S14 E36 Gotham FC’s Emily Tisch Sussman on Building a Dynasty in Women's Soccer From the Inside.

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Speaker B: being like at the center of political messaging, I realized that when you're in it, it's not cool to be creating messaging for regular people. Everyone's always trying to prove how smart they are and I found that incredibly frustrating. I was like, well, if I'm going to do my own thing, I'm going to do it in a way that's accessible, that, uh, regular people feels conversational and people can just like, hear and be like, yeah, it makes sense to me.

Speaker A: I'm Patrick J. McGinnis and I coined the term FOMO. That's short for Fear of Missing out. And it's why some people end up following the crowd when they should be blazing a trail of their own. But if you want to achieve greatness in business and life, you've got to break free. Come on, I'll show you how. This is FOMO Sapiens, where we explore how entrepreneurial thinkers find the inspiration and the courage to build exceptional lives. Welcome back to FOMO Sapiens, the show for bold thinkers who want to turn their FOMO into focus. I'm your host, Patrick J. McGinnis and today I have a wonderful guest, Emily Tish Sussman, creator and host of the award winning I Heart Podcast. She pivots. Tony Nominated producer, Democratic political strategist and co owner of the New York New Jersey Gotham Football Club, one of the most exciting teams in women's professional soccer. Think about that. I just said a lot of things. This team Gotham just won their second NWSL championship in three years, coming in for the number eight seed and going all the way to the championship, winning the whole darn thing. And Emily has spent her career amplifying women's voices, and now she's doing it at the head of a championship club. Welcome to the show, Emily.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. This is actually one of the only male hosted podcasts I think I've maybe ever done so well. Uh, that's an award for you as well.

Speaker A: I. I'm honored, and I'm curious to see what you find different. But I do think that it's really important. I mean, all the things you're doing are elevating women, and, um, we're gonna get all of that because you're doing it in a highly entrepreneurial way.

Speaker B: I like to think so. In a couple of different ways. I like to think so. We don't fit the mold, you know, a hundred percent.

Speaker A: And let's talk about this because you started in politics, then got into podcasting. Now you're in the sports ownership game. Looking back, like, for people who never met you before and you're new to them, like, what are the through lines of this whole thing? Like, how did this all happen?

Speaker B: So I spent almost 20 years working as a Democratic strategist, like a political strategist in federal policy. So I lived in D.C. the White House would outsource their campaigns for me to run. And even though the business of politics is, like, kind of set, like, what the jobs are, how you move through it, I never really fit the mold. And so even within that, I was kind of entrepreneurial that I said, well, I'm actually not an expert in any of the things that you guys consider expertise. Like, I'm, uh, a communications director, a policy director, like health care policy analyst. Where I actually see my biggest value that I add is that I can create something out of white space. Like, if I see a. If you bring your problem to me, I will evaluate your assets, your. The news cycle, the challenges, the opposition, what levers need to get pulled, and I will create a campaign for you. And so the. The kind of longest lasting job that I had in politics was the head of campaigns and strategy at the largest Democratic think tank, center for American Progress. And that was a job that I created. I had consulted for them, I pitched them, and I was like, this is something that you guys have. You have all these experts, and no one knows how to connect it in a strategic way to move something forward. So let me be that function expert. Um, from there, I started a political podcast, which is how I sort of, like, move through into podcasting. But again, it was like, always into white space. So being like at the center of political messaging, I realized that when you're in it, it's not cool to be creating messaging for regular people. Everyone's always trying to prove how smart they are. And I found that incredibly frustrating. So I was like, well, if I'm going to do my own thing, I'm going to do it in a way that's accessible, that, uh, regular people feels conversational and people can just like, hear and be like, yeah, it makes sense to me. And I thought, if I create a platform for myself, I'm going to create it for the female experts. Because the people that I worked with, I had been on cable news for a decade and I would have to comment on every topic. And so often before the show I would have to go and like, grab an expert and be like, okay, what's the three things I need to know about this for me to go on air and talk about it? And I was always working with the female experts in their, in the different departments. But then the things that were considered, like markers of X of the expert were things like penning your name on an op ed or getting called for interviews for quotes or senate testimonies. And those were all going to the men who were over them. But it was actually these women that had been doing the work and they

Speaker A: were, they wrote everything and somebody else read it.

