Women? Making moves.

INTERVIEW - WOMEN’S SPORTS 
Sarah Spain: “In the past, we have always pointed to tennis as a way to see what we want”

Sarah Spain has been on the “let’s raise women’s sports profile” for some time already. She’s been working at ESPNW for 15 years and is now also the host of the daily podcast “Good Game, with Sarah Spain” for iHeartPodcasts about women’s sports. She recently had Taylor Townsend as a guest. I wanted her opinion on the growing interest in women’s sports, how tennis was or was not staying ahead, and what could be on the way.

You’ve been a women’s sports fighter for a while. Do you feel times are changing fast or not fast enough?
The space that I’m in very much dictates how I feel about it. If I’m surrounded by other people who have done the research and know the economic opportunity and are up to date on the statistics and arguments and the research, the investments, and all that, then I’m very optimistic, and it feels like it’s moving fast. There are multiple new outlets, companies, podcasts, shows, networks. And then it’s interesting when I go into spaces that are not traditionally familiar with women’s sports and how antiquated that can still seem. I started working in sports two decades ago and with ESPNW fifteen years ago, and the difference, just people willing to talk about it, is so massive. It started to pick up in the last couple of years.

Women’s sports are projected to be a 1,4 billion industry this year… So it’s quite a crazy dissonance with people saying nobody is watching or caring…
There’s the groundswell of fans and supporters and watchers that can get you to a certain place, and after that, what you really need is for the decision makers to be the ones ready to take that next step that means regular women’s sports shows, more investment, investing in pre and post-game instead of just running the game itself. That’s the step to take to get the same kind of coverage and respect that the men do, which is really what gets people to want to show up and care.

You’re now hosting a daily podcast covering women’s sports…
That’s what really was missing: somewhere you can go every day and keep up to date with what’s going on. It’s about knowing regularly enough and keeping up regularly, so when you turn the game on, you know it’s a big deal when this person scores 40 points, or it’s a big deal when this person isn’t in the game. We do that so well with men’s sports, but with women’s sports, because there are such massive gaps in the coverage, it’s really hard for people to find the information they need to care the same way they do about the men’s.

I would like for my show to be a place where people are informed enough that they understand the context of the games and put all their ideas and thoughts through that prism first before making ridiculous claims, before saying damaging things, before feeding into racism and misogyny. There’s just a lot of that coming from people who haven’t made any of the work but just showed up and then feel extremely confident speaking anyway, and what they’re doing is dangerous.

Women's tennis has had some of the biggest names in women’s sports, and its players are making way more money than most of the other female athletes, and yet it still feels niche in the US…
In the past, we have always pointed to tennis as a way to see what we want for other sports, like equal pay and respect for the players. Also, the players are very traditionally attractive in that girl-next-door kind of way, in a way that the WNBA struggled with in the past because of misogyny and homophobia, and also because it’s a lot of primarily women of color that people have their racist issues about. So tennis has always been elevated in the sense of watching, supporting, sponsorships, and dollars. And thanks to Billie Jean King. But it has only really cracked the surface of the biggest stories when there’s a name and a person that has so much success that is repeated and consistent. In WNBA or other sports, if you have a star, they’re gonna play every game. You know that person is gonna be there. Whereas in tennis, unless someone goes on a run or is at least making the quarters on a regular basis, it’s hard to get attached to that. Iga Swiatek is amazing, but most Americans don’t know how to say her name, so part of that is jingoism and patriotism of wanting to root for Americans, and so if they’re not in it, being like, « I don’t know that person .» Then they really have to elevate like a Federer, a Steffi Graf, Venus and Serena, Nadal, Djokovic, or Sharapova. I feel you haven’t had enough personalities that have established themselves outside of being good tennis players.

How do you see women’s sports coverage and business evolve?
I don’t really want competition, but hopefully, we’ll see more people doing the same as my show. The real key is how to get the information people need to wanna show up to games and watch more games. 15% of media coverage in the United States goes to women’s sports. It’s not a lot. Also, there’s less inventory, particularly when you think about American baseball, where every team has 162 games, so that’s a lot of coverage. But a lot of it is just breaking through the mainstream places that don’t look beyond men’s sports to think about what they might want to cover. 

