Guest Episode: Social Justice in Women's Basketball with Erica L. Ayala

During the month of August, the Burn It All Down crew is taking a break from regular weekly Tuesday episodes. In their place, you will hear an episode of a show hosted by a guest of Burn It All Down.

This week Erica L. Ayala brings us an episode of her YouTube series, Sports Talk. This episode is titled "Social Justice in Women's Basketball" and you hear from WNBA players Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, and Breanna Stewart. Erica breaks down the history of Black women in social movements, and why we should be asking white WNBA players about the Social Justice Council. Cameos by Megan Rapinoe and Penny Taylor via #ATouchMore.

Follow Erica on Twitter at twitter.com/elindsay08, and you can find and subscribe to her YouTube page here: www.youtube.com/channel/UCdUVhANyQSR3_B3Pcn6RyVw.

Links

1. USA Basketball program: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/sports/basketball/usa-women-all-star-game.html

2. Link to Freedom's Daughters: https://www.amazon.com/Freedoms-Daughters-Unsung-Heroines-Movement/dp/0684850133

3. Welcome to Angel City FC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFE6b5AATm8

4. Meg Linehan on Angel City FC: https://theathletic.com/1941373/2020/07/21/ohanian-uhrman-angel-city-nwsl-la/

5. Skylar Diggins-Smith Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CC8qaEkgfKw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

6. A Touch More featuring Diana Taurasi and Penny Taylor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrCckfiSmaQ

Transcript

Jessica: During this month, August 2020, the Burn It All Down crew is taking some time off to rest and retool the show. In place of our regular weekly Tuesday episodes, we are bringing you episodes from podcasts hosted by guests of Burn It All Down. We hope you enjoy, and we’ll be back soon. As always, burn on, not out.

Amira: Hey flamethrowers, Amira here, and it is my pleasure to intro the next special guest episode of Burn It All Down, this week with Erica Ayala and her work on social justice and women’s basketball. Now, if you’re a long-term flamethrower then of course Erica is no stranger to you at all. But for those who don’t know, can you tell the people about yourself?

Erica: Sure thing, and first, thank you Amira and of course the whole BIAD family for having me back. Always, always a pleasure. But yeah, I’m Erica, I’m here in New York living this quarantine life. I have been sportswriting for about five years now, I come from a non-profit background, and in this time in American history in particular I have found a really unique way to blend those two paths and I’m really excited about that.

Amira: When you talk about blending those two paths, what does that manifest into? What does that look like with your work in general, what is it focusing on now?

Erica: What I’m doing is having conversations with athletes. Although I do talk to Black athletes and athletes of color, I also really have prioritized brining white athletes into conversations around social justice, particularly when it comes to race equity. It started actually in the hockey space, and there was a hockey player in the NWHL who tweeted something that for her was very personal but was also very ignorant to what was happening in Minneapolis. From there Allie Thunstrom and Blake Bolden and I had a conversation, and so my ability…What I hope comes through in this series, Social Justice in Women’s Sports, is that my work in the non-profit field and in advocacy allows me to see this as an issue that is a human rights issue and not as an issue that is political, and my work in sports, especially in women’s sports, I hope, allows me to bring an angle of a sport or a sports community that feels underserved, and to bring those two things together to have a conversation about, even whilst being in an underserved community, you can still uplift and have a responsibility to uplift the humanity of everyone – not just in your immediate space, but in your community and in the world.

Amira: Love it. Absolutely love it. For this project that we’re gonna hear a little bit of today, what can people be expected to hear? What is this clip about?

Erica: So this is Social Justice in Women’s Basketball, and from hockey I’ve ventured out into other sports because we’ve seen the conversation play out in so many different sports. This one is special to me because I get to talk about the WNBA. I wanted to root my conversation in social justice in women’s basketball and the history of Black women in social justice movements. There’s a subtitle to this one called Freedom’s Daughters 2020 and that comes off of a book by Lynne Olson that highlights women, Black women, in social movements, in advocacy movements, as early as 1830 in her book. I really wanted to play with timelines here, because the WNBA, again, is doing so much in the social justice space, as they always have. But also their efforts are under-appreciated and undervalued, and there is historical context to that, and I wanted to uplift that while also challenging white WNBA players to use the space that they hold in the WNBA to continue this conversation.