Speaker B: Yeah, totally. So I was like, well, if I'm creating a platform, I'm m going to create it for these women who are truly the experts that I utilize. And from there, I had a third kid in three years in a global pandemic. And it totally tanked my political career in like a minute, like overnight. Because the thing you can't be in politics is like, in it. Like, you have to be, especially the intersection of politics and media. Like, you gotta be like, in it. And I had three kids under three in the pandemic. And so my career just like evaporated. And I was like, everyone's gonna forget about me. And they would totally like in those jobs. So I created the podcast. She pivots that it literally came out of things that I needed. I was like, I'm not dead. I'm not choosing to take a step back from my career, which is like the cultural commentary. I'm not resilient because I'm so fundamentally changed that whatever comes next cannot be like, oh, I'm going back to the way that I was. Like, I'm changed, I'm different. And I want to know that the Way that I'm changed can actually be helpful in a professional context because like all of this work, equity, self equity, reputational equity that I built, like it can't be for nothing. Um, and created the show and it does seem to have resonated with some people.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm curious, like you kind of convinced me of something that I might not have thought about before or maybe now I have a different view which is uh, both of us do stuff in politics which is a whole different animal. And I wouldn't have thought that people who kind of get their formation in politics make great entrepreneurs. But the way you told that story convinced me. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Do like does a training because uh, it's different to be a candidate versus being the person who's building the campaign. But do people in politics make good entrepreneurs?

Speaker B: Maybe is the answer. There's like really two types of people that go into work in politics and policy. And those things are actually quite different. Like on the outside it's like politics and policy, same thing. It's actually totally different jobs and totally different types of people. So the people that go into policy, like the forming of law, it's like working with actual government are super academic. Like the rules follow it. Like stick to the playbook.

Speaker A: Long term thinker, slow and steady.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would not call them great entrepreneurial brains. But if you work on a campaign that is scrappy as hell, those people are often college dropouts. People are uh, maybe they opt out of college to begin with. It's like people that are can just like work, work, work through something and find a solution. They have to pick up and move. They can't attached to things. You can't hire until 10 times more than you needed that job backfilled. Right. Like everyone's doing 100 jobs at a time. You have to be able to be presentable at all times because you never know when something the candidate's going to walk in, when a volunteer uh, is going to walk in. Like you have to be able to like keep your shit together. Those people are highly entrepreneurial and do really well and they don't do well and they don't do well in government.

Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And you see, you know, those are the people who like when they put them in roles in government, they end up crashing out because they're not rule followers. And like if you work in the government, at least traditionally, maybe not anymore, there are a lot of rules you had to follow.

Speaker B: Yeah. And the usually the first People to get hired into a new administration are the ones that have worked on the campaign because they're the ones that are like, first in line. Like the candidate knew them, the managers knew them. Um, and they don't last that long, to be honest.

Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Okay, so that, that's a really interesting insight. So if you are building a business, go to a campaign and find the person who is scrappy because it's true. It's like here' selling a product just like you do as an entrepreneur. And you got to get people to do. You got to get butts and seeds, people paying people showing up, creating a brand, getting people leave, all sorts of stuff.

Speaker B: There's so many of the work that I did, even when I was at the think tank, I was doing like still campaign ish work. And I would hire a lot of young people and I would either vet them as having campaign experience or retail or server experience. Like that's what I wanted. I wanted to know that they could think on their feet. And when I would talk to people that had like marketing MBAs, at the end of the day I was like, uh, oh, we're actually doing a lot of the same work but with different language.

Speaker A: Uh, that's very cool. Okay, so let's talk about women's sports. Gotham.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Football club. For somebody who doesn't know about it, tell us what it is and how did you get involved?

