The Bay Turns Out and Turns Up for Women’s Sports

The Bay Area has always known how to win — from the Giants’ World Series titles to the Warriors’ championships, the 49ers’ Super Bowl runs, and the Sharks keeping the ice alive. Now women’s sports are claiming that same City of Champions legacy, turning San Francisco — and the whole Bay — into a national powerhouse, from professional soccer and basketball to flag football to packed sports bars. On this episode of North Gate Radio we feature 6 stories on how women in The Bay are making sports more inclusive, proving profitability, and pushing the industry to catch up.

 

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(Host/reporter) Meg DeMarsh: You’re listening to K-A-L-X.

Sunday Night Football. Saturday soccer shuttles. Bleachers, fold-out chairs, and voices hoarse from cheering in the morning fog. For decades, women have held American sports together from the sidelines — driving the carpools, buying the orange slices, waving the pom-poms.

Now? They’re not just supporting the game. They are the game.

Start Montage

Meg: We went out to the Cal campus to talk to people about women’s sports. We heard a lot of this…

Speaker #1: Well, I just don’t like sports, so I don’t follow any sports.

Speaker #2: But I don’t really watch sports regardless, so it’s not really my thing anymore, I would say.

Meg: And then we started to hear a lot of this…

Speaker #3: I know that Caitlyn Clark is cool. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker #4: Caitlin Clark, Sports I’m right? Yes, you’ve got it. Caitlin Clark. All right.

Meg: But as awesome as she is, we know that women’s sports are about more than just Caitlin Clark. And some people had a lot to say.

Eloise Rollins Fife: Hi. Excuse me. We’re doing a podcast at Women’s Sports and I– 

Keenan: Oh my gosh, are you joking? Oh, hi. Hello. How are you?

Meg: Like Keenan, a mom from Colorado who’s pretty much the ultimate Ultimate Frisbee enthusiast.

Keenan: Okay, what do I follow? Okay, so I have a complete bias to ultimate Frisbee, so I follow women’s, oh, and I have a bias towards women too. So you actually picked a good person.

Meg: Keenan had a lot to say.

Keenan: There’s this one player, Claire Chastain, who is just a dominant force. She does things with her body that I’ve never seen done before

Meg: A lot to say.

Keenan: Alright, one more thing For Ultimate. For Ultimate. I’m so sorry. I’m like, I’ve not been asked questions like this in about 30, in like in 20 years.

Meg: But she wasn’t the only one hungry for more women’s sports in the spotlight.

Speaker #5: It’s tough to follow sports and like sometimes when it’s you walk into a bar and like there isn’t a women’s sport playing on the tv, you know? If you sit down and watch it, like watching a women’s tennis match is like the same amount of excitement as watching a men’s tennis, tennis match for me.

Speaker #6: I play and I feel like it’s very underrepresented and it’s equally, if not more as exciting as watching men’s sports. 

Speaker #7: I think that men’s sports leagues should be called men’s teams. If women’s are gonna like, like, if it’s gonna be the WNBA, it should be the MNBA. I don’t know, it’s kind of silly.

Meg: Here at Northgate Radio, we happen to agree. And we’re here to shine that spotlight.

End Montage

Meg: As The City of Champions, the Bay has always known how to win. The San Francisco Giants with three World Series titles. The Warriors with four NBA championships in recent years. The 49ers’ Super Bowl runs. Even the Sharks keeping the ice alive.

The New York Times named the Bay Area the number one women’s sports city in the US. Here in California, we call that city San Francisco. But we get their point. This past year, women have stepped fully into that legacy, redefining what it means to be a Bay Area champion. 

From flag football to sports bars, it’s no longer true to say that women’s sports aren’t profitable, but how is the industry changing in response? 

I’m your host Meg DeMarsh, and on this episode of North Gate radio, our reporters bring you six stories that explore how women are changing the game and raising a new standard.

Meg: Flag football was once considered the little sister of tackle, but now it’s coming into focus all its own. Girls flag football is one of the fastest growing US high school sports. 500,000 girls age 6 to 17 play flag, up 63% since 2019. And, at least 65 colleges sponsor women’s flag football programs at the club and varsity level.  In my reporting, I’m seeing that when it comes to flag football – women and girls are setting the formations and creating big plays.

