Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Cathy Engelbert

Transcript

Cathy Engelbert · The David Rubenstein Show

0:03
Speaker 1: In recent years, one of the most popular new sports
0:05
Speaker 1: leagues has been the Women's National Basketball Association. I had
0:08
Speaker 1: a chance to sit down recently with Kathy Engelberg, who's
0:11
Speaker 1: the commissioner of the WNBA, to ask her how she's
0:14
Speaker 1: helped to transform the WNBA into a very popular sport.
0:18
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the WNBA as a business and make
0:20
Speaker 1: sure I understand how many teams are there.
0:24
Speaker 2: So starting the season, there'll be thirteen teams. We had
0:26
Speaker 2: twelve for a long time. Thirteen teams on our way
0:29
Speaker 2: to sixteen or more.
0:30
Speaker 1: Who's the new team?
0:31
Speaker 2: The new team is in the Bay Area, the Golden
0:33
Speaker 2: State Valkyries, and they're going to kill it this year
0:37
Speaker 2: off the court for sure, and on the court they'll
0:39
Speaker 2: be They had an expansion draft, so it'll be interesting
0:42
Speaker 2: to see.
0:43
Speaker 1: Hey, so you have thirteen teams. Are you planning to
0:44
Speaker 1: expand to more now?
0:46
Speaker 2: Yeah? So we've announced team fourteen and fifteen in Toronto
0:49
Speaker 2: and Portland, and we have a process right now for
0:51
Speaker 2: additional teams where we have a lot of demand and
0:54
Speaker 2: a lot of ownership groups around the country interested.
0:57
Speaker 1: Each team has how many players?
0:58
Speaker 2: Twelve twelve players?
1:00
Speaker 1: You've got one hundred and forty four professional players.
1:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, one, fifty six this year fifty six.
1:06
Speaker 1: Okay, So today the league is well known for having
1:09
Speaker 1: some stars like Caitlyn Clark among others Angel Rees as well.
1:13
Speaker 1: Is that kind of competition between Angel Rees and Caitlin
1:16
Speaker 1: Clark helping your TV ratings? And is that worked out
1:19
Speaker 1: well for you to have Caitlin Clark in the league.
1:22
Speaker 2: You know, when I came into the league. People watch
1:24
Speaker 2: sports for three basic reasons, for rivalries, for games of consequence,
1:30
Speaker 2: and for household names if you know the players, and
1:32
Speaker 2: we didn't have a lot of household names, even though
1:34
Speaker 2: we had amazing players back then and have amazing players
1:36
Speaker 2: beyond Caitlin and Angel. So rivalries are generally good for
1:40
Speaker 2: sports and women's sports. Sometimes it's complicated by the social
1:44
Speaker 2: media vitriol, which we did announce. It's terrible what some
1:47
Speaker 2: of these players have to endure. And so the hatred,
1:50
Speaker 2: the vitriol, the misogyny, the homophobia, the racism, there's no
1:55
Speaker 2: place for it in sport, and we like to be
1:57
Speaker 2: known in sport as a big uniter. So that's the
2:00
Speaker 2: negative part of that. But the positive certainly has been
2:03
Speaker 2: that people are watching. I mean we brought tens of
2:06
Speaker 2: millions of new people into our sport last year because
2:09
Speaker 2: this rivalry came out of college.
2:11
Speaker 1: Okay, well, take Caitlyn Clark. She was very famous at
2:14
Speaker 1: the University of Iowa, and she came into the league
2:17
Speaker 1: and she had more attention probably than anybody who came
2:19
Speaker 1: in as a rookie, Rookie of the Year, and so forth.
2:21
Speaker 1: But it seemed as if she was getting beaten up
2:23
Speaker 1: a little bit or being treated relatively roughly. Why would
2:26
Speaker 1: the other players who would see that she's making the
2:29
Speaker 1: league more visible and more profitable, why were they kind
2:32
Speaker 1: of giving her a rough time.
2:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that narrative became the narrative. But
2:37
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we have a really exciting, fast paced,
2:40
Speaker 2: physical game. The physicality I think surprised a lot of
2:42
Speaker 2: the new fans that came in games pretty physical in college.
2:45
Speaker 2: But then when you come to WNBA and it's all
2:47
Speaker 2: the great players from the best colleges in one place,
2:50
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty four of them last year with
2:52
Speaker 2: our twelve teams, we're expanding now, so I think it
2:56
Speaker 2: was very physical at first for a lot of new
2:58
Speaker 2: eyes on the game. I think there were unfortunately some
3:01
Speaker 2: inappropriate plays that happened. But over the course of the
3:06
Speaker 2: whole season, I think Caitlin really adjusted well, so did
3:09
Speaker 2: Angel because Angel was very physical for her at first two.
3:12
Speaker 2: And I think all of our rookies or Kia Jackson
3:14
Speaker 2: and Cameron Brink got heart early in the season. But
3:16
Speaker 2: you know, they all adjusted to the physicality of our game,
3:19
Speaker 2: and I think our fans didn't adjust as quickly, and
3:21
Speaker 2: then that narrative kind of got away from us.
3:24
Speaker 1: Now, recently, Adam Silver, the head of the commissioner of
3:27
Speaker 1: the NBA, negotiated on behalf of the NBA and the
3:31
Speaker 1: w NBA a contract, a TV contract for many years
3:34
Speaker 1: that was said to be worth roughly seventy six billion
3:37
Speaker 1: dollars over some period of time, and you get part
3:39
Speaker 1: of that as I understand it. So were you happy
3:42
Speaker 1: with that arrangement.
3:43
Speaker 2: Yes, we actually negotiated our own deal, but along when
3:46
Speaker 2: you partner and what I call go to market with
3:49
Speaker 2: the NBA. The NBA and WMBA are the only two
3:51
Speaker 2: major professional sports in the US that have essentially opposite seasons.
3:55
Speaker 2: Were made to October. They're October to June, but April
3:58
Speaker 2: is the end of their regular season, so we could
4:00
Speaker 2: provide think about the disruption and the media landscape from
4:04
Speaker 2: linear to streaming to subscription models, and we together with
4:09
Speaker 2: the NBA can provide over three hundred and twenty plus
4:11
Speaker 2: days of programming, So we hit all twelve months for
4:14
Speaker 2: programming for a streamer, even if it's NBC and Peacock
4:17
Speaker 2: er Amazon, So it was a huge advantage. We're much
4:20
Speaker 2: more valuable going to market with them on this deal
4:22
Speaker 2: with NBC and ABC, ESPN, Disney as well as Amazon,
4:27
Speaker 2: So that was a huge positive for us and we
4:30
Speaker 2: had a great deal. It's historic for women's sports.
4:33
Speaker 1: How long is the contract fork.
4:35
Speaker 2: So that contract's eleven years?
4:37
Speaker 1: Eleven years and you get two to three billion of
4:39
Speaker 1: that something like that.
4:40
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. But after three years we have an option
4:44
Speaker 2: to renegotiate around the price of that if we keep growing,
4:47
Speaker 2: because we've grown the league enormously just in a couple
4:50
Speaker 2: of year period, so we after three years have an option.
4:53
Speaker 2: We also have the option to enter an additional media
4:56
Speaker 2: rights deals. I call them our Trench two deals, and
4:59
Speaker 2: we're in the process of negotiating those.
5:01
Speaker 1: So you have an option after two or three years
5:03
Speaker 1: to negotiate presumably a higher price. Yes, did they have
5:07
Speaker 1: an option to negotiate a lower price? No?
5:09
Speaker 2: I think it's an option to take a look at
5:11
Speaker 2: the growth of the league, and if we continue on
5:13
Speaker 2: the growth trajectory, it's to provide more value, especially because
5:17
Speaker 2: ultimately that value goes to the players.
5:19
Speaker 1: So today, how are your TV ratings compared to the
5:23
Speaker 1: NBA or your assume a fraction of it, but how
5:25
Speaker 1: do you compare or do you get ten percent of
5:27
Speaker 1: what they get?
