Sports business at a crossroads

Note: Transcripts are automatically generated from episode audio, and are not fully corrected for spelling, grammar, and formatting.

Sarah Spain: Caitlin Clark’s entry into the W, it was awesome that more people were watching and more people were interested. It also meant talking heads who didn’t know the game, weren’t watching the games, and certainly didn’t understand the intersectionality of women’s sports. The attention is great, the investment is great, but what comes with that is an expectation that will suddenly turn women’s sports into the same as men’s. And there’s a real gift in it not being the same.

Bob Safian: That’s Sarah Spain, longtime journalist, ESPN host, and the voice behind the podcast, “Good Game with Sarah Spain.” On today’s show, Sarah and I talk through some of the biggest questions in sports business right now. Are big sports dynasties a positive or a negative? Can the WNBA sustain its surge in popularity, especially with Caitlin Clark out injured? Is marketing holding back the NWSL? Plus, is everyone confused about ESPN’s new streaming service? Will a pending legal settlement reshape everything about college sports? And, do sports analogies really apply to business? The clock is ticking, so let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

[THEME MUSIC]

I’m Bob Safian. I’m here with Sarah Spain, award-winning sports journalist, host of the podcast, “Good Game,” and author of the new book, Runs in the Family. Sarah, thanks for being here.

Spain: Thanks for having me.

Copy LinkInside the WNBA’s big moment

Safian: Your podcast, “Good Game,” focuses on women’s sports. The WNBA recently tipped off its new season, just as the NBA final starts this week. Strong playoff ratings for the men this year. Is it good or bad for the WNBA, the overlapping? Does it steal the thunder, so to speak, from the WNBA? Or sort of set things up?

Spain: I think it really depends on the market, because it is fascinating to learn how much there isn’t an overlap sometimes in fans of both. So for instance, my friend Jess Smith is the president of the Golden State Valkyries, the new expansion team in the Bay Area. And they have 10,000 season ticket holders that were already secured before they had a single player or played a game. And the Warriors have 10,000 season ticket holders.

And there’s only a 10% overlap in those people, meaning that there’s this incredible audience that is served by the women’s team that didn’t feel served by the men’s team. Now, that may also be because it costs roughly a down payment to attend a Warriors game at this point. It is so expensive to go to a Golden State Warriors game. But I do think there’s room for both. And if you’re a diehard, maybe you’re so into the NBA playoffs that you wait to get to the WNBA after. But I think, the excitement and enthusiasm around Paige Becker’s coming into the WNBA and playing her first pro game, around Caitlin Clark’s second season, around some of the rivalries that are building, that’s holding its own for those who are in the know.

Safian: Last season was like a breakthrough, in part because of Caitlin Clark, who’s the league’s biggest draw. She’s not playing for a bit now, she’s out for an injury. What do you expect from the WNBA this year? Is this the year where we find out if the W is for real? Or do we already know that?

Spain: I think we already know that, for sure. When you’ve got the New York Liberty owners selling a piece of equity in their team in order to make some funds to build a training facility, and their valuation is, I believe $450 million, I think that’s pretty legit.

I think, unfortunately, we’re always comparing women’s leagues to men’s, that have decades, and decades, and decades of a head start. And oftentimes, taxpayer funding for their stadiums, and all sorts of other things that the women’s programs haven’t gotten historically. I think it’s legit. I do think this year is going to be huge for the W, not just because of the storylines that people get to build on from last year, and come in already knowing, instead of learning like so many did last year.

But also, the majority of the top players in the league have set their contracts to end after this season, which could mean shaking up rosters, completely changing where players play, and driving a lot of interest, the same way when there’s big NBA changes in top players, the fans get really into the soap opera of it all. Who’s going where? Who’s recruiting whom? So that’ll also, I think, be really interesting to see at the end of this season.

Safian: A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces, three-time MVP, but not a household name yet, like Caitlin Clark. Is that indicative of something about where the WNBA’s brand is right now?