Speaker B: Gotham FC is the future of sports. We will be the first global brand in women's sports. You can go anywhere in the world and you could see like a Yankees hat or a Dallas Cowboys or Real Madrid. That is not true for women's sports. It will be Gotham. We are on the way. To quote Sue Bird, is Gotham a dynasty yet? On the way? The great Seabird. If she says it, I believe it. So Gotham FC is the New York, New Jersey women's soccer team. As I was going through this like three kid grounding my career journey, my sister was actually also going through the same thing. She had been the head of global marketing at Peloton. Very startup culture. Now it's a little more established. But she was there from the beginning, really built the brand, had the third kid and was like, wow, this is really not compatible. Um, and so she started a sports focused VC to leverage our family's position in the New York Giants that we've been in for the last 30 years. She started. So she made a number of investments. The biggest investment became Gotham fc. We knew that we were going to be the controlling owners eventually we did not know we were going to be the controlling owners from the first day, which is what ended up happening. And so my sister has been serving as the club essentially president and now chair of the entire league, the nwsl, for the last year. We've had the club for the last almost three years. Um, and it's been, it's incredible. I mean, you know, the way that I had worked in legislative change my whole life and career and thought was that was how I made an impact in the world and then started to rethink it when I had my 3 kid pandemic M journey and think about, you know, maybe now I work in culture change and maybe now I find different ways to elevate women. You know, it used to be through law, maybe now it's through different ways and their voices. This has actually been like a equally as, as interesting and fulfilling way, um, to do so. You know, not just that it's female athletes, but that we have not culturally adjusted to think of them as the stars that they are, the, the icons they are the athletes that they are. We don't really think about them, like full 360. So the reason that I bring in that piece is because while my sister runs the club, I really work at the intersection of Gotham and culture. So I bring culture to Gotham and Gotham to culture. So the same way that you think about, you know, going to like a Knicks game courtside in New York and you're like, oh, that's culture. Like, are culturally relevant. They're courtside at the Knicks. Well, that should be Gotham as well. So, in fact, we just opened our home game last week with Spike Lee opening for us. Like, you know, who is, who is the cultural icon of New York City?

Speaker A: 100%, totally.

Speaker B: So, you know, I brought a national anthem, singers, celebrities, influencers, magazine editors, people who are culturally relevant in New York. And then I also bring Gotham to culture, so I bring the brand and most of the time the players. Everywhere that culture happens in New York, people should be thinking of Gotham and Gotham should be included. So this last New York Fashion Week, we had them at 10 shows, dressed designers, front row. Um, we had them at Misty Copeland's last performance. We had them at the Tony Awards, we had them on Broadway. Really, everywhere that culture is happening, Gotham will be there. And now we've just announced that we're playing our first big game at Citi Field.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: Yeah. July 15th, everyone. Market. We're playing our biggest rival, who we played in the finals this year, Washington Spirit, with Trinity Rodman we beat them, we'll do it again. So we'll have, like, this big New York city field moment. July 15th.

Speaker A: Um, and we're live on match day as Doug reaches for a Buffalo wing.

Speaker B: He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi, too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it.

Speaker A: It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi.

Speaker B: This summer. Serve up the Cookout Classics, Heinz ketchup and Kraft Singles. Every good burger needs a layer of perfectly melty cheese and thick, rich ketchup. We all know it's not a cookout without Heinz and Kraft

Speaker A: fomo. Wow. It's gonna be the summer of soccer in New York City. This is amazing. Now, I do want to give a shout out to your sister Carolyn, because I think you know this story. But in 2015, I was chatting with her and her husband Will and crying that I was looking for a place to write a book in Maine. And she was like, I can help you with that, and found me a place to write my book. So, uh, for that, I am eternally grateful. They're in my acknowledgments.

Speaker B: Oh, that's amazing. That is true. You knew my sister before you knew me.

Speaker A: I know. You know, I play no favorites. You're both amazing. But, um. But I'm curious, you know, so I've been observing this. There's a sports, like, boom happening, a huge sports boom, where you literally, like the I went to a Savannah Bananas game, and that's like a whole thing. And then within that, women's sports. I heard a story recently, and I'm going to get the numbers wrong, but some investors came in and invested in a women's, um. I think it was basketball team in, like, Stanford, Connecticut. And I think the valuation was the hundreds of millions of dollars. And so there has been this awakening to this opportunity. There's also, I. I have to imagine people are feeling the fomo. And when you were looking at becoming owners of this team, did you see the Megatrend? Did you feel like, we gotta do this now? Like, what was the context in terms of this real shift we're seeing towards women's sports as you. As you evaluated it?