5:28
Speaker 2: Twenty last year we had an unbelievably historic year. Our
5:33
Speaker 2: average was at one point two million, huge increase over
5:37
Speaker 2: prior years.
5:38
Speaker 1: Two million people watching watching.
5:39
Speaker 2: Average average some games TV linear. We would peak in
5:45
Speaker 2: the US, a US only number, that's not a global number.
5:48
Speaker 2: We have a lot of global fans too, and that's
5:50
Speaker 2: an untapped area of growth for US. But we continue
5:53
Speaker 2: to look at a huge increase in that viewership. I
5:57
Speaker 2: mean even our draft at peak last year, over three
5:59
Speaker 2: million people watch the WNBA Draft. Last year our All
6:02
Speaker 2: Star Game over two million people. These were all time records.
6:06
Speaker 2: And remember we don't necessarily compare ourselves with the NBA
6:09
Speaker 2: or other men's sports. They've been around the NBAS in
6:11
Speaker 2: their seventy eighth year. NFL, NHL, and MLB are all
6:15
Speaker 2: over one hundred years old. We're going into our twenty
6:18
Speaker 2: ninth season this year, so these comparisons to men's league
6:21
Speaker 2: are tough, but certainly where we are today, I never
6:24
Speaker 2: thought we'd have as high viewership as we had last year.
6:27
Speaker 1: It's often the case that these players have to fly
6:30
Speaker 1: commercial historically. Now, as a result of your new arrangement,
6:34
Speaker 1: you can afford to have and every team can afford
6:36
Speaker 1: to have a kind of a special.
6:39
Speaker 2: Jet or a charter program.
6:42
Speaker 1: Is that part of the deal.
6:42
Speaker 2: Now, Yes, It's something we've been working on since I
6:45
Speaker 2: came into the league. We've been chipping away at it.
6:47
Speaker 2: We offered it during certain games previously years ago, chipping
6:52
Speaker 2: away at it for full playoffs two years ago, and
6:54
Speaker 2: then last year because I knew where we were tracking
6:57
Speaker 2: for the media rights. But we needed to build an
7:00
Speaker 2: economic model to fundness. It wasn't just like you wave
7:03
Speaker 2: a wand and you can give a twenty to thirty
7:05
Speaker 2: million dollar benefit to someone through charter travel. So I
7:08
Speaker 2: felt very confident, our owners felt confident that we had
7:13
Speaker 2: been building an economic model to sustain it over the
7:15
Speaker 2: long term. Because it also can't be you just offer
7:17
Speaker 2: it for a year or two. We need to think
7:19
Speaker 2: about it for decades. That we were able to afford it,
7:21
Speaker 2: and so I felt good about that and we did
7:23
Speaker 2: it outside of collective bargaining cycle.
7:25
Speaker 1: Now, the NBA has something called a salary cap, and
7:28
Speaker 1: I guess a salary floor. Do you have a salary cap?
7:31
Speaker 2: Yes, we do. We have a hard cap under the
7:33
Speaker 2: current CBA. Obviously that CBA will be up after this
7:37
Speaker 2: year and we'll be negotiating a new deal.
7:39
Speaker 1: You've done quite well, But there's any team profitable at
7:42
Speaker 1: this point by normal profitability standards.
7:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think our teams are making enormous progress towards profitability.
7:50
Speaker 2: They're just growing. But what they're doing, which we love,
7:53
Speaker 2: is because they have so much confidence in the growth
7:55
Speaker 2: trajectory either turning around and anything, they might be making
7:57
Speaker 2: their investing back. We have at least six teams who
8:01
Speaker 2: are now have built, are building new practice facilities. They're
8:04
Speaker 2: working on a lot of different things to invest in
8:06
Speaker 2: the player experience because our free agency has become such
8:09
Speaker 2: an important part of building a roster to win a championship.
8:12
Speaker 2: So they're all taking the upswing in attendance gate for them,
8:17
Speaker 2: corporate partnership money for them, and they're investing it back
8:19
Speaker 2: in the business today.
