transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] You don't like being talked about? Do you?
Speaker 2:
[00:03] I don't care. I care less. I care less.
Speaker 1:
[00:07] I do. But I troll them back, and I'm excellent at it, and they lose every time. So I'm not a sports person, but I'm very competitive. Hi everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Clara Wu Tsai, owner of the WNBA's New York Liberty and the NBA's Brooklyn Nets. Clara and her husband, Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, purchased The Liberty in 2019 during a low point for the franchise. Its previous owner, James Dolan, had put the team up for sale in 2017 and moved it from Madison Square Garden to a small arena in Westchester County, New York. But Clara made a big bet on the New York Liberty and the WNBA. She moved the team to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, invested in player facilities, fan experiences, and recruited top talent, which kicked off a major turnaround and coincided with a surge in popularity for the WNBA. And to cap it off, The Liberty won the league championship in 2024. In addition to turning The Liberty into a winning franchise, Clara's work across business and philanthropy led to the creation of the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, a six-university research initiative that studies peak human performance and aims to close the data gap in women's sports science. I really enjoy talking to Clara. I have met her a long time ago. I have been covering Alibaba for many years, and she's one of the smartest business-focused owners I have seen, also is very open-minded of new things, but she doesn't get stuck in the data. She really does love the sport. And just one of these very smart people I think we should hear more from, and I wish more owners were like her. So let's get into my conversation with Clara. I interviewed her last week at the CAA World Congress of Sports, presented by Sports Business Journal. Our expert question today comes from WNBA All-Star Sue Bird. She hosts the Vox Media Podcast, Bird's Eye View, and A Touch More. This was a fun and important conversation. Clara is very smart. You should be listening to her, all you different team owners. So stick around. Support for On with Kara Swisher comes from the 2027 Chevy Bolt. Oh, I love the Chevy Bolt, I have mine. How long is 25 minutes? A quick workout or a stop to the grocery store results the amount of time it takes you to charge your Chevy Bolt. As I said, I drive the Chevy Bolt myself, an older version, and now the Bolt is back, and better than ever, I may have to trade it in. You can charge from 10% to 80% in just 25 minutes with public DC fast charging. That's about half the length of this very podcast. Explore Chevy's most affordable EV at chevy.com/bold. Actual charge times will vary. See owners manual for details and limitations. Let me say again, I love my car, never had a problem with it, best car I've ever owned by the Chevy Bolt.
Speaker 3:
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Speaker 4:
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Speaker 1:
[04:27] Clara, thanks for joining me at the CAA World Congress of Sports, presented by Sports Business Journal for a live taping of On. Welcome, Clara. So let's start with New York Liberty. Eight years ago, New York Liberty was a struggling franchise. You called it a distressed asset and the WNBA was nowhere near as popular as it is today. You and your husband, Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, purchased Liberty in 2019 and began a major turnaround. What did you see that made it a worthy investment when you were looking at it? You could invest in anything.
Speaker 2:
[05:02] Well, when we bought the team, we had just finalized purchase of the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center. That was in 2019. In 2017, the previous owners of the Liberty had put the team up for sale, and by 2018 had moved it to the suburbs from Madison Square Garden in Westchester. So the league was desperately looking for someone to buy the team, and they asked us to take a look at it. All the numbers were, it was losing money, all the numbers were going in the wrong direction. It had lost a lot of its small arena. And so it was, even though I just want to say out front, that even though it looks genius in hindsight, it was pretty radical at the time to buy the team, right? And so, but we were the logical buyers because we own Barclay Center. And it's embarrassing, it's a major team in a major market, and these women should be playing in a world class arena. So we were the natural buyers. And so when we looked at it, there were some fundamentals that looked interesting, but the business was still bad, we did see that they were the best female basketball players in the world, they were Olympians. And we were playing in the best media market, best TV market in the world, and in a town that loves basketball. So we thought, okay, those fundamentals seemed pretty interesting. Plus, the history of the Liberty, it was one of the original founding teams.
Speaker 1:
[06:25] Sure was, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[06:25] And it did go to the finals four times in the first six years of the league.
Speaker 1:
[06:29] It's a successful team.
Speaker 2:
[06:30] It was a successful team, so it was a storied franchise. So those things there, the thought was, okay, well, maybe we can reinvest, reinvigorate the franchise, bring the old fans back, find some new ones. That was the vision.
Speaker 1:
[06:43] What was your worry? What do I need this for?