So in this clip you’ll hear from Diana Taurasi, you’ll hear from Sue Bird, and you’ll hear from them from over a year ago. They know very well that the racial makeup and just the makeup of the WNBA is very unique and in a lot of ways difficult for a mainstream media to digest and to market properly. I think that we’re seeing now a year later from me speaking to them in this clip that the WNBA has found a way yet again to unify and to make their message not just consistent but also to push the conversation forward. In this clip, it’s kind of a primer, perhaps I should say, for people who are not familiar with the WNBA and again the historical parallels that Black women have and how we’re seeing that play out in the WNBA.

Amira: Yes. Come through, history! Could we ask for something more timely? I think not. How can the people find you, how can the people see your work? Drop your social media handles.

Erica: Yes, thank you so much. So you can follow me on social media, Instagram and Twitter mostly, at @elindsay08. And this series that I’m doing – again, now I’ve expanded it to different women’s sports – but Social Justice in Women’s Sports, you can find that on YouTube at Sports Talk with Erica Lindsay Ayala, Sports Talk with ELA.

Amira: Awesome. Well, flamethrowers, get into it. This is Social Justice in Women’s Basketball with Erica Ayala.

Diana Taurasi: It was actually my agent Lindsay Colas’s son, little Drew. It was his crayons, we were at a vegan restaurant in Columbia, South Carolina, and we literally just had a menu and we were jotting down notes of things that we thought that were plausible, that were gonna be good for us. The next day we literally sat down with Carol Callan, Jim Tooley, brought that piece of paper. They looked at it, we looked at the things that could work, that just didn’t make sense. And that’s all USA Basketball, because they could’ve easily just shut it down, we’ll get together, you know, a month before the Olympics, what we usually do. So they took initiative, which is what we need people to do, take initiative, right? We talk about sponsorship money, we talk about these Fortune 500, companies, you know, we talk about “support women” – but where’s that coming from? Where’s that coming from?  

Erica: Hello everyone, welcome to a special edition of Social Justice in Women’s Basketball this week. This series started out as Social Justice in Women’s Hockey and that's the sport that I will follow the most, but I wanted to take time out this week to talk about women’s basketball, more specifically the WNBA. Let’s get into the episode. I opened the episode with a clip from Diana Taurasi. I was able to speak to Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird who, as the legend goes, drew up the plans for a more coordinated effort by USA Basketball and the WNBA to keep certain players from USA Basketball in the domestic market in the offseason. I’m gonna play you a few clips from those interviews. This was at the 2019 All Star Weekend in Las Vegas. I think it’s a fascinating concept and at the time that it was announced it got me thinking a lot about soccer and the soccer model that we see in the United States on the women’s side. Also, shoutout to Bria Felicien and Kelsey Trainor who joined me on the last episode of Social Justice in Women’s Soccer.

We have always in this country, since women's soccer really began to come on the map in the 90s, have seen the US women’s soccer team, even in their struggle for equal pay, their struggle for a domestic league, they've been a national part of the conversation. Hindsight is 20/20, you know, I was a young impressionable child, not as plugged into the news as I am now as an adult, so perhaps that’s the lens that I see it through in hindsight. But even in hindsight history has its eyes – if you will, shoutout to the Hamilton fans – history has its eyes on the US women’s national team in a way that eyes have never been fixed on women’s basketball, or the WNBA that next celebrates 25 consecutive seasons. I have some theories as to why; we’re gonna get into some of those.

But this week I’m dedicating all of these episodes to Freedom Fighters, to social justice activists and leaders. If you haven’t listened to Gotta Get Up! which is my women's basketball show, primarily…Well, it’s supposed to be focused on the New York Liberty, but I’m getting into so much wubble content that I didn’t want to leave anyone out. So I have an episode, the latest episode here that I dedicated to three men including one who I had the pleasure of working alongside. I wanna open this episode reading from Freedom’s Daughter: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830-1970 – this is by Lynne Olson. This is from chapter two that is about Ida B. Wells. The quote is, “She has shaken this country.” Well, here we go. I’m gonna read this because I think it’s à propos to what I wanna talk about in this episode.

“In their activism, they were following the example of their early- nineteenth-century female forebears, and their example, in turn, would be followed by their daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters in the twentieth century. ‘I think that women’s voluntary organizations have been in the forefront for whatever social change there is,” Dorothy Height, longtime president of the National Council for Negro Women, declared in the 1970s. “The fact that this is a male-dominated society…indeed a white male-dominated society, means that males are so involved in the systems and institutions…that they don’t feel the need to do anything to bring about change…As a black woman, I would have to say that it’s been the women…who have dared to tackle the racial issues.”