8:21
Speaker 1: How many owners of w NBA teams are women?
8:24
Speaker 2: Well, again, we have NBA affiliated owners, independent owners, We
8:29
Speaker 2: have an all women ownership group, three women up in Seattle.
8:34
Speaker 2: We have diverse ownership at the minority investor level. Obviously
8:38
Speaker 2: all the NBA teams are primarily owned by men, but
8:41
Speaker 2: we're making some progress there with diverse ownership groups. And again,
8:46
Speaker 2: as we look at expansion, we look for the diversification
8:49
Speaker 2: of that group.
8:50
Speaker 1: So in college basketball, the average game or the game
8:53
Speaker 1: is how long in terms of length of time?
8:55
Speaker 2: So again in women's they have four quarters forty minutes.
8:58
Speaker 2: We played four quarters forty minutes in professional or in
9:02
Speaker 2: professional then yeah, if you pay four quarters forty minutes
9:06
Speaker 2: forty minutes total each quarter is ten minutes.
9:08
Speaker 1: Yes, okay? And today is that likely to change or
9:13
Speaker 1: the rules going to change any way shape or form
9:15
Speaker 1: that you know?
9:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think, you know. One of the things
9:17
Speaker 2: when I came in I assessed kind of the strategy
9:20
Speaker 2: and the quality of the game, and the importance of
9:23
Speaker 2: the brand. And the one thing that when I looked
9:25
Speaker 2: at the game. There's not much to tweak about the game.
9:28
Speaker 2: I mean, pure shooting, pick and rolls, great rebounding, great play.
9:33
Speaker 2: People who we've brought in those tens of millions and
9:35
Speaker 2: new fans love the game. So I don't think there's
9:38
Speaker 2: much to tweak in the game. And we use more technology,
9:41
Speaker 2: can officiating you know, advance and evolve, yes, But the
9:45
Speaker 2: game itself, I think the quality of the game was something.
9:47
Speaker 2: You know, it's probably the only thing we didn't need
9:49
Speaker 2: to actually pick up a stone and totally change.
9:51
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your own background for a moment. Where
9:54
Speaker 1: are you from.
9:55
Speaker 2: I'm from Philadelphia and you were born there. Yeah, born
9:58
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia, grew up in right across the bridge in
10:00
Speaker 2: southern New Jersey and one of eight kids. I have
10:04
Speaker 2: my brothers.
10:05
Speaker 1: I'm an only child, so I don't know what that's like.
10:07
Speaker 1: What is it like to have seven siblings.
10:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy, especially five brothers three older, so I
10:13
Speaker 2: was their fourth and everything from whiffleball to soccer, to hockey,
10:16
Speaker 2: street hockey to basketball. Grew up very athletic family, very competitive,
10:21
Speaker 2: like my sister and I would compeach you and I
10:23
Speaker 2: are only thirteen months apart, compete for everything, including food,
10:27
Speaker 2: and we'd hide food in our rooms because the brothers
10:29
Speaker 2: would steal all the food. So it was a fun upbringing.
10:32
Speaker 2: Continues to be very close knit family.
10:35
Speaker 1: Oh what did your father do to support a family
10:39
Speaker 1: of eight children?
10:40
Speaker 2: So my father worked for RCA and was an IT
10:43
Speaker 2: guy and early like we used to have the punch cards,
10:45
Speaker 2: he'd bring punch cards home, an early it kind of manager.
10:49
Speaker 2: Unfortunately died young in nineteen eighty seven. But my mom
10:52
Speaker 2: worked for sixty two years for the same place for
10:55
Speaker 2: a pediatrician as their office manager as that business grew.
10:59
Speaker 2: So you know, both my parents worked, and my mom, though,
11:02
Speaker 2: you know, was able to balance it all and raise
11:04
Speaker 2: eight children on the way.
11:06
Speaker 1: You were an athlete in high school? Yes, and what
11:08
Speaker 1: sports did you play?
