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Jessica Berman: The Future of Women’s Soccer | E100 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Jessica Berman: The NHL was very much part of who I was after spending 13 years there. And I had to come to terms with the fact that if I wanted to ultimately achieve my dreams, I probably needed to work somewhere else.
• 0:15
  Jessica Berman: As a result, when I got this call to become the deputy commissioner of the NFL, my family was supportive me taking on the challenge. But I had this sort of second epiphany in my life where I realized that proving the value of women's sports as a business in and of itself, could change the way that people see women and girls forever.
• 0:43
  Randall Kaplan: You're listening to part two of my awesome conversation with Jessica Berman, the Commissioner of women's Major League Soccer. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Without further ado, here's part two with the amazing Jessica Berman. Let's talk about lacrosse. And I want to start with some statistics which I think most of my listeners and viewers don't know, which I didn't know before preparing for our talk today. There are 1.8 9 million lacrosse players in the United States. 528 colleges have women's lacrosse teams and 398 have men's teams. There are two professional leagues the PLL, which plays outdoors the National Lacrosse League which plays indoors, which is known as the NLL. It was founded in 1986 and has 15 teams. And here's one I'm sure nobody knows. It ranks third and average attendance for pro indoor sports worldwide behind only the NHL and NBA. I want to talk about what happened to your husband Mark and the National Women's Soccer League in a little while. But before we do, you tell us about what it was like as a woman climbing up the ranks in male dominated professional sports, and your thought process changing jobs and the conversations you had with your husband and your kids at the time before making the leap.
• 1:59
  Jessica Berman: Yeah, I I took the job at the NLL to be the Deputy Commissioner, after several years of soul searching about how I was going to achieve my dreams of being in a position to actually have more influence over the business of a league.
• 2:25
  Jessica Berman: And the NHL was an incredible place to learn and develop as a lawyer. And then ultimately, as a business person. I was so fortunate to work for Gary Bettman for so many years and observe the ways in which he made business decisions how he managed the Board of Governors, which were the owners of the NHL. So many of the challenges he had to navigate with the Olympics and performance enhancing drugs and expansion and team ownership challenges and their media deals. I mean, just everything that he was able to accomplish has been able to accomplish. And all of that created a lot of mutual love and respect for me and the NHL was very much part of who I was after spending 13 years there.
• 3:17
  Jessica Berman: And I had to sort of come to terms with the fact that if I wanted to ultimately achieve my dreams, I probably needed to work somewhere else. And that was really hard decision for me to leave the place I love and the people I loved and the people who supported me throughout my career and from whom I learned. But I ultimately decided that it was time for me to work in what I expected would be a smaller sport, a smaller business that would give me a wider purview over more areas of the business than I would be able to do with the NHL. And as a result when I got this call to become the deputy commissioner of the NLL. I was fortunate that my my family was supportive of me taking on the challenge. I have two young boys and they are they were and continue to be my biggest supporters in what I'm doing. And we all are very honest and recognizing that there's a ton of sacrifice and compromise that comes with the demands of being a high a high rank highly ranked executive in my industry with all the pressure that comes from it, especially those years in in a male dominated industry. And all of that really made my kids only want me to do it more. They felt like I I had earned the right to capitalize on whatever opportunities I had been offered and that we were going to sort of tackle it together as a family. So yeah, becoming the Deputy Commissioner, I learned the day of the announcement that I was the highest ranking woman in a male sport, and that I was the first female Deputy Commissioner. And that was a big deal in our industry, it opened a lot of doors for me in terms of meeting different level of people, like different executives in our industry, who I wouldn't otherwise have had the opportunity to cross paths with, and more importantly, gave me substantive experience that ultimately prepared me for this job.
• 5:39
  Randall Kaplan: I think that's such a good lesson. When I was 27, I got this amazing job. Eli Broad was my boss, I reported to Him, they gave me a managing director title, he was a Forbes 400 person worth, I think, at the time, $4.2 billion before he died a few years ago, I think he was worth eight or $9 billion.
