to be that groundbreaking for me, but the more I dove into it, the more I was in awe of how outraged and how egregious it looked to just see all of these inequities laid out in a pretty formal way, not by activists, but by an independent law firm. And this is gonna be a little bit different than our normal episodes, because we're going to be citing sections from these reports often.
To set us up, I'm just going to read a direct quote that sets the tone. So it says, “The primary reason, we believe, is that gender inequities in the NCAA and specifically the basketball championships stem from the structure and systems of the NCAA itself, which are designed to maximize the value and support of D1 men's basketball as the primary source for the funding of the NCAA and its memberships. The results have been cumulative, not only fostering skepticism and distrust about the sincerity of NCAA’s commitment to gender equity, but also limiting the growth of women's basketball and perpetuating a mistaken narrative that women's basketball is destined to be a money loser year after year.”
So we're going to kind of divide this up. First we're gonna talk about what this report revealed about the lack of investment and institutional support and accountability dedicated gender equity. Amira, can you kind of a get us started here?
Amira: Absolutely. And so, this is something that we have talked about a lot when we talk about how it's impossible to demand certain results without investment in infrastructure, without accountability, and without the same sort of determination to watch something grow – and then turning around on the back end and being like, “Well, why haven't you made me a million dollars?” And as Lindsay said, one of the great things about this report is it is literally just like pages of receipts, and it's for all of the kind of keyboard warriors [laughs] who are usually like, “Well, where's the numbers?” And blah blah blah. Like, this is perfect, to take all of these gems and nuggets and turn around and be like, well, [claps] here is all of the facts, straight in your face, that are undeniable.
And what we have, and what we'll start with, is undeniably how the NCAA has absolutely lacked in investment in women's sports, institutional support for them, and accountability about how they continue to be invested and governed. For instance, when we look at championships spending, despite the fact that everybody's like, “It's equal, it’s equitable! They got a prize bag and they got a prize bag.” We saw with our own eyes that that was bullshit, right? But now we have some numbers to put with this.
So we know that in 2018 and 2019, on the men's side, $4,285 was the spending per college athletes. On the women's side, it was $2,588. For all of y'all who can't do quick math, that's a difference of $1,697 per student athletes. Indeed, men's basketball, when we're talking about these championships, have more full-time staff, contractor support to play in their championships. There's a sizeable disparity between budgets. That 2019 tournament, we have finalized financials for it, and we know that the difference in spending was $35 million. And so when we're talking about a lack of investment, let's talk about it to the tune of 35 fucking million dollars, right? And then turning around and being like, “Why didn’t you produce the same…” [Lindsay laughs] Bitch, $35 million! That’s why! Geez.
Lindsay: Bitch, yes.
Amira: But I think it's really great to have this in our minds, and then revisit, if you will, some of the differences that we saw in the 2021 tournament.
Lindsay: We're going to talk further about this on our Patreon segment, because there were so many things in this report about the inequities that we were just screaming about. So, our Patreon supporters will have a Patreon-only episode where we go a bit deeper into these, but here are just a couple that stuck out to me. First of all, just the damn timing, right? Because the 2020 tournament didn't happen because of COVID, and so they needed the money because they've made the men's tournament their moneymaker. All the priority was getting the men's tournament off the ground. And so the men's tournament announced their plans for the 2021 tournament on November 16th.
Women's basketball, the stakeholders weren't told that that was happening, and they weren't allowed to announce their plans for a full month later. And all of their announcements and all of their planning was about a month behind the men's tournament from that point on. And that was a deliberate decision that left the women's tournaments scrambling. Jess, what stuck out to you?
Jessica: Well, this was actually new information for me. So, it is wild to study this all the time and think about it and then suddenly have these new examples. So, when the men were at their tournament, they had access to outdoor space – which I remember, COVID, right? So like, being able to be outside and everything was a really important thing. So they had access to outdoor space from the beginning of the tournament, at Victory Field, a minor league baseball stadium located across from the convention center in Indianapolis. And there, the NCAA had constructed a recreation area where the men could play badminton, pickleball, cornhole, soccer, and football. The women – you guys know where this is going – by contrast, were not intended to have any outdoor space, except the path from the hotel to the convention center in San Antonio, until the Sweet 16.
