The First 10 Years Of The NWSL, And What It Shows About American Sports Culture

[Music] Welcome to Going Deep, sports in the 21st century on Blue Ridge Public Radio. I'm Dr. Marsha Mountchew. And I'm Coach John Schew. John's coach did the highest levels of the game of football for 26 years. And Marsha is an author, theologian, and minister. And we're glad you've joined us to go deep into some of the most pressing issues of our time. On Going Deep, we go beyond the soundbites and highlight reels. [Music] This episode of Going Deep, we're very excited to have an impact player in women's athletics, professional athletics, on the global stage. I should say the global pitch. Not just the local one, but we're lucky because she is local right here in Western North Carolina. We welcome Megan Burke, who is the executive director of the players association of the National Women's Soccer League. And Megan is here to talk to us about all kinds of things, but we're mostly excited to hear because she's been a part of history being made in these last few years. And so we feel so lucky and just we're just so excited to have you here, Megan. Welcome to Going Deep. Thank you so much, Marsha, for the lovely introduction. And thank you to you and John for having me on. I really am glad to be here. Wonderful. We like On Going Deep to have our guests kind of introduce yourself to our listeners. Tell our listeners a little bit about you. Sure. So I was born and raised in St. Louis. I'm like fourth-th-generation St. Louis co-carnels. And I'm a former player. I'm currently a licensed attorney, licensed here in the state of North Carolina, and had been practicing at a small firm, Brazillen Burke for more than a decade. But I initially moved to Asheville in 2004, because I was chasing the soccer. I played on professional and semi-professional teams for about 10 years. I played here there and everywhere. And actually I have to do it in order. I drop one. So I grew up playing Youth Soccer in St. Louis as only U-16 U.S. national team and then played at St. Louis University. And had an awesome time playing for the Billikens there. I played during college in the W League, which is like a pre-pro League. I played in Colorado and Memphis. And then I was drafted to play for the Carolina Courage in the first women's professional league, the WSA. That league folded the season that I played for it. And then so I tried to go on trial with teams in England and there were some visa issues and couldn't start it out. Came to Asheville in 2004. And that was kind of where I started to figure out what life I sort of think about, I should say. Like what would life look like if I couldn't play soccer professionally? And I met my wife here, Jasmine Bichara. So we've been together about 18 years. And I then played in England for the Bristol Rivers. We got that figured out. Came back and played in St. Louis in a WPSL, which is another kind of semi-pro League. I then I worked while I was playing in St. Louis. I worked for an investor in Major League Soccer who also eventually launched what became St. Louis Athletica, the women's protein in WPS. But I knew I wanted to play and I knew I wanted to go to law school. So we moved to Boston and I went to law school at Northeastern. And while I was there, I played for the Boston Renegades in the W League. I had to get a spinal surgery. I found out I had a really terrible spinal injury from my playing days that required a spinal fusion. And so I didn't get to play in 2009 when the WPS launched. I basically, at 29, became like the old, I was basically like a tryout player all over again and hit the tryout circuit, which is actually way more fun than it sounds. And then so I tried out for a bunch of teams in the last shot with the Chicago Red Stars. And then I signed a contract with New Jersey Sky Blue near the end of the season. And then after that, you know, finished out law school, took the bar exam. And we always knew Asheville was home. And so we came back home in 2010. And I started practicing law. And yeah, now, Jasmine and I have three kids, Calvin, Lily, and Wyatt, seven and twenty-year-olds. And Western North Carolina's home. What a journey. I mean, like, I can't imagine there are many humans that have as much kind of different experiences with the sport. I mean, you came along in a time, I'm not going to ask you your age. I know you're younger than me. So, yeah. So, I mean, you came along in a time because I was coming of age, you know, in sports right when Title IX just was created. So, you know, I played on Boy's soccer teams. Like, that wasn't going to be, there wasn't, there wasn't, there wasn't, women's soccer, you know. And so went the running route. But you really came along, you know, just enough after that, that there were real viable options. And I mean, you were also blazing a trail for women's soccer to be a real thing. I mean, and it's become a real thing in this country. A premier opportunity for women and sports and for girls and sports. So, you've been right there kind of riding the edge of that. I can't, I mean, I can't imagine a better person with your experiences and your training and your expertise to do what you're doing now with the players association. I mean, I do feel like this, this job does kind of feel like a calling, you know, it does feel like I was sort of made, like this feels like a good fit, you know, this is like, this is what I want to do. This feels like I was meant to be in this role at this time. And things that happened in the past year, I mean, it still happens every day where I'm just surprised at how like, oh, like, I'm so glad I had, you know, more than a decade of criminal defense experience before being in this role. I'm so glad I had the, the fact that I'm a former player, I think, is a way, you know, it helps build the trust relationship with players now. Totally. And the player who's had to travel and who's had to be resourceful and put things together and who's experienced injury. And I mean, all of those things are just so important. There's definitely, I mean, you know, we launched during the CBA negotiation last year, the No More Side Hustles campaign to draw attention to what women soccer players were doing to survive, which is not unlike, you know, the AFL CIO has the campaign one job should be enough, which is very much a modern labor movement. And I do feel like, you know, we know a lot about the stars of the US ones national team. And I'm sure we'll talk about that in the international players. But there's this whole swath of these players who are sort of the, like when I was in high school, my