• 5:57
  Randall Kaplan: It was an amazing job. I think I had the best job of all my friends. And if I'm being truthful with myself, I love the title out of business card.
• 6:05
  Randall Kaplan: Randall Kaplan, Managing Director at Sun America and I reported the one of the most successful business people on the planet. And like you said, at cocktail, what do you do? You want to be humble about it. And I think I was most of the time.
• 6:17
  Randall Kaplan: But when you gave out your business card, it's, it was phenomenal. Then I left to start a technology company with three other guys in Boston. And someone said, you know, you got one bullet to fire when you leave son, America. And if that doesn't work out, whatever, great name on your resume, no one is really going to care. And I think what you just said is such an important lesson and like you, I wrote things down, I prioritize, I wanted to learn. I had a t shirt business and Michigan I want to have my own company one day, I met some really bright people and I took the risk, but it was a very, very big risk. I talked about it with my mom, my girlfriend at the time it became my wife. And it was it was finally do you have the courage to go do this and do something that you want to pursue and have a passion what I really thought about on the list was making money. And I know people are afraid to say that and I do coach people money should not be the number one goal. In later in life. I was 29 years old when I left San America. And at that point, you're thinking about getting married, I was getting married, paying for our own wedding. And you do think about you know being able to buy a house and provide for kids that we didn't have but it was scary as shit. I just got to tell you, and we got lucky. You talked about luck.
• 7:39
  Randall Kaplan: We'll talk about that in a minute as well. But things worked out. Okay. But I can tell you I Bandy this around for eight months on a daily nightly conversation an hour a day and and ultimately proved to be the right choice. But it's very hard. Ego is a huge part of it.
• 7:58
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about soccer. And we'll start with some stats again here it's the most popular sport in the world has more than 5 billion fans, which is more than 62% of the world's population. It is the fourth most popular sport in the United States, behind football, basketball and baseball. 31% of Americans call themselves soccer fans and other than pickleball it is the fastest growing sport in America. The World Cup which takes place every four years is the most watched television event in the world. In 2022. The men's final between Argentina and France, which Argentina won on penalty kicks after a three three time regulation drew an estimated 1.5 billion viewers worldwide. In 2019. The Women's final between the United States and the Netherlands, which the women won two to nothing was viewed by 260 million people, which was more than last year Super Bowl where the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles 38 to 35. That game was watched by 116 point 1 million people it was not only the most watched Super Bowl in history, but at the time it was the most popular TV program of all time in the United States. So you're at the NLL for a little less than three years, you get a call from a recruiter in you set the job as the Commissioner of the National Women's Soccer League 25 years after your childhood dream to be a commissioner of a sports league. That dream came true. Can you tell us about the league in general, which I think a lot of people don't know the number of teams and games, why you took the job and how you termed a massive landmine into a field of diamonds. Yeah.
• 9:42
  Jessica Berman: So the conversation with a recruiter and ultimately getting the job was very surreal. And I remember the final interview and I always will like it was yesterday because I was very intentional about showing up as my authentic self. And I actually remember calling my mom and saying, if I end up getting this job, please remind me that I told them exactly who I was exactly what my strengths are, and where are the areas that I will need support, because I have a feeling if I end up getting this job, I'm going to have a bit of impostor syndrome, and worry about my ability to actually execute this hugely important responsibility. And when I got the call about the job, which was just a couple hours after I left the interview, I pretty much wrap my head almost immediately around the idea that this was an opportunity that could literally change the world. I had always believed, as we discussed earlier, that sport has the power to change the world. And that historically, I had defaulted to working in men's sports, because it was the thing that had the outsized influence in our society. But I had this sort of second epiphany in my life, where I realized that scaling and growing a women's professional league, and proving the value of women's sports as a business in and of itself, could change the way that people see women and girls forever. And it was the perfect opportunity for me to actually deploy the exact experience that I had had in my career, both from the NHL and from the NLL, put it all together into into one and execute a vision that was really grounded in all the values that I've learned throughout my life, both personally and professionally, and create this foundational pivotal shift in society that I genuinely believe had the tailwinds of the cultural relevance of the sport of soccer, that was going to really get people's attention. What I did not know was how quickly that was going to happen. And so I guess some of the stats of sort of like, where we were where we are. So when I joined, the league was in the midst of a league wide investigation, going back to the art origination of the league, focused on systemic abuse by coaches of players. And there were a lot here
• 12:45
  Randall Kaplan: just to be clear, sexual abuse, and racial abuse and emotional abuse.