Spain: I think it’s a couple things. One, the college game builds stars that you follow to the W. And less so if you make your name in the W. Are you as big of a star? I also think Caitlin Clark is this really fascinating study of how you bring in a casual fan and get them on board. It’s like opening a little door to women’s basketball, and saying, “You don’t have to know anything. You don’t have to know what team she’s on, who she’s playing, whether they’re playing good defense, what offenses that they’re in. She’s shooting from half court. Boom, that’s it. That’s all you need to know.”

This person is shooting from really, really far away, and often doing it in clutch moments, and then giving the crowd a wink, or a shrug, or playing it up. And that’s really all it took for people to get on board. There are longer conversations, more nuanced conversations, about race, sexuality, all the other things that come into play when we decide which women athletes we’re going to embrace and uplift.

But A’ja Wilson is now getting to be more of a name. Her signature shoe sold out in less than five minutes, commercials up the wazoo. But I do think there’s a Steph Curry-like approachability and relatability to Caitlin Clark that makes the average person totally get it.

Safian: I love the Unrivaled three-on-three season in the WNBA off season. And it kind of surprised me how much I liked it. Did it surprise you? Did it work for you?

Spain: The reason it worked for me is because I thought they had the most incredible marketing in advance. This is an unknown league, with a style that maybe you know a little from the Olympics, but they didn’t even use the Olympic 3X3 format.

They did full court on a gym sort of the size of your LA Fitness gym basketball court. Could have fallen flat, because people said, “What is this?” But instead, every player was a new press rollout, using hints on social media to try to get folks to guess who might be the next to sign. They did really novel things with the teams, and logos, and branding.

Phantom BC, why we haven’t had a team before that was some sort of ghost is beyond me, because it was the sickest logo and merch I’ve ever seen. And then, they just did a really smart job of playing up personality. And that’s a benefit you have when you build a league that’s based on another league that already exists and has names in it. So when you go get to see two players who are usually rivals on the same team, in Unrivaled, there’s an excitement to that. They just did it really smart. It was fun.

Copy LinkCan the NWSL unlock a mass audience?

Safian: Let’s talk about women’s soccer, the NWSL. We had lead Commissioner Jessica Berman on the show, and she stressed how NWSL is structured differently from the WNBA because it’s unlinked to a counterpart men’s league.

Spain: The other thing the NWSL has done just beginning this year, that’s different than every other professional major league in America, is they’ve gotten rid of the draft. So beginning with these new expansion teams, they’ll be the first teams, Boston and Denver, to create a team without a draft, solely using free agency and pitches to lure players to come play for their side. So that’s really fascinating to watch and see if it has any impact on other leagues.

I just had a guest on my show talking about valuations, and trying to understand why, for the most part, the valuations in the NWSL are higher than the WNBA. And one of them is, obviously, stadium size. But also, the ownership structure in the NWSL, and so many sales of late continues to re-up the cost of playing ball. Right? And the WNBA, most of the original owners are still kind of hanging in. And the NWSL, so many of the original owners were essentially priced out when NFL owners, billionaires, folks like that came in.

This also happened because of an investigation into the league that revealed a lot of toxic culture, abusive coaches, problematic owners, that forced those sales by the hand of the league, and created a new ownership generation as well.

I think the NWSL can get way bigger, in terms of things like attendance. For me, that is marketing. As someone who was a minority owner of the Chicago, now neutral colored stars, formerly red stars, I understand how hard it is to compete in a market that has a lot of other things going on.

Chicago has so many other sports teams and other opportunities to find entertainment, but the team was not well-marketed. Folks did not know that Megan Rapinoe, and Christen Press, and Alex Morgan were playing basically in their backyard. And for me, getting those fans into the stadiums and selling out regularly is all about breaking through. And that requires investment, which is now coming in. I think that’s going to make the biggest difference there.