This is from Dorothy Height in 1970, and this rings true and has been ringing true since at least 2016 when it comes to domestic basketball, and that’s why I want to lead this conversation. Let me preface…The conversation that I wanna have today is an expiration of the interesting position that the WNBA is in. On the one hand, the WNBA is a league that is made up of 80% of women who are Black and that identify as Black. When we're seeing this new wave, you know…We say ‘new wave’ but it’s ongoing, it’s an ongoing fight for freedom. In this book what I love about it is that it breaks down – again, it’s Freedom’s Daughters – it breaks down all of the ways that all women have been fighting for freedom and for equity. But it also shows the rift between women and that Black women are usually the first responders but the last to reach equality. I was talking to Sue and Diana as we saw the Women’s World Cup coming up, there were all these partners with Hulu and Budweiser; we’ve seen those partnerships continue now to the Challenge Cup where Budweiser is the title sponsor for the semi-finals, there was a game that was on earlier today – one tonight, Sky Blue vs Chicago. We’ve never seen that happen for women’s basketball.

It can definitely be argues that if we were to divvy dollars based on merit that all of our women’s national teams would be better funded than our men's teams, but there should probably be no national team that is funded better than our women's basketball team, and that’s just not the case. I think the theory that I have is, and I played a little bit from Diana and you’ll hear from Sue Bird in a moment, is that it is a league of 80% Black women. Going back to this book Freedom’s Daughters, it's very commonplace to have Black women initiate the work, do the brunt of the work, and to continue the work from, again, just in that passage, from their daughters to their granddaughters to their great-granddaughters, and to still not reach that equity, that freedom, that equality.

“What does this mean for the WNBA, Erica?” Here’s the truth, and it's also in this book – society has proven time after time that they’re not gonna listen to Black women. Society has also proven time after time and time again that Black women already have the ideas. What we need are for white women, Black men and white men to listen to Black women and elevate and promote and fund and support our ideas. We know how to fix this because we’ve been going through this, okay? But it requires everyone to be educated, everyone to position themselves to reach out to people that don’t identify the way they do and to reach out to people outside of their immediate circle in order to push the agenda forward. I think that’s exactly what we’ve seen with Angel City FC. You’ve got Natalie Portman, you’ve got Alexis Ohanian, Serena’s husband, Olympia, Serena Williams…So many names, such a long list of names attached to this new women’s professional sports team in LA.

I’ve seen on Twitter, I’ve felt it myself, and I had a conversation with someone, at least on my end a very passionate conversation about why we’re not seeing this in the WNBA. Honestly I think it boils down to marketing, and marketing is inherently impacted by racism. That’s the bluntness. I don't think there’s any getting around that. But don't take my word for it, hear what Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird have to say. Both of these are audio clips, they were taken after the announcement that USA Basketball and the WNBA were going to partner to core, essentially, eight players, twelve total national team players, stateside, so that they don’t have to travel overseas to make money and can promote the league here. So, this is from last July, about a year ago. Sue Bird first, and then Diana Taurasi.

SB: I do wonder…A lot of people question whether because of the make up of a women’s basketball team, always, in race and obviously gender. I mean, listen. Whenever I’m asked about what are the obstacles…We’ll use the WNBA, because that's the business, right? That’s building a business. What are some of the obstacles? We dance around some things that are important and are obstacles…You can guess, right? Whether it’s the travel conversation that just happened – “Oh, this is an issue” or “We need to do that…” – But at the end of the day, and this is something I’ve always said, we live in a society where people are racist, people are homophobic, and our league is extremely diverse in those categories, and that’s pretty much as you said our make up, and so that is an obstacle, you know? At times it’s the elephant in the room but that is an obstacle. But again, I think now is the time. You know, when you think just what’s going on in our country, now is the time to, I dunno, support us, I think, because of what we represent. But also for us to use this platform and use our voices because of who we are and what we’re representing.

Erica: The national team in soccer has really made a point to have what they get at the national team trickle to the league. Do you see this, when you were writing up on that crayon, was that part of the vision?