• 12:49
  Randall Kaplan: Mostly,
• 12:53
  Jessica Berman: there were several instances of sexual abuse, and there was a lot of emotional abuse, more more in the category of emotional abuse, but really more just the underpinnings of a system that was not built to be responsive to or support player experience.
• 13:09
  Jessica Berman: And the league was really on the precipice of a lot of questions of its viability, and franchise values were few million dollars.
• 13:21
  Jessica Berman: Slash many people told me they were giving them away for free.
• 13:28
  Jessica Berman: We had a teeny tiny media deal with by way of example, only six of our games were available in national broadcast. And the rest were behind a paywall. And the league right before I started was set what had made the decision but had not yet absorbed the expansion of two teams to go to 12 teams. Fast forward to today, January of 2024. We have expanded we will be 14 teams this coming season.
• 14:09
  Jessica Berman: We sold the team 14 to six Street, the private equity fund, and they're going to be playing in the Bay Area. The team is called Bay FC and they bought that team for $53 million. So we drove franchise values by more than 10 times. We drove the value of our new media deal which comes into effect on March 15. When our season starts by more than 40 times So collectively between 2024 and 2027. Our broadcast partners are investing a quarter of a billion dollars into the league. And we will have more than 100 games on national distribution between Amazon On prime, CBS, ESPN and Scripps ion. So all of that sort of in a nutshell, I think, among other records, setting attendance, record setting viewership records, setting sponsorship records, the business is booming, and the world has taken notice. I think one of the more fun things that I've been able to do, which is the first for me, as a first time CEO, is build our organization. So when I was hired, I was employee number 18.
• 15:34
  Jessica Berman: And we now have 58 employees in under two years, and we're actually approved to go up to 82. So we're in active hiring mode, which is super fun. We have a beautiful office on Madison Avenue and 40th Street where our employees come and work and collaborate. And it's, it's just a it's a beautiful representation of people who are committed and passionate to the growth of women's soccer.
• 16:10
  Randall Kaplan: When you got that call from a recruiter, did you say Holy shit, this is incredible. And then you hang up the phone and you look around your room say, Oh, my God, this is incredible. And then you say yourself, well, wait a minute, never played soccer and amount of soccer fan.
• 17:19
  Jessica Berman: Yeah, that was one of the things when I talk about authenticity. In my interview, I was not that anybody would have mistook me for a soccer player, because they would know based on my resume. But the bottom line was, I really genuinely believed and believed at the time that I don't need to have played soccer to do my job. I am obsessed with the things that I don't know, which has really helped me throughout my life. And I've hired really smart people who are subject matter experts in the areas that I don't have experience, one of them being the sport of soccer. And so I would never have the audacity to make decisions about our game without consulting with people who understand our game.