  It’s a Sunday in October here in the Bay. I’m sitting field-side at the championship game of the San Francisco Women’s Flag Football League, S-F-W-F-F-L or, as players lovingly call it, “Sfiffle.” What should sound like a sports league feels more like a block party. The air is thick with the base of the latest queer anthems, someone’s dog is barking, a bag of fruit snacks is being passed down the sidelines like its contraband.  Beside me is Sam Shaffer, a player on last season’s championship team. Watching. And – providing color commentary from the sidelines.

Sam Shaffer: Oh my God, that person is really good. Who is that? 

Crowd member 1: She’s not actually on the team. She’s like an Olympic. 

Meg: They’re talking about Sara Ach, the team’s wide receiver. She just executed a low dive and a clean rip of the flag.

Crowd member 2: Yeah. Just like recruited.

Sam: For real, like everyone’s gonna know you after this game. 

Meg: Flag football is Sunday games like this one, with block party vibes and soon: gold medal dreams. It’s headed to the Olympics! October 2023, the International Olympic Committee voted to add flag to the program for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, not as a demonstration event but as a full medal sport.

Peyton Manning: I am beyond excited that flag football is now in the Olympics

Meg: The spotlight hits BMO Stadium in Exposition Park, where six men’s and six women’s teams will battle for the first ever Olympic flag football titles.

Isabella Geraci: Hearing that was just. Holy crap. Like my childhood dreams could come true in multiple different ways because of this. 

Meg: Isabella, Izzy, Geraci, a wide receiver for the US National Team, played flag as a kid, switched to tackle with the boys, earned a basketball scholarship because there weren’t any for women’s football, and found her way back to flag after college.

Unlike other sports, like baseball to softball, where men competed decades before women were added, flag enters the Olympics with both men’s and women’s tournaments from the start. From the first whistle of the first Olympic game, women aren’t following history, they’re helping to write it.

Isabella:  Tackle football is completely different game than flag football. So I think that’s the cool part of it. It’s like, it’s this, it’s literally a new sport.

Meg:

-In flag, it’s 5 v 5 instead of 11 v 11 in tackle. 

 -In flag, a 70-yard field, in comparison to tackles 120.

 -In flag, there’s two 20-minute halves to tackle’s 4 quarters.

 -Flag also has zero contact, in theory. No tackling, no blocking. The play ends when a defender pulls a flag. Players wear a flag belt instead of protective gear.

And because there’s less equipment, the sport is more financially accessible.

Here’s Izzy again.

Isabella:  So, I think that’s the cool part of it. 

Yes, there’s women’s tackle, but I mean the NFL is like peak for men and it’s just like.

Maybe, maybe we’ll see a woman there one day, like maybe we will. But I think like for now, in this day and age, in this moment. Flag is just really accessible for women too. 

Meg: Bonnie Morris, a women’s history scholar from University of California – Berkeley, says on the topic of accessibility, it’s important to ask this question.

Bonnie Morris: Are girls who want to play regular football offered this as a substitute or steered toward it, by parents who are supportive, but see the fight to bring women into regular football as a very challenging, litigious, and physically questionable fight. 

Meg:  So, is flag becoming more popular with girls and more accessible for women because the obstacles to playing tackle are insurmountable? Bonnie also wants people to think critically about the fan base for women’s football of all kinds.

Bonnie: You have a certain class of voyeuristic fans who just want to watch women play, get dirty, for prurient reasons, where women are celebrated as kind of a novelty.

 Meg: She says to figure out if women’s flag football is falling into the novelty trap, we need to ask ourselves:

 Bonnie: How good is the team, what are the goals of the players, and how are the competitions received by fans and sponsors?

 Meg: Back at the fields after the San Francisco Women’s Flag Football team tournament is over, teammates circle around Wide Receiver Sara Ach, who’s still buzzing from the win.