DT: You know, it’s hard to compare. I don’t know how long the soccer league’s been around for. Not very long, right?

Erica: This is the seventh season.

DT: Seventh season! 

Erica: But three different iterations.

DT: Right. They’ve had their trouble keeping the leagues alive even throughout the women’s soccer team’s success. With success…Can you sustain it? That’s always been the tricky part. Can the soccer league sustain it after there’s no World Cup? That is the one thing that the WNBA has been able to do is be successful not using the national team as a balancing board. So I think there’s some good synergy and hopefully that makes that relationship a little bit better and stronger.

Erica: And another thing: the women’s basketball team is, I think, our most successful national team program.

DT: Right.

Erica: But that hasn't always come with the exposure.

DT: Well, if we don’t talk about how this country views leagues differently that would be a mistake and that would be very ignorant. We’re obviously a league of diversity, of minorities, of gay women, and that is not something easy for the United States to talk about. Certainly not easy for them to support, obviously. Then you see the women’s national team, you see the make up of that team pretty clearly. And these are conversations we have very openly – it’s taboo to talk about that to reporters, you know, it's these touchy subjects, but as players around the league we know what the facts are, and they’re in our face. It’s how do we use all those things to our advantage? I think in the past the WNBA has hidden things that now are things that people wanna fight for or things that people wanna really get behind.

Erica: Sue and Diana – and you’ll hear from Breanna Stewart later – they have these conversations, they’re very aware and cognizant of the bias that exists in how women’s basketball is marketed. Women’s basketball players know this. I’m gonna address something and then explain to you why I’m having you hear from these white women in the league. Now, there’s a piece of me that finds it very interesting that generally speaking the more well known USA Basketball players, WNBA players, regardless of how many championships they have, how many MVPs that they’ve won, etc, etc, how successful their team is, the overwhelming majority of the most popular WNBA players are white. The US women’s national team is overwhelmingly white. That’s that racism in marketing; overt, covert, implicit bias that exists. But what I think is important is, again, for those women to utilize their platform and to speak for the group and not necessarily as themselves. That can be hard, and there will be some things that the spokespeople enjoy as opposed to those who are not.

But I think in this particular case I want you to hear from white players, and this hopefully will be a longer conversation because, in case you can’t tell, I have a lot to say about this. But I wanted to start with Stewie and Sue and Diana because I want you to hear them tell you that there's a racial bias, that there’s a gender bias, and that that bias also extends to the fact that the WNBA, generally speaking, they have embraced the WNBA as a culture, as a league, right? It’s very well-represented on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. This is nothing new to WNBA players, Diana and Sue saying last year that this is something that we talk about all the time that we don’t necessarily talk about in media. Well, now is the time to talk about it in media. I want you to hear that these white women have been talking about it for at least a year.

The next clips that you’ll hear will be from Stewie, Breanna Stewart, and again from Diana Taurasi. This is while they’re in the wubble, and so social justice council has already been put into place, etc. I specifically asked Stewie the question that I’m really grappling with. On the one hand we want allies to step up, to use their voice; we also want allies…This is the general “we” right? This is a call for allies to step up and speak up, there’s a call for allies to sit back and learn and let the voices of Black people and Black communities be heard, and I think that neither of those things can be blanketed. I think there are times when the Black community needs to be uplifted, and what needs to happen are those with white privilege in particular, but any privilege. Those with privilege need to make space. I also think there's a time when you have to hold white players, in this case, to task.

I’ve been on a lot of these Zoom calls – the Zoom circuit it what I like to call it. It’s not very often that white players, from the calls that I’ve been on, are asked about the social justice council. Almost every Black player has been asked about the social justice council. Everyone in the WNBA, it’s widely accepted that the WNBA players are on board with the social justice council, so why is it that an overwhelmingly white male media core is only asking Black women about the social justice council – they should be asking all players, that’s where I’m coming from, that’s my take. So to begin my social justice in women’s basketball series, you are going to be hearing from white players first. That’s counter to what I believe on the other side which is a general issue that the WNBA has which is that we only hear from white players, but in this case I think it’s important to hear from white players.

BS: Thank you so much.

Erica: Stewie, I actually wanted to ask you about the social justice council. I think your petitioning for Black Lives Matter on the court is probably one of the more obvious reasons you were selected, but I'd like to just ask you, what was the lead up to officially being named as one of the players for that, and then also just a follow up to that…This league is overwhelmingly made up of Black and brown players, but I’m curious as the conversation outside of the WNBA really asks allies to step up, what do you feel is the appropriate level of engagement, for players like yourself that don’t identify as Black, in these conversations?