There are such practical reasons…Like, I just want to keep harping on the intentionality of all of this. It turns out, we learned in the report, the men's basketball committees are composed of more senior leaders within NCAA membership than the women's basketball committee. So of course this negatively impacts the women's committee's ability to effectuate change. It was built to be like this, and we get to see these really obvious examples. They just were like, “women, stay inside.”
Lindsay: The path! The fact that they even mentioned the path killed me. I'm sorry – [laughs] It just kills me. [laughing] I don’t even know, but the fact that it was worth mentioning, because that's how little space they had…I’m sorry. Okay. Amira?
Amira: Yeah, no, it was so ridiculous. So, if you remember, my little cousin was in the bubble and texting me things like, “How do we go outside?” and “Here's what I'm eating for dinner.” And when the food was trending on Twitter, I know that a lot of people were trying to come up with reasons for the disparity in food. And now we have confirmed that, no, there was really absolutely a disparity in food. And so when the men and the women both arrived at their respective bubbles, they got two days of prepackaged meals while they were quarantining in Indianapolis and San Antonio, respectively. After that quarantine period, the men moved into a space in which they had curated self-service buffets for the remainder of the tournament. The women, however, continued to receive those pre-packaged quarantined meals.
As a result, the report says they've received less food, lower quality, and variety than the men. Furthermore, okay? They were exasperated by the fact that men's tournament participants had greater access to food from corporate sponsors. What does that mean? Well, it means Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, Buffalo Wild Wings all worked with the NCAA to provide free supplemental food at the men's tournament. And this is so irritating, because if you're brokering a deal with fucking Pizza Hut and Wendy's and Buffalo Wild Wings, then you're like, all right, bet. You're just like, all right, you're giving out free chicken nuggets, Wendy’s? Give them out in San Antonio. Like, this is so easy! And so intentional.
Jessica: Yeah. It’s like, it’s on purpose.
Lindsay: It's on purpose.
Amira: Exactly. Exactly! It's on purpose, clearly. Like, why can't we get some fucking nuggets? Damn!
Lindsay: So there's this…The nuggets, right? [Amira laughs] Like, these are relatively…You know what I mean? Just like simple, basic things that they could do that they are choosing not to do equally. But another thing that really floored me about this report is how the NCAA incentivizes every individual school to basically copy this investment disparity. I'm just going to read this. “The NCAA's revenue distribution model prioritizes and rewards investment in men's basketball, because one of the NCAA’s fundamental tenets is that it distributes a majority of its revenue back to its membership; most of which goes to the D1 conferences and schools, to fund their athletic programs, and the largest slice of that pie is the basketball fund, which allocates revenue among conferences based solely on the participation of a conference’s automatic qualifying team in and a conference’s overall performance at the D1 men's basketball tournament.”
So, in other words, the further a school's team makes it in the men's tournament, the more revenue that school’s conference is given, and as a result, institutions are incentivized to invest in their men's basketball programs above all else, in hopes of progressing as far as possible in that tournament to gain the revenue. There is no analogous financial reward for participation in or performance at the D1 women's basketball championship. So, yeah, that message is loud and clear. And it just shows how all of this is just like this self perpetuating cycle. It's just this hamster wheel of inequity. It just so fucks over women's programs. And yet these fucking keyboard warriors will just sit there and say, well that's because the women's doesn't make money. I know Title IX is a part of this, and in theory member schools are supposed to comply with Title IX, but then does the NCAA have anything in place to, like, track this?
Jessica: No. [Lindsay laughs] I mean, one of the things that we learned in this report is that the NCAA “does not perform regular gender equity audits or reviews, and does not have sufficient staff with relevant expertise to do so,” to monitor gender equity. “Internal and external efforts to increase gender equity have fallen short because the NCAA does not have the systems in place and the infrastructure to support them, to ensure transparency and accountability around gender equity.” And this is so wild. Lindsay's right – the NCAA is not under Title IX, but all of its member institutions are. And we are about to hit the 50th anniversary of Title IX. And so this is just one of those moments where you're like, this country has been moving towards this. We've had a 50 year long conversation about this. And the NCAA has just never taken this seriously in 50 years. So, there's no accountability structure because the NCAA has never wanted one in place. Like, that's just the beginning and end of it.