high school coach said the saying, you know, you can only have one piano player, but you need a ton of piano movers, you know, like, and it's true that there is this whole like these amazing humans who are a piano movers who are not the people you know about, but you should know about. And you know, I kind of went from like having a youth in college soccer experience that was pretty like, it was pretty sweet, you know, I started a lot of the time things, you know, things were really well. And then my pro career is very much a story of like things failed, leagues failed, clubs failed. I have stories that I probably can't repeat on the record about trying to get back in the country after playing, you know, like, all those things, the odd jobs, five jobs at the same time, scrubbing toilets and, you know, you moving around living out of the football bag. And it's very much, it's not the glamorous lifestyle people think of. And I certainly lived that, but what's interesting about kind of those of us who've played sports, women and girls played sports, like at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, we're actually living through this amazing moment in time. So, yes, you know, I, I was born in 1980, you know, Title 9 was 1972, we're celebrating the 50th anniversary this year. Yes, you're celebrating the 10th year of NWSEL, the longest of women's pro sport, our pro league has lasted in soccer. You know, my, one of my best friends and actually the woman who introduced Jasmine and me right here in Asheville, Stacy Enoes played on the first WSELM's national team in 1985. You know, and that was a time when I started playing soccer in 1983. And my mom, to her infinite credit, who did not have opportunities to play sports. My mom just had this little girl who wanted to carry a footballer or a soccer ball or a baseball around every day. And she's like, I should sign it for her. It was like, I should sign you up for sports. You're interested in sports. Yeah. So she literally just picked up the phone and would call like the YMSA, the concrete it like, will you let a girl play her team? No, okay, bye. Will you let a girl play it? Great. Okay, I'm coming. You know, like, I had it to my mom for doing that and my cousin, Andrea, who now lives in Eastern Tennessee, went with me. And we were the only two girls in the team, you know, but we played and we played, you know, an indoor team kind of for several years. And then club travel soccer had started. And so I got to do that and that kind of took off. But, you know, and then with title nine, kind of really being enforced in the 90s, you saw the proliferation of women's college programs. Yeah. Created more opportunity. And the 99 world cup, of course, and then WSA launching. But then what I've, the story of my pro career and what I've lived is sort of the, the topsy turvy nature of it all. We saw this trajectory, but it's not a straight line. And right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the business of sports, like, right, you, you had experiences to just really, you know, kind of really clench this love and this, and this also sense of like horizon of possibility. But then when it becomes a business, that's when it's really, it's really tangled up with all the things that make it so tenuous and and cut throat and also sometimes really devastating, you know, I mean, like, and it's like you have to get all of that stuff to be able to be a player's advocate and professional sports, I believe, you know. And I know John has many, many thoughts on that. Well, it's interesting to me that as title nine came along, I mean, women's soccer in particular in the United States benefited greatly. And women's soccer rose to the top of the world. Like you said, kind of peaking in maybe the 1999 world cup. I mean, we all remember that. But it seems to me like there were a lot of kind of haphazard leagues that you were jumping around. I think you said a couple of times I was in this league and then it folded. The national women's soccer league, I know was founded about a decade ago in 2012 and they started their first season in 2013 when they played. It seems to me that within a decade of this league being organized. And I think they just went from 10 to 12 teams this season, correct? A player's association within the first decade of a league being created has got to be pretty uncommon because major league based all the NFL, the NBA, I'm willing to bet the NBA 75 years old. I'm willing to bet 65 years ago there was not a player's union. Yet this happens within the first decade of the national women's soccer league developing. What unions are a tricky thing. Some people want to join, some people don't want to join. Some people want to contribute. I mean, this isn't just a story of sports. I mean, we're seeing today unions being voted up and being voted down. How did the national women's soccer league, though? What's the word? Is it coalesce to form this union so quickly when it's kind of been half-pazured? That's a great question. I was involved in the second women's pro league, the WPS. I helped organize the WPS players union in 2010, but it never, because the league came and went within three years, we never negotiated a collective bargaining agreement. So this to my knowledge is the first CBA in domestic women's pro soccer history here in the United States. There might be a few elsewhere around the world, but it's pretty unique. You raise a really interesting point. I often have to remind myself of this, and I talk about this with players, you sort of have to put yourself in a time capsule and go back and say, okay, where was the NBA in the 10th season? Where was Major League Baseball in the 10th season? Where was NFL in the 10th season? I think it's important to do that, because in the business case, as Marsha just pointed out, we get held as women's athletes to a standard that men weren't even at five years ago. And so you have to appreciate like the extra first of all, put aside the business case. Let's talk about the evolution of sport. In just 50 years, women's bodies and the performance of the various sports that we watched is just extraordinary. I mean, athletes are doing now things we couldn't do 10, 12, 15 years ago when I was in college. We've just evolved so fast. It's really remarkable, and you kind of have to pause over that for a minute and appreciate like that's despite systemic discrimination and deprivation of opportunity. What happens when we invest in women? What is the world going to look like in 10, 20, 30, 40 years? Well, my daughter will be able to do that. I didn't have the opportunity to