• 18:11
  Randall Kaplan: You talk about the value of the team when I when I made a little bit of money, fair, fair amount of money after our company went public. I got a couple of calls for soccer teams, I think two for women's soccer teams and one for a man's professional soccer team. I thought, gosh, you know who in the US is watching soccer. No one I know is watching soccer. And these teams were losing money. So it's not like there was a big TV deal. I mean, you're paying millions of dollars to just keep the team and it was, it was more like saying, Yeah, I own a professional sports team. Then you have the women's team in LA and you have all these celebrities, Jennifer Garner, Natalie Portman, Billie Jean King, who own this franchise that I think if you believe what Forbes and some of the other publications are saying it's worth $100 million today. And then you have the men's club today, which is the first sports US team that is worth a billion dollars. And I know those guys, Larry Bird has been a friend forever. He's an amazing guy. He loves soccer and it just like you said the appreciation of these teams has been incredible.
• 19:17
  Randall Kaplan: So you deserve a lot of credit.
• 19:17
  Randall Kaplan: I think people are really happy that you're there that people that I know in the sports world so just want to congratulate you on that.
• 19:28
  Jessica Berman: Thank you so much. It's it's it's a dream come true literally for me. So I'm I'm enjoying it. And we also feel like we're just getting started.
• 19:39
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about the disparity in pay between men and women. And in particular, we'll talk about the World Cup we'll start there. Historically, there was a huge pay gap between men's and women's soccer teams, especially with regard to prize money and major tournaments like the FIFA World Cup. For example, the total prize money for the 2018 Men's World Cup was about$400 million, while the Women's World Cup in 2019 and $30 million in prize money. When the French men's team won the cup in 2018. They received $38 million.
• 20:09
  Randall Kaplan: When the US women's national team won the World Cup in 2019.
• 20:14
  Randall Kaplan: They received $4 million. In the US our women's team has been a dominant force since the women's inaugural World Cup in 1991.
• 20:22
  Randall Kaplan: They won that year in 1999 2015 and 2019. Four times in total and despite the fact that the men's team has never won, they were paid much more in terms of salaries, bonuses and prize money. Last year, Christian Ronaldo made $200 million on the field and another $60 million off the field. Lionel Messi made$65 million on the field and $70 million off the field 135 mil And in total, Sam Kerr, the highest paid female soccer player in the world who is considered the best player in the world made $450,000. Last year, Maria Sanchez, who plays for the Houston dash recently became the highest paid player ever. The National Women's Soccer League when she signed a three year contract with a mutual option for fourth year, which could earn her $1.5 million over four years or$375,000 a year. If we do the math, the top men's player made 533 times more than the top female player. Well, women's soccer players ever make anywhere close to these numbers, or at least get to the point where they're making a few million dollars a year. And what has to happen to make women's soccer explode in popularity in the US and around the world. So women's leagues can get bigger TV contracts and get these bigger salaries? Ah,
• 21:49
  Jessica Berman: great question.
• 21:49
  Jessica Berman: Well, as a labor lawyer, coming from men's sports, and having been part of work stoppages, where male athletes were getting paid too much money, a lot of the work I did was about salary compression, and wage suppression to make sure that there was the appropriate economics for owners to actually pull the revenues that would allow for them to grow the business. That is still, of course, it's my job to make sure that it's a sustainable business. But it is also true that it is my job to figure out the ways to build a revenue model that will allow for our players to actually get paid.
• 22:33
  Jessica Berman: And that is probably the most one of the most unexpected challenges of my career. And what I would say is that we've we've adopted the fundamental view that this is not a charity, and that we're not looking to ask for handouts. And we're not we therefore, don't expect shouldn't expect to pay players, the type of compensation that male athletes make without the revenue to support it. So we have to build a sustainable business model that allows compensation to grow quickly. So what we need to do is actually build the business. And that's our job. We can do that quicker.
• 23:26
  Jessica Berman: When fans and consumers are buying tickets, buying merchandise, and watching on TV.