Safian: U.S. Women’s National Soccer team broke through into super stardom, but the NWSL hasn’t quite unlocked that mass audience yet.

Spain: In some of the markets where there’s less competition, there is that excitement around the NWSL team. Portland is one, Kansas City is one. There are places where it’s broken through. Angel City and the LA team, despite it being in a big market with a lot of competition, because of the nature of their ownership group, which is full of superstar celebrities who have incredible… Every time they post something, it’s going to millions of people, so they are their own marketing. That has really helped them.

I think there’s a couple of things. We always talk about the Olympic sports, and we say, “How do we take this moment where we’re all into curling, or luge, or gymnastics, or whatever it is, and carry it over?” It’s a little more complicated than that. One, because so much of the Olympics is the, “we know the stakes.” It’s massive stakes for every person competing there. There’s jingoism and patriotism at play there, us versus the world that we can rally behind. And it’s this month or two dedicated to the thing, where you’re watching from afar, usually.

Obviously, a professional league that you go support in your own backyard is a little different, and with the women’s leagues, you don’t want to grow too fast and not have enough talent, but you also don’t have a team in every market. So there are big chunks of the country that don’t have a team anywhere near them. And so getting on their radar is a little bit tougher.

Copy LinkHow fans of women’s sports differ from men’s?

Safian: Fans often say they hate sports dynasties, but more people tend to watch when all the big stars are playing. Right? How do women’s leagues navigate this? I mean, you want to give all the markets a shot, and add more franchises, but maximizing audience and buzz might mean allowing some teams to be stacked.

Spain: I do think at certain points, and even we see this in the NBA. Everyone complained about the seasons with the Warriors, or the Heat, or the Bulls, or whatever where they were dominant, but everyone loved it. They knew who to root against. They knew who was the one to go after all year. And it gets a little bit, you have to care a little bit more, and watch a little bit more often when it gets to be these new teams coming up with not as much history and nostalgia behind them.

I think on the women’s side, yes, there are for a while in soccer, for instance, they tried to encourage hometown players. So essentially, a team that was trying to get its hometown player had better odds or a better contract opportunity, because they thought if fans already knew them from the college they went to, or the place they grew up, they might be more interested in watching them.

So they aren’t doing that anymore, and I think there is an ability to draw interest from all over. But you look at something like the New York Liberty, a pretty stacked team. And if they can run it back and win again, now you’ve got one of those teams that everyone’s gunning for. So I do think there is some benefit on the women’s side, to not only the stars aligning in certain places, and driving the greatness of those teams, but the stars staying. Women’s sports fans, I would say, are more loyal than men’s, care more about the athlete herself and really getting to know her.

Safian: So they’re more attuned to the player in some ways than to the team?

Spain: Well, and I think also, women’s sports are very competitive. You still want your team to win, but it’s a little bit more of the, “I hope both teams have fun,” or “Oh, but I really like that person on that team too.” Because I think there’s such a feeling of empowerment for women watching other women be great, that yeah, there’s going to be a couple players you hate. It’s just not the same for me, and for many others, as watching men’s sports, where yes, root for my team, everybody else kick rocks. On the women’s side, there’s just so many great people that you want to see succeed, and you feel more empathetic to everybody else.

Copy LinkThe dark side of increased attention

Safian: As women’s pro sports become more successful, do you worry that it’s going to take on some of the toxic qualities of men’s pro sports, more aggressive media conversations, bad behavior off the court or off the field? How much is that a looming question that these women’s leagues have to sort of grapple with or maybe redefine?

Spain: Very much. Very much. And actually, we saw it last year with Caitlin Clark’s entry into the W. It was awesome that more people were watching and more people were interested. It also meant talking heads who didn’t know the game, weren’t watching the games, and certainly didn’t understand the intersectionality of women’s sports, and how it intersects with race, sexuality, homophobia, misogyny, all those things. And they created damaging and toxic conversations that were actually dangerous to players.