Speaker 2:
[06:47] The worry was it was going to take a lot of time. We knew we would lose some money. And in the first days, we had 2,000 people in an arena that sits 18,000. And the question was just how long were we going to have to live with 2,000 people in the arena? I have to say, yes, we invested mightily into the franchise. We improved facilities in all aspects of the player experience. We strengthened management. We tried to make it a destination for free agents. And pre-Caitlin Clark, we had already seen a very significant increase in all of our metrics.
Speaker 1:
[07:21] In the metrics, right.
Speaker 2:
[07:22] But there's no doubt that when Caitlin Clark and Rachel Reese and that Clark came in, they brought a massive new audience as well. So the league really grew a lot in the last five years.
Speaker 1:
[07:32] So the success of the New York Liberty coincided with this wider surge of popularity for the WNBA. Last year, regular season games averaged 1.3 million viewers on ESPN, the same as the NBA averaged on the network in 2024 and 2025. What do you think is driving the surge in interest and women's sports more broadly?
Speaker 2:
[07:54] I think that the competition on the court, I think it's really good basketball. I think the women play with incredible spirit and grit and it's very physical. So I think it starts with the quality of the competition, and people want to see that. I think also just more women who played sports. When Title IX happened, those women started to play sports and now they're out, they're consumers and they want to watch women's sports. Because they themselves were athletes. Yeah. I think maybe for a lot of women, they see themselves reflected in it and they view it as more than basketball. But a lot of men come to our games as well. So I can't really say it just come and go.
Speaker 1:
[08:39] You want to have a broader group of people come into it. So every episode we have an expert question. I'm going to have yours played right now.
Speaker 5:
[08:47] Hey, I am Sue Bird, former WNBA player and fellow Vox Media Podcaster. What's up, Kara? The big question that I would like to ask Clara Wu Tsai is, Clara, you have been ahead of the curve in investing in women's sports. So what is one bet you're making now about the future of the WNBA that most people aren't seeing yet? If I could sneak another one in, which I don't think is allowed, but what is the most fun part about being an owner? Like the thing that no one tells you about but you secretly love.
Speaker 2:
[09:23] Okay. The first question, I would say what we're doing is just continuing to invest. There's no ceiling yet on how great the play on the court can be, and I think we need to keep raising the standards of what we're providing to the players. We're building a huge practice facility, an 80,000-square-foot practice facility in Greenpoint. It's not just the hardware but the software going in there, the staffing and the technology and the programming, and all of the community elements. My goal is to build an enduring franchise. We want to build something with sustained excellence, it's going to stand the test of time. I think making these, all the investments that we're making are really about that, you know, making sure that...
Speaker 1:
[10:11] What is the Greenpoint facility? How much are you spending there?
Speaker 2:
[10:14] Seventy-five million. And it's huge and it's going to have these practice courts, it's going to have a lot of private spaces for the players, and there's going to be community basketball courts, there's going to be this whole coffee shop, a whole area where we can sell merch, because all of our fans love merch, and it's just another way for the community to have a touch point with the players. A lot of women's sports are very community-oriented.
Speaker 1:
[10:42] So what's the thing you hate too?
Speaker 2:
[10:44] I try to stay off X and all those things, right? Yeah. But I guess, because there's always trolls who just want to say something, but then you look and you see, oh, they only have one follower who cares, right? Right.
Speaker 1:
[10:55] It's also a bit of a Nazi porn bar, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:
[10:57] Yeah. So I mean, I think that the thing is with sports ownership is you're very public, and suddenly you become someone that everybody feels like they can talk about. The fun part.
Speaker 1:
[11:09] You don't like being talked about? Do you? I don't care. Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2:
[11:14] I care less. I care less.
Speaker 1:
[11:15] Yeah, I do. But I troll them back and I'm excellent at it, and they lose every time. So I'm not a sports person, but I'm very competitive.
Speaker 2:
[11:22] I don't have an account. I lurk. I'm a lurker.
Speaker 1:
[11:24] I'm not on Twitter. I do think it's a Nazi porn bar, but I enjoy the fact.
Speaker 2:
[11:28] But what I love, I mean, I love it all. But see, I love basketball. Yeah. So I just love going to the games and I love seeing.
Speaker 1:
[11:35] And you're a sports person yourself.
Speaker 2:
[11:37] Yeah. I love sports. I love basketball. So the best part is being able to go to games, bring my friends, be there with family. There's also nothing better than winning a championship.
Speaker 1:
[11:47] Right. That might have been nice, right? You like that?
Speaker 2:
[11:49] Yeah. Love it.