• 23:31
  Jessica Berman: Those are the three things that we need for people to do if you want for women's sports and female athletes to have pay equity. We need to grow the consumption of this sport, and ensure that people are actually watching watching, not just talking about it on social media and not saying Why aren't the players getting paid, but to actually show up, buy season tickets, go to a game, watch on TV, wear a t shirt, tell your friends about it. Those are the ways that we can unlock incremental investment from sponsors and media partners, you can be sure with this new media deal that ESPN, CBS, ion and Amazon, we are working night and day to drive tune in so that the investment that they made in US actually proves to be valuable to them. So that in our next media cycle, we can unlock more investment and pay our players more. So it's a it's a cycle of growth, like in any any business, and we need to make sure that we're building it sustainably. We
• 24:46
  Randall Kaplan: talk about brand names when we build businesses and you talk about sports and when we think about it, you've got LeBron James, you've got Michael Jordan, in soccer.
• 24:56
  Randall Kaplan: You've got Messi Ronaldo, when we talk about women's soccer players, we don't really have any star Megan Rapinoe 16 year career two time World Cup winner 2.1 million followers on Instagram. I'm Alex Morgan, one of the most recognizable players in the game. 34 years old now.
• 25:15
  Randall Kaplan: 10 point 1 million followers.
• 25:20
  Randall Kaplan: You think about the UFC, for example, as well you have Conor McGregor, and in every major sports league, there seems to be one player, Tiger Woods, people want to go and watch that person. Does national Major League Soccer need a female superstar to help bring notoriety to the league and help propel you forward to the next level where everybody wants to watch her?
• 25:42
  Jessica Berman: Absolutely. We know that especially this next generation of fans. They care about the athlete first and we Thankfully have Meghan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan who are cultural icons. And with Meghan Rapinoe, retiring, we absolutely are focused on building that next generation of talent and making sure that they're superstars and they become household names.
• 26:09
  Jessica Berman: We're starting to see that with this next generation of talent on the US Women's National Team.
• 26:13
  Jessica Berman: This past summer was probably the youngest national team in the history of US Soccer for women for women's soccer. And in our league we have I think we now have 315 year olds playing in our league, who are pros, and who are incredibly talented. And we have actually seen really good data to support that, that next generation of fans, Gen Z's and millennials love watching young athletes. And we actually think this next boom of talent is going to capture the hearts and minds of of our country in ways that we were really excited to unlock.
• 27:00
  Randall Kaplan: As you know, I live in Los Angeles, you drive down Sunset Boulevard, and an entire building is covered with something about a movie or every now and then a sports figure. I look forward to the day where you see the next female soccer star covering a building kicking that ball sweat falling out or doing something great like that to instill insight.
• 27:21
  Jessica Berman: There actually is one I'm going to find out where it is of Elizabeth Thompson. She's she's 18. She just left Harvard Westlake and she is now on Angel City. And she actually played in Sydney this summer at the World Cup.
• 27:42
  Jessica Berman: And I do believe that she is on a billboard somewhere. I will find out where it is.
• 27:47
  Randall Kaplan: That's awesome.
• 27:47
  Randall Kaplan: Dana White has become a friend and he's going to be a guest on my show. And it's interesting.
• 27:53
  Randall Kaplan: They cultivate superstars, right? So you got Conor McGregor, who's great for the league. He's outlandish. She's a phenomenal fighter. He actually the Fertitta brothers actually met him first and they they left this meeting they called Dana up and they said, I don't know if this guy's crazy or crackpot, he's gonna be a complete failure. He's gonna be the best fighter that we've ever seen.
• 28:12
  Randall Kaplan: Now you have sugar Sean, who was on my show last week, as the next Conor McGregor. And he said, No, Connor is gonna be the next sugar. Sean O'Malley. So it's funny to see the league's develop, and I think they should help promote their best player.
• 28:28
  Randall Kaplan: So I think I think that's great.
• 28:32
  Randall Kaplan: Let's switch gears. What are the five most important ingredients to be successful?
• 28:40
  Jessica Berman: Number one, empathy. Number two, hard work?
• 28:47
  Jessica Berman: Number three, at least for me.
• 28:47
  Jessica Berman: Efficiency, number four, relationships. Number five.