BS: Yeah, so the social justice council…As we were leading up to going into the bubble we knew that there was gonna be a lot more happening in this bubble besides just playing basketball, you know, we’re gonna be using our platforms in a bigger way than just our sport. Obviously with all the social injustice and everything that’s been going on there was things that we need to do better and there’s things that we need to continuously stand up and figure out how we want to use our platform and that’s there the social justice council came about. Lisa Leslie asked me to be on it and I’m a person, I just wanna stand up for what’s right. I believe there’s no room for racism in this country and how Natasha Cloud put it in The Players’ Tribune article was kind of the best way that I can see it. We’re in 2020 and you think we should have flying cars, you know, we shouldn’t be having to deal with the racism and racial injustice in the country, and so the fact that Lisa asked me to be a part of it, I was more than honored. I know that my platform goes beyond myself as a basketball player.

The second part of the question…I think, you know, what I can do best is obviously, like you said, continue to be an ally. This league is 80% Black females and we know that and we’re embracing that. We’ve always been a league that’s been here first talking about issues that are important and close to us, and for me I’m gonna continue to be an ally, continue to use my voice, continue to educate myself, educate the people around me, and also know that I have a big spotlight on me. I’m white, but I can also pass the mic to my other teammates who aren't white and give them opportunities to continue to raise their voice and shed light on different perspectives that we have.

Erica: Right, Diana, thank you for your time. I spoke to you last year in Vegas, you and Sue Bird, you were talking a little bit about the opportunity missed when you have a league that’s over 80% Black women and also has a population that identifies as LGBTQ, queer, to utilize those voices. Now, it’s a year out from that, I’m curious if you think that things have changed, particularly thinking about that new CBA and the social justice council?

DT: I think everything's changed in the last couple months, everything’s been turned upside down. From the uncomfortable conversations to the social actions, it’s one of the things that we’re just not willing to stay silent about anymore. Whether it’s Black Lives Matter, which is something that the league and a lot of people ended up lending their support and will continue to support whether people don’t like it, to a bunch of things that are strongholds for us and we’re not gonna let go of those things. We’ve made strides in a lot of different social areas and Black Lives Matter should've been #1 from the beginning. I think you see a lot of people stepping up in that role to make sure that our voices are heard and, like I said, not everyone’s gonna like it. Some people are gonna feel uncomfortable, but that’s life. A lot of people in this country have felt uncomfortable for a long time already.

Erica: So what I liked again in what Stewie was saying is she was talking about making space, right? She talks a little bit about why she was asked on the council. Diana said something and, again, she’s on point as always, talking about how this is not new, this is how a lot of people in this country have felt. Skylar Diggins has been a player…Skylar Diggins-Smith. On one of the media rounds she was asked about coming to the bubble and how she feels, and she feels conflicted. She feels conflicted about deciding to be away from her family, she would not get into…She flat out said something akin to “it’s not your business” as to how she came upon her decision to not bring her family into the bubble when she could’ve. What I think is interesting is even though…And it’s tough to do these Zoom calls, to be honest, especially with a conversation like this. It’s not all the time that the player can actually see us, and I personally would prefer if I could be seen while asking questions like this. That’s just a preference of mine, but anyway.

Skylar did say she would be consistent with her messaging, and so one of the things she did…I think this was on ESPN, but I’m gonna read this from her Instagram. She wrote a letter that she then posted. Lemme get his name, because I really want you to look this up. I’ll put a link in the description, but I want you to look this up because I read his post and it's very difficult. Vauhxx Booker. “On July 4th Mr. Booker, a civil rights activist, was enjoying the holiday weekend with friends at Lake Monroe, in Bloomington, Indiana. A group of white men told him that he was trespassing on private property. Mr. Booker left, to avoid trouble, but later returned in an attempt to smooth things over. The group rewarded Mr. Booker’s good faith by cornering and assaulting him, violently pinning him against a tree, and threatening to lynch him.”

Skylar’s letter that she posted on Instagram ends with, “Now more than ever, it is crucial that federal law enforcement entities show that they take racism seriously, and stand on the same side as the Black Americans who face it every single day. Americans are watching: only bringing the attackers to justice will honor their trust. Respectfully, Skylar Diggins-Smith.”