Speaker 1:
[11:50] Good. So let's get into some of the recent news around the WNBA including how the league operates and its recent growth. First of all, there's the so-called Caitlin Clark effect. It obviously helped kickstart the surge in interest to women's basketball. Talk about the business model depending on the popularity of a few stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Asia Wilson. I mean, this is not different from the NBA.
Speaker 2:
[12:12] No, it's a star-driven league.
Speaker 1:
[12:15] Talk a little bit about that. How much does the business model depend on it? Not just Caitlin, but the other players too.
Speaker 2:
[12:21] The business model depends on a great media deal. When you have media and broadcasting, you have it on multi-platforms, you have consistent viewing, premium slots, that's essential because that will help you grow your fan base. So the fact that we have this media deal, that's a new floor and it's excellent for the growth of the league. And that's what makes us confident in our ability to draw more fans. And what's the importance of someone like a star? Very important. All sports are star-driven leagues. And so what you want to make sure is that you're promoting your stars, you're showcasing your stars, and you want to make sure that you have a good pipeline of talent coming up and that's the great thing about the popularity of the NCAA Women's College Basketball Tournament, which is also very steady. I mean, I think the last game with 9.9 people tuned in to the championship game, and six of those players from UCLA who are on that winning team got drafted into the league and they already have social media following. Some of them have great NIL deals, so they already come in with businesses who could be potential sponsors. The incredible depth of talent, that not only from the college, but also from overseas, they're the engine for the future and that's very important. Being able to promote them is essential.
Speaker 1:
[13:37] It's interesting with the Caitlin Clark effect. I'm like, have you ever heard of Martina Navichlova and Chris Everett together during that time? Or were any, not just women's sports, all sports seems to be centered around a star or stars, or a character-driven thing where they face off against each other, they become friends, they're sort of frenemies.
Speaker 2:
[13:57] Those rivalries, right? Like the whole Magic and Bird, they were rivals in college. Then they got drafted together and started, had that rivalry against Celtics and Lakers, and we did the same thing almost in the same time frame.
Speaker 1:
[14:09] Right. It doesn't have to be heated rivalry, for example.
Speaker 2:
[14:11] No.
Speaker 1:
[14:14] Sometimes it is. We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Acorns. It's easy to get caught up in the amount of money you have today, but it's important to think about your future finances as well. Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money is going tomorrow. And with Acorns' potential screen, you can find out what your money is capable of. Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow. You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money, even if all you've got is spare change. I've tried Acorns and I try it with my kids, and I have to say, it's a really easy experience. It's a great way to learn about investing. Very easy to use and the dashboard is completely discernible. It's really hard to learn about investing and this is a great way to do it. That's the great thing about Acorns, it grows with you. Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a $5 bonus investment. Join the over 14 million all-time customers who've already saved and invested over $27 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.com/kara or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement, compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns, Tier 2 compensation provided. Potential subject to various factors such as customer's accounts, age and investment settings does not include Acorns fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any Acorns portfolio. Investments results will vary, investing involves risks. Acorn Advisors, LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com/kara. Support for the show comes from Indeed. When the pressure is on and you need to hire the right person for the job, Indeed Sponsored Jobs has got your back. Instead of forcing you to spend tons of time searching, Indeed Sponsored Jobs matches you with the quality candidates fast. According to their data, Sponsored Jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95 percent more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes, less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, do it the right way with Indeed.
Speaker 6:
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Speaker 1:
[17:55] All right, so the WNBA just held a 2026 draft ahead of the 30th season tip-off next month. That comes on the heels of a deal on the collective bargaining agreement that's given players a nearly 400% salary increase, biggest increase in the history of US professional sports. Took a long time to get there. You were talking about it backstage. Things obviously got very heated at times. Talk a little bit about this. It's a tiring thing to do these CBAs.
Speaker 2:
[18:21] Yeah, they're never pleasant, but the outcome was phenomenal. I'm really happy with the outcome. Every player is getting a dramatic increase in salary. For the owners, we're thrilled. We have certainty. We have a season. But I think the numbers are phenomenal. I will say some of them here because it's an incredible growth. The salary cap has gone from 1.4 to 7 million, and with room to get to almost 11 million when the term ends, the highest paid player is going to go from 240,000 to 1.4 million, and the average salary is going to about 600,000. I'm glad we did this because actually the league needed to have a bit of a reset, because we keep talking about Caitlin, but Caitlin brought a massive new audience to the league, but she was making $76,000. Now, that is going to get immediately corrected and she'll be making 500,000. So, all in all, it's really great that the players got a raise, because they deserve it.