• 28:54
  Jessica Berman: contentment?
• 28:59
  Randall Kaplan: That's a very interesting list. It's a unique list. I've asked 100 guests that question. Empathy has never been number one. What does it mean to you? First of all, and why is it number one on your list? Yeah,
• 29:10
  Jessica Berman: well, I believe that everything we do in life is a form of trying to influence or sell what you either believe that could be products, that could be services, that could be philosophy, that could be a vision, that could be a strategy, that could be anything, right. And I believe that in order to convince constituents of whatever it is, you're trying to convince them of, you need to understand where they're coming from, you need to start by listening and understanding their experience and meeting them where they are, which requires that I think emotional intelligence to not only know yourself, but in order to be empathetic, you actually have to know yourself, and then you have to be able to join someone where they are to bring them along on the journey. Where does
• 30:12
  Randall Kaplan: passion fit in, if at all, and you have to be passionate about what you're doing to be successful?
• 30:18
  Jessica Berman: I think you do.
• 30:18
  Jessica Berman: And maybe that maybe that could be among the five. I view that more as like table stakes, because I don't even think you're asking yourself questions about how to be successful. If you're not passionate. I think it's just like, embedded within.
• 30:34
  Jessica Berman: It's not a choice. You're probably focused on other things if or distracted, frankly, if you're not passionate about what you're doing.
• 30:50
  Randall Kaplan: One of the things that's contributed My successor has made me successful, something I call extreme preparation. That means when someone's prepared one hour, I may prepare five or 10.
• 30:58
  Randall Kaplan: Someone prepares five, I may prepare 60 or 70, especially for an important corporate presentation that we do as extreme preparation been important in your career? And can you give us some examples if it has and how it's contributed to your success, especially when the odds of success were stacked against you?
• 31:19
  Jessica Berman: Yeah, of course.
• 31:19
  Jessica Berman: I mean, that's the hard work part. And, you know, preparation, I think shows up in both obvious and not obvious ways. So there's the obvious more traditional preparation where you might do research. I may, for example, as I did listen to a few of your podcasts to get a sense of sort of the kinds of questions you ask are the people you've interviewed, read your website, so that I'm walking into the situation with sort of a baseline of information that allows for me to feel confident that I can engage in this conversation show up in a way that I'd be proud of. But then I think there's the non traditional preparation, which I think is just as important is probably not talked about enough, which is your holistic preparation. So did I workout this morning? Have I drank enough water? Did I eat proper meals? Have I answered the calls of my kids when they called me earlier? If not, I'm probably distracted? did? Did I did I set myself up for success in this situation? And so that's both directly meaning, the literal meeting or conversation you're have, but also indirectly? What are the externalities that could have me show up in a way that would not be my best self? And what can I do to mitigate that? You've
• 32:57
  Randall Kaplan: talked about what it takes to be a good leader. And I think one of the things we've talked about before something that most people don't talk about, because their ego gets in the way, or they just don't want to share personal emotion. But let's talk about vulnerability, is that important, really, to be a great leader? And if so, why?
• 33:21
  Jessica Berman: Yeah, and actually, if I, if I had prepared my five things that might have been one of the five because I think in order for, first of all, I think one of the four most important things as a leader is to role model the behavior that you expect to see, it's always more effective to do it. Of course, you need to say it, but then you also need to do it, you need to do it, you need to say you need to do it, you need to do it, you need to say it, and then you need to do it.
• 33:53
  Jessica Berman: And if we want our leaders or employ any employees to know when to ask for help, to not put themselves in situations that they're equipped to handle, we have to show them that it's okay to ask for help and to say, I'm over my skis, or this is something I don't know the answer to. And the only way that they will ever feel safe enough to do that is if they see leadership doing that. And in fact, as we know, when we read about impostor syndrome, everybody experiences that in the world. Everybody has moments where they're worrying about whether they're either qualified or able to do X, task X job, manage X situation. And all you're doing by verbalizing that is humanizing yourself, I actually view it as a giving you a position of strength, not weakness to show that vulnerability, because you've now created a connection with someone that allows for them to feel like you're relatable. And in my experience, the biggest unlock you get from that is that that person is now invested in your success. They now recognize and know that they're part of your journey in a way that actually has them both actively and passively rooting for you.