Speaker B: Well, what's so funny is that when we were evaluating the deal, part of what made it appealing as an asset, like, you know, why this team. We're not, like, particularly attached to soccer. We. I've learned some are. Now, I was gonna say I've learned some things now, but that wasn't like, you know, it wasn't that in particular, um, but that we were just at the beginning of this. Like when my sister talks about like how she evaluated the investment, funny enough, one of the things that made it appealing was that women's sports had not hit the cultural zeitgeist. So it seemed like there was only opportunity there to bring it into now, two and a half years later, that seems crazy. And I think everyone else is feeling. What we're feeling is like, you know, if we're not going to move legislative change, if laws are not going to move forward, if it feels like we're stalling, where can we move forward? We can move forward in culture.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and these, these athletes have always been here, they've always been under evaluated. They've uh, that's the right word, but unappreciated, I'd say. And underpaid.

Speaker A: Underpaid. No question about that.

Speaker B: Without question, underpaid. But I think it's like the larger context around it. Like I don't think it's like just the pay. Like I think we've ended up using that as a aspect, as like a proxy for how we feel about them. But like we can all do things. You don't have to own a team to be supporting the teams. You can go to the games, you can talk about it, you can spend money at games. Tune in. Like right now all these leagues are at the beginning of media deals with cbs, NBC, Victory, you know, espn. And they're all looking to see what their tune ins are. So like that's something that everyone can do for free, is just tune into it. I mean, another thing that I'm quite specific about doing, I have three young kids who are super into the team. Um, but something that I'm quite specific about doing is that if we talk about men's sports or women's sports, then we say that it's men's sports or women's sports. But otherwise if we're saying like it's soccer or it's women's soccer, then we're saying that women's soccer is like the other. Like it's not the main event. And so just being really specific about our language, not just does that help in the conversations that we have, but it literally helps in the algorithms. Like I was talking with the head of sports at Google and she was telling me that part of their prop, they have like inherent male bias in their results. So the example that she gives is that if you Google like who scored the most goals, it'll pull up Messi because there's A lot of articles about him. And so that's what, you know, like, Chachi beat Claude, and everything's going to give you right now. The reality is who has scored the most goals. It's Christine Sinclair, but there's very few articles written about her.

Speaker A: So. Emily, the question is this. You know, owning a sports team sounds glamorous and fun, and it, the way you're talking about it, uh, uh, it's like, I want one tomorrow. I don't know how he's going to make it happen, but I do. But what do you wish you had known getting into this? I mean, obviously your family has a tradition in sports. You've grown up around the New York Giants. But what do you wish you had known coming in that was a challenge or an aspect that you hadn't appreciated?

Speaker B: Um, I think with that, we can believe it. Like, we fully believe in the team, the asset, the athletes. Like we believe. And I think that'll take us really far. It's frustrating when the systems around us do not have. Not caught up to us yet. I'm not someone that, like, you know, lets that hold us back in any way. Um, and certainly neither is my sister. But, you know, an example would be that we have to rent our. We have to rent the men's stadium. So we don't control our schedule. They schedule their. Not only do they schedule the men's team first, um, the locker rooms are really not set up for a women's team, but then they rent. Then they decided to schedule in all these other tournaments. So our schedule is like the last thing to schedule. That's terrible. Um, and also a train can run directly to our stadium, and they add more trains for men's games, and they don't always add more trains for women's games. Like, that's a system that we need to break through. And it's frustrating that we can raise this, make these arguments over and over. But, you know, people don't usually change unless they have to change. I'm hoping they listen to this show because they have a more entrepreneurial spirit than that. But unfortunately, people generally don't change unless they have to. And so we have to show them why they have to.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that is the. That is the journey of the entrepreneur is, you know, it's either you're a follower and you. Then you ride off the rails that somebody else has built. Like, say you're. You're coming into an AI startup now. Like, you have all these models that you can build on top of, and it's a much easier journey, but the upside is a little different. Or you're the leader, but you have to build the infrastructure. And also, you oftentimes have to wait for some of these things to coalesce, whether it's on demand side, supply side. And so that is why it's a lot harder. But the upside is greater 100%.

Speaker B: Like, imagine when these things happen when we bought the team, when we, like, really closed on the team. It was the week of the championships in 2023. So crazy enough, we just walked into a team that won, which was great. We won four days after we closed.

Speaker A: The price go up as they're. As they're doing better through the season.

Speaker B: I mean, our valuation has certainly gone up in a great way. That's.

Speaker A: But like, when you were negotiating the deal where they're like, you know what? They just won again. Like, it'll be 2% more.