There were multiple incidents of players being sent their addresses, and I’m going to find you. Or people showing up in the places the players were and feeling like they were endangered. Breanna Stewart’s wife actually got threats. So I think the attention is great, the investment is great, but what comes with that is an expectation that will suddenly turn women’s sports into the same as men’s. And there’s a real gift in it not being the same.

There’s a real joy in the space feeling different than men’s. And I named my show “Good Game with Sarah Spain,” because I wanted to name it “The Good Place with Sarah Spain,” but that’s a TV show, and it would be hard for people to distinguish and find when they looked for it online. But that’s how I feel about going to a women’s professional sporting event. It’s the good place. It is incredibly diverse. It is incredibly kind. Everyone’s rooting for their team, and they’re very competitive, but there’s not fistfights. People aren’t getting hammered and falling down the stands on each other.

I think, with the NWSL, for instance, when they had the recent forced purchases of a couple teams due to the toxicity I mentioned, they had a new rule where the majority owner needed to be financially liable as one person. There could be a group of owners, but they required that one owner bear the financial burden, if necessary, and that person had to be a billionaire.

That meant that these large groups of women, who have a lot of money but aren’t billionaires, were shut out. And it inevitably meant that once again, we were returning to ownership groups where it was going to be most likely a middle-aged white guy that owned it.

And that’s fine if that person is really dedicated to women’s sports, and wants to learn the space, and understand everything about it. It’s a little tougher if it’s another plaything that they have with four other teams, and they don’t feel as connected to the space. And it, again, #notallmen, but what the problem was a lot with the previous iteration of the NWSL was how many owners and coaches it turned out were engaging in toxic or abusive behavior, or at the very least, covering up for each other, sending a coach on his way, “Thank you for your service.” Nice long letter, “Thanks for your time here,” knowing that they were letting them go because of abusive behavior, and letting them get hired somewhere else.

And that’s not to say that women won’t do that and never do that, but there is a belief that you got to have more women at the highest levels to help prevent those kind of situations, and that kind of atmosphere, and culture from taking over again.

Safian: Men’s leagues, women’s leagues, they’ve all had challenges. What Sarah’s pointing to is the importance of your people culture in any long-term success, from the locker room, or the factory floor, to the owner’s box, and the C-suite. So how does culture and equity intersect with other changes in sports business, from the future of ESPN, to the evolution of college athletics? We’ll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

[AD BREAK]

Before the break, journalist and “Good Game” host, Sarah Spain, talked about what’s driving success for the WNBA and other women’s sports leagues. Now we discuss ESPN’s new streaming service, the wild NCAA legal case that could change everything about college sports, and the controversy over trans athletes. Plus, are sports lessons actually a good analogy for business? Let’s get back into it.

Copy LinkESPN’s new streaming service

You worked at ESPN in various roles for a bunch of years, and I want to ask you about ESPN’s new dedicated streaming service. $30 a month for all the live coverage, ESPN+, in-game betting, so on. What impact do you think that this will have on sports media?

Spain: Bob, are you as confused by the name being ESPN as I am?

Safian: I am. I was like, so ESPN+ is on ESPN, but I can also get ESPN? I don’t know, it’s—

Spain: Right. I just feel like we’re about to enter another HBO Max, Max, HBO, Max, ouroboros kind of situation here. But it feels inevitable. Obviously, during the massive shift away from traditional cable, and the unbundling, where ESPN no longer got $13, or whatever it was, from every human in America who had cable. What a great deal for ESPN, because not all of them were watching ESPN, right? But also, for cable, ESPN was a huge reason that people wanted to buy it. So it was a great partnership for a long time.

That goes away, and it becomes quite clear that ESPN needs to try to keep up with the digital side of things, and needs to have a streaming direct-to-consumer service because people aren’t just going with cable anymore. I think for a while, folks who appreciate the television side will still get an approximation of what it used to be. But you’re already seeing ESPN2 used to be an incubator for new shows, and creativity, and new talent, and now it’s mostly reruns.