Speaker 1:
[19:26] Talk about the tent, what were the difficulties?
Speaker 2:
[19:28] But I also want to mention that actually what's even more important though, besides the salary raise, is that we change the economic model so that there's revenue sharing with the players. So this is really important because now there's players share on the upside of the league, so there's more incentive for us to work together to grow the business. So I really want to point out those two things. One, they got a raise. Second is, we're now moving to a more collaborative model, and that's going to be really important. Tension?
Speaker 1:
[19:53] Yeah. What was the difficulty of coming to it?
Speaker 2:
[19:55] Well, there was tension, but every collective bargaining negotiation is unpleasant by nature. I think this one had its fair share of drama. I mean, there were missed deadlines and all of it was also very well reported. So is there anything new to report? I think it took a long time because we were negotiating an entirely new economic model. But if you ask me, did I think that we might have had a work stoppage? I mean, there was a lot of tension. I think both sides knew what was at stake. There was so much momentum that we had built in the league that it wouldn't have been good for owners or players to have a work stoppage. I think the stress was really more around the edges, kind of like preseason training camp deadlines, just the compressed ramp up to the season. That's what was stressful. That did happen.
Speaker 1:
[20:45] Right. When you think about things you'd like to see more of, is there something that was left on the table you wish the owners had gotten or the players?
Speaker 2:
[20:54] I'm really happy we have a collaborative model and we're incentivized to work together because I think the alignment is essential.
Speaker 1:
[21:00] Between players and owners. Players and owners, yeah. Which is hard for the old economics of it, which is I'm paying you run or throw the ball or something.
Speaker 2:
[21:11] Right.
Speaker 1:
[21:12] Do you think that is going to be replicated elsewhere around the sports world?
Speaker 2:
[21:16] I think so. I do.
Speaker 1:
[21:18] Talk about why that's important. I mean, it's happening in media now. It's kind of deal I have it or talk about how, because one of the things that I recall saying, I have no incentive to do anything else to help you make more money because how could that articulate itself in sports?
Speaker 2:
[21:34] Well, first of all, the NBA has a bit of that model, so it's already sort of standard for some leagues. So I think this is going to be a precedent for other major professional women's sports leagues. The only one that's close to us in size is the NWSL. So I can see their unions taking some notes from this.
Speaker 1:
[21:57] So the WNBA league ownership is divided. The NBA owns 42 percent, team owners own 42 percent, and outside investors own the remaining 16. Explain how the ownership of the league makes internal decisions when it comes to things like CBA or expanding the league, because you're dealing with a lot of stakeholders, and obviously not everyone is going to see eye to eye.
Speaker 2:
[22:17] Right. Well, that's a big question. I think the way we work with the NBA is it's a collaborative kind of relationship, but the WNBA makes its own decisions, but in consultation because we do use some of the infrastructure of the NBA. But certainly, and as the WNBA gets more self-sustaining on its own, it's natural, of course, that it's going to have more independence. But in the early days, the NBA was essential to the survival of this league. I mean, it really sustained it and subsidized it for a long time. I still think that there are some advantages of being tied to the NBA, this media deal, like we did it together. I think that it also, when we play in the summer, the NBA plays in the winter and you can offer a year-round package to a media partner. I mean, there's a lot of strengths in having a united front together. We also have some other shareholders and something like that. I think it's important to say that not that long ago, this league was really struggling and it needed outside capital to grow. So when you need capital and you want someone to share that risk, it means you have to share the upside when that happens. So that's a trade-off that every league that's growing has to think about. And in our case, the NBA really created and sustained the league and was a big part of where we are today. And the outside capital providers also provided us capital that we needed to grow. And is another structure possible? I mean, I think the question really is thinking about that if you were going to change your structure, you would have to buy people out at market value, and the market value has increased significantly.
Speaker 1:
[24:02] Has increased. Do you see that happening?
Speaker 2:
[24:04] I think there's discussions. We had a lot of things to get done before we could have that discussion, like the CBA.
Speaker 1:
[24:11] Right, the CBA, which is true. But also the WNBA Board of Governors recently approved expansion teams in Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia. In a post on that website, sports writer and podcast host Bill Simmons called the move, quote, staggeringly stupid and unapologetic money grab that will immediately make the league worse, end quote.
Speaker 2:
[24:29] I don't see that at all.
Speaker 1:
[24:30] Okay. Some critics argue expansion dilutes the talent. Explain the strategy and why is Bill Simmons wrong? By the way, Bill Simmons sometimes is wrong, but never in doubt.