But then I think investment is the big one. There’s been this disingenuous argument from people saying even women don’t wanna watch women’s sports. That is partly because women aren’t raised being told sports are for them. They’re not being told where and how to watch, and “you should care about this.” More are being told that sports aren’t for them, that it’s not ladylike, that they shouldn’t play, they shouldn’t watch. But also, for such a long time, the investment wasn’t there, so the product wasn’t that good. It wasn’t the players, it was the game experience. The comparison wasn’t there. It’s now going to make a huge difference going forward. There’s also a massive societal change and expectations for women in allowing them to be gay, straight, masculine, feminine, ladylike, competitive, mean, nice, etc. We used to make women so one-dimensional that it was boring, and so society allowing for that also affects how people react to female athletes as well. There’s a lot more of an embrace around whatever makes them interesting, and it’s just gonna keep opening doors for them to become more mainstream as opposed to needing to be a certain type of person who gets into women’s sports.

Women in sports media: is it the same trend as with women’s sports?
Yes, for sure, there are more women in general and so fewer people asking what you’re doing here. The beginning still sucks, not as much as it used to but it still sucks, but there are a lot bigger opportunities. And there are way more women in decision-making places at the highest levels, so you have more people, hopefully at the top, making the environment better.

QUESTION OF THE DAY 
Do you feel that way?

You were 78,57% to say you understood why WADA had appealed in the Jannik Sinner case.

WTA 
Dubrov: “More about discipline than emotions” for Sabalenka

Anton Dubrov has turned into a rare species on Tour: a coach who’s still not afraid to get fired after now four years of employment with his current player. He shared some words about Aryna Sabalenka’s journey to the top of the game after she clinched the Wuhan Open title.

His thoughts on her week in Wuhan:
“It was a really exhausting week. She was sometimes fighting with herself and the tiredness of the season because it’s really hard to keep going all the time. But she found a way to do it, especially when you’re at the end of the season just thinking about finishing. But, Aryna, if you want to be the best one, you always have to find a way: that’s the approach constantly pushing her to find a way to keep winning.

The pressure to chase the end-of-season World No.1:
“It’s tough. You are always thinking about it, but at the same time, it’s more about: if you want to finish World No.1, you have to keep winning the next match and the next match. So, it comes back to the focus on how you should play. We’re trying to build it in simple steps: the small ones are the preparation, the practice, and what we can control. Everything else is the outcome, showing if you’ve been preparing well or not.

How did you turn her once-upon-a-time wild game into a consistent winning machine?
She definitely got more mature, has more experience, and has found purpose. Also, when she doesn’t play the way she wants to play, she still knows she has a lot of options to keep winning. She has more trust in herself that she can do it in other ways, not just one.

Has she impressed you through this end-of-season with how focused she’s staying?
The focus, yes. But that’s also why we try to break it all into simple steps. That fire at the US Open, we try to make it as simple as possible so there’s more control and less need to maintain the energy because she knows what to do. Right now, it’s more about discipline than emotions. Try keeping a solid discipline, do what you can do, and think about nothing else.

Discipline and Aryna Sabalenka, it’s not always been a match…
(He laughs) You have to do it if you want to be the best one. She’s doing her best, and she’s doing great.

If you had to pick one area, she has greatly improved this year…
I’d say the shift in the focus. When she makes what we’ll call easy mistakes: before, she’d be stuck into the “why did I do it?” and lose a few games, but now she’s like, “whatever, it’s just one ball, one decision, and there are many more coming so just keep going.”

BUSINESS / MEDIA 
Women’s sports are indeed making more moves

We just heard it from Sarah Spain, and the trend keeps being confirmed. Women’s sports are coming for that business pie.

• Yahoo Sports and the Athletic are partnering to launch a new digital hub for women’s sports coverage.

• There’s a boom in sports podcasts by, for, and about women.

• The International Tennis Federation (ITF) and Billie Jean King Cup Ltd have confirmed the total player prize money purse on offer to national teams competing in the 2024 Billie Jean King Cup Finals (13-20 November) will be $9.6 million (USD). The champions will receive $2,400,000 (USD) to be shared amongst the team members. “At the heart of the ITF Advantage All programme is a drive towards gender parity and we are pleased to be offering equivalent prize money across Billie Jean King Cup Finals and Davis Cup Finals for the third year in a row. As ever, we are grateful to Billie Jean King Cup title sponsor Gainbridge for their support in helping to make this possible,” David Haggerty, ITF President, in a statement.

• Allyson Felix launched Always Alpha, a women’s sports management firm. “Young athletes often ask me how I’ve diversified and consistently grown my business across marketing, media, entrepreneurship, venture, entertainment and impact,” said Allyson Felix. “Wes (Felix, her brother) and I did it ourselves piece by piece, out of necessity — because there wasn’t another option for transforming our vision into reality. With Always Alpha, we’re taking everything we learned and creating the modern management firm I used to dream of existing to help the next generation of talent do the same and build the future they in turn dream of too.”