• 35:27
  Jessica Berman: And it's a way to build coalitions around you to be able to show that you can't do it alone. Because we're so much stronger when people around us are trying to help us to be successful. If you don't give people a role in that. They don't actually know how to be part of your success or to be there to support you.
• 35:50
  Randall Kaplan: As I already mentioned in my show, Oh, my main goal is to inspire motivate people to get over their challenges on their path to success. And by hearing the stories of successful people like you from all walks of life, I think everybody takes something a little different from each guest that I have.
• 36:04
  Randall Kaplan: You've talked about what your main job is to this to inspire, fill in the blank, I
• 36:15
  Jessica Berman: would like my legacy to be that. You universal, you, in this case, me, can show up as a leader in a way that's different from others, that you can be your authentic self, and engage in the practices that allow for you and your company or business to be successful. And feel really proud of how you did it, and the people you worked with, and people who worked around you.
• 36:53
  Jessica Berman: And that it wasn't a zero sum game, that I hope that at the end of whatever my career is, and along the way that the people I worked with, and for in the league, but then also my family feel really good about what we collectively accomplish.
• 37:15
  Jessica Berman: Because when I think about vulnerability, what we were talking about earlier, it's not just internally with my staff, I do that with my kids. It's actually the reason I believe this is something I want to write a book about that one day, this is like on my on my list. I think it's the reason that it's one of the main reasons that I've been able to accomplish what I have in my life, because I actually think the most important thing, the most important ingredients or recipe that I've unlocked, is how to get my kids to want to make me successful. And so there's not a zero sum game, they're 100% in my camp. And it was very intentional. It was not by accident, that that that happened. And I feel like there's a lot to learn from that. Because I don't ever have to apologize for what I'm doing every day. I feel like what I'm getting what I'm doing is a gift not just to my staff, and my board and my players here and the players at the NWSL, but also to my kids.
• 38:26
  Randall Kaplan: That's awesome.
• 38:26
  Randall Kaplan: I have five kids through college. My son, and Charlie is a sophomore in college. And he helps and gives me suggestions on my podcasts. He suggests guests, some of them have been on my show, and they came from him. And you know, it's so cool to say, Dad, I'm proud of you. I love your show, my friends love your show. And I think as a dad, as a person as a professional that just lights me up like, like nothing else. I think as we get close to the end of our show, we've all had a lot of challenges in life. And one of the things that makes us successful is to get through those challenges. Your first husband, Brad had some health challenges. And I want to know how you overcame those challenges. While you had two young children were working crazy job long hours and had to travel. How were you able to overcome that? Yeah,
• 39:19
  Jessica Berman: so I guess the, the cliffnotes version of of what happened to Brad is that when we were he was 37. And I was 36. And he was perfectly healthy. What did not have any historical medical challenges.
• 39:35
  Jessica Berman: He had a massive stroke at the age of 37 and was in a coma for seven weeks and was hospitalized for four months, and had to relearn how to breathe, walk, talk, eat. And our kids were five and two at the time. And I was at the NHL during those years. And so it's part of the reason that I have so much gratitude is because when you're faced with actual life and death with the people you love most you build a level of resilience that I pray. Most of the world never has to learn and gain perspective that I pray most of the world never has to gain. And you know that that situation probably taught me more about who I am as a person, the core of who I am as a person and what matters most to me than almost any other experience in my life.
• 40:41
  Jessica Berman: You know, they say God only gives you what you can handle.
