The Football Interview with Michele Kang

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This week's guest on the football interview originally came from South Korea, but is now a hugely successful American business woman. She's made her mark in numerous industries, including in healthcare IT. But perhaps she's most well known in the UK for her pioneering ownership and leadership of WSL side London City Lionesses. So welcome along Michelle Kang. Thank you for having me. Thank you for sitting down with us at such an exciting time for the WSL, but for particularly for your club London City Lionesses. Is it safe to say it's been a busy summer? Absolutely. Yes, very busy. More ways than one, yes. How excited are you by where the club are going into the 26-27 season? I hope most of your listeners have heard the news that we now have incredible squad. We're building a state-of-the-art training center for our female athletes dedicated to them, built and designed for them, which will open in less than a year. So it's been really an exciting journey. I'm glad you mentioned the signings because you've made shock waves this summer with some of your signings. One in particular, I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. Yes, I have a guest. Of course, Alexia Pateus. It's a huge statement isn't it because she's a Barcelona legend. She's a world football legend. She's one of the best players in the world. Do you like it when you cause shock waves like that? Well, I'm not creating shock waves for the sake of creating shock waves, but I think that, you know, however I can get attention in terms of to women's football. I want a lot of people to get interested in women's football. I think it's just one of the best kept secret. Talent is there. The audience is there and it's growing, so it's great that people can pay attention to. You already involved in football before you came into London City Lineses. Barely, but yes. Why was London City Lineses then your big project? Why did that club appeal to you? My first long tray into women's football was Washington spirit. In America, two thirds of women's teams are independent, not affiliated with men's team. So to me, that's a lot more norm. And actually, when I look at Europe and especially in England, where the Premier League is just so dominant, the women's team are sort of a secondary project. And I wanted to show that there isn't just one model that the women's team has to be part of men's team. At that time, London City and Durham, those are the two women-only teams. And I wanted to build a women-only team to show when you really devote all your attention and resources and energy into women's team only what's possible. You've gone into London City Lineses with a plan. What was that? And what were the early steps that you took? Well, cool all the way. But everything has to start somewhere, doesn't it? Correct. So first thing was to get promoted to the first division. So WSL, yes, actually. And in the first year of WSL, typically, the team that gets promoted gets demoted in the first year. The quality of your squad, the infrastructure of the second division teams can't really compete against Chelsea Arsenal. So I wanted to make sure that when I was building London City to get promoted to the first division, that we're building it, at least, aiming it, at least the middle, so that we don't get demoted in the first year. So we finished number six, exactly in the middle, so mission accomplished. It's just sterling down inside though. How did you do that? Because everyone says we want to not get relegated in the first season back. What did you do? Is it about infrastructure as well as players on the pitch? Yeah, of course. I mean, it's actually quite frankly, in my opinion, not that different than running any other businesses, right? As a leader, you set sort of the strategy direction vision, and then you put all the infrastructure together systems and processes and the resources, and then you hire the best people. So in this case, the best squad possible, and the best coaching staff, best performance, those type of staff, and then you start improving your infrastructure, right? Because the training ground, the gym, nutrition, all those things were really below. That's a big job. Absolutely, yeah. So we were in a hurry, and we tried to do as much as we could, and then we started actually developing our vision for the new training center. That's going to be the state of the art. We're doing an interview here in this lovely environment, next time we come and speak to you. I wanted to thank you. Are you doing training center? Absolutely. What do you say to the people then that say, you're buying success, you're just throwing money at it, and that that's not sustainable? I think when I first came in, I was really surprised, knowing how good the product is, and how talented our players are, that not much investment has gone in. I mean, I was just really flabbergasted, and I thought that with the little investment and little focus, the future is really bright. So when you have an underappreciated and under-resourced asset, I just really think that women's football, women's sports is one of the last culturally most exciting sports assets that has been treated like a either side project or charity. But how do you reverse that when you see the potential? One way to do it is legislate, right? Actually, in America, Title IX was introduced over 50 years ago, made a huge difference, right? So Title IX is where if you get any government funding for your sports programs at schools, you have to give up equal opportunities for girls. Back in the 1970s, it's like almost 98% of all sports budgets went into boys, and they introduced the bill where the girls had to get a chance. Before the bill, there used to be about 300,000 girls at the high school level in America playing any kind of sports at the high school level, immediately after it went up to 3 million, right? At the college level, you couldn't even count how many there were before, and it's through the roof. And that's why primarily why America, US team, in my opinion, has won the World Cups and the Olympic gold medals