Episode 243: Hanging Up The Racket: Retirement and Aging in Sport

In this episode Brenda Elsey, Shireen Ahmed and Lindsay Gibbs talk aging and retirement in sports. But first, they discuss fun sports moments of the last week, like Justin Bieber's new Maple Leafs Jersey. Then, they unpack the ways that aging is viewed, delayed and exacerbated through sport. From the recent surprise retirement of 25-year-old tennis phenom Ash Barty to the unretirement of Tom Brady to the ways athletes in many sports are playing longer and longer, they also discuss the ways that personal economics, identity and redemption narratives are linked to how and when (and if!) athletes retire.

Following this discussion, you'll hear a preview of Brenda's interview with Jon Morosi, MLB Network broadcaster on all things Major League Baseball. Next, they burn the worst of sports this week on the Burn Pile. Then, they celebrate those making sports better including Torchbearer of the Week, aforementioned tennis superstar Ash Barty for her success on the court and leadership in moving on to her next chapter. They wrap up the show with What's Good in their in their lives and What We'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

How does aging affect athletic performance? https://theconversation.com/how-does-aging-affect-athletic-performance-36051

How Long Can We Play – and what does that question even mean to you? Inside the quest to prolong athletic mortality: https://www.si.com/nba/2021/10/21/how-long-can-we-play-daily-cover

Why we’re going to see more and more older athletes: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/15/17468432/jeff-bercovici-play-on-sport-health-age-fitness-science

Aging in motion: Research is exploring what makes older athletes tick and how high-level sport participation affects their well-being https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/04/cover-aging-motion

Transcript

Brenda: Welcome to this week of Burn It All Down. It's the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm here today with my wonderful co-hosts Shireen Ahmed and Lindsay Gibbs. Today on the show, we're going to talk about aging and retirement in sports, on the heels of some surprising and not so surprising retirements and un-retirements; metaphorically burn the garbage in sport this week, and celebrate those who are trying to change all that. Before we get to that segment, I want to ask both of you…We are recording on Monday morning, so very, very happy welcome to the week. What the fuck happened in sports this week for you? Anything funny? Quick little thing, Shireen?

Shireen: I am obsessed with women's hockey, and I shall remain that way for a very long time. [Brenda laughs] My what's good is going to be all about soccer, but it's a bit of a plot twist, but I'm happy. I like sports.

Brenda: [laughs] Okay. Cliffhanger. Speaking of hockey, Justin Bieber redesigned the Maple Leafs jersey, and it looks more like a weed leaf than ever. [laughs] And it's so weird.

Shireen: Well, that shit's legal up here. So we good, right?

Brenda: Down here too. Quit exoticizing us, Shireen. In the US, I mean. Come on.

Shireen: Lindsay, are you guys legal with weed? Are you even allowed to say so?

Lindsay: “Legal with weed?” That was the… [laughter] Kids these days! What are you doing down there? Are you legal with weed? 

Brenda: It's Monday morning. I'm just going to repeat, it's Monday morning. [laughter]

Lindsay: Oh my god.

Shireen: I actually did go to a Leafs game, the one that you speak of, and Justin Bieber was there, but I did not meet him or hang out with him. I think it might happen with the Biebs. I'm a Belieber. So like, they did give me a jersey, the Toronto Maple Leafs invited me to this game against the New Jersey Devils. And I've never in my entire 25, 28 years of living in this city, I've never been to a Maple Leafs game. I've avoided it successfully because I'm a Habs fan, even though they’re a trash team/organization. But I went and it was fun. I got free food and I got to hang out with my friends, a lot of melanated people, and it was pretty fucking awesome. 

Brenda: Well, don't tell us whether the jersey inspired any activities, but I'm glad you had fun. [laughs] Lindsay, anything before we move on to issues of substance? [laughter]

Lindsay: Yeah, this has gone I feel like more off the rails than usual in our intro. I don't know. No, I mean, look, my whole world, if you've been following on Twitter, my whole world is women's basketball these days. I've just kind of been completely engaged into the tournament. I've been covering it. And I just will say, like, I mean, Raina Perez’s steal and layup at the end of that NC State-Notre Dame game, I didn't get to watch it live because I was in another press conference, but that's a sport moment that was electrifying. So, that's my cool sports moment.

Brenda: So, in this segment, we're going to talk about hanging up the boots, the rackets, the skates – retirement and aging in sport. As sports is a way to think through a lot of social issues, and we argue on this show, are deeply connected to politics and inequality. Aging is another one of those topics that comes up a lot, and in interesting ways in sports. So, if we're meditating upon all that, part of it’s because there's been some really kind of dramatic and surprising recent news. Linz, what's going on in the tennis world?