Speaker 2:
[24:41] I think expansion is really good for the league. I think that it's new markets, it's more games, it's more fans, it's more content, and ultimately, it's going to increase media value, and it's going to allow us to have better media packages, and that's really important for this league. We need to grow the fan base. I don't really worry about diluting the talent, because those of you who follow the WNBA know that so many people that go to training camp or who get drafted even, like are cut from the team before the first game starts, and so we actually need to have-
Speaker 1:
[25:18] There's a pipeline of talent.
Speaker 2:
[25:19] There is a pipeline of talent.
Speaker 1:
[25:20] Right, right. Take his side. What would be the best argument against expanding even more? And these are terrific cities. These are sports cities, by the way.
Speaker 2:
[25:29] And also, the only thing is if they wouldn't invest and they didn't actually market the stars and do everything that you needed, or if he felt like the fans weren't there. But all the metrics are consistently pointing in the other direction. The fans are there, they want it, the investors want to invest. I think, actually, the league was only looking for one expansion team, and there were 13 bids, and they were so strong that they took three.
Speaker 1:
[25:54] Right, right, and certainly could expand even more. Do you see that happening?
Speaker 2:
[25:58] I think I like the pace we're at, because we've got these expansion drafts, and yes, it is true. We've taken a long time to build our roster, and then we can't protect everybody, so some people go, and it's very difficult. So I think that we have to phase it, and we are, so there's two new teams coming on this year, and then the other teams will come just year by year.
Speaker 1:
[26:23] Year by year. So that it builds over time.
Speaker 2:
[26:25] It builds over time.
Speaker 1:
[26:26] So the WNBA also signed, as you said, a record $2.2 billion 11-year media rights deal with broadcasters in 2024. Nobel laureate Claudia Golden advised the WNBA Players Union on the new collective bargaining agreement, and she believed the television deal should have brought in more for the WNBA as it compares to the MBAs deal with the same partners around $75 billion. Why are the men's rates worth 34 times the women's rights?
Speaker 2:
[26:51] Can I say, I will just get to the chase and say this is why we're poised to grow, because the revenues on the women's sports haven't caught up with the viewership, and that's the investment opportunity. Because it is true, the WNBA viewership is a meaningful fraction of the MBAs viewership, but we are a tiny fraction of the media deal. By the way, we don't have to get to the size of the MBA, just even a little bit of an increase is going to create enormous value. That's why I just think women's sports in general is a great investment opportunity, because women's sports in general have been under-invested and under-monetized with respect to the level of talent and the fan engagement, frankly, that there is.
Speaker 1:
[27:40] And besides the TV deals and the fans and the merch and the various sponsorships that you have, is there another monetization opportunity?
Speaker 2:
[27:50] Global, absolutely global.
Speaker 1:
[27:51] We'll talk about that.
Speaker 2:
[27:52] But before I do that, I want to make sure that I make this point about why I think media rights will continue to grow. And I think it's because live sports, I think, is going to become increasingly valuable. Because in a world where content is becoming infinite, AI is making sure that content is abundant, infinite, and predictable. Live sports is the opposite of that. Like live sports is by nature finite, and it's also unpredictable.
Speaker 1:
[28:21] Right, like the recent college games.
Speaker 2:
[28:24] And the fact that it's unpredictable and anything can happen, that creates emotional investment, emotional connection among the fans.
Speaker 1:
[28:32] Very good point.
Speaker 2:
[28:32] And so the fact that the world is becoming flooded with content, that really just increases the value of live sports. So I think what that means for team owners is we're going to see it in two places. We're going to see more people coming to the building to go to games, but we're also going to see more people watching. So I just think that there's rising demand and limited supply, and that's why I'm very positive on the future.
Speaker 1:
[28:58] I'm going to ask about the Human Performance Alliance in a second, but how do you look at technology in that? Obviously, everyone's talking about AI, and maybe the use of it isn't as big as the hype necessarily at this point. I remember interviewing people two decades ago. Oh, it's going to be in all the seats. Technology is the most important part. What do you think is promising and what are you like? Let's take a second.