• Naomi Osaka-produced movie gets a US distributor after also being picked for the Oscar nomination by Belgium. Film movement has bought North American rights to “Julie Keeps Quiet”, directed by Leonardo Van Dijl. The theatrical release is to be expected in early 2025.

CHOICES WERE MADE

CHOOSING TO GET IN: Deloitte joins the United Cup in a multi-year deal as the Official Business and Technology Transformation Consulting Partner.

CHOOSING TO GET OUT: Sales are still flying away from Nike. SBJ says the brand “saw a sharp drop in revenue over the three months ended Aug. 31, according to a quarterly earnings report published Tuesday evening. The athleticwear giant had $11.6 billion in quarterly revenue, down 10% from the same period in 2023. (…) Nike first forecast the significant revenue decline in June, leading to a 20% drop in share price.”

WHY NOT CHOOSING TENNIS AT ALL? Good question! The Arnault family is buying a football club in France, the Paris FC. And my tennis heart goes: LVMH, why not also build us a nice and shiny WTA event?

CHOOSING THE BAG: Jannik Sinner didn’t take that week of rest after winning the Masters 1000 in Shanghai to clinch a paycheck record instead, as he won $6 million by winning the Six Kings Slam exhibition in Saudi Arabia. The Italian, who already made $1,5 million for just being in that event, is already sure to finish the season on the throne, so he clearly sees no reason not to add a bonus to it all. And, well, he’s still facing a 1 to 2 years of suspension in that doping case, so maybe his math are mathing.

MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO 
Rafa…

Well, so long for our collective denial. Rafael Nadal will retire this year, as his body can no longer be convinced to endure the Tour. His last match should be at the Davis Cup Final (but it’s not even 100% sure), or it might have already happened during that Six Kings Slams exhibition. Let’s hope he can be on the court one last time in an official manner in Spain.

Where to even start? Rafa leaving is already a massive hole left in tennis. But Rafa leaving after Roger and Andy? Well, end of an era doesn’t even start to cut it. A whole block of tennis history detached from the Earth like a giant golden iceberg. When will Novak Djokovic scream “formation”? That’s now the last question remaining about the end of the Big 4 (And their reformation at some point? I still believe these guys will never really leave). I can barely remember men's tennis before these four guys (except for Agassi), and a whole generation has never known tennis without these four guys. We’re entering uncharted territories (even more with a current World No.1 starting his reign with a doping scandal).

As for Nadal’s legacy, he put the R in resilience, the S in sportsmanship, and the W in warrior. His tennis touch and flair were always way underestimated: these hands and tennis IQ were golden. A gentle slayer, with too much intensity for his own body. He created a next wave of players who will forever try to “bend it like Rafa.” One shot? That FHDTL on the run. Boom, they’re gone.

Naomi Osaka’s start of collaboration with Patrick Mouratoglou has been cut short. The Japanese has ended her season following the back injury sustained at the China Open in Beijing. An injury that, in the end, is proving way more serious than thought: “I thought I strained my back, but I did an MRI in Beijing, and they said that I bulged a disc in my back and I also ruptured abdominal muscles," Japan's Kyodo News agency reported Osaka saying.”

Andrey Rublev, in the end, saved his ball. Yes, you read that right. We’re unfortunately used to seeing him lose his mind on the court, but Andrey Rublev, this time, nearly lost a body part after that defeat in the fourth round of the US Open against Grigor Dimitrov. "I almost lost my ball,” he revealed in Stockholm in true Rublev fashion. What saved that ball in the end was him being smart enough to go directly to the hospital when the pain started.

"Now I feel perfect, everything went well. I don't know how to call it in a smart way but I can call it in a funny way. I almost lost my ball. I was super lucky because they say you have only five or six hours if the blood stops going there and then it's amputation. I was lucky. I don't know why I said, 'let's go to hospital just to check why I feel a weird feeling'. They checked straight away and they took me as an emergency to do the surgery and then they were able to do the surgery in three or four hours after the first feeling I felt. So they were able to do everything good and in the end everything is great." "The last thing before they made me sleep, I signed the paper saying they were allowed to amputate my ball," Rublev recalled. "That was the last thing before the surgery that I saw."

SOME BREAK POINTS… 
IT CAN BE CONFUSING OUT THERE

• Players are tired… But not that tired of everything: It’s an old story and debate. Players complain the season is getting way too long with a way too hectic schedule that is putting their health and longevity in jeopardy. And then they add all the exhibitions they can into that schedule anyway. The thing is, for the majority of players, there’s an obvious and accelerating schedule issue. But it’s, as usual, very tough to hear complaints when their VIP club, which gets the most coverage and air time for the complaints, travels the world between official events to play exhibitions.
  