Lindsay: Yeah, 25 year old Ash Barty, the Australian tennis player, suddenly announced her retirement this week. If you're unfamiliar, let's just do a quick recap of her story. She's won three majors, including the 2019 French Open on clay, on grass at Wimbledon last year, and then just this January as we've discussed she won the Australian Open. She was the first Australian player in 44 years to win her country's grand slam. She's spent 121 weeks at the #1 ranking, including the past 114. She's very, very good and meant a lot to the sport. And it's a surprise to see a player retire so young and at the peak of their sport, of their abilities. But Ash has always been a little bit different. She actually retired in her teens and went and became a cricket player and then returned to tennis. So, she had an early burnout, left the sport, came back, dominated, and now is leaving at 25. And she announced it via an Instagram video…

Ash Barty: I know how much work it takes to bring the best out of yourself. And it's just I don't have that in me anymore. I don't have the physical drive, the emotional want, and kind of everything it takes to challenge yourself at the very top of the level anymore. And I think I just know that I'm absolutely…I am spent. I just know physically I have nothing more to give, and that for me is success. I've given absolutely everything I can to this beautiful sport of tennis, and I’m really happy with that. And for me, that is my success.

Lindsay: …Which I just loved, as a very different way of kind of reframing success. And there's so many noteworthy things about this that I think we'll get to in and out of our discussion here. But one is that, you know, she’s earned $24 million in her short career. And that's a testament to the work Billie Jean King and the Original 9 did building the WTA. It's work that's, you know, we talk about women's sports leagues now, like, that work began in the early 70s. So, it's been 50 years in the making, but it's significant that a female athlete is able to retire at 25 with generational wealth. And it's certainly a privilege not a lot have, but I have so many thoughts and feelings about this, like I said, we'll get to it. 

Brenda: Yeah. There's a lot of aspects of this topic, whether it's, you know, retiring at a young age or trying to extend your athletic life, which has also been a big sort of theme because there's been a seismic change. It's interesting to see Ash retire so early. What we've kind of been noting over the last years is people retiring so late, people sticking around so much more often, looking at the World Cup and how many of these athletes are now well into their thirties. And we just did not see that in the past in the same way. And so it's interesting because traditionally there's very, especially with women, little data, very little studies done on age and sport. And so there's the assumption, you know, that women in particular don't really matter after the post-menopausal age. Like, if they were going to play sports, it was just to make their bodies ready to have babies, you know, and become better mothers. So once they're done with that, you know, just pshh, who cares? 

So we've been seeing some of the first studies come out and they're pretty dramatic about how good it really is for you to keep trying to play both team sports and any vigorous exercise as you age. It slows cognitive aging and helps with longevity, improvement in depression. And this is even more pronounced in older people than it is for younger people. So, it's kind of a seismic shift over the years, and Ash really, really went into a different direction in a professional sense. But like you said, she'll probably find different ways to stay competitive. She doesn't seem like somebody who's at a loss for things to do with herself. Shireen?

Shireen: So, Stuart Kim, a geneticist at Stanford University, he does research on genetic factors and injury. And this is when we talk about retirement…He talks about how the biggest reason why athletes retire is that careers are shortened or ended because of reoccurring or accumulated injuries over a period of time, because don't forget, elite athletes begin as young as like…If we’re talking gymnastics, as young as five, or a little bit older in some other things. But presumably by 10 they're fully involved in this type of rigorous practice, disciplines, sport specific training, et cetera, et cetera. And so Dr. Kim does work on the genetic relationship to injuries like stress fractures. So basically the argument is also genetic predisposition to injury will affect contract negotiations. So if you have an ACL tear that's common in your family or you have the genes that are connected to that, it will affect your “market value.” 

Now, this is a piece that we'll have in the show notes. It was actually an interview with Jeff Bercovici who wrote a book called Play On, and it's about aging athletes. And I thought that this was just really interesting because we don't think about that. Like, I didn't think about market value of aging athletes, but that's a very real thing in these systems that are predicated upon money and capitalism and all those things. But like, we know that shiny newer things are more supple and more agile, but like, experience counts a lot in competition, it counts so much. So like, how do we value? But also the natural process of the body is to age. So, I mean, I think about all of these things, like, this has had anything. I'm in my feelings about this one, Bren.