You’re seeing shows like “Around the Horn,” and others, that are shoulder programming for the live shows, that will start to go away, because on streaming you don’t need to fill a specific amount of time. You just create whatever amount of content you want to have.

So they’ll start focusing on rights, pre and post show Sports Center, and I would say a couple big property studio shows. But I think those are going to go away more and more. And I think if you also look at ESPN’s decision-making around more influencer-type and former-athlete-type content, as opposed to journalistic content, that is unfortunate reacting to the world’s, I guess, demands, and the speed and desires of the current younger consumer.

But I do worry about how that impacts ESPN’s position in the industry. Because, what separates them from everyone else, is they’re the worldwide leader. If it’s on ESPN, it’s right, it’s accurate, it’s vetted, it’s journalistically sound.

When you’ve got a Pat McAfee, who the show is produced elsewhere and dropped onto ESPN airwaves, and they wash their hands of the production and creation side of it, and they tell you it’s a little bit different, but the viewer doesn’t know that. So when he goes on and says things that are factually incorrect, does stories that are, for instance, one he’s now being sued for libel, essentially, that aren’t vetted, and aren’t sourced before he takes them in front of millions, that, I think, impacts how people view everything else on the network, even if it’s just subconsciously.

When they turn it on, do they still think everything Adam Schefter says is journalistically sound? Or does the fact that Pat McAfee is on the same network, or Stephen A. Smith who will say, “Oh, I can’t talk about Dana White hitting his wife on camera, he’s a close personal friend of mine.”

That’s not how journalism works, right? And so when that starts to blur the lines, does the rest of what’s coming out on that network get harmed by it? And does it then prevent them from being separated from the pack in a way that they used to be?

I don’t know. I’m not in charge. It’s above my pay grade. From my point of view, yes, and that concerns me. But also, I get everyone’s trying to get the younger consumer, and they seem to like a screaming head influencer or former athlete more than they like someone who knows how to do journalism.

Copy LinkHow a legal case might reshape the NCAA

Safian: As you’re talking about your work as a reporter, I wanted to ask you about the changing nature of sports at the college level. There’s this big legal case, House vs. NCA, that’s poised to reshape the whole system, if I understand it right?

Spain: Yeah, so for a very in-depth look at this, we did an episode with two sports lawyers. The basic gist of it is, essentially, that this idea that the athletes were amateurs and that’s why they weren’t being paid, while the schools were making millions off of them, didn’t fly anymore.

The new House vs. NCAA will essentially allow for, first, there’s two pieces. One is back pay. So there’s a large chunk of money that has been dictated as to how it will be doled out at each school for players from a certain set of years. And it’s more for certain revenue-driving sports than for others. But that’s going to be paid out.

Then forward-looking, there’s a sum of money every year that will be dictated based on the TV rights deal. So it will change year-to-year, and each school will get an amount of that to decide how they want to spend on their players.

Sort of like, if the school was the GM of a team, except the team is made up of every athlete in every sport that attends the school. As of right now, that is not being held to the Title IX standards. So let’s say a school gets 20 million, and they want to give 10 million to one quarterback that they think is going to change the whole course of their school’s football team, bring in money, bring in all the other stuff. Then they have 10 million to split among everybody else.

But the thing that gives me a headache, and makes me think that lawyers are so happy about this, because they’re going to be put to work and never run out of things to do, is that the next year, they’ll have to renegotiate because that number will change. So when they’re recruiting, they can tell an athlete, “Your freshman year, we intend to give you $10 million. Your sophomore year, we’re probably going to be able to give you this much, but it’s going to depend on the shift in the TV rights deals.” And essentially, every team becomes a professional team. I mean, it’s just going to be a whole new ball game.

Safian: I saw that former Alabama Coach Nick Saban is advising President Trump on college sports.

Spain: Oh, great.

Safian: And he’s kind of vocally pro amateurism. Is there a chance that Trump steps in to play a role in how this plays out?