Speaker 2:
[29:21] I think it's important to be up on the latest technology, and people are coming to us with all sorts of technology all the time. I think the last place that we put it in our arena, we have facial recognition, so that you can actually get into the arena faster based on that. That's really good for operations and your flow. Sure. There are some arenas like Steve Ballmer's arena, that one is really kitted out and I think you can also vote from your seat and do all these things. I don't know. I think it's important, but right now we're leaning heavily into the live experience and the energy in the building. I feel like people come to games now, not just for the competition on the court, but they come because they want community and they want to feel connection, they want to be part of a live experience. I think for us, if you go to a Liberty game, you feel people are super engaged and the energy is really high, and that's really driven by the fans. The fans are there, they're loud, they really know the game. And when people go and they experience that, that's what makes them feel like they want to be a part of that experience. And so we're really leaning into the play and the competition on the court, the fan experience, creating some energy that's going to draw people in. Ellie and all of our mascots, all of our entertainment is really built to create an experience that people can relate to and love.
Speaker 1:
[30:53] Within the arena.
Speaker 2:
[30:54] Within the arena.
Speaker 1:
[30:56] What's been brought to you? Because you see all I get pitched tons and tons of stuff. And what do you look at that you are intrigued by? And what do you look at and say, especially the technological things, get the fuck out of here, like get out of my office?
Speaker 2:
[31:09] I would love an AI person to help a ticket salesperson, to know this person and be able to say all the right things that the person is going to convert and buy a season ticket. That I think is really valuable.
Speaker 1:
[31:23] But not an AI person talking to that person, right?
Speaker 2:
[31:26] No, I hope not. But somebody in your ears who can say like this is.
Speaker 1:
[31:31] So it's all back end, is how you look at it, but not within the experience.
Speaker 2:
[31:34] No, I mean, we still have human people like serving you and pouring your drink.
Speaker 1:
[31:41] No robots? No.
Speaker 2:
[31:44] Not yet.
Speaker 1:
[31:45] Elon Musk said there's going to be a million of them deployed this year.
Speaker 2:
[31:48] I've seen them. They're in the airports making coffee.
Speaker 1:
[31:52] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[31:52] And? I'm a Chemex pour-over girl. I'm an old-fashioned, so I can't answer.
Speaker 1:
[31:59] All right. We'll be back in a minute.
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Speaker 1:
[33:50] Let's talk about the Human Performance Alliance, and then we'll get to a couple of questions from the audience before we go. It's a major research initiative you launched in 2021. This is a six-university scientific collaboration focusing on the study of the human body. It's healthiest working with top athletes. I just debuted a show on CNN called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever about longevity. Some of it's charlatanism, some of it's misinformation, and then what's really promising. So why did you decide to take this approach? Because people aren't elite athletes. Some of the research probably just applies only to top athletes, but does it help the broader population? Talk a little bit about what you're doing here. And I appreciate your scientific focus.
Speaker 2:
[34:29] Yeah, so the Human Performance Alliance is a scientific research initiative, and it's focused on understanding how the body performs. So how the body moves, adapts, recovers, fatigues over time. And we study people at peak health in top form in order to understand what drives performance and also what leads to injury. Okay. And so the reason that we started this is because as team owners, you see athletes sideline and you see the cost of sideline athletes, and you realize that they're so little about the human body that you know. And for these professional athletes, right, their career longevity, their health, right? Their health and their performance and their longevity is their greatest asset. So we thought, okay, well, there's an opportunity to invest in research around injury prevention and rehabilitation and recovery, not just to extend the careers of pro athletes, but then we could learn these some principles that could also translate into that word healthspan, to a better healthspan for everybody.
Speaker 1:
[35:39] Right, healthspan versus lifespan.
Speaker 2:
[35:41] Right, because all this stuff we learn-
Speaker 1:
[35:42] There's a big delta.
Speaker 2:
[35:44] Yes, there is. It's 15 years. Right. When you study healthy people, then there are a lot of implications and things that we can gain in the areas of performance and also recovery and ultimately longevity. It will help people stave off chronic pain. Anyway, by the way, a lot of stuff we're doing is around prediction, like predicting injury or individualized training. That's exactly where it's going. That's where it's going and all that is going to help athletes, it's going to help all of us.
Speaker 1:
[36:15] This organ clock thing that you can tell, eventually you'll be able to say, you will get liver cancer at 52 and this is what will precipitate. I mean, that's the goal. But each organ, not the body as a whole. But only about six percent of sports science research is conducted exclusively on women, despite a dramatic rise in women's sports in the past 50 years. The Alliance's Female Athlete Focus Program is attempting to address that gap. There's no one in this lane, essentially. Talk about what you've learned overall and specifically with women. How will the new research be applied? How long before you get things that are applicable in prevention and treatment?
Speaker 2:
[36:53] A while, but that's because we're starting with the research. Because as you noticed, in the series that you've done, a lot of people are starting to peddle protocols and supplements before the science is complete.
Speaker 1:
[37:08] Yes, wellness rifters is what I call them.