Brenda: [laughs] Well, as the senior sect of this crew, I think we might be the right people to talk about our feelings with this. [laughter] You know, it's been interesting, as I was reading about this, one of the things I didn't realize was the huge kind of industry it is among older athletes to spend their own personal money to try to avoid those injuries. And they do it in different ways. LeBron James said he spends about a million dollars of his own money a year for private treatments and anti-aging treatments. That's astronomical. Roger Federer says he sleeps in some weird chamber 12 hours a day. So, you know, I guess one thing to remember in all of this is that, like, yes, we've seen all these inspiring careers and all these Olympians, but you know, for those of us at a regular amateur level and amateur amount of money and with our broken ass healthcare system, these things aren't just necessarily possible. And they really do help. They talk about the ways in which being able to sleep 12 hours allows Federer to repair his body and to be fresh in different ways. And for a lot of us who have different kinds of jobs and kids, there's just no way I'm getting 12 hours of sleep a day. I don't get eight hours of sleep a day. I don't know what that would even look like. 

Shireen: I have aging parents, and we all do, but like, my dad's in his late seventies and my mom is 69 for the seventh time this year. It's like, I see them sleeping all the time. I used to be able to fully function on four to six hours of sleep. Not like that anymore. It's harder for me, literally, in the morning. And I'm still playing soccer. And me playing soccer is not as pretty as it used to be, like, the after effects. I get up in the morning and I'm like, I feel that in places where I should not. [laughs] But I do. It has a lot to do with not being in shape as well after two years. But it also has a lot to do with like, I can't play the way that I wanted to, like, in my head I'm moving. Like if I'm deking someone out and turning, going right, right? I move a lot slower than I think I am. So then I play competitively about once a week. So like, I'm sure if I had a whole staff, it would look different, but I am the whole staff of this house. Like, would I like to slow down aging? No, I'm contemplating even like coloring my gray hair. I haven't even done that. Can I be committed to anti-aging processes? No, probably not.

Brenda: Right? I mean, it's a fascinating little industry to think about, and to think about who has access to the most kind of cutting edge techniques. And there's also just the struggle of, you know, giving up. You can understand something like we were saying, that you've played since you were five years old or whenever, it has been a central part of your social life, your mental health. And people really struggle giving it up, even with injuries facing them. So, you know, there is a real reconciliation with what can my body do? What do I want it to do? How much am I going to press it? You know, I guess there's a different age that that happens for everybody. And it's kind of just a fascinating process. How has it worked in women's basketball, Linz?

Lindsay: I think it's very interesting, because we talk about LeBron and we talk about Tom Brady and all these things and all the money they're spending. And then, you know, on the other hand, you kind of have female athletes who are trying to push their careers later and later, like Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi I'm thinking, in basketball, of course. And both of them have completely overhauled their diets in the last five years and their fitness plans and pay for personal trainers. They don't go overseas anymore. That's the thing you see with a lot of the WNBA players, even though the biggest paycheck can come from overseas. I think once they reach a point in their life where they're making money through endorsements and everything, they kind of decide the best thing to do is, play the shorter WNBA season and try and make more money through merchandise deals and things like that. 

Another thing I think about, so, I'm 35, and I noticed even travel these days is harder for me. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't bounce back after long drives and plane rides. And so then you think about these WNBA players still being on commercial flights, right? And you think of how much that hurts as the aging process…I remember, I think it was Candace Parker who, when they were in the WNBA bubble in the 2020 season, she kind of said, like, this is actually, in weird ways, because I don't have to hop on a flight between things, like, this is easier on my body because I'm not doing all of this travel. So, on the other end of the spectrum, we see athletes like Lauren Holiday retiring very early, not because she definitely feels like she's done, but because her husband makes a lot more money in his pro job and they want to start a family and this is the most logical thing to do. So you see the lack of money that women athletes make really shortened their careers if they're trying to prioritize other things. It might just not make logical sense for them to continue being a pro athlete. 

Brenda: Yeah.

Shireen: And as we talk about women and families and athletes, and they use their bodies for their careers, essentially, I think about some of them, like really legendary ones, like Formiga, 43 – she was the oldest footballer in Olympic history, seven appearances at the Olympics. That's wild. And you know, like, I always joke that, you know, there's this person, whether it was Formiga or Gianluigi Buffon, former goalkeeper for Italy playing in their forties. I was just like, yeah, keeping that for the old people. But just watching their training sessions exhausts me. So I can't imagine the mental acuity required for this as well, because it's not just a physical thing. And like, these are players that have played for decades. They've battled systems of homophobia, systems of sexism, systems of classism. And those are fights that I think we also need to take into consideration here, and that is exhausting as well. So the fact that Formiga played and stayed as long as she did, where she did, for me is…It’s unbelievable. 