  Carlos Alcaraz, for example, ruined his argument against the ATP schedule - “they will kill us someday” - when reminded he played unofficial events all year, from the Netflix exhibition to the Laver Cup and the more recent Six Kings Slam exhibition. Again, it’s as old as this sport. Yes, the calendar is getting rough, but the stars can’t resist a fat paycheck and will give up on their weeks of rest for it. We know it. So… Sorry for the rest of the pack: your schedule will remain hectic. Both the BBC and The Times are looking at the situation, wondering if these exhibitions pose more risks nowadays on the Tour. And they seem to reach the same conclusions: players are independent contractors and can make the schedule they want to play, and the good old obvious professional sports principle: money rules.
  

• Coaches come and go and come and go again: Tracking the coaches’ changes on Tour has nearly become a full-time job. But also, at the same time, it seems we’re going in circles with the same names repeatedly. And I’m not sure it’s a good sign, by the way. So, here we go again: Wim Fissette, who was no longer Naomi Osaka’s coach (it’s now Patrick Mouratoglou), got recruited real quick by Iga Swiatek, who shocked the Tour by announcing a split with long-time coach Tomasz Wiktorowski. Fissette’s mission will be to get Iga to win more Grand Slam titles outside of Roland-Garros and to keep her ahead of Aryna Sabalenka in the battle for the throne. In other coaching news, Holger Rune came back to his mentor, Lars Christensen, after appearing honestly totally lost without him for over a year now. Elena Rybakina is in a funk at the moment, but it seems she found some help to at least go through the WTA Finals.

• She’s not leaving anymore, but he is. Danielle Collins spent 2024 talking about how she was retiring. And then she canceled the retirement? Yes, she did. “Dealing with endometriosis and fertility is a massive challenge for many women and something that I am actively traversing, but I am fully confident in the team I am working with. It is just going to take longer than I thought,” she said on social media. “So, the DANIMAL story has not reached its conclusion. I will be back on tour in 2025.” Dominic Thiem announced his retirement at the end of this 2024 season… and he will indeed keep his word. The Austrian got a special ceremony at the Vienna Open to celebrate his career.

• We’re in October, but we already know about a draw for a 2025 event. Absolutely. The draw for the United Cup happened this Monday, so if your brain is barely able to keep going with the 2024 end-of-season, well, sorry for that brain, but Tennis Australia is already jumping up and down in excitement about their summer of tennis next year. The whole schedule (here’s the players’ list) will be up this Tuesday, the same day the tickets will be available.

• Trophies were won: Tommy Paul won in Stockholm, Karen Khachanov won the Astana Open, Roberto Bautista Agut won in Anvers, and Daria Kasatkina clinched the title in Ningbo from 0-3 down in the third (and saving two match points in her quarter-final).

• Iga Swiatek is no longer the World No.1, but she could be again before the end of the year? Maybe. For now, Aryna Sabalenka has taken over this Monday and reached the throne for the second time in her career (after Sept. 2023). That’s what Swiatek got for skipping the Asian swing and so the battle for the throne. Now, everything will be decided at the WTA Finals.

• The BJK Cup will go from a 12 to 8-team competition in 2025, “to mirror the existing Davis Cup 8 format - as part of a long-term strategy to bring the World Cup of Tennis events closer together,” announced the ITF.

EDITOR’S PICKS 

You can find other picks here, including my go-to newsletters for anything tech*, anything backstage* or professional sports*, and the one for everything NIL*. If you’re a solopreneur, you might like this one, by the way. I also have a sweet spot for The Creator Spotlight*, which provides examples of other creators’ journeys. If you are a collector of anything sports-related, have a look at Above the Mantel.

READ: Apparently, there’s a showdown brewing between tennis and pickleball. In a manner Padel has never known (for now?). So, if you’re interested in knowing more about The Feud, you can read these two features from the WSJ and The Times: The Turf War Between Tennis And Pickleball Is Escalating and Pickleball fans fear ‘hostile takeover’ by tennis chiefs. I admit I do not care about pickleball right now, but if you say “drama,” then my French soul might start running there.

WATCH: The Fall. I’m a massive Lee Pace fan, but even if you’re not, there’s no way you’ll regret watching The Fall. It’s just so beautifully shot. The movie was first released in 2006 and is returning to life thanks to MUBI. It’s a gem.