do and that my mom didn't have the opportunity to do so. We do have to put in that context, and actually as it relates to the CBA, it's something I talk about with our players, which is we were able to secure, for example, a broadcast profit sharing arrangement in this contract. If the league is profitable and secures a profitable broadcast deal, 10% of those proceeds will go into player compensation. I'm unaware of another CBA in history that secured a broadcast profit sharing arrangement. We know it's in the NFL now, but I mean, I don't know what I would love for someone to write that authoritative history because I would nerd out about like just the history of CBAs and sports, but we know for example that Major League Soccer didn't have free agency until four or five years ago, you know, and they've been around since the late 90s. So we in our first contract in the first 10 years of league, even though wages are minimum salary is 35 grand plus they get housing and some other benefits, even though on the grand scheme of things that's not, you know, terribly significant. It's enough to maybe get buy on, but it's not going to, you're not going to retire in that by long shot. It's still relative to our growth strong, right? Like there's some really person there and that speaks to the, so to answer your other question, I think this is really important too about typically labor unions will different than the Amazon example, but typically you have a big national labor union that comes in and might organize them. It's like the communication workers of America might come in and organize some journalists at a local newspaper or they actually helped organize the men's second division pro soccer players. In our instance, this really was like grassroots ground level player led organizing players got together and said we need one voice. Solidarities are strength. We can't achieve a one what we could together. We need to come together and form a labor union. And that's actually how I got looped back in. I was here in Asheville. I was actually driving to the gym one day like between court handling, you know, misdemeanor pleas or whatever I was doing that day. And an old teammate called and said, hey, we just did a thing. We just organized a union. And I was waiting for the like, you know, your lawyer could you? And she literally was like, we're gonna announce the pro we're gonna put out a press release and we need a legitimate looking phone number. Can we use yours? When is this happening? I'm like, you know, I'm getting I'm like, run out or die with my homies. So I was like, sure, when's this happen? She like, within an hour. And I was like, I need to turn around and go back. We'll be right back with our guest, Megan Burke, the executive director of the players' association of the National Women's Soccer League. Welcome back to going deep, where we're continuing our fascinating conversation with the executive director of the players association of the National Women's Soccer League, Megan Burke. I think sometimes, not sometimes, I think often unions are benefiting some of the people that don't have as much power. I mean, Megan Rapino, Alex Morgan, in Rose Levelle are probably going to be okay even if there's not a union. But the people on the journey like you've been on, maybe. I think there's significant things about a salary level of 35,000, and up a minimum salary. But you also secured a lot of non-financial benefits, like an off-season holiday, seven day break during the season. Just professionalism within the soccer league. IE, you're playing on real soccer fields. You've got quality locker rooms. But as Marcia said, the mental health care that is incorporated in this, I think, too, is really uncommon. It's not just some women's health issues that you've directed, but just mental health issues that let alone it's only in the first decade. This is the first collective bargaining agreement. And you're hitting some things. Other people have never done it. Nobody has done. Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, an interesting thing is that it's based on the lived experience in these players, workers and workers' lives. And jurors. Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that we, you know, there's a couple of pieces in form this. First was, you know, we, I was very much aware of the systemic abuse in our sport before it all became out, before it all became sort of international headline news. And other people started reading about it. Partly because I grew up in the sport and hear the stories, you know, what players have endured. You also just look around and see, you know, in a bargaining unit where 100% of the workers are either women or we have two out trans players, non-binary identifying athletes and 100% or close to 100% of their bosses or men. Like, if there's something going on there that we should at least pause over. If we were in any other work environment, someone would kind of pause and just say, what's that about, right? So there, these are issues we'd always known about. And then when these stories came out last fall, we really got to work on thinking, okay, it's not enough to just like, we're going to call this out. We're going to speak out against it. But we want to come up with a solution. Like, we don't just, we care about this lead. We care about this sport. It's not just about, you know, so much of what we'd all lived through in my generation of players was like the rise and fall of leagues, right? Like the demise of the W.W. say. And it would have been too easy to just say, we're going to shut this whole thing down, right? It's too dysfunctional to be on saving. And players have still to the state, believe in our hearts, like this is worth saving. There's, we just, we care enough about it that we want to transform it. And one way to do it is to talk about something that we all know is true, which is people struggle with mental health issues, they struggle with trauma, they struggle with anxiety and depression. And I'm not saying that addressing mental health is a solution to systemic abuse, but it's one tool in the toolbox. We also have a very serious pending joint investigation, like I'm a lawyer. So we're not just approaching it from one avenue, but we have up to six months paid mental health leave in end of a cell. And it was really powerful to go to the bargaining table with end of a cell in the week that these stories came out and say, here, we want this. And what was cool about the negotiation was that I think the speaks to the evolution that we, our societies had around mental health and how we talk with these