Brenda: So, another fascinating aspect of this is the nostalgia one, and the narratives of retirement. I read when I was prepping for this about Steve Kerr saying that…He said, “Phil Jackson used to talk about retiring from playing as a ‘death’ and tell us we all had to prepare for the loss. I used to think he was being dramatic, but now I understand exactly what he was talking about.” So, I think we've all been waiting for like five years for the Messi and Ronaldo era to end. [laughs] And it's been so rare to have in soccer, in world football, even one player that has influence over a game of 22 for so long, and to have two of them at once has been absolutely mind boggling from a historical standpoint. So, the way in which they've changed their games to kind of adapt to being older, the ways in which you see them being used differently by coaches is in itself a kind of like physical testament. You don't even have to say how that's changing. That's making its own narrative. Once you start subbing them in, once you start seeing them in at minute 65…So it's like a physical embodiment of the way that's going to go. Shireen, how else do we see it in that sport? 

Shireen: Another way that's really interesting, particularly in the world of football, is how different leagues represent different things. For a lot of people, the Premier League or playing in Europe, for example, is the hottest place to play. And I'm talking about men's football specifically. So then what happens is you get players like David Beckham, Andrea Pirlo, Thierry Henry, David Villa, but they come and they play in the MLS in the United States at the end of their career. So, a lot of people argue that the MLS is actually a retirement league. It's where they wrap up their careers. As we know, Beckham retired in LA, also was interested in living in the United States, has a family here, et cetera, all these things to take into consideration. But the level of play some could argue is not as intense or as “elite” as it is in Europe. I don't know if I would say that. Honestly, I don't know if I would argue that. Anyways, the point is here is that there's ways in which we see patterns of elite players and top athletes moving to different places. Like when a player moves from the Premier League or La Liga or Serie A where like, oh, they're retiring. [laughs]

Brenda: Yeah. And I kind of love that for soccer, right? You don't necessarily have that in other sports. You can go down in terms of what's required of you in terms of competition and even make more money. Like, that's kind of great. I mean, when Lindsay's talking about women's basketball, they have to give up the bigger paycheck, you know, to continue on. It’s kind of the reverse with all these leagues. That's kind of the fun, international part of it. And I mean, one of the other things besides Ash Barty was the un-retirement of Tom Brady the past two weeks. I mean, I never thought for a second that he was going to retire. So, I would like to say that I forced everyone to witness my no way. But I was kind of interested in the narrative of families. Like in the past, when athletes would retire in the 20th century, it was just like never considered that they would be doing that to help out their family. Like, that was nothing you're going to say, like, “Johan Cruyff retires – or Pelé – to spend more time with his children.” 

So, I think it's actually kind of progress that we see people even considering that as a factor, that they would want to throw themselves into the domestic labor that they hadn't obviously been able to really contribute to that much. In terms of all the jokes like, oh, well, Gisele asked Tom to drop the kids off at school and then he immediately un-retired kind of was good, because it was recognizing that A) that shit is hard, and that B) you know, fathers should have to do that as well. And that's really, I could just say at least from a soccer standpoint, that's very new, this idea that you would be excited about spending time with your children and look at fatherhood seriously. That is not something that like in the 1960s they would have asked male athletes at all. So, there's interesting kind of narratives that are being spun all the time. Linz? 

Lindsay: Yeah. I mean, it just keeps going on and on. I found it weird, a couple a weeks ago, Charli Turner Thorne, we mentioned I think in our torchbearers, the head coach at Arizona State, announced she was retiring from women's basketball coaching at the age of 55, and everyone was like, oh my god, you're so young, you know? Oh my god, oh my god. [laughs] I was like, I don't know. She's made a lot of money. One of the things she mentioned was spending time with her parents while they're still alive. And I mean, head coaching is a terribly demanding job! [laughs] I'm always more surprised when people want to hang on until like their eighties. I'm like, go home and sleep! Like, I don't know, you've earned it. But like we talked about earlier, I think the narrative just goes that for athletes, for coaches, this isn't really a made up media narrative. This is a narrative that's been perpetuated by the athletes themselves, that sport is life, that sport is their full identity. 

I think one of the most interesting things, you know, circling back is like, when I think Ash Barty's retirement was such a surprise because in tennis we're so used to seeing athletes whose entire identity is tied to their competitiveness. I mean, we see it with Tom Brady coming back, right? They don't know who they are off the court, off the field. And so I think one of the things was so disarming about what Ash did was she was like, I'm a 25 year old and I know exactly who I am and I know what I want to do and I'm okay with having dreams and identities and wants outside of the tennis court. Like I don't need this to be who I am. And it's a little unnerving whenever someone's that self certain about it. [laughter] It's a little bit unnerving.