Lindsay: God, it's so infuriating. So, there's another big thing going on here. It's mainly based around that sponsorship report that I said they did at the beginning. This is a look at kind of the television deals and how all of that plays out. Jess, can you kind of lay the land here?
Jessica: Here we go, everyone! Strap in. The NCAA’s decisions have systematically devalued women's sports, especially women's basketball. So, one of the things we already knew, but was reiterated in the gender equity report, is that while the NCAA struck a deal with CBS and Turner for them to pay the NCAA $1.1 billion per year to air the men's tournament, they bundled the women's tournament with 20 other championships and sold it to ESPN for roughly $34 million per year. [Lindsay laughs] $1.1 billion for the men's tournament, $34 million for 21 other ones. According to the report, “Today, the only championships that the NCAA considers ‘revenue-producing’ are men's championships: Division I basketball, men's basketball, men's ice hockey, men's lacrosse, and wrestling.” And the NCAA did a 14 year – 14 year! – deal with ESPN, so that undervaluing of the women's tournament stretches through 2024 at this point.
Since the NCAA renewed its other championships package with ESPN in 2011, “the typical annual rights payments for the top professional major league and college football packages have doubled.” Plus, the marketplace is just different now. You can stream in so many other places. There's like so many bidders who could up the value of this if you put it out there on the marketplace. The law firm that did this report estimates that the women's tournament will be worth between 81 and $112 million per year on its own beginning in 2025.
Lindsay: And that's if everything stays the same! That's as if there's no more investments.
Jessica: The money is just sitting there!
Lindsay: It’s not doing anything to activate the money.
Jessica: They won't even do it for the money. They won't even do it for the money.
Lindsay: Amira?
Amira: Yeah. I mean, right along those lines, it's because they can't count, clearly or, you know, obviously they don't care. But I think that their sexism makes their math brains also not work. And so this is how much they're leaving on the table. So, first of all, it starts with taking a much larger value of the men's tournament than it really is. So for instance, this year the men's final drew about four times more viewers than the women's final. However, the media rights deal earned the NCAA nearly a hundred times the revenue based on how an NCAA consultant accounts for the value of those tournaments. Those numbers are very different in terms of media deals. Like, that is not based on a hundred times more viewership. And in reality, women's college basketball is extremely valuable television property for ESPN. Listen – they generally outdraw TV viewerships for all sporting events taking place in its event window, except for the men's ball. It ranks among ESPN's highest-rated programs, other than NFL games and college football playoffs. I'll say that again: it ranks among ESPN’s highest rated programs, other than NFL and college football.
Jessica: That’s wild!
Amira: So all those things that Jessica just listed of other championships, that many of them do appear on ESPN. They’re not getting the same viewership numbers! So, with roughly half of the time they've been in existence – they've been around for about 40 years while men's college ball has been around about 83 years – they’re following a very similar growth trajectory, with increased viewership and broadening exposure. They have more marketing stars. We know they have the highest stars in the tournament with the biggest follower counts, things like that. Social media presence, that's all on the women's college ball side. And so here you have, like we said, just money being left on the table instead of being invested in…If what you care about is money. If what you care about is money, then you're not even very good at making it, because you're constantly leaving it on the table in terms of devaluing the women's game.
Lindsay: And then, so, that's the package as is. Like, these are the ratings ESPN is getting, treating the women's game as it does right now – which it does do a lot of good things for, but this report specifically also states that ESPN isn't even maximizing this property. So just a few things: ESPN, part of Disney, part of ABC, it does not broadcast the championship game or any of the games on ABC. It doesn't schedule it in primetime on Sunday, so the championship game is usually scheduled on Sunday between 6 to 8pm as a lead in to the Sunday night baseball game. [laughs] Airing it in actual primetime would be very likely to get it more viewers. That's why things are usually aired in primetime. They also have very limited pregame and postgame and specialized programming around the tournament. And then they don't even treat it like it's their most important thing. So, their SportsCenter set doesn't travel to the women's Final Four, but it does travel to the men's Final Four, which is held at the same time – which of course it doesn't even broadcast! [sighs]
I just want to note also, the report did state that it was beyond the scope of its assignment to perform analysis on the programming rights and programming deals of these other championships, but they do believe that many of them are undervalued as well. Softball, softball, softball! Volleyball, volleyball, volleyball! Gymnastics, gymnastics, gymnastics! All of this stuff is undervalued, and really separating these up, breaking them up and bringing these to the market as separate pieces is a way to really substantially move revenue and get people to really invest. ESPN is not going to properly invest in something if it's paying pittances for it, right? It doesn't need to! It doesn't need to work that hard to get its money back.