Speaker 2:
[37:10] So we're starting with the science and making sure that we're doing the clinical studies where we can really-
Speaker 1:
[37:17] The gold standard. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[37:19] Right. But the goal though is translation. We want to have protocols and therapeutics and tools that will help athletes in you and me. But how long is that delta? I mean, it can be a long time.
Speaker 1:
[37:35] So this is for the long-
Speaker 2:
[37:36] It is long-term. But if you want to do it right, correct, that's the way it has to be.
Speaker 1:
[37:40] Yes. You're never going to make it on Instagram, Clara. But go ahead.
Speaker 2:
[37:43] But I don't have Instagram.
Speaker 1:
[37:45] I know. I'm teasing you.
Speaker 2:
[37:47] So I would say like, so we're five years into this 10-year commitment. And I can tell you that what I've learned in five years is informing how I want to spend the next five years of the Alliance. And I think there's for me three big unsolved challenges. One is predicting injury before it happens, because right now we're reactive and we treat afterward. And so now we're full on into building the digital twin, the digital twin that can tell you what is going to happen to your body before it happens and what to do about it.
Speaker 1:
[38:18] So replacing sick care with health care, but go ahead. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[38:21] Okay. This is predictive and leading to prevention. Then the second unsolved challenge is this personalized exercise medicine or individualized training and recovery protocols. Because right now, most training prescriptions, well, they're based on population averages. And so we eventually have to get to this point where, and we are there because we have scientists at Salk Institute that are studying molecules that regulate nutrition and fatigue and metabolism. And so we're getting to this place where you'll be able to tell each individual person what exercise they need to do at what time of day with what kind of recovery. So that's another area. And the third big unsolved challenge is this data gap, this gender gap in human physiology knowledge. Because as you pointed out, I mean, women's sports is growing so fast and the science and the research is just catching up. But you see that because so much of the sports science has been done on men and then just transferred to women, it's why we don't understand why menstrual cycles and hormones, we don't understand what the impact of that is on performance and recovery. And we also don't understand why some injuries like ACL tears or bone stress factors happen more to women than men. And so we basically need more data on female athlete physiology, and ultimately so that we can have better precision models for women, because otherwise they won't be very accurate.
Speaker 1:
[39:49] Right. Right. It's absolutely true. It's amazing. And at 10 years, you will renew or?
Speaker 2:
[39:55] We'll see.
Speaker 1:
[39:56] We'll see what you get out of it. Practical things. All right. We have some questions from the audience, and I have a final question. When will the NBA play its first regular season games overseas? Is that provided for in the CBA?
Speaker 2:
[40:08] First of all, yeah, I didn't talk about Global. And Global is early for the WNBA, because we have so much domestic growth ahead of us. We have these two new teams coming on this year and three more. So it's early, but it's sizable and really important. So first of all, Toronto is starting this year, so that's Global. That's our first international game.
Speaker 1:
[40:30] I think WNBA Europe, they're asking specifically.
Speaker 2:
[40:32] Yeah, WNBA Europe, they're only doing NBA Europe right now, but I could see that further on in the distance. I think the immediate goals would be to start getting global media distribution and to really start promoting the stars globally. And naturally, it's going to be foreign players who play in this league. I think right now, there's 23% of the players in our league are foreign born. In the NBA, it's 30%. And you can see how global the NBA is right now. So we're there, we're on our way. I think that percentage of foreign talent is going to grow. And so I think it's really about promoting the international stars in their home countries, but it's also, you know, globalizing the stars that are here.
Speaker 1:
[41:17] So Canada. All right. When you see the NBA season expanding beyond the number of games negotiated in the CBA, how do you feel about players playing overseas or elsewhere in the off season?
Speaker 2:
[41:28] Well, this CBA allows us to get to 52 games per year. We're at 44. I think one of the great things about this CBA is it is going to allow players to actually build a career in the WNBA. Like fewer will have to go overseas to make a living. And that's really good because they can stay in market, they can be in front of fans, and they can work on their own development. Right. So I think that the fact that the salary has gone up has given players a lot more choices. Her question was, or this question was, will there be other...
Speaker 1:
[42:10] Play off season, how do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:
[42:12] How do I feel? Well, I like players to stay in market, I like them to stay in the US because it keeps our players in front of fans. Unrivaled is an example of a league that's well run and it's...
Speaker 1:
[42:27] Does the new salary cap and media deal and play a fall off of the Unrivaled League or not? That's a question here.
Speaker 2:
[42:32] It's a question for a player.