But you know, I think Ash Barty’s retirement was such a surprise because, in tennis, what we've been seeing lately is more and more athletes pushing the boundaries of aging. Tennis is an incredibly demanding sport. It's just you out there, suffering doubles when you've got two people. You’re traveling all over the world on a week by week basis, never knowing where you're going to be next. And there's no guaranteed salaries, right? Like, if you're injured, you're out money. And so it used to be a sport where retirement at the age of 30 was very, very, very normal, right? But now you've got Serena, Venus, Federer, Nadal and even Djokovic playing late thirties and forties and still competing at the top level. And I think it's really kind of skewed the perception of how demanding of a sport it is. But I think that that's another reason as to why the tennis world was just completely shocked, because they're used to seeing our stars break down any barrier possible to keep going.

Brenda: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we can extrapolate that from sports, you know, as they try to raise the age of social security, as people, say, hey, people can live longer, so we live in capitalism, let’s make them work longer. I mean, we don't have pensions anymore. [laughs] A lot of people have to keep working. After 2009, I had colleagues that lost so much of their retirement that they decided to un-retire as well. So, I mean, it's a narrative where you're happy to see if society can age better and better, but at the same time, you don't want it to be flipped around to now you can just work harder, longer type of a thing. So, I mean, speaking of that then, I just want to wrap up by saying, with all of the athletes that have expressed the trouble that they have with retirement, with my own dad who retires and un-retires not as an athlete about 16 different times. [laughs] I mean, what do we do? What do the sports I owe them? What did people do to make this process the happiest one that it can be? Linz?

Lindsay: To me, this is just where labor unions, labor unions, labor unions are absolutely crucial, right? For setting up funds, for demanding healthcare and ongoing treatment, ongoing payouts, you know? Making sure that there are processes to protect these athletes and their working rights, no matter the sport. And also to go back and make sure that the athletes who came before them and built the foundation of the sport up are taken care of. So, when I think of retirement, I just think unions, unions, unions, unions.

Shireen: Just to backtrack a little bit, and I love what Linz is saying, I don't know if you all remember the 2015 NCAA tournament, Kevin Ware’s injury, Louisville's game against Duke. Now, the reason I bring this up is this young, really talented player…Essentially his bone in the injury came out of his flesh. And this was televised. Probably, in my opinion, one of the most gruesome injuries I've ever witnessed. The reason that I bring this up is because I started to ask questions and I realized that if he was out and it was career ending, he wouldn't get medical support for that as an amateur athlete, as a “student athlete.” He wouldn’t. But no athlete imagines themselves going out like that, right? Like, when you're young, you’re 18, you commit to a school – you don't think like that. And my point here is just to say, especially just echoing Lindsay on unions, extended healthcare is really important, particularly for folks who use their bodies as their work. Like, I think about Kevin Ware a lot, probably more than I should, just because I'm like, I wonder how he's doing? I wonder if he's okay? Because that was just frightening.

And yeah, you're agile and you're young, and your bones are definitely a different level, but again, that type of injury is so severe, that trauma on the body…Does he get help? And I only talk about Ware for the reason that he is an example of other young athletes who have had…What happens to them later? Like, do they get support? And what happens if they have an injury like that later in their career? And what type of benefits do they receive? And I really…And sometimes injuries can affect, depending on what kind of injury you have, can affect other things. If you want to have a family later, depending on the injury. So, I think about all this stuff. I also live in a country where we have universal healthcare. So for the most part, I'm like, yeah, that's good, but we don't have physiotherapy covered or dentistry, and it's expensive. And like, I think about all these things and how they're human rights and they should have access to this, particularly, like I said, for people that have used their bodies. 

Brenda: Yeah. I think for the first time we've seen Premier League academies and other academies who, you know, often the boys live there from 8 years old on, and they get to the age of signing a senior contract at 18, and that's when they'll retire. [laughs] And I mean, it's just brutal, and you don't know what to do. And oftentimes they're like, even, you know, migrants, and they've left countries and they can't afford to get back home and the club didn't even provide that. And so there's been at least a little bit of a reckoning in recent years with this type of a retirement, which is ultimately, you know, you just didn't make it or you have one or two years of a contract, but you haven't raked in a lot of money and you haven't walked away with an education that can arm you ready for the job market. So, you know, there has to be these exit programs. And it seems like it's really confusing, because it can range from like 18 years old to like 40 years old. But in any case, there's a need to recognize that the exit from work…And unions do do this very well, a lot of times. It needs to be something that we should account for. We love the sport. We love the athletes. Let’s see them transition in a way that we don't have to wonder “Are they okay?”

This week, I interviewed Jon Morosi, NHL and MLB network broadcaster, on baseball's new CBA, Spanish language learning and baseball, and what we can expect from the upcoming season. 

Jon Morosi: It's just so tired and so like old American way of saying this, “Look, here's this young man, he's coming up from Mexico, he's 22 years old, but he’s never seen Major League pressure before.” That's nonsense. Turn on a winter ball game. He's got a crowd of 12,000 that sounds like 55,000 screaming from pitch one to the end of the game. That's pressure! Going into a game and playing the Toronto Blue Jays or playing the Cleveland Guardians – that’s not pressure for them! Think about their story. I just, whenever I hear that, I just shake my head and say, you guys, just get a clue. Get on a plane and get a clue. 