11:09
Speaker 2: So? I actually played tennis, basketball on lacrosse in high school,
11:12
Speaker 2: and I was recruited for lacrosse in college. I was
11:15
Speaker 2: a walk on for basketball. Back in the mid eighties,
11:18
Speaker 2: you could play two sports in college at a D
11:20
Speaker 2: one level. Today you can't do that, But back then
11:23
Speaker 2: I played both lacrosse and basketball.
11:24
Speaker 1: So you were the captain of both teams. Yes, you're
11:27
Speaker 1: playing two sports and eventually you have to graduate. So
11:30
Speaker 1: you graduate, and you said, I want to be in
11:33
Speaker 1: sports or I want to be going to Deloitte.
11:35
Speaker 2: Well, actually it all dates back to sophomore year when
11:38
Speaker 2: I was a computer science major and I had to
11:41
Speaker 2: take a programming course in Fortran and I said, I
11:44
Speaker 2: have no idea what that professor's talking about. Someone said,
11:47
Speaker 2: there's this thing called the Business School, Cathy, you should
11:50
Speaker 2: transfer to it. And there's something called accounting and it's
11:53
Speaker 2: the language of business, and you'll get a job. Because
11:57
Speaker 2: it was the big eight accounting firms back then, so
12:00
Speaker 2: I didn't know who said it was the language of business.
12:02
Speaker 2: I found out later that was Warren Buffett, and you'll
12:06
Speaker 2: get a job. I got a job pretty easily back
12:08
Speaker 2: then and started with Deloitte.
12:10
Speaker 1: In those days, I can't imagine that women were being
12:13
Speaker 1: seen as potential CEOs of big accounting firms. So as
12:17
Speaker 1: you imagine when you started you would be the CEO.
12:20
Speaker 2: No, because I think at the partner ranks when I started,
12:23
Speaker 2: it was probably five percent women partners, so it was
12:26
Speaker 2: pretty new, you know, as far as the trajectory for women.
12:31
Speaker 2: Never thought that I would be the CEO. Never aspired
12:34
Speaker 2: to be the CEO quite frankly, but your specialty was what?
12:36
Speaker 2: So my specialty back then was I worked in a
12:39
Speaker 2: variety of clients, growing up manufacturing snls back during the
12:43
Speaker 2: SNL crisis. Bank I settled more once I had my kids,
12:46
Speaker 2: in the pharmaceutical sector as well as consumer products. But
12:50
Speaker 2: I was a derivative financial instrument specialist at the firm,
12:53
Speaker 2: which gave me tons of tons of valuation expertise.
12:58
Speaker 1: You were the CEO of Deloitte, which is one of
13:00
Speaker 1: the largest service providers in the United States and accounting,
13:03
Speaker 1: an audit firm, among other services, and you did that
13:07
Speaker 1: quite well for quite a while, and all of a
13:09
Speaker 1: sudden you're approached by the WNBA about being the commissioner.
13:13
Speaker 1: What made you think you would want to do that
13:16
Speaker 1: and what made them think that you could do that?
13:18
Speaker 2: Well, it's an interesting question. So it didn't seem to
13:21
Speaker 2: make a lot of sense to a lot of people
13:22
Speaker 2: unless you had come to my office at Deloitte and
13:24
Speaker 2: saw basketballs all behind me. So I played college basketball
13:28
Speaker 2: for now Naysmith Hall of Fame coach Muffett mcgahol, who
13:30
Speaker 2: went on too great success at Notre Dame. I went
13:32
Speaker 2: to Little Lehigh University and my father was actually drafted
13:37
Speaker 2: into the NBA in nineteen fifty seven by the Detroit Pistons.
13:42
Speaker 2: So we had a lot of basketball DNA in the family.
13:45
Speaker 2: And so when I was my term was ending at Deloitt,
13:48
Speaker 2: I really said, you know, what do I want to
13:50
Speaker 2: do next? I want to do something different, something with
13:52
Speaker 2: the broad women's leadership platform and something I had a
13:55
Speaker 2: passion for, thinking maybe it would take me to a
13:57
Speaker 2: college or university. And then someone coach me about the
14:01
Speaker 2: WNBA commissioner job, and I said, definitely is something different,
14:05
Speaker 2: broad women's leadership platform and certainly a game. I have
14:08
Speaker 2: a huge passion for the game.