things. The response was not no way know how we wouldn't even entertain it. You know, everyone has bad days or whatever sort of kind of cliche or glib things people say about mental health. It was like, oh, we've read the article. We see what Manna and Shaneid and Kaya have lived with. This is real. This is not some squishy things. This is a very tangible thing we can get our arm's around. It's probably not going to be commonly used, but when it's used by God, we need it. And shortly after that, we've had tragically at least two suicides in the soccer community that were aware of. And you know, this is real. This is very serious. And my hope is that, but talking about it more openly and pointing to this is one of the tools in the toolbox that we can set a new standard in sports, but in also in the workplace that this is a very, this should not stand alone. This should not be trend setting. This should be something that like everyone has. A very small fraction of human beings have had up close experiences of professional sports. And I just want our listeners to understand how radical that is, how very different that is than other professional leagues. I mean, we have had many years in the NFL. And just totally different atmosphere. And instead of the ways that players, mental health and their physical health and brain injuries and stuff have been dealt with in the NFL has really been more about, let's cover our butts. Let's try to minimize the damage and save the things people want to hear, but not really do it. And protecting players isn't our top priority because in football, there's always somebody else that will do the job. If you think this is a crappy atmosphere, then go right ahead. There's somebody else that wants in. And so what I'm hearing that so radical is this ground up creation of a culture that is much more around this kind of collective wisdom. This is what it takes to really, for this to not kill us, for this to be not only just a positive experience, but something that creates a life you can make it work. And that's good for everybody. And that's just such a different culture than other leagues. Our son is a professional rugby player, which is also a very young major league rugby's a young league. It's only what four years old. And you're in year five. Year five. And I mean, he's having a great experience. You know, he loves it. His wages are a little bit lower than the minimum. Next up, we're going to have you do a collective bargaining agreement. Agreement. It's an age-only rugby. Next next. But we'll talk about that off the air. Right. Exactly. But but I mean, Sydney's having a great experience. And it is, it does have a different tonality to it than the NFL and in some ways. But and yet this kind of always default, the kind of reflex toward just this capitalist impulse. It's like, well, we got to make a profit. And that's all this is is something that's taken over professional sports. And even non-professional sports. So I just I just want people to know what a radical well, you know, kind of culture creation. You're you're participating in and helping to lead. It's, you know, one of the things that I've spent a lot of time thinking about and it it wasn't it's almost so obvious that I didn't see it. You know, I I went from spending more than 10 years defending the accused in the criminal justice system. And you know, near the end of that time, just feeling especially during the pandemic, this real sense of despair, like you're screaming into the abyss about how messed up this is. And you're like, am I the only one that sees how like, am I feeling that it feels this way? This is very ice, you know, as a criminal defense lawyer, you're like, you get to know this human being. And you see their, you know, their moms and children falling apart as they're being escorted off to prison for 16 years for their first felony offense or whatever, you know, the situation is. And I, you know, I was really eager to be like, oh, we're going to do soccer like soccer, you know, like, this is great. We're in these sports. I know where it sports is in a happy place, you know, and it wasn't long before all of a sudden, I was like, wait, like, this whole world of sports is premised on buying and selling people. Like, it was this like, whoa, like we get to like criminal justice system out of the roots of slavery. And then I go into sports thinking we're just going to talk about bouncing balls. And I was like, wait, no, no, no, no, we're buying and selling people. That's right. And what that creates is the same kind of callousness towards basic health and safety issues. And yeah, basic human dignity. Yeah. That's very well put. The, yeah, I call it the commodification of humans. I mean, it's just like, but it's all dressed up in this pretty bow of like sports that we love, you know, and, and it must be so wonderful to be a professional athlete, you know, and it must have been so cool to be in the NFL. And, and it's like, can be pretty dehumanizing, you know, it's like, you're, you're, you realize you're expendable. That's right. You know, so to create a different culture, but still quote unquote, play the game of making a league profitable is, that's a huge, that's a huge thing, really. So when, when you talk about human dignity and work, you said something earlier that you had a campaign called no more side hustles. And I'm kind of interested in that. So our listeners know in the WNBA, which is the Women's National Basketball Association. I mean, one of the world's greatest basketball players is Brittany Griner. And Brittany Griner right now is in Russia being held captive and can't come back to America. You might wonder why is the world's arguably, I mean, one of the top 10 women's basketball players in the world, why in the off season was she going to play basketball in Russia? She was the number one overpick, overall pick three time all Americans. She's won an SB, seven time all star, all WNBA selection, a gold medalist twice for crying out loud. Her resume can't be greater yet. She couldn't make a living playing basketball in America in contracts in Turkey and in Russia of all places are seven to eight times the amount that Americans are paid. Could you talk more about what the players association is doing? I love that language, no side hustles that if you want to commit to soccer, be the best soccer player that you could be because you know, I got news for people, professional sports are year round. It's 365 days a year. These people do not get out of the shape, but back in the 70s even when the NFL had been around for 50 years, I mean, players still had