Jessica: So, get this: when the NCAA made its deal with CBS and Turner for the men's tournament, it made a deal with them to sell and market all of the NCAA's official corporate champions and partners for all championships. So what this means is that by selling all of the NCAA official marketing partnerships together, with the rights to the men's tournament, to CBS and Turner…Here we go again. “The NCAA created a set of incentives where the vast majority of income comes from the NCAA corporate champions and corporate partners exclusively focused on the men's tournament.” And here is the stat, get ready. “For the 2020-2021 academic year, barely 1/10th of 1% of the NCAA official sponsorship revenue was earmarked to support an NCAA championship other than the men's March Madness.” Barely 1/10th of 1%. Make it make sense! That’s horrible!
Lindsay: I mean, it’s just so small.
Jessica: Yeah. It's like when you try to imagine a billion, it's like the opposite of that. It's like you can't even imagine that tiny of a number. [laughs]
Amira: And then just to be clear, that 1/10th of 1% that's left over, that is going inequitably to men's championships in other sports. For instance, in lacrosse, about 10 years ago there was a decision to invest heavily – 10, 20 years ago – invest heavily in men's college lacrosse, not women’s. Which included making a strategic growth plan, inking an ESPN TV deal. They moved their championships into NFL cities with stadiums, also getting in and marketing personnel as well. They activated sponsorship dollars, upped marketing and operations budgets, added full-time staff. And so when we talk about that 1/10th of 1%, it’s like, then imagine just the fighting for that crumb and how that mostly goes to championships of men and other sports. And you can see how women's sports that are not just basketball, but lacrosse, soccer, et cetera, are fighting for below crumbs. They're fighting for granular specs at that point.
Lindsay: It's just…It’s mind boggling. I didn't think I could be surprised [laughs] yet–
Jessica: And here we are. [laughs]
Lindsay: This report really did leave me kind of stunned, because the thing is, they're not even trying. It's like, if you tell MasterCard or whoever, like, no, you need to support the women's tournament too, right? They're gonna do it.
Jessica: Right. Because they want all that money too, they're not going to give it up.
Lindsay: [laughs] They’re gonna do it because they want the exposure! Anyways. One of the things that this report did say that it thought was a way to help solve all this, especially on the basketball side – which like we said was the primary focus of the report – is they really suggest that combining the men's and women's Final Fours at a single location on the same weekend, starting ideally in 2023, it said, basically as soon as possible, to maximize impact on future TV negotiations. You know, it even said you could play the 2023 women's championship game and potentially the whole Final Four in the same dome as the men's Final Four, even. It also of course suggested using March Madness branding for both the men's and women's, which was not done before this year. But the NCAA has already started that.
But I actually am very worried about this. The women's Final Four has worked so hard with so little to become such a special event, where women's basketball is the star, where all the big players in the women's basketball space are there. And my fear is that it becomes such an almost laughably an afterthought if it's in the exact same space.
Amira: Well, it's interesting to me because we had a similar conversation around the Olympics and the Paralympics, remember, Linz? One of the things we were talking about was, like, wouldn't actually help exposure? Because it was part of an event and not kind of like two weeks later, and the same media team would come. And, you know, when people were looking for events they would stumble upon it, et cetera, et cetera. And so it seems to me that this is actually part and parcel of a very similar conversation, of like, when you combine things, is it a chance for those beat writers who are only being sent to Indianapolis now catch a women's game and now they have platform accessibility? Or do they get swallowed up? And I think that that is very hard, right? We don't know. That’s the whole point. But I think that it does remind me of the conversation we had about the Olympics and Paralympic games, which is just really a longer conversation of how do we take these existing structures that we all know are deeply inequitable, and find some way to capture and disrupt these systems that seem intent on marching forward one way or another?