Brenda: And now it's time for the burn pile, where we metaphorically throw all of the garbage in sport on a giant pyre and release all of the evilness from it into, I don't know, maybe some Pandora box where it can never escape. Shireen, what do you want to throw on the pile this week? 

Shireen: So, basically y’all know I have a problem with men talking generally, [Brenda laughs] and this is just another case in point for me. So, the International Skating Union apologized last week during the world championship because one of its commentators made a disparaging, offensive remark about one of the skaters. Simon Reed, who is a British commentator, thought his mic was off, and called Meagan Duhamel – she’s a two time world pairs champion – he called her “that bitch from Canada.” And I have no idea what Reed’s relationship or knowledge of Duhamel is, but I don't fucking care. This is a problem. We know we've seen in the Olympics, the way that commentators speak about Black women's bodies. We’ve heard them talk about Caster when she ran in Rio, like, this is such a problem at such a level. And honestly, I'm going to say it like this. Meagan Duhamel is a world champion. I've never met her, but seems to be a lovely person. Like, what the fuck, Simon Reed? 

Anyways, he will be removed and never commentate on those competitions again. That's what the ISU said. Of course I want to burn this, but I would also like to suggest a policy where men just don't commentate, ever, on anything. I think this is fair. I don't think I'm asking too much. But in this in particular…I'm going to be bad about this for a long time. And the problem is, is that the impunity with which normally they do it. Like, this type of misogyny, this type of sexism is rampant. He just got caught. That's all. And he hasn't issued a non-apology as of yet, I don't believe, the typical non-apologies that are offered. You know, they range from, “I will talk to my pastor” to “it's not a reflection of who I am,” et cetera, et cetera. But I don't fucking care. I don't ever want to ever hear a man talk about a woman in sports again. I just don’t. So, I want to take all of that and I want to put it on the burn pile. 

All: Burn.

Brenda: Sadly, this is a burn that's been on the pile before, and it just keeps coming. Last Thursday, March 24th, the US played Mexico at Estadio Azteca. It was a 0-0 tie, kind of…I mean, I hate to say it, but it kind of doesn't matter, they're both qualified. Estadio Azteca didn't even fill up, because they made the tickets so expensive as a way to try to discourage what they, you know, how they characterize the quote unquote “riff raff” that would say homophobic chants. So, I think what we've learned from that or what we're about to learn is that actually homophobia is a cross class problem. And even if you made tickets very expensive, it can happen, because it did. I don't know what to say. I don't even want to put out on the burn pile because like I don't even…I’m so upset. It just keeps happening. What the fuck? Like, you're not fans. The players have asked you to stop. The coaching staff has asked you to stop. The president of the country has asked you to stop. 

And all I can think about is the gay people that were there at the match, that just love soccer and this team, and had to stand right next to someone screaming in the loudest voice possible a gay slur. And it's so awful, and it just keeps happening again and again and again. And they do these campaigns to drown out the chant, and it doesn't work. And there’s sanctions, and those kind of work. And then as soon as those kind of work, they're like, hey, we want to get right back in there, and we're sure we're going to take out anybody who does that. But they don’t. And they don't ban them for the time. Also though, what in the world makes you want to do that, to hurt and create the conditions for normalizing violence against gay people at a soccer match? Like, what is the relationship there right now? When the players have begged you to stop? 

So anyway, I'll wrap it up. I don't have solutions. I just have burning, burning fire. And you would think that I'm tired of it by now. You would think that like I'm less angry than I was 10 years ago, but I'm not, I'm not. So, ha ha. I'm going to keep being angry and put you on the burn pile and you're never getting off of it. Not you terrible so-called fans, not the federation and not anybody that apologizes for it. Burn, burn, burn.

All: Burn.

Brenda: Linz.

Lindsay: Yeah, trigger warning here. I'm talking Deshaun Watson. There will be mention of sexual misconduct. So, I think it's been a couple of weeks since we've brought up Deshaun Watson on the show, so I just kind of wanted to burn everything that's been happening with him. And I want to just kind of review. So, on March 11th, a grand jury declined to indict Watson on criminal charges for the allegations of sexual assault and misconduct from the massage therapist. This was a criminal case in Texas. Immediately after that, everybody in the NFL front offices started partying and fighting to get Deshaun Watson on their team. Adam Schefter, NFL insider at ESPN, had a tweet that said, “This is why Deshaun Watson from the beginning welcomed to police investigation. He felt he knew that the truth would come out, and today a grand jury did not charge him on any of the criminal complaints.” Of course, we know it is very, very hard to go forward with a criminal case in sexual assault cases, because of the lack of evidence, and it does not mean that he is innocent, and there are still 22 civil cases going that he is fighting. 