off season jobs. They don't have that anymore. Well, I appreciate you bringing that up, especially in the context of what we know about Brittany Griner. We've been standing with our sisters in the WNBA and it's just been, I mean, devastating to follow that story and we honestly can empathize with it because a lot of our players for a long time did go overseas and affect a bunch of Russia where professional, you know, professional sporting opportunities are more available to women in Russia, but you get paid better there than you do here. And so what Brittany was doing, you know, these athletes for both basketball soccer and esport, you have a limited window of time, be an athlete. You know, if you're lucky, you might get 10 years, but really the average shelf life is probably somewhere from three to seven. And that's also your prime, think of it, your 20s and 30s are your prime, like, I'm getting a lot of greer, a medical degree or I'm building the foundation of a teaching career, I'm going to be a physical therapist or whatever, you're not doing that in addition to the limited period of time you have to be at the top of your game as an athlete. You are not building the marketable skills that allow you to then launch a different career that could last you a longer period of time. So you have to maximize your income during this window. And so what Brittany Griner is doing as one of the best players in the world is trying to maximize this window of opportunity she's got so that she can survive not just now, but she's going to have to survive on this for the foreseeable future and figure out where her career is going to be. And that's not something you just wake up the next morning after playing your last game and say, okay, no, I'm going to do, I'm going to be a salesman or whatever. And so that's something all athletes I know have to do here in the NWSL, wages were so low that players were working two, three and four jobs in addition to training and playing during the season. And what happened with the launch of NWSL, so when Lily launched in 2013, players made $6,000 over the course of a year. And the season was, you know, four to six months long for the first few years. So in theory, maybe you could go get another job, the other half of the year to support yourself. But over time, the season's gotten longer and longer and longer. And what what listeners need to know is that you don't just go to practice two hours a day, right? Like you get there in the morning, you probably have pre-hab treatment, you know, meetings with coaches, whatever you do training for two to three hours. And after that, you have rehab, ice, PT, film, it's an old day sucker. Right. And you know, you're not so much team meals. And then like, you probably have film and afternoon meetings, you got a lift, you got conditioning, you get all that. I mean, it's a long day, not to mention that it's physically taxing. And so a lot of our athletes, we get up at three in the morning and go work the front desk at Orange Theory or, you know, finished training and hustle over at a work as a barista. One of the brightest people I know, one of our officers, we actually had a joke about how it like she had the record for a number of jobs she got fired from because she would never say, but she's she's very smart. She's very, that's the interesting thing about the athletes I represent. Almost all of them have college degrees, almost all of them from excellent institutions, you know, Harvard, Duke, Yale, Carolina, like NC State, I don't believe anyone out in North Carolina, but really good schools, all of them. And they're accomplished and they're smart and they're go-getters. And so Emily would get a job, do really well. She'd get promoted. And she, you know, they'd keep promoting her. She's like, no, no, no, stop promoting me because I have to be able to leave at a certain time to go to training or have to travel, have to go to whatever. And eventually they'd promote her and she like couldn't do the job they're promoted into and she'd get fired because she's like, I literally cannot show up to that meeting. I have to go to Chicago or whatever. And so she, I think it was like 14. It was like some crazy number of jobs, you know, Jessica McDonald, you know, single mom working in the Amazon factory, like 11, 12 hour shifts after training goes on to win the World Cup in 2019. And still, you know, just an amazing human. So we're hearing all these stories in the course of preparing for CBA negotiations. And we were like, these, this is just antithetical to what people think about when they think about pro-affly. When they think of a pro-affly, they probably think of a man. They probably think of a man who's who's got a lot of money and probably a second home, you know, maybe travels in a helicopter. And like, what we're seeing is something very different. And people need to understand when we're fighting for what we're fighting for in this CBA. We're fighting for 35 grand. We're fighting for we shouldn't be playing soccer on a baseball field. And it was helpful to illustrate and tell a story. Like, I think human stories are such a more persuasive way to explain something than me as a lawyer sitting here going. Here's our six point plan for the CBA. I mean, I had this experience or whatever, but you know, that was the point of the No More Side Houses campaign, which very closely aligned with what's happening, what we're seeing in our country around labor. You know, people are saying there's a labor shortage, but there's not, there's a good job shortage and workers are fed up and they're demanding just dignity of work. And that's right. It's one of the reasons that we felt strongly about affiliating with the AFL CIO. We became the AFL CIO's most recent affiliate last fall. And we're really proud of that because, you know, workers stood with us as we went through what we went through. And we have committed to standing with them. We sent the Portland Thorns to the Picket Line to stand with the bakers who were on strike last September. And what's interesting is I've heard bakers talk about how powerful it was for these women's pro soccer players to show up and actually Bella Bixby, who's like six to goalkeeper, like literally stopped the Mac truck on the Picket Line. And wow, I mean, it was just really powerful and also very scary. But what was really interesting is after that, how the players reported back to me how powerful it was for them to see like this, you know, this man's been working for this factory for 30 years and all he wants is to keep the same health insurance he had before the company wants to