Spain: I mean, I can’t imagine he won’t try. But the legal system has already, for years, heard the cases around, essentially, why it’s impossible to continue a model where everyone makes money except for the athlete, and argue it as anything other than a complete violation of their rights.

If you think about every other, if you’re Justin Bieber and you show a great talent for singing and dancing at a young age, nobody’s allowed to just take you to school and use you and then not pay you for that. Sports are the only place where we’ve convinced ourselves it’s okay to milk all the talent out of folks without giving them anything in return, under the guise of, “Well, they get a scholarship.” And then once they’re at school, they’re told, “You can’t take any of these classes, because they conflict with practice.”

And also, there’s been noted high profile incidents where players graduate without knowing how to read. So if you really think that education ended up being the thing that they expected when going to that school, you’ve got another thing coming.

So yeah, of course, these athletes should be paid. Of course, a new system needs to be put in place. It’s just going to be a real mess while it happens. And the experts I talked to think the real answer is you have to separate football. Football is the thing that causes the most problems, because of the size of the roster, and how that affects the proportionality element of Title IX, the number of opportunities and roster spots.

If it was spun off into its own minor league, with affiliations to schools, where schools still made money off of hosting games and all the other things, but it essentially was a minor league system, to me feels like inevitability that everyone hates, because you all want to root for your alma mater, and I get that. But also, trying to make the system work as is, with this behemoth next to non-revenue driving sports that operate under a very old fashioned, but still beneficial, model of student athlete, feels sort of untenable.

Copy LinkThe politics of trans inclusion in sports

Safian: I brought up Trump. I’m curious about what you think about his administration’s attack on trans athletes? What’s afoot here, especially as the Olympics comes to the U.S. in a couple of years?

Spain: I mean, it’s quite clearly a political cudgel. It’s using a tiny minority of the population to fear-monger in pursuit of political gain. It is exactly the same as what used to be done to LGBTQ people, or dating further back, to people of color.

Ultimately, your fear, and the fear you’re wrangling up in people is about creepy men, not about trans people. Trans people are far more likely to be victimized, trans people are far more likely to be victims of assaults and violence, they’re far more likely to commit suicide. They are a population that should be helped and served, instead of demonized.

I’ve had a lot of episodes of my show really diving into the nuance of the issue. At what levels do certain precautions, and rules, and processes need to be in place to ensure fairness, while also prioritizing inclusion? And at the youth level, it should just be inclusion.

The idea that a seven or eight-year-old should learn that winning is more important than everybody playing, and the benefits of being on a team, and the benefits of aligning with your gender identity, and all the other things, that is so obvious and clear. And the idea that Trump’s executive order, and his intentions apply all the way down to the very youngest preschoolers, is so ridiculous.

His executive order also incorrectly identified the way that gonads develop and the way that sexes develop. It was so scientifically wrong, that it made clear that the people making these laws don’t even understand the sex and gender binary, which is infuriating. I think at the collegiate and professional Olympic level, there are ways to put into place guardrails that still protect the integrity of the sport and the fairness. I think the real Pandora’s box, that a lot of people don’t understand or want to talk about, is differences in sex development.

When you have a cisgender woman, who is a woman, who has external female genitals and organs, but has a high percentage of testosterone that doesn’t align with average levels, they are being banned from participating, because we like to put a cap on what it means to be a woman. But there will never be a cap on what it means to be a man. Every time men get bigger, stronger, faster, we marvel at them. And when women get bigger, stronger, faster, we call them a man, or we try to limit them and prevent them from competing.

We can’t arbitrarily decide. And no science has dictated with certainty, how much testosterone levels impact performance. It certainly helps, but it hasn’t been scientifically proven to be a deciding factor in the highest elite level performers. And they haven’t done enough studies to actually prove that. We are allowing this fear mongering to affect, not just trans women, but cis women. And now, if Trump’s intentions are fulfilled, little girls who will be subject to either having their genitals suspected, and inspected, or just bad actors.