because of that Title IX. Not only it produced the players, but incredible female leaders. If you go look at Fortune 500 companies, female executives, majority, 70, 80% of those women have benefited from Title IX scholarships, sports scholarships, and so forth. What's the other way to accelerate this transition? The other one is capital. Instead of waiting for somebody to do this for you, you invest, you build buildings, you provide infrastructure, pitches, gym equipment, bring the best coaches, build the best, you know, bring the dedicated nutritionist. I actually failed to understand all those people who think that the premier, who take primarily for granted, and somehow women's football is something that you cannot invest. I really don't understand because it's one of the ways to accelerate this growth. So you also fail that by investing now, eventually you will get that return on your investment. Yeah, of course, but I think first and foremost, in my opinion, people ask me, you're investing and why and so forth. I really struggle with that question because you all have daughters, granddaughters, sisters, nieces. How could you possibly accept the notion that your girls, your daughters, granddaughters, sisters are treated as second class citizens, where in the same sport, the boys go to play as if it's their birthright. Why would you in this day and age accept that your girls can't have the same level of infrastructure and resources available to those girls? It's a very good argument. It's completely valid in terms of you just trying to level playing field. Yeah, I mean, this isn't so, but I'm not doing this as a charity, right? So because this is sort of a pathway, but as you can see, I mean, Arsenal is selling out, there are average attendance is almost 40,000, they sell out routinely. So if you build it, they'll come. They get to see how great this product is. It just needs little nudge, little basic infrastructure so that all the girls who have talent have a way to develop and achieve their goals. It's my understanding of Alessia Russo, who is one of the best players in England. I think she's from Southeast London, which is where our club is. - Are you trying to sign her? - No, let's start a rumor. But apparently when she was growing up, there was really no facility where she could go practice or train. So I think she had to be driven for hours to get precious training. So think about how many girls couldn't afford to do that and they had to drop out. So why is it that the parents' family is accept that the girls can have turf or less than perfect pitches and leftover balls and gym equipment? I really don't understand. - Why did you want to do an independent club and what does it enable you to do differently? - Yeah, because I think when you have two major businesses, if you will, at some point you have to make decisions. It is undeniable that the men's sports, there's more money, it's bigger. And a lot of people think that that should be their priority. I totally accept that. I don't think there is one model. Every club has their own decisions to make. Do we want to maintain both clubs or do we want to focus only on men's team? So from that perspective, I applaud actually Sunderland decision. Sunderland decided that their primary focus is men's team. But instead of starving women's team in terms of lack of resources and so forth, they would rather bring outside investors a group of people who are passionate about who would give life to this women's project. So they went out and got the Bay Collective, which also owns Bay FC in the United States. Their focus is women's football, not men's football. So I think if you have both teams, I want to absolutely make sure that they pay equal attention and make resources available. But if that's not the case, then make women's football free them so that they can actually be run by passionate people who love-- Yeah, exactly. How do you bridge that gap then in terms of revenue because the women's teams, when they're associated with the men, can benefit from the revenue stream of the men. But you've raised quite a few eyebrows and got a lot of attention over the past week with your shirt's sponsorship deal. And I guess that maybe partly answers my question in terms of revenue. Exactly. So it's now well-known, but we have a landmark partnership with Nike in which Nike is going to be both the front-up shirt sponsor, as well as a technical partner. I think it's unprecedented and it's a first of its kind. So it's almost like a validation and proof of the momentum that we built behind the club. Because we didn't just talk about it. We invested in facilities. We invested in a player squad. We sold out our home opener games a week before the game, even was played. Leading brands are taking notice. And they see the opportunity to build together with us. I'm sure you're not going to tell me the exact details of the deal. We'd previously seen Atlanta's deal was around $4 million US dollars. It's my understanding, too. Yes. Where does this deal compare? It is higher than the Atlanta number. Better yet, I can absolutely also share that it is higher than some of the men's premier league front-up shirt deals. That's huge, Michelle. It's huge. They did not write a charity check. They believe in the future. And they believe together we will invest and build this future together. We're Fight Live Sport and BBC South. Hit all the lines, exciting action from the WSL. And it's bigger and better than ever before. [CHEERING] Get all the latest news and interviews from the biggest stars of the women's game. Alexa Gattes, welcome to The Women's Football Week, Glee. I love competition. I love football. I love training. I love to improve. I win a league like The WSL. You have to be at your best every single week. Listen with the BBC Sounds app. [MUSIC PLAYING] BBC Women's Football Week, Glee Extra. Listen on BBC Sounds. One of the other hot topics around yourself is the fact that you own Leon, hugely successful team, particularly in the Women's Champions League, which is, of course, where I'm guessing you would like to see London City Lionesses playing. Current ruling would mean that you