cut it. And, you know, it's just it was really, it's interesting because I think our athletes in a very particular way can illustrate the struggles of not just working women but working people. Yeah. Yeah, really. I'm really so grateful that you took us here around kind of the contemporary labor movement and questions around work and just human thriving. And, you know, I think one of our the things that we realized over and over again are just how athletes, especially revenue athletes in college and and then pro athletes are kind of like they're separated from the rest of culture. I was like, well, they're this special class of people almost like they've got it so good they get whatever they want and they get away with things, you know, they don't get in trouble if they do stuff wrong or whatever. And I think one of the reasons why the name image and likeness stuff has changed is because of those stories where people started to realize like, I mean, and that's part of what John and I've, you know, been talking about till we're blue in the face is just stop for a minute and think about it every other college student can get a job and say, hey, here are my experiences and here's why I'll be good at this job, but an athlete can't do that. They can't they can't benefit off of the fact that they are an athlete that that's one of their greatest accomplishments. They can't capitalize on one of their greatest assets. This is America. Everybody else can do that. Why shouldn't they be able to do that? And I think the more players began to understand, hey, what's happening to us is a bigger kind of story around the way capitalism can treat workers and can extract value from people and the way American capitalism in general always wants to go to the lowest common denominator with the cost of labor because because this country was born in free labor slavery. And so there's always this impulse of how how much can we get away with not paying our workers. And so a lot of what you're saying has echoes of what's happened with with NIL and in collegiate sports right now in the workers that you know those those athletes in college they're workers. They're working. Right. That whole topic of name image and likeness is fascinating actually in our context because I mean just not to drop back to the CBA, but I guess there this is a some sort of a problem, which is that in this first contract players have taken back their own name, image and likeness in the NWSL. And what's interesting is that I think there's tremendous commercial opportunity. Part of what's happened in our league is like people have seen women's sports as a charity and they feel to appreciate that there actually is now here's the capitalist target. There actually is a business case. There is a demand for women's sports. There are people who want to consume it and spend their money on it and buy their replica jerseys and go to the games and you know there are sponsorship dollars that would benefit from getting in front of those target demographics. And so they're actually the flip side of this. There is a business case for this that has been ignored because of sexism. Going deep will be right back where we're having a great discussion with the National Women's Soccer League Players Association Executive Director Megan Burke. Welcome back to going deep. Megan Burke is our guest and she's the Executive Director of the Players Association of the National Women's Soccer League. Players can individually go out. We want every single player to go and get every individual endorsement deal they can. Tearpoint to maximize every opportunity they've got to make money on their own name, image and likeness, which is theirs. It is inherent to the person. And if it's marketable good for them, what the Players Association does is we package the group NIL. So the group is defined as four or more players together in a series. And what we're finding is there's a tremendous commercial appetite for things like video games, trading cards, replicas, you know where people are really excited to get to know these athletes in a different way. And the players are actually, I would contend the players have more commercial value than like the team IP for example. We're seeing it in the marketplace and I think that that's going to be an interesting pivot as we get into this whole world of NIL. It's actually on the one hand it is a commercial, it's a business argument, it's kind of a commercial market. Like, you know, there's the capitalism piece that you were talking about on the flip side. There's also this like your name of the likeness is inherent to the person. It's yours. Yeah, it's a cheers. Right. Yeah. And someone else should really be able to exploit that. Right. Assign it to them because you think it's in your best interest like they do at the PA and it's a port, you know, it's interesting. I've been learning a lot about this and it's been a fascinating tension. Yeah, it is. It's the white right of it. A fascinating tension. And when I was when we were more earnestly working in in student athletes rights and I should just say athletes rights. I don't even like that term student athlete, but kind of reframing what you just described for players themselves like you're a commodity. That's the truth. You're in a capitalist enterprise. This isn't some favor that this school is doing for your family. You're doing them a favor. You are here as a you know, you're here as this asset that they're going to extract all this value from you. How do you take back your agency and say, I'm clear headed. I get what this is. This is a business feature. And and I can play that game too. Right. I love I love this game that we're playing sport of the whatever the sport is, but also the fact that it's fully commercialized is something that athletes are learning more and more about. Okay, that's a game. I got to play too. I'm going to do this. And and that's part of human dignity in in a capitalist economy is that we each have the asset of our of our labor, of our ability to do things, of our creativity, of our uniqueness, or whatever. That's all you've got. You know, so I love I love how you playing with both sides of that. You do have to and I wonder because I've always heard this argument in around women's professional sports. It's such a circular argument. And I remember when I was I just graduated from college and I won an award the NCAA woman of the year. I was one of the 10 national finalists. It was the first year that award was ever given. It's amazing. So I was one of 10 people there. And you know, Althea Gibson was there. Robin Roberts, you