Speaker B: That would be hysterical. I think, fortunately, that did not happen because quite frankly, no one believed we would win it then either. We. We. We come through and win. It matters. Uh, yeah, yeah, but. So we walked out of the championship, and we were like, okay, well, we've been through super bowl wins with the Giants. We know what a New York championship celebration looks like. Let's see it. There were zero articles written in New York about the New York team winning the entire championship. The New York Post had an item this big that said, megan Rapinoe tears ACL in championship game. And she was playing for the other team. Like, there was no acknowledgement that the home team had just won. So we're. We're like, where's the parade? Where's the celebration? Where's the. And there was zero. Nothing. And so when we started doing well, this. We did well in 2024, we made it to the semifinals, and then we were doing well again this season in 2025. My sister had directed the business team. She months in advance, she was like, we will do everything the men's team would do if they win. So in that way, we had a model, but we had to go in and, you know, make the case and build it. The other challenge that we had is that our championship game was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, which meant that our parade had to be the Monday before Thanksgiving. Um, and you know what the NYPD won't do during the week of Thanksgiving? Another parade.

Speaker A: Oh,

Speaker B: we did manage to make it work. And it did look quite comparable to everything the Giants had. We were actually going through my camera roll of the Giants parade to see, like, what we had done from every perspective to make sure, like, we were hitting all of those. But I think I can't. I technically can't call it a parade or something like that.

Speaker A: I mean, I would just merge that into Macy's if I'm honest. Like, you know what I mean? But that's just my personal theory of change.

Speaker B: Yeah, fair enough. I know. But you know what? We deserved our own.

Speaker A: I agree. I get that. I get that. That's amazing.

Speaker B: Yeah. It was actually the same with the, uh. So we know that because we had done the super bowl with the Giants, we know that every championship winning team gets invited to the White House for a championship event. And women's soccer had never been invited. When I went through the list of who got invited, Little League, the Little League winner got invited. Women's soccer had never been invited. So this is from the 2023 championship. So I knew a lot of people in the White House and the Biden administration. I went and I made that case so hard for months. And I was like, guys, we're doing it, we're doing it, we're doing it. And sometimes for those championship events, it'll sometimes be the president, sometimes the first lady, sometimes the vice president. But I was like, guys, this is the first. It's going to be the president. Like, we're going to. We're going to work around his schedule. Like, I understand that at the end of the day, the two weeks before, they tried to move the event. And I was like, no,

Speaker A: yeah, what the heck? We're doing it.

Speaker B: And they were like, oh, well, he has to go meet with President Zelensky. I was like, that does feel like a you problem, though.

Speaker A: That one, though.

Speaker B: That's your problem. Our event is scheduled. We're not moving it. Because if we move it, we're not doing it. And we're doing it. We're doing it. We're making history here, guys. And we did. We had the first ever acknowledgment of the women's soccer champions at the White House. And we had the president, the first lady, the vice president, second gentleman, all there.

Speaker A: Um. Wow.

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Speaker A: Yeah, it's what I'm taking away from this, which is really interesting is. And correct me if I make any mistakes, but number one is that when you are, um, when you have a team or a business or a brand or something like, where you're not getting the credit you deserve, let's say that you can look at your peers and see what the universe can look like and then be relentless about making sure that you are acknowledged in the same way. And if you have. And if you have the right context and the right team and the right people and you kind of know how to do it and work can really elevate the whole story that I have

Speaker B: never articulated it that way and that was an excellent, excellent description.

Speaker A: What I would do is when this podcast comes out, you can record it with Otter and then you'll have the transcript of what I said and then you can rewrite it in your own words if you want. Or not.

Speaker B: No, you said it better. I wouldn't even. I'll. I'll give you credit for it.

Speaker A: The man writing the script and the

Speaker B: woman can read it.

Speaker A: How's that sound?

Speaker B: We finally have men saying things in podcasts that become quotes.

Speaker A: This is why you're on this guy's podcast.

Speaker B: It's true. The World has been waiting for it. We've been waiting. Thank you.

Speaker A: Now, I do want to talk one last question before we get to our FOMO 4, which is four quick questions, four quick answers, and the question is about your pod. She pivots. You've been doing this for how long?

Speaker B: About, uh, five years.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's like. That's a real. That's a real thing. If you were to distill for folks listening, who are. They're gonna go check out the show, obviously, right after they buy their Gotham FC tickets. If you were to distill, like, what you have learned doing that show, like, what are the couple of things that really stand out for you?