14:09
Speaker 1: How long had you been the CEO of Deloitte?
14:12
Speaker 2: So I'd been at delott for over three decades, thirty
14:15
Speaker 2: three years, and I'd been the CEO for a little
14:18
Speaker 2: over four year terms four years. I took over a
14:20
Speaker 2: little earlier than usual and then your terms up and
14:24
Speaker 2: it's time to move on. And could have stayed at
14:26
Speaker 2: Deloitte senior partner, but really wanted to do something in
14:29
Speaker 2: kind of a second act and this was it.
14:31
Speaker 1: And did you stay connected to sports by playing on
14:34
Speaker 1: weekends or anything? Like that, or you didn't have time.
14:36
Speaker 2: For that, not really raising two kids, you know, having
14:39
Speaker 2: a career. I did coach my daughter's travel basketball team
14:43
Speaker 2: from middle school during middle school. I stay connected that way,
14:47
Speaker 2: but just a big fan of sports.
14:49
Speaker 1: So now, how many years have you been the commissioner?
14:51
Speaker 2: Five and a half so almost six now.
14:54
Speaker 1: Any regrets about taking the job.
14:56
Speaker 2: No regrets at all. This was a really good fit
14:59
Speaker 2: for me personally, professionally, and just enjoy the game so much.
15:04
Speaker 2: I could go to a game every day and it's
15:07
Speaker 2: just been a total transformation of a league that was
15:10
Speaker 2: just surviving five six years ago and now thriving.
15:13
Speaker 1: So what do you do outside of the job you
15:16
Speaker 1: have now? Are you any corporate boards or this is
15:19
Speaker 1: what you're doing full time?
15:20
Speaker 2: Or no? I am on corporate boards. That was one
15:22
Speaker 2: of the things that was important to me, given my
15:23
Speaker 2: long history at Deloyd. So I'm on the board of McDonald's.
15:26
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons I wanted McDonald's was not
15:29
Speaker 2: necessarily because I love Hamburgers, although I do. I want
15:32
Speaker 2: to be consumer brand because now I'm running a consumer
15:34
Speaker 2: brand called the WNBA, and it's been helpful to see
15:37
Speaker 2: their digital their consumer base their globalization and everything. And
15:41
Speaker 2: then I'm on the board of Royalty Farmer, which is
15:43
Speaker 2: a public company as well, and then I play. My
15:47
Speaker 2: passion now is golf.
15:49
Speaker 1: So I don't play golf because it's too humiliating to me.
15:53
Speaker 2: It's a hard game. I took it up when I
15:55
Speaker 2: became the CEO of Deloitte. So I was fifty when
15:57
Speaker 2: I took it up. And it was because I would
16:00
Speaker 2: be in CEO's offices and they would be talking golf
16:03
Speaker 2: or they'd have golf decorations in their office. I'd ask
16:06
Speaker 2: them about it. Do you play? I played a little
16:08
Speaker 2: bit and then started playing a lot and got pretty
16:11
Speaker 2: good at it and got invited to the at and
16:13
Speaker 2: T Pebble Beach Pro Am and the American Express. And
16:16
Speaker 2: now I just love being in that environment with all
16:18
Speaker 2: my former CEO colleagues. And it's a lot of fun now,
16:22
Speaker 2: but it isn't great. And I tell a lot of
16:23
Speaker 2: women take up golf, you know. It's a great way
16:28
Speaker 2: to build relationships in the corporate world.
16:30
Speaker 1: Recently, in spring training, I went into a batting cage
16:33
Speaker 1: and they found the picture who could throw the ball
16:35
Speaker 1: between three and four miles an hour as slow as possible,
16:38
Speaker 1: and I actually hit a couple of ground balls to
16:39
Speaker 1: everybody's amazement. Do you ever go on the court and say, well, look,
16:42
Speaker 1: I played at Lee High. I was a star there.