Imagine a coach of a team who tells a player, “I think people are suspecting that you might be trans. I’m going to have to see and make sure you’re not. Don’t tell anyone though, because we don’t want it to get out there that people might think this about you.” Right? The possibilities for this to be handled by the same bad actors that are the real problem, not the trans people, and having it affect cis girls, which is already happening, where cis women are getting beat up going into bathrooms because people are accusing them of being trans, and they just have a short haircut.

Or little girls are having parents from opposing teams scream at them from the sidelines, “That’s a boy. That’s a boy,” because they’re bigger, stronger, faster. It’s infuriating. Sorry to go so long on that, but yeah, I mean, I just wish people would do the work.

Copy LinkHow athletics provide lessons for the business world

Safian: I love your passion about it. I do. I do. No need to apologize. A lot of the stories you’re telling here today, I’m thinking about how a lot of people use sports analogies when they talk about business, to try to extrapolate lessons from athletic competition to lessons in marketplace competition. Does that ring true to you? Is there something that connects athletics and business that is core? And what things are different?

Spain: Yeah, I think for sure. I think something I heard pretty recently, that I never considered, even though I’ve been an athlete and in sports my whole life, is that sports is one of the places where people are earnestly doing their best in front of other people, laying it all out there, and somebody will fail every time.

There’s just so many places in life that you can hide, and sports is not one of them. We do these ESPNW campus conversations where we go speak to all the varsity athletes at various colleges around the country. And we try to let them understand and realize, at that point in their lives, 19, 20, 21, all the things that sports have done for them. Because when they get out in the real world, they might talk to bosses, or have interviews, or colleagues that never lived it, and don’t really understand all the lessons that you learn.

For me, it’s just business. How do you work with people you like and don’t like? How do you work for bosses you like and don’t like? How do you prioritize the shared end goal, and use teamwork to get there, even if you have differing opinions about the process? Or best idea wins, how do you make sure that that happens so you get to the end thing?

And I recognize when I’m working with other athletes, and I recognize when I’m not. It is clear to me when I’m working with people who have been on a team, and understand teamwork, in the business side, the same way as they do sports, and then people who are lone wolf, never figured out how to work with other people, never figured out how to be leaders or take leadership. I think that the analogies are spot on.

Safian: Well, and in sports, you do lose all the time. I mean, you fail more often than you succeed, whether that’s how often you hit the ball, or whether the shot goes in, or whatever. But that doesn’t mean you’re not growing. And the amount of work that it takes behind the scenes to get to the victories that count, those are things that business people to be reminded of all the time.

Spain: Did you see or hear Roger Federer’s commencement speech from a year or two ago? One of the things he mentions, and I won’t get the percentages right, but he explains that he only won 54% of his points, or something like that, but he won 70% of his matches, or something like that.

So it was, on a point-by-point basis, I just needed to be this much better for the wins. And so it was this incredible analogy of, every day doesn’t need to be a championship. Every day, you just need to get a little bit better, or be a little bit better, and then it leads to that thing that you’re looking for.

I think that’s so true. I think it’s quite clear people who haven’t figured out how to use adversity and learn from it, and who get knocked down by it, and cannot get up. And that is usually not athletes. We’re used to it.

Safian: Well, Sarah, this has been great. Thanks so much for doing it.

Spain: I really enjoyed it.

Safian: I’m a longtime, diehard sports fan, and you can tell that Sarah is too. But she’s also impassioned about both the highlights and the under-appreciated plays within the sports business. I really appreciate her emphasis on the ways we can all emulate athletes in our work, learning from failure, dedication to improvement, working as a team, especially in the tough moments, it’s good to remind ourselves that the work we’re doing is a craft, something to respect, to hone, and to celebrate. That’s the energy that I hope you can embrace in this season of uncertainty. I’m Bob Safian, thanks for listening.