Jessica: Yeah, and I just think one big thing is it's not going to fix the downstream issues. So, a lot of what we were talking about with the inequity this year was something that happened before the Sweet 16, right? Like, they were going to make everything more equal when they made it to a later round. But like, this is just the Final Four. So all the other things that we're talking about are not fixed in any way. And I just think, why would we trust that the NCAA or media organizations–
Amira: That part. That part.
Jessica: –would suddenly take the women's tournament seriously? Rather than just treat it as an uninteresting, annoying little sister to be managed alongside the big banner events of the men's tournament. And I do think, like Amira said, get swallowed up. I'm with you, Linz. I am very nervous that it would just become something to just sort of, “See, we did it!” rather than actually putting it up on a platform that would make a substantial difference. And you're right – they have worked so hard to make it an event, and it is wonderful. The women's Final Four is a hell of a thing to watch. And the idea that we're going to trust these people who've already fucked them over so many times before? I just don’t believe that that's going to be the answer.
Amira: There has been no reason to ever trust the NCAA. The NCAA, who went to court a million times to not have to deal with women's sports. Then when they had to deal with women's sports, crushed the AIAW, to take them under its governance, who went to court again to argue that Title IX didn't apply to them. That's why they can't legally do shit, because they literally at every turn have publicly basically said, “We don't want to deal with this. You're making us? Damn.” So, no, they shouldn't be in charge of shit. I mean, that's always the conclusion with the NCAA, but here we are.
Lindsay: Yeah. My gut reaction was against this, even though I'm a big fan of sports like tennis, which has really…Women’s tennis has really benefited from the combined grand slam format. There were a few points in this report that did make me rethink that. I'm going to save that for our Patreon conversation though. So, if you're a Patreon listener, you can listen to that. It'll be on our Patreon feed. This week for our interview, Shireen talks with Rick Westhead, a journalist with The Sports Network and CTV, about his reporting around sexual abuse and the coverup in the Chicago NHL team. He's done some phenomenal work on that, and it's been a huge story this week. So, really looking forward to that.
Rick Westhead: Every day, we're reading about new scandals, about new abuse allegations in every sport across the world. And so to say, well, is this a moment of reckoning or not? I actually think it's a little bit naive to say that. How can you? How can you unpack that so quickly? We need to see what actually happens, and see what the concrete actions are before we can make that kind of a judgment or not. I hope it is. You know, talking to Kyle Beach was one of the hardest interviews I've ever done in my life. And he deserves better, because the reason he's doing this is to effect change. And so if change doesn't happen, then what's it been for? Why go through the pain of this, of putting yourself out there?
Lindsay: So, it is burn pile time, even though like usual we've been simmering for quite some time already on this episode. But we want to start off with just kind of a mini joint burn on the Atlanta MLB team and the way the entire MLB is reacting and defending, continuing to defend their racist caricatures and chants and mascots. We did an entire segment on this back in our episode 128, that we'll link in the show notes if you want to continue to listen to that.
For my burn this week though, I want to burn the statement by Nadine Angerer, the director of goalkeeping for the Portland Thorns, basically in support of Gavin Wilkinson, who's the GM of the Thorns. We've talked about all the abuse in the NWSL and by Paul Riley. And, you know, he's one of the people that is alleged to have known about Paul Riley's abuse, and instead of taking actions to get him out of the NWSL entirely, just let him leave their organization and continue to coach at the North Carolina Courage. But she wants to say that Gavin Wilkinson has been supportive of her and particularly noted that he was supportive of her and her partner. And she says, “I know everyone's experience is different,” but the fact that she decided to specifically state that she supported him and that Gavin is not a victim, but he also is not one of the perpetrators. It completely is a kick in the heart of what the survivors are doing by coming forward.