16:45
Speaker 1: Let's have a little shoot around.
16:46
Speaker 2: You ever do that all the time? I passed by
16:49
Speaker 2: in the practice facilities or as I'm walking in arena
16:51
Speaker 2: the rack of basketballs, and I'm like, and I'll usually
16:55
Speaker 2: have heels on, so it's a little challenging, but I'll
16:57
Speaker 2: always take a ball and shoot a few, and the players,
16:59
Speaker 2: I think it does give you a little credit that
17:01
Speaker 2: you played the game, not at the level they're playing at,
17:03
Speaker 2: but playing for Muffett McGraw and Nasmith Hall of famer.
17:05
Speaker 2: My dad played for Jack Ramsey, doctor Jack, who was
17:08
Speaker 2: a Naismith Hall of Famer. So just having a little
17:10
Speaker 2: bit of that basketball DNA is helpful.
17:12
Speaker 1: In the NBA, many of the stars, now not all,
17:15
Speaker 1: but many of the stars come from Europe or other
17:17
Speaker 1: places outside the United States. Do you have many players
17:20
Speaker 1: coming from outside the United States.
17:21
Speaker 2: We've got players from Germany, Canada, Australia, France, Spain, Africa. Yeah,
17:28
Speaker 2: so we're starting to globalize our ranks. But they're not
17:31
Speaker 2: quite where the NBA has been, again the NBA being
17:34
Speaker 2: fifty plus years older than US, but it's starting to increase.
17:37
Speaker 2: And I think the US's dominance in the Olympics. The
17:40
Speaker 2: women just won their eighth consecutive gold medal in basketball
17:45
Speaker 2: in the Paris Olympics, and I think that dominance has
17:47
Speaker 2: helped lift other programs around the world, such as France
17:51
Speaker 2: almost the only lost by two to the US. So
17:54
Speaker 2: a lot of these programs around the world have invested
17:57
Speaker 2: in their grassroots and youth football such that they're getting
18:01
Speaker 2: really good.
18:02
Speaker 1: And today, when you were trying to get sponsors, is
18:06
Speaker 1: it much different for the teams to get sponsored much
18:08
Speaker 1: easier than it used to be, or the the league
18:11
Speaker 1: negotiate sponsor deals, or each team does its own sponsor deal.
18:14
Speaker 2: Both. We have national league sponsor deals, we have global deals,
18:17
Speaker 2: and then there's local deals for teams to negotiate as
18:22
Speaker 2: long as it doesn't block a category at the national level.
18:25
Speaker 2: And so one of the things that's so interesting to
18:27
Speaker 2: me when I came in the league, and I didn't
18:28
Speaker 2: know this because I was off at Deloitte in a
18:30
Speaker 2: very different industry, is that someone told me my first
18:33
Speaker 2: day on the job that less than one percent of
18:36
Speaker 2: all corporate partnership money spent on sports is women's sports.
18:40
Speaker 2: And my first question David, as a good prior accountant,
18:43
Speaker 2: was what's the denominator? Because if we were to move
18:46
Speaker 2: that a couple hundred basis points, how much do we
18:48
Speaker 2: have to move the numerator? And I would say we've
18:52
Speaker 2: moved that significantly up probably to ten percent or so.
18:55
Speaker 2: But the denominator's huge. Obviously, it's multiple, multiple tens of billion.
19:00
Speaker 1: Women's sports are the two biggest known or best known
19:04
Speaker 1: women's sports, I would guess in the United States in
19:06
Speaker 1: terms of professional leagues are soccer or what was called
19:09
Speaker 1: football outside of the United States, and basketball. Yes, is
19:13
Speaker 1: there a third that's coming up as softball?
19:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, well certainly the WMBA. We're the longest tenured women's
19:18
Speaker 2: professional sports league at twenty nine years now, double any
19:22
Speaker 2: other so, and part of that's due to our big
19:24
Speaker 2: brother of the NBA and everything they've done for us.