wouldn't be able to own both of these teams if they were in UEFA competition. Firstly, what do you make of the rules? And secondly, you're clearly a woman with a plan, what's your plan around that? Yeah, so I think UEFA, I think, around the last The Champions League final game, I think, made it clear that the same rule that they applied to men's side will apply to women's situation. So I accept that. I think that the integrity of the game is very important and I have no issue on that side. But having said that, though, I do think that there are clear differences between men and women in terms of games. And in terms of the level of investment that's required to bring women's games or women's teams up to the level that's professional. So I know I'm crazy and I'm investing in it, but there is no reason why every team has to spend same amount of money to build the same infrastructure. I would submit to you that even teams that have only one women's team, they're basically joined team, right? They have women and men. They are sharing resources. They're sharing infrastructure. They have the same ticket sales team. They have sale commercial sponsorship team. They have the same operations teams. So there's already shared resources. That's why they're able to actually spend precious dollars on women's specific issues and so forth. And I think having multiple teams, I can build it once and make it available to everyone, for example, Washington Spirit has really figured out how to do fan engagement, how to track data analytic, it's industry best practice. I'm like bringing it into London and Leone and I'm making it available to all those teams, built it once and now we're sharing it. If I had to build the same thing for London City, it would have been a waste of money as well. I could use that money for something else, right? So I think UEFA has set up rules and we're absolutely going to abide by those rules. And that's not an issue. How, though, what if London City 9S has got into the Champions League this year? You'd have a problem, wouldn't you? Yeah, so I actually get asked questions like, "Oh, if London City and Leone play, "who do you cheer for?" I wasn't going to be that mean. Sure, I'm like, you know, let the best team win. But the rules, current rules are, I mean, you know, I think the way I understand it is that you put one team in a blind trust so that until that competition is over, you have nothing to do, so you don't direct anything. So that team is on its side. You struggle with that, wouldn't you? You feel like you're very hands on it. No, actually, a lot of people think that, but I have an incredible team. I trust my team. And I've asked certain questions and they answer my questions and it's approved. It's clearly something you're incredibly passionate about in terms of multi-club ownership. Do you have aspirations to maybe own more clubs? Yes, and it is not because I want to just say, you know, I've found my chestnuts, I own these clubs, but I want to bring this, what I'm building, the infrastructure, to know how the best practices to wherever I go. So I would like to buy a team in Asia. I would like to buy a team in Africa. I would like to buy a team in South America because I want all the girls in those countries to grow up thinking that the best facilities and best practices and unbelievably infrastructure is not something that they can only watch on TV because they're only in England, France, America. So wherever I go, I'm going to bring exactly the same thing. Same methodology, same principles, same infrastructure, same resources. So I want to accelerate this growth globally and I want this opportunity for young girls to achieve their dreams and a comparable level that if their next boys can go to a building where it's the best possible infrastructure, I want girls to have the same thing. I know you're female, but where did this incredible passion to drive women forward to give them equal opportunities, to give little girls those opportunities? Where did it come from? I don't know, I guess I need some psychoanalysis, but I think it probably originally came from my father from very early on, my father, who had only three girls. Back then, I was growing up in South Korea where it was still very traditional society where girls have certain rules, certain, you know, the rules to play, but he basically said in this day and age, it doesn't matter whether you're a girl or a boy, whatever you want to do, you have to put 100% of what you have and you can go for it. You know, I went to America on my own and I was lucky enough and I'm grateful that I achieved my American dream. And this is my way of giving back that I don't want quite frankly a lot of young girls growing up, going through what I went through. I want them to just be able to focus on what they have to do. to be the best football player, not having to worry about changing clothes in the middle of public park or having to deal with, you know, broken equipment, you know, all those type of things. I want to provide that environment so that they can pursue their own dreams. You mentioned there, you don't want young girls to have to go through what you went through. Give us an insight into what it was like growing up in South Korea as a female with clearly big dreams and then going over to America. Yeah, and I think, you know, I don't think it's all unique to me. I mean, I think you probably have gone through this similar thing. I think a lot of women still go through, you know, when I was growing up professionally and I was upset that I wasn't getting promoted, you know, I should have gotten promoted. In this round and I didn't and I should have gotten 10,000 more, you know, in salary. But at that time, instead of sitting there and saying this is, you know, outrageous, I said, you know, all type A people probably think that they should have been promoted. Men or women, they all think probably they should have been promoted six months ago and they should be getting 20,000 more. So I'm just going to go work harder and produce results that no one can ignore. But I want, you know, the younger generation to focus 100 percent on their potential and the