Speaker B: One of the biggest insecurities I had going into the show was, is this real enough? Like, I used to change federal laws. Is this real enough for me to do, Like, I'm saying out loud, if this is culture change and culture change matters, but, like, I'm not even sure I believe it for myself now. I believe it. I think that there are. That there are so many people, particularly women, go through different phases of life and want to know that the thing that they are feeling doesn't diminish them. It actually makes them stronger and makes them better for something. And I don't think there's a lot of stories out there that validate that. That, like, particular. Like, I think now pivoting is more in the. Is more in the cultural conversation, which it wasn't when I started the show. But I think this particular lens on everything that you have gone through has built you to this moment. Because I talk to a lot of women who are like, oh, well, I did this in my past, but it was. It's a waste. Like, that was my career before, and it was for a waste. And I was like, no, no, no, let's reframe the conversation. You can actually have the same skills and the same work in political organizing as you can in MBA marketing. Right? Like, it's just different languages, like, different things that you call it. So you've built to something real. Um, so the fact that that conversation is real and important has been something that I have learned for myself in doing this. I did the other big takeaway. I've had about 155 conversations with women now, and we've talked through some, I mean, these huge, crazy things. I mean, you know, someone who was raised in a cult and, uh, escaped and became a professional roofer. I spoke with a woman whose ex husband killed their child. Like, I mean, I've talked with Women who have gone through like the craziest things that you can imagine and built themselves into these incredible successes on the other side of it. And my takeaways from that is that when you're in it, you don't necessarily know that it's gonna be so great on the other side. Which I think is really important for a lot of people to hear because when they're in it they're like, oh yeah, but look at them. Of course they knew were going to come out great. And no, they did not. They just, it just felt really, really low. Um, and the other thing I've now forgotten, but it is really important.

Speaker A: I think the two are very, very good. And it reminds me, and I don't know if you've read this book but uh, uh, this is like one of my favorite. We've had him on twice. I think he's coming on a third time. Bruce Filer wrote a book, Life is in the Transitions, which is a New York Times bestseller. But his whole book is about. He interviewed kind of like it's, it's a similar kind of thing where he interviewed 500 people about their life transitions from all walks of life and then actually coded them and did sort um, of regression analysis and statistically looked at what are the trends in people's life transitions. And um, so it's a book that I, it's like that book that I give to everybody. I've literally like I'm his top of funnel for his entire publishing career. Love you, Bruce. All right, so you ready for the FOMO 4?

Speaker B: I'm ready.

Speaker A: All right, rapid fire closing questions for you. You can hear. I mean this is I, you. This is like.

Speaker B: I feel like all of my responses are rapid.

Speaker A: It's one thing I like about. I was like thinking to myself, I was like, this is really. You can tell you did cable television by the way.

Speaker B: And you're like, oh, that's really funny you.

Speaker A: Because you're like uh, at some like Scott Jennings is going to interrupt me so I gotta like, you know, get things.

Speaker B: Oh yeah.

Speaker A: Do you know what I mean?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a. Ah, hun. Oh no, no. I just drive through till I get the whole, till I get the whole thought out. You know the thing that I've had to unlearn from cable news that was really hard for me to learn is you can't move your head in cable news. You have to sit super straight, look forward. And the way that people talk is like you talk with your hands, you move around. You like look up to grab a thought. You can't do that in cable news. You have to, like, think. You have to grab your thoughts looking straight. And I had to unlearn that in podcasts.

Speaker A: You know, Emily, my scariest moment on television. I used to. I'm not scared anymore. But, uh, in the beginning when I would do TV hits, I would, like, you could see me visibly shaking. And I was being interviewed by Pete Hesgath on Fox and Friends. And it was so. And I. You can, like, for many reasons, it was traumatic, but, like, the biggest one was I was just so nervous and you can just see me quaking.

Speaker B: Oh, that's so funny. No, they would have eaten me for lunch if I did that. I did. I did Fox News almost every day for years and years and years. So they literally would have. And you have to sit in the green room with them for, like, an hour before you go on. So you, like, make chit chat, then you go on. Then they try to eat you for lunch, and then you come back and you're like, okay, bye. Love you.

Speaker A: See later. Heaviest makeup I've ever had put on my face in my entire life.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, Same. The makeup artists were always like, oh, do you want to go out after? Like, you look so good. And I was like, my husband thinks I look horrible and wants me to take it off.