Sara Ach:  I don’t know what I would do if my Sundays weren’t football. I would cry a lot. So, thank you guys for what you do, for all of us, for creating this community, for putting everything together, for everything.

Meg:  The crowd, of mostly women, echoes with the post-game high. Players still catching their breath, arms slung around each other, equal parts exhausted from the game and from the spontaneous dance circle that just erupted as a victory lap.

For Northgate Radio, this is Meg DeMarsh.

 (MUSICAL INTERLUDE)

Meg: Women’s athletics have been on the rise here in The Bay, from the Valkyries being the highest valued WNBA team, to the first UC majorette team, The Bearettes, celebrating their 10 year anniversary.

If you’ve ever been to a Cal football or basketball game, you can’t miss their body rolls, back bends, hip pops, twists and sparkly outfits.

From North Gate Radio, reporter Nia Coats introduces us to the Bearettes, Cal athletes who are fighting for a space of their own on campus.

Nia Coats: ​​ Majorette dancing began in 1968 with the Alcorn State University Golden Girls in Alcorn, Mississippi. They made history as the first dance line to perform alongside a live marching band. <<archival sound>>

On the field, they dressed in gold, twirled batons and dazzled their fans. Since then, this style of dance has become synonymous with Historically Black Colleges and Universities. It gained wide popularity in 2014 with the Lifetime reality show ‘Bring It!,’  following a competitive majorette team in Jackson, Mississippi.

Bring it archival sound:  Lord, I ask that you watch over these girls as they perform. Give them the biggest smiles, the highest kicks, the baddest attitude that a dancer should have. Amen.

Nia: From the Southern University Dancing Dolls to the Grambling University Orchesis Dance Company, majorettes are one of the best parts of HBCU sporting events. But, it took the dancing style decades to make its way onto California campuses, starting in 2012 with the San Diego State University Diamonds. In 2015, the UC system got their own team with The Bearettes, thanks to their founder, Loray Davis. Before starting the Bearettes – Loray tried out for Cal Cheer with a group of young Black women from her dorm.

Loray Davis: We all tried out and it was like really saddening to see how they only chose one black girl from the whole group of us which was me. Over the years, I paid attention to the teams and it’s always just two black girls, status quo. They just maintained that, right? So I said, okay, this is not right. And I’m an African American studies major dance performance minor.

Nia: Loray says so much was happening – politically – at that time. She was hyper aware of all of the injustice around her. Not just on campus but in society. There were a number of killings of unarmed young Black people across the country. There was Oscar Grant in 2009,  Trayvon Martin in 2012, Eric Garner and Michael Brown and Tamir Rice all in 2014. 

Davis: We were losing ourselves at that time. As a black community. It was the. It was the police brutality. Mm-hmm. That was going on. Um, we were losing a lot of people. And to feel like why am I a Cal Bear? And I mean, I had, I obviously have Cal spirit, you know, why am I a Cal Bear? But don’t feel like. Like, I’m really even welcome here.

Nia: Loray wanted to change that – so with some friends – she went through the long, bureaucratic, frustrating process to get a majorette team on campus. Loray says Cal’s athletic director at the time didn’t understand why they needed another spirit team and was concerned that they wouldn’t dress or dance appropriately. And, that they wouldn’t open it up to other races. But, Loray wouldn’t give up. 

Davis: I pulled many all-nighters, uh, to formulate documents that actually like. Would support the Bearettes and then drafting up how we’re going to look, and what our, what our purpose is, like the whole entire constitution I wrote, and mind you, it’s not just for African American women. I had Indian, Mexican, Asian, all types of different white, women on the team. And noticed like our color, uh, palette was just like. Off the chain, like no one could say like, oh, you guys are only do doing this for black people.

Nia: And, she won. But the team still needed a name. One that showed their Cal pride. 

Davis: I was just like, well, majorettes, Bearettes. And it was one of those moments where we were like, yeah.

Nia: Ten years later, the Bearettes are still dancing in the stands with the Cal Band. They twist, turn and drop while the band plays renditions of Beyonce and Big Tymers

(SCENE SOUND OF BEARETTES DURING REHEARSAL)

Bearettes current captain, Destiny Aka joined in her second year.  She says it’s hard to feel seen when you’re a black woman at a predominantly white academic institution.