• 40:48
  Jessica Berman: And people said that too. Mi when Brad was super sick, and expressed confidence that I could get through it. And of course at the time, that's not what I wanted to hear. But it was true I, I really learned from that experience that I was stronger than I thought I could ever be. And it brought our families so close together, including Brad, we ended up getting divorced, but he's one of my closest friends in the world we we chose to not be married, but we chose to remain best friends. And those years were really hard years where my focus had to shift to caring for him and my children. Thankfully, the NHL was super supportive of me. I focused on the things that mattered most we engaged in a fundraising campaign for the local hospital where Brad was doing his rehab, we raised a million dollars to bring robotics rehabilitation to our local hospital, which he used to rehab and get him to a point where he was not in a wheelchair anymore. All of that was incredible. And as someone who to take it back to the beginning of our conversation had dreamed of being a commissioner from the time I was 16. At age 36, I had to recognize that it wasn't in my control to continue to work on my career ambitions, and I had to focus on my family and know that it would either affect my career or wouldn't affect my career. But at that moment, I made the choice that it didn't much matter, because really, what what the only thing that mattered in that moment was my family. And, you know, believing and trusting again, that everything that I have proven up to that point in my career, I've never lost any of that. And everybody who knew me and worked with me, was always reminding me that no one could take away what I've accomplished. And when my family was in a better place that I could come back and resume, whatever it is, the next steps would be, which of course, is likely different than it otherwise would have been. But I, I feel really proud of of the way I and my family navigated that very challenging situation.
• 43:33
  Randall Kaplan: And he's fully recovered today. Good Andy.
• 43:36
  Randall Kaplan: He's,
• 43:37
  Jessica Berman: he has some challenges, physically and a few otherwise, but he made a miraculous recovery. He was he was told we were told that he either wasn't going to live or was going to be a vegetable. And he managed to drive again and he returned to work. He's a tax lawyer. I always thought if anyone I knew almost died, they would change careers, like you'd like wake up and be a different person like that movie Regarding Henry. Do you know that movie? I just thought he was gonna like wake up a different person. But he wanted to go back to being a tax lawyer. And he he works at PWC. And he's we're both very grateful.
• 44:28
  Randall Kaplan: That's an awesome story. Before we get before we finish today, I want to go ahead and ask them our open ended question. I call this part of my podcast, fill in the blank to excellence are ready to play?
• 44:39
  Jessica Berman: Sure.
• 44:40
  Randall Kaplan: The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is love wins. My number one professional goal is to feel purposeful. My biggest regret in life is not traveling more. The craziest moment in my career is
• 44:58
  Jessica Berman: seeing the players who were the original whistleblowers, Sinead Fairley and mana shim, come back and play in our league last season.
• 45:18
  Randall Kaplan: The funniest moment in my career is
• 45:22
  Jessica Berman: seeing how much people care about my rescue dogs.
• 45:27
  Randall Kaplan: The one thing I've jumped off doing for a long time but haven't done is
• 45:32
  Jessica Berman: learning how to technically climb a mountain.
• 45:40
  Randall Kaplan: If you could go back in time, the one piece of advice you would give to your 21 year old self is it's all going to work out. If you could meet one person in the world who would it be? Nelson Mandela, the one question you wish I'd asked you but didn't is.
• 45:59
  Jessica Berman: He's my hero.
• 46:02
  Randall Kaplan: I think I know what you're going to say. But who is your hero?
• 46:05
  Jessica Berman: My dad,
• 46:06
  Randall Kaplan: I knew that was coming. That's amazing. Jessica, I appreciate your time today.
• 46:11
  Randall Kaplan: You've done so many amazing things in your career. You're an inspiration not only to women, but to a lot of men as well.
• 46:16
  Randall Kaplan: It's great story about pursuing your dreams, against all odds and achieving your dream. So I hope this has been enjoyable for you and I appreciate you being on my show.
• 46:28
  Jessica Berman: Thank you so much. And thank you for your preparation. It shows and it it made the conversation really enjoyable. So thank you