This did not stop reporters from live tweeting the race to get Deshaun Watson. I don't even know what to compare it to. It was probably the most tasteless, nauseating things I've seen in sports. And it went on for a week. And he finally decided that he would sign with the Browns, and then things just got ickier from there, believe it or not. The contract was the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history, a five-year agreement worth $230 million. The previous highest guarantee contract was Aaron Rodgers at $150 million. And then – wait for it, wait for it, it gets worse – his base salary for his first year is only $1 million, meaning they are fully expecting the NFL to suspend him during his first year for misconduct, and they structured the contract so that he will lose out on as little money as possible during that year. Is that not the most fucking disgusting shit you've ever heard?

Brenda: Wow. That is organized, premeditated disgusting shit. 

Shireen: It's very strategic. 

Lindsay: It makes my entire body coil up. Once again, the Browns, of course, as we know, the playbook for this, like to say that they had an “extensive investigation” into his conduct, but we know that they did not reach out to the women who accused Watson, nor did they wait for the depositions in the civil case to come out, which will become public and we will find out more. That's only a matter of time. At the end of last week, in a vomit inducing press conference with the Browns, Watson said over and over again that he never assaulted any women, he never disrespected any women. He said that he was raised by a single mom and aunt, so he would never disrespect women. And also said that he didn't need counseling because he didn't do anything wrong. It’s just…I shouldn't be shocked that we're here and that it's this bad. I, like a lot of people, got into the sportswriting sphere, a lot of women did, around the Ray Rice allegations, which were now like 8, 9 years ago at this point? And we're still here. Time's a flat circle. It's only getting worse. Burn. I mean, burn doesn't even cover it, but it can be therapeutic sometimes. So, 3, 2, 1…

All: Burn.

Brenda: After all of that awfulness, let's try to focus for a moment on the people who are out there trying to change the worst of sports and bringing out the best in it for this week, our torchbearers. Shireen?

Shireen: I would like to say congratulations to Alexis Hopkins. She's our flame catcher. She became the first woman in men's professional baseball to be drafted and signed a contract for an on-field position for the minor league team Genomes baseball in Lexington, Kentucky.

Brenda: And the legal eagles for this week are the Chilean organization and friends of the show, ANJUFF, the organization of women's footballers. They achieved a monumental win when the Chilean congress passed legislation requiring football clubs to actually contract women players. 

Lindsay: Wow!

Brenda: I know, right? Right?

Lindsay: Wow. This week, we’ve got fire numbers: 216,890 people attended the first and second rounds of women's March Madness, an all time record.

Shireen: Just want to say congratulations to sparks on ice – Concordia University Stingers women's hockey team won the youth sports championship! Amazing. 

Brenda: All right, let's do a drumroll. 

[drumroll] 

Lindsay who are our flamethrowers of the week, our torchbearers, our people out there giving us hope?

Lindsay: Who else but Ash Barty?

Brenda: Yay! [claps]

Lindsay: We went through your accomplishments at the top of the show, so I'm not going to repeat. I'm just going to say you were a leader on the court, and now you're leading with the way you're leaving the court, and your legacy will go on forever. And also, homebodies unite. [laughter]

Brenda: In dark times, we like to talk about what's good in our world. Shireen?

Shireen: Canada is going to the men's World Cup! Friends, the impossible has occurred. I care about men's soccer in Canada. It happens. We qualified yesterday, beating Jamaica. I'm not gonna lie, it is pretty damn exciting. It has been a long time since I've cared about Canadian men's soccer, about 36 years, which was the last time we had qualified for the men's World Cup. 1986 was the last appearance Canada had in that tournament. So, I care. I'm not going to lie and pretend. I'm excited. I'm excited to also amplify women's soccer in this country at the same time, but I will allow myself some joy. I'm all about joy these days. I'm also, as I mentioned at the top of the show, all about women's hockey. I just spent a weekend with the PWHPA in Peterborough, Ontario – the home of Quaker oatmeal, which y'all did not know! And it was fun. Also, the headquarters of Kawartha Dairy, best ice cream in Ontario, in my opinion. 