Other players on the team retweeted this and shared this, including Lindsey Horan, who obviously has a lot of power. And I just want to say that it can be tough when someone you know and his been loyal to you and you love and support, you find out that they have been a bystander – you know, not the abuser themselves, but part of a system that's complicit. And so I think that, you know, I understand the gut reaction to want to defend someone who has been a really big part of your life and a really big supporter of your life. But you do not do that like this. You do not do that publicly, and you do not use your power to do anything except help survivors and help get their needs and their wants across the line. I just want to burn that. Burn.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: Amira?
Amira: If you were wondering how the NFL owners meetings were going, and you predicted that it was a shitstorm, then you would be correct. There is a bunch of mess, and a lot of it's burnable. Whether it is Cal McNair sending apologies because he used anti-Asian slurs when talking about COVID at charity events–
Jessica: Is that the guy…Was he the son of the other one who said that–
Amira: Yeah, the other McNair, who said you can't let the inmates run the prison. That would be the McNairs of the Houston Texans. Yeah, awfulness. You have stuff like Stan Kroenke, who is the Los Angeles Rams owner, who...Actually, this is kind of funny, but he basically has announced to the other owners that he's no longer going to foot the billions of dollars in legal fees that they're facing because they decided to move the team to LA. Now, if you're wondering what all this is about, I just want to remind you that tax dollars from everyday us pay for these huge stadiums. And so the city of St. Louis was leasing the stadium, letting the team be a tenant there for a dollar a year. And so since the team relocated, they're suing for all of the revenue that is being taken with them, because they're like, you know, what we do as a “public good” quote-unquote is make it very easy for NFL teams to make money. And then when you leave a team, you're left with nothing.
And so they're under a lawsuit that the NFL keeps losing and all these owners are paying out of pockets for, and then at the meeting Stan stood up and was like, yeah, I'm not going to pay these millions of dollars anymore, and left. But the real issue is not as much the money, but this relates to the third thing that we need to talk about. It's because when they're in these legal cases, it opens up their emails and correspondence and financial records for discovery. And that is what has them shook. Why? Well, we can look over at the investigation for the Washington Football Team as a reminder of why emails are so precious to these NFL owners.
And along those lines of the investigation, I think the most burnable thing coming out of the owners meetings is Goodell's insistence on the fact that it's A-OK that there's no written report on this probe, despite people saying where's the transparency, where's the accountability? Goodell pointed to the fact that A) this was like the biggest fine ever levied on the Washington Football Team, with $10 million in fines for toxic workplace culture. You would think with a fine that large, you would write down somewhere why that fine was assessed. But no, there is no written report, and no, they refuse to release anything else according to the investigation. So the only person publicly disciplined and admonished for this was Gruden, who is an owner of a different team!
And I think that this is really really sleazy, because Goodell is saying we're not doing transparency, we’re not opening this up because we're quote-unquote “protecting” the victims who came for and we're protecting the women. Well, at that very owner's meetings, guess who walked up to the door and hand delivered a letter saying we want more transparency, we want written reports? Members of the people who were came forward with their stories. Some of them took to Twitter and said, “Don't try to play us like that. We were told that our identity would be sealed in a written report so that they couldn't trace it back to us. Not that no written report would exist.” This using the guise of protection to continue to run away from accountability and transparency is disgusting, and unfortunately par for course. Burn it all down.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: Jess?
Jessica: All right. I'm about to talk about sexual assault. In episode 209, back in July, I burned what we knew then about how the Chicago NHL team ignored a report in 2010 from a player who said he'd been assaulted by a video coach, Brad Aldrich. That was the year the team won the Stanley Cup, and we could assume they sat on the report because it came during the playoffs. This week, the team released a report by outside investigators that showed that they did in fact do nothing about the report of sexual assault, because they didn't want it to distract from their championship run. We also learned that Aldrich had made multiple unwanted sexual advances against another player, and because the higher-ups at the team sat on the report, Aldrich was allowed to travel with the team for weeks. At a celebration event after they won the Cup, he made an unwanted sexual advance on an intern. The player who made the initial report has now come forward. His name is Kyle Beach. He spoke to TSN’s Rick Westhead the day after the release of the investigator’s report.
Kyle Beach: Following it, just a great feeling of relief, vindication. And it was no longer my word against everybody else’s, because a lot of things were made public, a lot of people were interviewed, and I really felt like there was a lot of lies told in the media. And it was very special and important to me to have that truth come out yesterday.