know, and and there was all this talk around like women's sports is, you know, we're going to this is going to be the high-smint trophy of women's sports, you know, of course, I don't think it's that. I mean, nobody nobody can tell you the NcWA woman here was this year probably, but but at those kind of conversations with some of those women who were pioneers, pioneer professional athletes, they talked about how much they were just caught in the center fuge of their people that love to come watch their people that love the sport their the games are exciting, you know, all the things, but there's always this kind of establishment argument of like, well, we'll start giving you more exposure when you're profitable. That's right. Well, you're not going to be profitable without the exposure and the buy-in. So it's like they're always just caught in this circle and I'm wondering how how do you address that and where you are right now? Well, it's interesting because I would I mean, despite not getting the exposure, for example, and by exposure, what I would mean is like marketing dollars like US soccer's investment in them as a team and as a player is the US women's national team has actually been more profitable than them and we they've left money on the floor. Well, while we're on that, just I don't mean to interrupt, but can you talk about the differences of separate the US national women's team because their court argument where they just won $24 million was kind of going on at the same time you were in this collective bargaining. So could you as you talk about this kind of separate the two as well, but also kind of tell us where they overlap? Yeah, for sure. So the US women's national team is the best players in the country, arguably the world, who represent our country in international competition and their employer is the US soccer federation, which is the governing body of soccer in the United States. They've been wildly popular. Everyone remembers Brandy Chessine taking a shirt off in the nine-year-old club and me and Ham, I too will have two fillings and all that kind of fast-forward Abby Wombach's header off of Megan Rapinoe in the 2011 World Cup in the 2019 championship. So you sort of know these personalities. You know, partly, I mean look, the strength of their personalities right? Like Abby Wombach and Megan Rapinoe and they're just forceful people and funny and you know, Julie Fowdy has a podcast laughter permitted that you would love and you know, they're just very gregarious and likable and interesting. And so they've I think brought a lot of people into like women's soccer fandom, you know. Through that, we've launched these domestic women's professional soccer league. So I use the analogy like it's the difference between Team USA basketball and the NBA. Like in that equation, you know, US women's national team is Team USA and Abyssal is like NBA, right? Like we're a domestic pro league. And so a lot of those internationals play in NWSO. Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Mal Pugh, Becky Saurbrun, you know, Rose Laval, all play in NWSO. We've had a very odd arrangement and this is where people get tripped up for the for the first several years of NWSO. US soccer actually funded and managed NWSO. And so those players played in the NWSO as their as a condition of their employment with US soccer, which meant that the US women's national team players association represented them for purposes of their employment with US soccer in both international competition in NWSO. That was through a system called allocation that went away in December of last year. As of this year, and it's such a, we all love it. As of this year, everyone who plays in NWSO is represented by us, the NWSO players association. So Becky Saurbrun, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan are all members of our PA, of NWSO PA. And in fact, Alex Morgan is a play representative. And I just want to point that out because I think you did say something earlier, it's interesting because like it's true that like Alex Morgan, Becky Saurbrun, Megan Rapinoe, if we didn't have a CBA, like they're going to be okay, right? Like they're doing all right there, wildly successful business women who've earned everything they've gotten through US soccer. But I will say that they if they heard that, they'd say, well, wait a second, though, soccer is a team sport. And we can't stay at the top of our game without an elite domestic pro league to play in. And it's not an elite domestic pro league without 12 teams comprise of 26 people on each roster who can play at that level. Even though we're separate players associations and there's kind of some structural distinctions, they are very much a part of what we've done where we've gotten to. And I think there's that such, I think the picture of that is Alex Morgan who is a mom and a star athlete, a business woman, you know, who's buying to get a spot on the next World Cup roster is a volunteer player representative for the NWSO Players Association. They do not get paid. It is thinkless work. And she's engaged and shows up and weighs in and cast votes and represents her team well. She doesn't have to do that. She's doing it because it matters and she cares about it. And so I think that just it's a unique feature of you know Becky Saurbran was it, you know, we were in touch during CBA negotiations. Like back of Rue, the executive director of the US one was national team PA. It was very much the brains behind us figuring out how to launch a group licensing program. And you know, we were in touch basically every day during CBA negotiations. In fact, I almost convinced her to come to Asherl and sit in the room next to my office so we can negotiate our CBAs by Zoom, like at the same time. I was like, at least so much fun, you know. It didn't actually happen, but you know, it's very much they've been on parallel tracks. And so even though they are separate, I think it's important to point out there's so much solidarity between the PAAs and the players, but that's kind of how that's how that's come out. So I can't it was I get I can't remember where the question even started. I kind of got off on that hand and it's like yeah. No, that was a good you explained a lot to me. I didn't realize that you the United, the National Women's team, the US and WT, the US soccer federation was actually for a period of time paying some of those elite stars to play in this league and that you've separated that. I can't believe that there has been any other league that has done that or I've I've never heard of that. And separating the two is interesting. Your