So, Skylar I don’t think is necessarily as comfortable as some to talk about this in media availability where she goes from being asked questions about her being on a new team to her family to social justice. I get the impression that that’s just not what she’s comfortable with. This is gonna be complex even in the WNBA, and that’s why I wanted to make sure to make this video. A lot of people see the WNBA as, “the WNBA is doing this right, they’re in their 24th season; the WNBA is doing this right, they have a partnership with the NBA; the WNBA is doing this right, they have a social justice council.” It’s not that simple. None of that came easy, and even now that they have it it’s not easy. But I give credit to WNBA players, in particular in the last five years, I feel it’s been more consistent with this crop of players, is that they have a unified voice, is that there is consistency and that they stand firm on what they believe to be right, and I’ve never disagreed with them yet. When the league wanted to fine them for wearing warm-up shirts that were not approved the players went into their respective locker rooms, did media blackouts, and they also spoke to their rookie players and said, “Listen, we gotchu. If they fine us, it will be taken care of. But this is what we’re doing.” To the point where the league had to pivot and had to change, and that's what Black women always do.

So going back to Angel City, a lot of people are wondering when and if and how and what it would look like to get a group of people behind the WNBA and a WNBA team the way that this group of, I dunno, 14, investors has gotten behind US Soccer. The short of it the way I see it is that the WNBA and USA Basketball has done a negligent job of marketing these players and so have agents, generally speaking, over the years, and so has media. That’s how I feel. I’m looking at Meg Linehan’s piece for The Athletic; one of the investors was at a basketball game and was asked about the NWSL and didn't know anything about the NWSL – knew about the World Cup, didn’t know about the domestic league. US national team players for soccer have done a really good job between the last two World Cups to build the market for the national team and the NWSL. I think that potentially the initiative that Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi crafted up, you heard a little bit about that in the beginning of the show, could have the potential to do that. But what also has to happen is that there’s no generational celebrity in the WNBA, there’s not enough players that have come from the WNBA that have remained in touch with the WNBA and that have enough wealth to give back or invest in the WNBA. So to set up the next social justice in women’s basketball show I’m going to leave you with this clip from Diana Taurasi.

DT: It takes people. When we talk about women’s basketball, women’s soccer, like “Aw, why’s it not popular?!” Then you’re like, well, where are the fucking rich females at?

MR: Or just the rich people in general, like–

DT: Nah, rich females. Nah nah nah nah nah nah. Rich females. Where are the rich females at?

MR: Okay, we can talk about rich females for sure. But people discredit the influence of the systemic nature of just rich individuals.

DT: No–

MR: So if we’re talking about, like–

DT : Where are the rich females, Megan!

MR: I agree–

SB: She wants women to support women.

MR: I totally agree–

DT: No, no.

MR: Just in general, people always say, like, the system around men’s soccer is so robust and so blah blah blah. But it’s like, no, it’s Roman Abramovich, it’s the sheikh that owns Man City, it’s the group that owns Liverpool– 

DT: Yeah, they’re men! Men supporting men! 

MR: Men supporting men, for sure.

SB: That's a good point.

MR: But it’s like specific rich people. But I do agree with you, it’s like, where’s the rich women?

DT: Where are the rich women!

PT: Where are the rich women with a passion for sport.

MR: Yeah, with a passion for sport, exactly. 

SB: They’ll be passionate about other shit.

PT: There are women like that.

DT: Who!

MR: With a passion for sport but also I’m like, this is a money-making opportunity. Sports in general is money-making. Period. People love to go fucking see sports. Yeah, maybe women’s sports isn’t where men’s sports is right now but it's only because we have less investment.  

SB: That's true.

DT: I’m so disappointed in the women that have a lot of money, and I’m gonna be very simple-minded–

SB: Go ahead.

DT: Where are the women with a lot of money that wanna invest in women’s basketball, whatever it may be. As a fucking pro bono whatever. As a tax write-off. 

MR: No, that’s a money-making opportunity! There’s money in it.

DT: Whatever. You make money, I make money, Sue makes money, Penny makes money. Sometimes you invest in things that don’t make money–

SB: That you just believe in, yeah.

DT: –if you wanna make it better. I’ve done that with a lot of investments.