Speaker 1:
[42:33] Yeah. Okay. This is something to do with both the NBA, two questions. This is one, what is the main challenge in navigating a WNBA team versus an NBA team? Are there distinct differences? Then if Liberty is in a growth mode, where are the nets? How are you reinvigorating the team after years of rebuilding?
Speaker 2:
[42:53] Well, WNBA is so energizing right now because we're in growth mode and you're building something and you can innovate and do things that have never been done. You're building new audiences. So that's very exciting. You can try things that you haven't done in the NBA. Okay. So on the NBA side, the talent is incredible. Again, you see it in the college level. And so I think it's really personally, I think it's really exciting when you have young players, like we are in a rebuild year. But I think a lot of our fans are trained in NBA to be really patient. They're really loyal to the team, but they understand and they also see models. They see the Oklahoma City Thunder and they can see how when you rebuild with young stars that you've drafted, you can actually create a championship team. Your fans are, they see that and they believe that's possible for your team as well. That's what we're doing. We've been pretty open about it, about wanting to draft well this year. We have players that we drafted last year that are really strong. For both of our teams, we're looking for the long-term.
Speaker 1:
[44:07] All right. One more question to the audience. They belong together too. How do you engage audiences authentically through cultural sensitivity when looking at growing the audience? And bringing in presumably younger people. Then Ellie the Elephant is iconic, who deserves credit for the Liberty having the best mascot in any league. Talk about that idea of cultural sensitivity when growing this audience, because you want more different people.
Speaker 2:
[44:31] We do, but we're based in Brooklyn and we made a decision to have all of our entertainment and our team really rooted in Brooklyn culture. Brooklyn is a place where 200 languages are spoken. It is. It's one of the most diverse places in the country, if not the planet. When you lean into Brooklyn culture, all of our theme nights and our timeless torches and everything we have around the game really reflects the spirit of the borough. We're very intentional about that and because we can do that, because Brooklyn is so diverse, we naturally promote diversity. Ellie, she's connective tissue. I mean, she's part of, I think I was saying earlier about how people come to sports games to connect with people and to have a joyful experience. I think Ellie has this, she has charisma and she has personality, and she's one of the reasons why she creates that joyful atmosphere that people have kind of associate now with the Liberty game.
Speaker 1:
[45:32] The Liberty game is really important. They are a lot of fun. I was joking with Clara was asking, Adam Silver apparently told her, I didn't like sports and it's actually factual. And at the same time, I love the business of sports and I like the elephant quite a bit. I enjoy it. I like everything else except the game.
Speaker 2:
[45:50] Well, now there's so much seat. That's the thing.
Speaker 1:
[45:52] Also your food and candy is on point.
Speaker 2:
[45:54] Right. So that's exactly it. So Ellie bridges that. She's actually bridges that traditional sports fan, you know, and the more casual fan.
Speaker 1:
[46:02] Yeah, exactly. So last question, we're in a moment when investment is converging with growing fan base and public enthusiasm. How does the excitement around women's sports become a sustainable long-term commitment, not just a trend? How should everyone, the front office coaches, owners and players take advantage of the momentum while staying true to the values? What is the thing you think about most? Because you want it to be for the long-term as you noted. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[46:25] I don't think it's a bubble at all. I think women's sports is moving to a re-rating because I do feel that women's sports has been under invested in and under monetized. I think that there's a real opportunity as revenues catch up. I think, but it is important that we price to value. But I also think that for all the reasons I mentioned about, well, this unique, the young audience that comes to our games, that all the advertisers and media want to reach, all the sponsors want to reach. Also what I mentioned about why life sports is so valuable. I think that there's reasons why revenue should grow that are beyond the macro trends that I think make this an exciting place to be. But I also want to mention that sophisticated capital is coming in to this area as well, and there are these dedicated funds that invest only in women's sports, and so that in itself is also just showing that it's being underwritten as its own asset class.
Speaker 1:
[47:25] Right. Well, thank you so much for talking about this. Great interview, Clara Wu Tsai. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:
[47:31] Thank you.
Speaker 1:
[47:40] Have you ever wanted career advice from Kara Swisher? Maybe you haven't, but I bet you do a little bit. So now's your chance. Send a selfie video of your question to on at voxmedia.com, and you may be featured in an upcoming special episode. Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Ricelle, Michelle Eloi, Catherine Millsop, Megan Burney and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Bradley Sylvester, Sam Lee and Julia Sharp Levine. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, that's a slam dunk. If not, we're calling a flagrant foul. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.
Speaker 9:
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