Jessica: The team was fined $2 million by the NHL and Stan Bowman. The GM and president of the team resigned. He wasn't fired, of course, because people so rarely are. Aldrich was also allowed to resign. Back in 2010, he was actually told to resign or they’d do an investigation. He went on to harm others, including a high school student. Two other people who no longer work for that team, but were still in the NHL, also sat on the report. The Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff will face no discipline from the NHL for his role, while Joel Quenneville resigned as the head coach of the Florida Panthers this week. Hockey is really having a moment. Stan Bowman was supposed to be the GM of the US men's hockey team at the Beijing Olympics, which start in less than 100 days. But he also resigned from that position.
The person who will most likely replace him is the GM of the Minnesota Wild, Bill Guerin, who is himself under investigation by SafeSport for how he responded to a report of sexual assault in 2018, when Guerin was the assistant GM for the Pittsburgh Penguins. The concern is not that he sat on the complaint, but rather that he told another coach, the one whose wife said she had been assaulted by yet another coach, he told him that “knowledge of the incident and termination had to be suppressed, cautioning that it has to stay quiet and can't be let out.” The coach who was reported for assault? Well, he's the head coach of an AHL team. I wonder if he'll resign too.
Anyhow, how is this your backup guy for the US hockey team? You didn't need to convince me before that the league’s culture was most likely one of silence and bearing reports around issues of gendered violence, but the new Chicago report makes it pretty damn clear the teams will choose winning above anything else, and it makes it even easier to believe that Guerin would have chosen deliberate silence and pushed that on others. I really even know what to say at this point. I think if you care about this, you should absolutely listen to Shireen's interview two weeks back with Evan Moore and Jashvina Shah, the co-authors of the new book Game Misconduct: Hockey's Toxic Culture and How to Fix It. Also give a listen to Brenda's interview last week with Dr. Jennifer Doyle on the structures of sexual assault within sport. For now, let's just do what we do and burn all of this. Burn.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: All right. There was some good this week. It is time for our torchbearers. Jess, who was our no excuses leaders of the week?
Jessica: The French hockey federation, which has committed to paying its men's and women's ice hockey players equal bonuses – despite the fact that the International Hockey Federation and the IOC provide men's teams more money for qualifying for Beijing.
Lindsay: CC: US Soccer. It can be done! [laughter] Amira, who's our boss of the week?
Amira: Former WNBA player Alana Beard, who’s part of an ownership group trying to bring an expansion WNBA team to Oakland, baby!
Lindsay: Woo! Jess, our ceiling-shatterer of the week is…?
Jessica: Mithali Raj, who we've honored on this show before. She is the first woman cricketer to receive the Khel Ratna award, which is the highest sporting honor in India. Incredible, yet again.
Lindsay: Amira, who are investors of the week?
Amira: That would be the owners of Kansas City's NWSL team, who are now the Kansas City Current, who announced this week that they're building a $70 million state of the art arena for the team – the first stadium built exclusively for an NWSL team. Go ahead on.
Lindsay: Amazing. And can I get a drumroll for our torchbearer of the week?
[drumroll]
Our torchbearer for this week is Josh Cavallo. Josh is a midfielder for the Adelaide United, and he came out as gay this week and is now the only openly gay male top level professional soccer player in the world, which is quite hard to believe today. But I just wanted to read in Josh's own words a little bit about what this meant to him. He said, “It’s been a journey to get to this point in my life. I have been fighting my sexuality for over six years now, and I'm glad I can put that to rest.”
Josh Cavallo: Growing up, I always felt the need to hide myself, you know? Because I was ashamed, and ashamed I'll never be able to do what I love and be gay, you know, hiding who I truly am to pursue a dream I always wished for as a kid. All I want to do is play football and be treated equally. I want to show all the other people that are struggling and that are scared, whoever it may be, that don’t act like someone you're not. Be yourself. You are meant to be yourself, not someone else.