PT: I think women do it, they just don’t have a passion for sport.

SB: I know, that's the thing. 

PT: It’s like, you need that one or ten or twelve that love sport as well.

MR: I feel like you need the initial one or ten or twelve to invest in it as, okay, we believe in this. But sport just in general is a money-making opportunity, we see that at every level. If you actually invest in women’s sports it makes money, period.

PT: We all know that women make like 80% of the purchases in the household, so isn’t that like a marketing opportunity as well?

SB: Yes.

DT: It’s funny, everyone’s like, “Oh, do you wanna be a coach?” “Do you wanna be a GM?”  

MR: NO!

DT: No, I wanna fucking own it.

MR: Yeah, I wanna own it.

SB: [laughing] You don’t want a rebound.

MR: We don’t want a rebound.

DT: That’s why I’ve been keeping my head in the sand about how much money, anywhere from millions of dollars…Because I wanna be an owner, I don’t wanna be a coach! I’m not doing drags, I’m not doing handoffs. You know what I’m talking about.

SB: You’re not trying to rebound, just say it. [laughs]

PT: Like me. [laughter]

SB: Like me!

MR: I wanna be the person who pays Diana Taurasi!

DT: No, I love a drag, I love a drag, but I’m trying to own a team!

Erica: That clip came from A Touch More, which was a YouTube series, a YouTube show, hosted by Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe. You heard Diana Taurasi and her wife Penny Taylor speaking with Sue and Megan. Diana and Megan had a difference of opinion on whether it should just be rich investors or rich women who should invest, in this case, in women’s basketball. You hear all of them talk about investors, and it’s 12+ investors, a lot of them women, who have stepped up for Angel City FC, the new Los Angeles team joining the NWSL. Women’s basketball has been waiting for that. Sounds like Diana is looking to be an owner sometime in the future, and will it be for women’s basketball? Well, we got this clip now, Diana, so we’re gonna hold you to your word. These are my thoughts. The reason that the WNBA doesn’t have an investor group – and I think the Seattle Storm are probably the closest, it’s a majority women-owned team, and it is an investor group, right?

The reason that women’s basketball doesn’t have that and that there aren’t more women investing in women’s sports, in particular women's basketball like Diana Taurasi was just saying, my take is that it’s because it’s Black women. That's how I feel. I think that marketing firms, companies, marketing professionals don’t know how to market Black women, or they don’t care to know. So when Renee Hess of Black Girl Hockey Club tells people to hire more Black women in particular this is why she does that, because there is an innate bias in our society as it exists, and it’s been there since 1830. In 1970 Dorothy Height was talking about it; in 2019 Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi talked to me about it, and we’re still talking about it today one year later from my conversation with them. We’ll talk about it tomorrow and the next day and the next day until we identify and own up to the fact that we have a society that is biased against Black women and women of color in particular.

We don’t offer them jobs even though they’re one of the most educated groups in this country. So in some ways that’s given Black women, women of color, but particularly Black women this route to education, and that would be great except that educated Black women do not make as much money as almost any other group. So when we talk about that intergenerational wealth, when we talk about wanting women to support women, it’s usually going to be white women supporting other white women unless they know what I'm telling you right now which is that there is an inherent and for some an implicit bias against Black and brown women regardless of their education, regardless of their wealth if they can attain it. That is why – this is my theory – we’re not seeing partnership groups support women’s basketball like we just saw with Angel City FC. But I really wanna get into this because I think the WNBA…I’m really interested to see how white players are going to utilize their voice, and I’ve spoken to a few that say they wanna listen and learn but I also think they need to be encouraged just as much as anyone else in the WNBA to find their voice, and I hope that happens because from what I know from history and my lived experience, unfortunately there's a limit to how far, when it comes from a social movement to policy and business practice, there’s a limit to the access that Black women have. But when Black women can pass the baton in faith to other allies, that's when things get done. That hasn’t happened with the WNBA, generally speaking, but it’s time. It’s time.

Alright, we’re gonna have more from the wubble next time around. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Social Justice in Women’s Basketball. A special thank you to the women of the Burn It All Down podcast. I've been a big fan for a while and I really appreciate them elevating other voices in sports. So, thanks for listening. You can find the other episodes on Sports Talk with ELA on YouTube. #SportsTalkELA. Subscribe and set your notifications. Usually they come out Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Thanks again, have a great day.