language is I've always thought in the NFL every purse, every player and every coach. I didn't like it, but I felt like they were independent contractors. You know, football is the only game in the world where the same people don't play offense, they play defense. And there's kind of two different teams and it never felt as connected. But what you're saying is just the interconnectedness that an Alex Morgan or a Megan Rapino would say, I'm not going to be a superstar player if I don't have great team, great teammates, but also this league. I'm not sure that's language. I've heard in the NFL. You know, that's interesting. You're absolutely going to end thought of that. But you know, I think there's a lot that I take for granted in working in the soccer world because in a soccer is the world sport. And what's interesting, you come in it earlier, like, and you write that soccer took off on the heels of Title IX, but you know, the reason is because it was cheap. Right. It was, colleges were like, Oh, we just buy a bag of balls. And like, right. And that's why it's played worldwide as well, right? You could go anywhere. And it's the people sport, you know. And so I think part of that is the nature of the sport. In fact, I mean, if you're a rugby fan, I had a, my college boyfriend played rugby and the coach would often say that, you know, Megan rugby is our barbarians sport played by gentlemen, but soccer is a gentleman sport played by barbarians. And I think there's some truth to that. Like soccer is kind of this wild, interesting sport where cultural identity is certainly manifest through the style of play. And so I think what's interesting is the way in which like women have embraced this sport in our country. And I think it's almost like, I don't want to say it's unexamined, but it's kind of just, if you play soccer in the United States, maybe it's because it who launched it in the 70s, 80s and 90s, but you just buy into that fall. Like you just, you just do, you just care about your, like, your team. You, you just, it's just the way it is. Like you pay it forward. You try to make it again better for the generation behind you. And I've been asked that like, why is that the case? And I don't know that I have a good answer other than it's just how we grew up. It's just how we were built. And maybe that's a credit to the pioneers of our sport. There's something singular about soccer in this country. It's, it is one of the only opportunities girls have had to play on a team of that size. You know, basketball teams are smaller and, I mean, I think cross-country is a, a team's for it, you know, we, we all, you know, we've got a score and all that stuff, but, but it's not that many people. It's just doesn't have the same kind of force of, of collective will kind of that soccer does. And maybe in closing, in terms of what you're up against with this kind of circularity around exposure and profitability. And then you're going to get the, you know, the support of the powers that be around really promoting this sport. Do you feel like you've got some real challenges there? Do you feel like the, the big boys are, are signing up to support? You know, it's a great question because this is where I'm glad to have taken a decade to more in my life and to the law that come back to soccer because, you know, I can appreciate that many things can be true at once. And I think that's true in the answer to this question. I think we have a lot of work to do. But what's interesting that that that where I think things are shifting is that what we saw players do in the past, at least the past years, they're taking their power back. And, and I think that it's been presumed their power less, right? And this is a charity and you should take what we hand you and you should be grateful for it and don't say anything critical because it might bring the league down and we might fold and, you know, hold on, this whole business case is kind of tenuous and look at how many people are in stands and all that. And what we're seeing is I think also part of a moment in history where things are shifting. You know, there's greater consciousness around corporate responsibility. There's more access. So, for example, like, whereas you used to have to figure what was the cable channel that the game was going to be on and you got to go into the 300s and whatever. I mean, I could pull up a game anywhere anywhere on the world on my phone right now, live or on replay through out of football. So, you know, and it's a decent quality. There's, through social media and apps, we have greater access and there's greater attention, there's greater scrutiny. And there's also, I think, greater opportunity where people who have been reluctant to kind of take advantage of those platforms are now seeing when a player, Alex Morgan has more followers on Twitter than I think the league and the PID do combine. I mean, by probably a multiplier. You know, players are understanding like they themselves have fans in a platform and an audience. And I think owners and the league and the federation are starting to understand, oh, like these players have some leverage. They have eyeballs. They have, you know, a platform. And maybe there's something we should be thinking about different. Maybe there's a relationship with them that leads to look a little differently than it has in the past. And I think I'm starting to see that shift at least in NWSL. You know, I got really tired last year of hearing people say, well, we all want the same things. Like, stop saying that because I want to see what you're going to do and show me. And what's happened is that new commissioner has come in and the new commissioner was selected within put from the players. That's never happened. You know, when I talk to Deesmith and they're like, how did you do that? Like, while we just started screaming, what he murdered about how awful things were and we issued demands and there was only one way through, which was they had to work with us if they wanted to work through this past year. And so, you know, that's different. We have a joint investigation pending where I think both sides are starting to see the value and the challenges of doing something like that together, but it's really innovative and hopefully going to help us transform our sports and clean it up. You've been listening to Going Deep, sports in the 21st century from the studios of Blue Ridge Public Radio in PR for Western North Carolina. Tell us what you think of the show by emailing us at going deep at bpr.org. Make sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at Shoops Going Deep.