19:26
Speaker 2: And then it's soccer, and then the PWHL is a
19:29
Speaker 2: new hockey league that has emerged and they've had a
19:33
Speaker 2: lot the hockey's had a lot of fits and starts,
19:35
Speaker 2: has had soccer. We're blessed to have had continuity over
19:39
Speaker 2: twenty nine years. But I think there's some emerging sports
19:42
Speaker 2: like volleyball, but they're the problem is there's four professional
19:46
Speaker 2: volleyball leagues, so they probably need some consolidation.
19:48
Speaker 1: If you look back on what you achieved today, what
19:51
Speaker 1: are you most proud of having achieved today?
19:53
Speaker 2: Definitely the growth, you know, the you know, getting through
19:57
Speaker 2: the pandemic. I mean if it was pretty existential for
20:00
Speaker 2: us during the pandemic, we hadn't started our season yet
20:02
Speaker 2: because remember pandemic was March when Adam Silver shut down
20:06
Speaker 2: the sports world by shutting down the NBA play then
20:08
Speaker 2: the NCAA's shut down. So getting through that pandemic year
20:12
Speaker 2: I'm probably most proud of. It was like working on
20:14
Speaker 2: an IPO for a couple of weeks. Because I had
20:16
Speaker 2: just come in the league. I didn't have a lot
20:18
Speaker 2: of relationships. We had to convince the players to play
20:21
Speaker 2: that we would keep them safe. We were at a
20:23
Speaker 2: time of racial crisis in America with the George Floyd situation.
20:28
Speaker 2: We got thrown in the middle of the political battle
20:30
Speaker 2: in the state of Georgia with one of our owners,
20:32
Speaker 2: so there was so much going on in that twenty
20:34
Speaker 2: twenty years, so I think I'm proud of the way
20:36
Speaker 2: we emerged from that, such that just a year later,
20:38
Speaker 2: in February of twenty two, we were the first women's
20:41
Speaker 2: sports property to raise capital at scale seventy five million dollars.
20:45
Speaker 2: We probably could have raised more.
20:46
Speaker 1: What do you consider the biggest single challenge for the
20:49
Speaker 1: WNBA going forward?
20:50
Speaker 2: I would say, you know, we have several challenges and
20:53
Speaker 2: several opportunities. One of our biggest challenges is certainly how
20:56
Speaker 2: do we globalize this game. There's a lot of opportunity
20:59
Speaker 2: outside the United States to build fandom, to build viewership,
21:03
Speaker 2: to make our players global stars. We continue to be
21:06
Speaker 2: challenged by being a women's league and therefore and a
21:10
Speaker 2: diverse one. So therefore we continue to be challenged around
21:13
Speaker 2: the vitriol in social media against our players and the league.
21:17
Speaker 2: So we're working on a four prong strategy on that,
21:19
Speaker 2: around a technology solution to help with the social media side,
21:23
Speaker 2: monitoring physical safety, and mental health. So that's another challenge,
21:27
Speaker 2: but enormous opportunity as well in the league around so
21:31
Speaker 2: many areas. Expansion would be one of those. A lot
21:33
Speaker 2: of capital inflows coming into the league finding places to
21:37
Speaker 2: invest that.
21:38
Speaker 1: So if somebody said to me, you have a chance
21:40
Speaker 1: to invest in a women's NBA team, w NBA team
21:45
Speaker 1: new One, should I take that chance or should it
21:47
Speaker 1: to still a risky investment?
21:49
Speaker 2: Now, I think as you look at our new media deal,
21:52
Speaker 2: you look at the growth, You look at the quality
21:54
Speaker 2: of the game, the strength of the brand, what it represents.
21:59
Speaker 2: Would I wish three four years ago I had invested
22:02
Speaker 2: in it, but obviously I couldn't as the commissioner. But yes,
22:06
Speaker 2: that's why we raised that capital three four years ago.
22:08
Speaker 2: Those people who invested in us back then were believers
22:12
Speaker 2: in the future, and I think, you know, they're all
22:15
Speaker 2: going to be pretty happy, So yes, I would invest.
22:18
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
22:20
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
22:25
Speaker 1: wherever you listen.