Start your day with Buzzcast and SBJ's Mollie Cahillane, Rachel Axon, Jennifer Azara and Betty Gomes as they recap a great night celebrating this year's SBJ Game Changer Award honorees and get you set for a full day of the SBJ Game Changers conference.
SBJ Morning Buzzcast
SBJ Morning Buzzcast: September 26, 2024
(upbeat music) - Good morning from Midtown Manhattan. We are here at Game Changers for a full day of programming. I am here with three of my favorite people that I work with. I am so excited to have an all woman buzz cast event. I'm Molly Kaehling. - I'm Rachel Aksa. - I'm Betty Goames. - And I'm Jenna Zara. Three of my favorite people. And we are here to discuss all things Game Changers. So guys, we last night were at the reception at the awards ceremony. What were some of your favorite moments from there? - Oh my gosh, the energy was incredible. And the room was packed, standing room only, I'd say. Just a tremendous crowd and people came to celebrate their people which was terrific, a bunch of standing o's from the PGA tour and from USTA and seeing the excitement of her fellow Game Changers for each other was just, it's my favorite event of the year and it's clear why. - Absolutely, Bonnie Bernstein knocked it out of the park. She was wonderful, engaging, funny, did a great job. - Yeah, Bonnie was an excellent host. - She was, she struck me, she asked the Game Changers the class of honorees, you know, how many of them had participated in sports and almost every hand went up and said, wrote it down, you know, and she was talking about the high rate of girls dropping out of sports. She said, "You give them reason to play." And I think about all these examples that they set for people in the room, for people in their lives. There's all this research about C-suite executives, female executives having experience in participating in sports and that just really struck home for me. - Rachel, the research you're referencing is a Deloitte study from around 2020 in partnership with Sports Innovation Lab that found that 70% of women in the C-suite level participated in sports and college and then once you jump to executive, it's about 70%. Seeing all these women on stage last night that were execs in college, Andrea Brimmer is someone who I always love to highlight, but she was a member of the first soccer team at Michigan State when she couldn't go pro. And it's thanks to Title IX and that's part of the reason why Ally Financial is doing such an incredible job in sports and in women's sports. And you're seeing that with brands constantly. I'm in talks with ESPN right now, we're working on a profile. You guys will see it in about a week or so around college sports investment, especially around women's sports. I agree with everyone that the atmosphere in the room was incredible this night. It was electric. If you weren't here, you're missing out and you should come next year. And now we are about to have an entire day of programming. I'm hosting two panels. This is my first time hosting for SPJ. I'm moderating. If you see me, please come say hello. I'm super excited about it. What are you guys most looking forward to today? - I'm looking forward to, there's a panel advice to my younger self and it's past game changers who'll be on there. Donna Ponte, Chris Ponsky, many others. What a room to have this in, right? You can see the people who have been in this business for a long time. I met some of them, people who are young coming up in the business and being that age and in this remote have loved to soak up every word of wisdom from them. So I'm looking forward to that one. And related to that, we have out in the lobby here with the game changers, people can put on post-its, right? And they're already filling up that wall. I can't wait to see what everything that's on there by the end of the day. - Rachel, what advice would you give to yourself? - Oh man, that's a tough one. You know, work ethic gets you far, but don't forget to be a person. I think in my 20s, I forgot to be a whole person and had to learn that one. - That's a good one. - There's a good one. - Write that down. Betty, what are you looking forward to today? - I'm looking forward to hearing from Sandra Douglas Morgan, president of the Las Vegas Raiders. I first learned about Sandra back in 2019 when she was a member of the power players in sports betting that SPJ did. She was a member of the Nevada Gaming Patrol Board at the time and now she's with the Raiders. I'm really interested just to hear about her journey, what the impact of what she did around sports betting is affecting what she's doing today with the Raiders. - Jen, what about you? - I have a great panel up on stage that I think is gonna generate some real good energy. We have WWE wrestler Jade Kargill and she and I are gonna sit down and have a little chat. She is a fascinating multi-dimensional woman. Not only is she a wrestling champion, she's a mom. She owns a fast pitch softball team in Texas and she was a practicing child psychologist up till three years ago when she jumped into the world of wrestling. So if you follow her on social media, she's an awesome presence, very empowering, girl mom like myself. And so I think we're gonna have a real good chat tomorrow and I may or may not challenge her to an arm wrestling. Looking forward to that today. - What about you, Malie? What are you looking forward to? - Oh, thanks Rachel. I am going to be breaking some news with Verizon and the NFL. So look into that at around 12.05. Awesome, really excited for that panel and Elle Duncan will be joining me with the NFL and Verizon and I'm very excited for the session. Elle Duncan is someone I've admired for a long time and someone I have referenced in my newsletters multiple times as someone who's reporting I deeply respect. So being able to discuss with her the importance of women in sports and the importance of women journalists in sports is something I'm very excited about. Secondly, y'all might think I'm young. I am a millennial and I will claim until the day I die. So I am moderating a panel around engaging younger generations of fandom specifically targeting Gen Z and Gen Alpha, which it is horrifying to be able to say Gen Alpha. And for the last session of the day, I am so excited to talk with BSE Learfield and Unrivaled which I think is going to be such an incredible space in the, in basketball. We, we're launching a new league in the US and I don't think people are talking about it enough. So I'm really excited to highlight engaging younger fans and engaging younger generations with these incredible women. This is my first game changers and that's been the mood, right? We talked about in the room last night and what we're looking forward to today. I think when Bonnie was reading introductions, Rebecca Gitlett said, "When women support women, there's no limit to what they can achieve." And you definitely feel that here. - Agreed. - Yeah. - And that does it for Morning BuzzCast, Thursday, September 26th. Thank you to three of my favorite people for joining me and thank you for letting me be the host of this for this incredible event honoring women and having a podcast of all women. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)