system and the society, they're set up to appreciate regardless of gender, race or anything really, truly merit-based. You mentioned that you achieved your American dream. You've been in so many industries as I mentioned at the beginning and now you're in football probably not where you ended expected to end off, is it fair to say? Absolutely not. Yeah, I had no idea this is what I mean, in my life, I actually had a very well planned out career process. There was, you know, I came to America, first I had a three 10-year plan, so the first 10 years, what I was going to do in the second 10 years and third 10 years. And so I was entering actually my fourth decade, which was supposed to focus more on philanthropy and giving back type of thing. And then all of a sudden, women's sports came. And as I said earlier, I just saw the potential. And I was so shocked that no one saw it and no one was really jumping in. But even in my entrepreneurial days, I used to do that when I see it, but then people quite haven't seen it or people are on the fence. No, it may happen, it may not happen, so we'll wait until somebody else does it first. But I'm crazy enough to, it's like when I see something, I just jump in. So I ended up doing that. But. How you got into women's football specifically, is that the answer just a bit crazy? What's a long story, but I think if I can summarize in one or two words, I think I can say temporary insanity, but it's no longer temporary. It's been five, six years. You're stuck in it now, aren't you? And you've clearly got global plans as well. What did a young Michelle want to do then? What was the real dream? Yeah, at that time, I wanted to be in the business world and I wanted to take a shot at becoming a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. OK, and then you've ended up in all of these incredible industries? Well, yeah, so I did become a CEO of a company, but not Fortune 500 company, my own company. So by and large, I think I achieved everything I set out to do. But this women's sports was something that I'd never, ever imagined, let alone owning multi-teams, and now I talk about, you know, in America, there's a sort of a funny joke that, you know, I'm not a doctor, but I'd play one on TV. But I feel like I'm not a soccer expert, now I can talk football over cocktail and everyone asks me about it. So it's fun, I have no complaints, I'm having a blast. You're also now involved in the men's game as well. How does that compare and what's your involvement like in that? Their dramas everywhere, they're different, definitely they're different, sort of my personality as well, that once I'm in it, I'm all in. It reminds me, your question actually reminds me that very recently I heard, I guess Elon Musk said, answered a question, you know, what makes a successful entrepreneur, you know, is that because you're smarter than everyone else, and he took a pause and he said, "Basic, it's not about how smart you are." And he said, "One characteristic that distinguishes the successful ones versus not is the ability to endure pain." And I cannot agree more. It's really the ability to not only endure but process pain and setbacks, and then how you come out of it. What would a young Michelle make of all of this? Probably not surprised. Do you think you were that good to come in there? Yeah, because I went to an elementary school when I was six years old, which was actually back then in Korea, it was a really revolutionary concept where we had 100 kids in each class, 50 year olds, 50 boys. At that time, typically it was the girls or boys, and we had 50-50. We sat next one another, and we played sports altogether, and you can imagine I was very aggressive. And competitive. So, you know, I played football, I played baseball, I played. So, you know, the girls, not just me, the girls would typically beat boys. And we were very active in sports, so to some extent, I think the fact that I ended up in sports is probably not our coincidence, because I think I enjoyed all the sports, and my father actually taught me tennis, and tennis was my individual sport. Basketball was actually my team sport. If I had any talent, I would be a basketball player today. Maybe I could go into basketball when I was a kid. You know, early on I knew I wasn't going to be the best, so I decided to study. So, sports were always part of my sort of a life, so if you can actually, you know, really trace it, maybe it's not a surprise, but consciously or subliminally that I was destined. But this was more about, it's not about necessarily sports, but this is more about achieving your dream. The girls are women, regardless of your sex, gender, or whatever, social status, economic status. You are given an opportunity to achieve your dream. I would also love to hear what your dad makes of it, or made a bit old as well. I think he's proud. I think he probably would be pretty proud, and probably not surprised either. It was so tough for me to think of an opener for this piece today, to try and sum up everything about you, because you've done so much, and you're clearly still doing so much. What next for you for Michelle Kang, and what do you want your legacy to be? Your legacy is a big word. I don't really think about it, but I really think that on a global basis, if young girls growing up, wherever they are, they feel that they can't even think about the difference. When the next young girl is dropped off at their training facility, they don't go past the building where her brother walks into, and then she has to drive further to the back. And I really hope that the families, especially the families, they don't accept the reality where one of their children deserves a center of excellence, but the other deserves a portable cabin. The gap between the girls and boys' journeys is indefensible, and I want that to disappear. Michelle is a parent of a young girl, it's been pretty emotional talking to you, so thank you so much for your time and everything you're doing. Is Facebook dying? The journalist who's reporting "inspired" the film tells us why Facebook stopped being cool and whether matter its parent company can reinvent itself. [MUSIC]