During their taking part in careers, Olympic medalists Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe helped propel ladies’s sports activities towards mainstream reputation, sparking conversations round equal pay and inclusion. Now, as the 2 settle into retirement, they’re discovering methods to maintain these conversations going.
Bird, who retired in 2022 as the one WNBA participant to win titles in three totally different many years, and Rapinoe, who helped lead the U.S. ladies’s soccer crew to 2 World Cup titles and gold on the 2012 Olympics earlier than retiring in 2023, are relaunching a podcast to delve deeper into ladies’s sports activities and its intersection with politics, equality and inclusion.
In an interview with “Meet the Press,” Rapinoe and Bird spoke about their podcast, “A Touch More with Sue Bird & Megan Rapinoe,” which had its preliminary run in 2020 and returned this summer season. Featuring visitors like soccer star Alex Morgan, a 14-year veteran of the U.S. ladies’s nationwide crew, plus soccer icon and two-time Olympic gold medalist Mia Hamm and basketball legend and three-time Olympic gold medalist Dawn Staley, the podcast will function a platform for Bird and Rapinoe to proceed the conversations they began on equality in ladies’s sports activities.
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Bird and Rapinoe mentioned they hope these conversations will encourage extra funding in ladies’s sports activities to higher “match the standard and the flexibility of the gamers.” Rapinoe mentioned she’s beginning to see these investments occur in recent times by the work of gamers who use their platforms to talk out.
When Bird performed within the Final Four for UConn within the early 2000s, Rapinoe mentioned, the stadium was offered out. Rapinoe added that the U.S. ladies’s nationwide crew had been “profitable gold medals for a very long time.”
“You’re seeing the funding match the urge for food that the followers have and the demand from the followers. The demand from the followers has been there the entire time,” she mentioned.
Bird and Rapinoe, who’ve been engaged since 2020, mentioned abandoning the regimented routines that consumed their lives as skilled athletes has allowed them to refocus their power.
“There is simply this fixed dialog about what you have to do to be prepared,” Bird mentioned. “Maybe it’s for follow. Maybe it’s a sport. Maybe it’s a match, no matter it’s. So, letting go of that has been good. But changing it has most likely been the most important problem.”
The duo mentioned the platforms for advocacy they’ve constructed exterior of their work as athletes have made it attainable to look towards their subsequent steps. Both have lengthy been advocates for equal pay for feminine athletes.
“We have been very lucky to have the careers we had and, to be fairly trustworthy, make the cash that we made. And that has now allowed us totally different alternatives in retirement that didn’t exist for lots of athletes my age after they retired, proper?” Bird mentioned.
Bird added that by searching for out media alternatives to talk out, she and Rapinoe hope to pave the best way for future feminine athletes to increase their profession past their time on the court docket or subject.
“If a retired athlete wished to get into media, they’ll now look to us, they’ll look to me, and see, ‘Oh, this can be a pathway,’” Bird mentioned.
“I need to assist youthful generations proceed to have the ability to quote-unquote, ‘see it and be it,’” she continued.
Bird mentioned typically it’s troublesome for her to understand that individuals don’t see how profitable and vital ladies’s sports activities are.
“[They] form of ignored us for a extremely very long time, and we nonetheless thrived. We nonetheless have been in a position to do it with out the funding,” Bird mentioned. “Sometimes I need to take a look at, once more, whether or not it’s individuals making an attempt to take a position or lawmakers and be like, ‘Don’t you need to seem like a genius? Like that is how one can seem like — make investments now, get on board now, assist this develop now, and you may actually seem like a genius.’”
Rapinoe mentioned she hopes future generations of feminine athletes are in a position to compete and take part in sports activities as their “full selves.”
“I understand how vital it’s for me and the way a lot I want and wish the area to be my full self, and I need to prolong that to different individuals,” Rapinoe mentioned.
“We have these huge platforms and this affect. We get to come back on issues like ‘Meet the Press.’ So, it’s like I need to let individuals know, being your self and being your complete self is the purpose for everyone,” she continued.
While encouraging younger athletes to embrace alternatives to construct a platform, Bird and Rapinoe added that it’s vital to maintain the game on the heart.
“My solely recommendation is normally simply to ensure they maintain basketball the principle factor. Because on the finish of the day, that’s your car,” Bird mentioned.
“You by no means see LeBron miss a exercise. And that’s one thing we did on the finish of our profession, discover that steadiness. And I’d simply at all times need to encourage youthful individuals to ensure they discover that steadiness,” she added.
Bird and Rapinoe share new episodes of their podcast each Wednesday. They hope their conversations add to “the ecosystem of protection that occurs in sports activities” as athletes who “perceive the nuance of all of the issues that occur on the court docket, on the sphere and in addition to off.”