Lindsay: Congratulations to Josh. I think his bravery will help so, so many. And I just hope that he is treated everywhere with the respect and love and normality that he deserves for this. What's good? Anybody got a what's good? I'll start! I'll start. I'm going on a real vacation. Ha ha! Real, real vacation, leaving tomorrow, Monday morning. So, by the time you're listening to this, I'll be gone. I'm going to San Francisco for a couple of days, and then to Sonoma wine country with my aunt. So, so long, suckers! [laughter] Jess?
Jessica: I'm so excited for you. That’s such a fun trip. I love animals and Halloween costumes, so thank you to everyone who has provided me with those. Also just like babies in Halloween costumes. This morning on Twitter, I saw a newborn in a Subway wrapper, like the blanket looked like a Subway wrapper, and they put like a little hat on him that was like lettuce. [laughter] So he looked like a Subway sub. That’s just so good.
My talk at Union College went really well and it was so great to be able to talk to college students again about my work and also their experiences. It had been like three years since I had done that, so I really just enjoyed that opportunity. And then my family is very into the show on Netflix called Raising Dion, which is about a widow raising her young Black son who suddenly has superhero capabilities. And it's such a good superhero show, but also like the kids in it are so wonderful. And we are still waiting to find out who the bad guy is, but I have my suspicions. So, Raising Dion.
Lindsay: Amira.
Amira: Hi, I'm Amira. What's good in my world? By the time you hear this, I will have finally, finally been relieved of six weeks of solo parenting. Here's the thing about three kids…When you're doing it partnered, it's like zone defense. You got it covered. It's fine. When it's three against one, it is not fine. It is very unfine. For four weeks I was like, I'm killing it, I'm the best at this. This is so great. And the last two weeks have not been that. [laughs] Have been a mess.
Lindsay: I just feel like I should note that Amira literally has a bandaid on her head right now. [laughter]
Amira: Like, when I tell you everything is just a mess, like, falling apart. It's a mess. But Michael and Samari are driving back. Samari, on Friday, flew by herself for the first time. And what's good is that I survived that entire experience, because first of all my child is fiercely independent, and it was worse because she was like, “Don't I look like I'm going to college? I think I look like I'm going to college. Columbia class of 2030, here I come!” And I was like, you are not helping my heart whatsoever! And then they make you wait for the plane. And like, I know Jess has done this with her child and I have other friends who've done this. So I'm like, I know that it's okay. But there's something about watching a plane push back with your child on it. And I was trying to be stoic, and I was losing my shit. But she made it there safely.
She's having a wonderful weekend back in State College with her best friend. But her and Mike will be driving back to Austin, and I will not be solo parenting after Tuesday. So I'm very excited about that. Also, Eternals premieres this week, and my Massachusetts family is coming into town next weekend. So, there is lots of fun stuff on the horizon, which is good because it's giving me the energy and push I need to make it through the next 48 hours with the boys at home.
Lindsay: My favorite thing is that every single time I hear a new Samari story, it's just more like Amira. Like, it's just more– [laughs] Like, every single time, and every single time I’ve seen a photo of her, she looks more like Amira. Like, she’s almost your height. It’s just–
Amira: No, she is! It’s really scary.
Lindsay: You’ve just raised yourself!
Jessica: Amira has raised herself. Yes.
Amira: It's really terrifying, actually. And like, I try to tell her that, like, you terrify me. She did company shots for her theater company and this was her shot, and like, why does she look like that?
Lindsay: Because she’s you! [laughter] Because she’s you! [Amira laughs]
Jessica: Oh, that's great though.
Lindsay: I realized I didn't write anything down for what we're watching this week, probably because I'm not going to be watching anything! But there's the World Series going on; NBA’s back. I am a Charlotte Hornets stan now, in case you didn't know. We’ve got NWSL playoffs coming up this weekend, and college basketball starting really soon. [laughs] So anyways, there's a lot on the horizon. Soccer, lots of soccer. Okay. That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. And Shelby Weldon is our web and social media guru. We are part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
You can follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcasts. I would love to return from vacation with some new five-star ratings! For transcripts and links you can check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. There's also a link for merch at our Bonfire store. Some holiday gifts coming up. And of course, thank you, thank you to our patrons. Enjoy the extra episode this week, and your support just means the world for us. Want to become a donor? patreon.com/burnitalldown! Burn on, and not out.