Speaker A: Definitely. There's a. There's a. There's a specific look there. All right, that's for another day.

Speaker B: More rapid answers.

Speaker A: Number one, what's the biggest mistake you see investors or brands make when they try to enter the women's sports space?

Speaker B: Coming in at too low numbers, they want to check the box. They want to be like, I'm in women's sports. And they're like, here's peanuts athletes. It's the brands that actually understand who the athletes are. And also, like, take the time to understand, like, what the plan is, because our audience is incredibly sticky for investors. I should probably have brought these numbers with me. But the amount that a women's sports fan is willing to try a new brand because they sponsor women's sports is, like, crazy higher than any anything else they can do. Like, people want. People are so on board this cultural moment to elevate women's sports. They want to support the brands that support them. And so it converts a lot for brands, but they have to do it in, like, a truly authentic way.

Speaker A: Yeah, performative. Performative. Anything is such a waste. It's just a waste of your time. Like, either do it or don't do it, but like just kind of half assing it.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we get a lot of half assing it. We get a lot of like, offers and then we don't take them. But like, we get a lot of like half assing off because they're like, I want to check the box in women's sports. And it's like, well, no, thanks. Thank you.

Speaker A: I have no time for that. All right, number two, what's a belief you had about women's sports when you first became an owner that has since changed?

Speaker B: Uh, that people who are fans of the male version of the sport would automatically convert? We don't see a ton of conversion from male soccer fans. We see a ton of conversion from fans of other women's sports. Like, if you're a Liberty fan, you love Gotham.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: If you're a Gotham fan, you love the Sirens. It's more, I'd say it's more about the vibes of like, the positive inclusivity, family friendly context, doing things in irl, getting on board with the players. Like, I think it's more about that than the sport specific. I do think that there's a United States maybe global awakening to the fact that women actually like watching sports.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like, I've watched. I, I enjoy the NFL. I've watched it my entire life.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and so the fact that they now have. We now have sports teams that we can follow, that we can also feel a connection to the players. Converts across sport more than it does across gender within the sport.

Speaker A: That makes sense to me. Number three is somebody who interviews people and is a great communicator. What do you think the most powerful question we can ask somebody is?

Speaker B: Wow, that's such a hard question.

Speaker A: I know that's. I guess my question may be it.

Speaker B: Yeah, that. That was it. I don't know that you can. That it's like one specific question, but it takes a while to get people to be really, truly introspective. So I think how, you know, just phrase it slightly differently. Like, how do you get the most powerful answer? Yeah, I think it's showing them that you're listening to them. Like, they have to feel safe in that space, that it's not going to be exploitative. And then I think you can get to. I guess your next guest can answer what the really powerful question is. Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, you just reframe my question better. So thank you for doing that. I actually think it's. It was a good one. I made it up on a fly. And you can see that yours was Better. Okay, final one, final one. Somebody, Somebody right now listening. And they're on the fence about, you know, they're like, oh, it sounds interesting. As a fan, investor or sponsor in women's sports, what's the one thing you want them to know?

Speaker B: This is the best investment that you can make and this is the lowest price you'll ever be able to get in. We are on a rocket ship.

Speaker A: FOMO generation, folks. She's a master of FOMO generation. She is. That was, that was very excellent.

Speaker B: Uh, if you don't get in right now, your FOMO will go through that roof.

Speaker A: All right, uh, Emily, where can people find you? Follow the team, get tickets, all that stuff.

Speaker B: Uh, both myself and the team have excellent socials. Uh, she Pivots the podcast and also Gotham fc. You can find she Pivots the podcast anywhere. You listen to podcasts. Gotham FC is playing at home. We are now in season right now. And definitely check out the July 15 game at Citi Field.

Speaker A: Oh, hell yeah. All right, everybody. Emily Tish Sussman, thanks for being here.

Speaker B: Thank you. I had so much FOMO not getting on this pod, so I really appreciate you validating. Oh, you just my self worth.

Speaker A: You brought a lot to this pod today, everybody. That is it for another episode of Homo Sapiens. If you like today's conversation, don't forget to subscribe rate, share it with a friend. Check out Emily's stuff because it's all good and especially Gotham fc. And remember, FOMO is real, but the power to master it is yours.

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