Speaking of ice cream, I got sent a lovely little gift from Righteous Gelato, a Canadian company of gelato. And I made a reel out of it, because they sent me a hoodie, they sent me their new spring flavors, and I got to taste them and I made a cute little video about it on my Instagram and posted it. I use ice cream as a tool of resistance, and gelato while I watch sports in particular.  So, that's been a lot of what my joy is. You know, I had a really fun moment with my son, Sallahuddin. My boys do chores, and one of the great reasons to have children is the labor force that is built in. So, he washed the bathroom yesterday and cleaned it all up, and he was so proud of it. He's like, I would like you to come see it. He lit a candle and put it in there. And I really felt that, like, there's a tremendous amount of pride when you clean something up, and he was relishing in that pride of cleaning the bathroom. So, that was a very special moment. He didn't transition and clean the dishes out of the sink, but that's fine. I'll take the clean bathroom. So, that’s my joy. 

Lindsay: Yeah, I am Final Four bound. I honestly cannot believe it. I leave first, first, first thing Wednesday morning to go to Minneapolis for the women's Final Four. This trip is, a lot of things among them, this is Power Plays. If you're a paid subscriber, for Power Plays, you are paying for my airfare, paying for my hotel, my Airbnb for a week, paying for all my meals there. My first trip with Power Plays was supposed to be two years ago [laughs] during that Final Four, and then of course the pandemic happened, and I got out of the practice with traveling. But I'm a little overwhelmed, I'm not gonna lie. There's a lot of joy, but it's a lot. And especially, if you kind of can send me good vibes, I think anyone who's followed me knows that I've had extreme difficulties with fatigue and energy levels and brain fog, and I've been doing better, but this three week stretch is a real test, you guys. [laughs] Just like, hanging on by a thread, and I'm a little worried. It's just a lot of stimulation, a lot of not being in a routine. But I'm almost to tears excited about it and just overwhelmed that this is my life.

Brenda: Aw. I love that.

Shireen: We love you, Lindsay. That is phenomenal. I know everything about the Final Four of the NCAA tournament because of you.

Lindsay: Aw!

Brenda: Yeah. And the unit. I now know about the unit.

Lindsay: The unit!

Shireen: The unit!

Brenda: The unit!

Lindsay: Yes!

Shireen: Yes, totally.

Brenda: So, if you haven't subscribed to Lindsay's newsletter, you should be. And I'll just…You'll tell me what you think about the unit, because I found it pretty fascinating myself. I love a museum, any museum almost– [laughter] I know, exactly.

Shireen: So on-brand, Brenda.

Brenda: I know. I know. I know. And I don't even like ice cream, and my kids are too awful to do chores. So, everything… [laughter] I'm really digging for joy here. The Rubin Museum, which is a collection of Himalayan art, opened the Mandala Lab, it's called. It's my favorite museum. It's on 17th and 7th Avenue in Manhattan, and they have free Fridays, and it's very pedagogical. They have this awesome gong exhibit where different artists and different musicians made these gongs in water, and you can kind of like disseminate your anger through these different gongs. I tried every single one of them. I'm not sure if it worked. But one of the people that designed it was Sheila E – she was on the Oscars, and also Prince’s drummer, and also just such a legend. And so I felt like we had this cosmic connection, and I was at a museum. So, Prince, museum, Eastern philosophy, yay. So, that was my very, very happy thing. Except also, watching Drag Race with my brother Ryan, which for him is like the Final Four. [laughter] So it was pretty fascinating. So that was what was good in my week. Pretty good stuff. 

Shireen: Could I add one more? 

Brenda: [laughs] Yes.

Shireen: Because I finished Bridgerton in one go, and I was at a hotel room in Peterborough on Friday night, and I watched a lot of it. And then I called Jihad because she's at school, so she watched it all. And then we had a debrief yesterday. So like, we talked about the Ton, we talked about…And you know what? There’s massive South Asian representation this year, which was really beautiful for us to see, because it's something we totally don't see. So, the references to tea, you know, the younger sister calling the older sister “didi,” which is a form of respect in many cultures where I'm from, and regions. And it's beautiful. It's different. So, it's basically like our obsession with Pride and Prejudice, but they added some masala, literally. So, love that for me and for all of us.

Brenda: Well, this week we are watching Cricket World Cup. The women's Cricket World Cup semifinals will be Tuesday, when this will come out, March 29th, Australia versus West Indies; Wednesday, March 30th, South Africa versus England; and then the final will be Saturday, April 2nd. The day before that, April 1st, is the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 lottery draw pick. So, look for bribery, scamming, dumb luck, whatever you want to call it, to think about our World Cup experience. And of course, Final Fours. 

That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Also, listen, subscribe and rate the show – please, please, please! – on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and TuneIn. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com, and you'll also find there a link to our merch at our Bonfire store. Thank you, thank you to our patrons. Your support means the world to us. If you do want to become a sustaining donor to our show, please visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. I'm Brenda Elsey, on behalf of Shireen Ahmed and Lindsay Gibbs, burn on and not out.

Shelby Weldon