Destiny Aka: And I joined for a sisterhood, um, being captain came with it, but I did join for black girls to unite to get along. Joining gave me that sense of community, that sense of sisterhood. So coming here gives us that space to just like release to cry if you need to. Because it’s already hard for us to be at A PWI at a prestigious PWI at the number one public university in the world. It’s hard enough to be here, but what we can do at this hear school is to be together. Little black girls that are watching us, that always come up to us in the football games like that. We do it for them

Nia: The day I met up with the team during practice, they were in one of the rentable rooms in the Recreational Sports Facility on Bancroft Way. Morgan Walker, a fourth year Bearette told me it’s really difficult to figure out the logistics for practice and rehearsal.  

Nia:  Do you know if the other dance and cheer teams like have set places where they practice? Or are you guys the only people who have to like kind of rotate 

Morgan Walker: Unfortunately, we are kind of the only team that has to kind of rotate and figure it out. Um, we are looking or trying to find solutions, especially this year to kind of finally secure a space as we’ve been on campus for.I think we’re running on our decade mark, or our 10 year mark this year. So, um, we’re definitely trying to secure our, like, formal position here in the university, but as of now, we are still kind of scrambling around a little bit. 

Nia:  I wrote to Cal’s athletic department to ask about the space issue. Jonathan Okanes associate athletic director emailed to say, “The Bearettes play an integral role in our fan experience and culture, we are grateful for what they contribute to Cal Athletics.” He went on to say that all the spirit teams are moving to student affairs. In hopes they get more support and resources. Aside from not having their own practice space, Morgan says they’ve also faced disrespect from the fans at games.

Walker: Especially at like the football games and stuff. We’ve had things thrown at us. Um, so a lot of like. Disrespect in regards to like us being in the stands, but I think we still make our presence known and there is still a lot of people who care and support us as well.

Nia: When Bearettes founder LorRay Davis came back to Cal for this year’s homecoming season, she made sure to check in with the current squad. She created something that has lasted a decade. And, she says it made all the rejection, hard work and late nights worth it.

Davis: That type of thing is, is, is so heartwarming. It’s, it’s so calming. It’s like, it, it lets me know that God has truly not only given me the vision but he’s also make ensuring that it, it maintains its longevity and that, and that these ongoing or reoccurring systemic mm-hmm. Problems that we deal with, um. Are are more easily combated we can actually fight them better because we’re stronger together.

Nia: For North Gate Radio, I’m Nia Coats.

(MUSICAL INTERLUDE)

Meg: It feels impossible to talk about women’s sports these days without talking about who is — and isn’t — included in our definition of “women.” There is a national push on the right to exclude transgender athletes from competitive women’s sports, and this past year, the NCAA limited participation to athletes assigned female at birth. But what might it look like to do the opposite — to make sports more inclusive? Reporter Eloise Rollins-Fife has our story.

SHELBY: Good idea.

SPEAKER 1: Sorry.

ELOISE: It’s a cool dark Monday evening in San Francisco just north of Hayes Valley. I’m sitting on a vast stretch of green grass at the James P. Lang athletic fields, watching two remarkably in sync lines of soccer players run drills.

SHELBY: What’s another surface of our foot that we can use to turn? The bottom. Hey, do you wanna demonstrate? Can someone pass K the ball?

ELOISE: A player receives the ball, dribbling it with a flurry of fancy footwork before shooting it straight into the goal.

SHELBY: Perfect. Beautiful. Okay, so one of the things I wanna point out here is whenever they’re turning, they’re keeping the ball pretty close to them.

ELOISE: Coach Shelby Perkins is on the board of SF Spikes, a queer soccer club, which started back in 1982 and count itself among the first inclusive soccer clubs in the country. Historically, though, most of its members have been cisgender gay men.

SHELBY: Good idea. Nice!

ELOISE: But that doesn’t reflect who’s on the field at tonight’s FLINTA practice. FLINTA borrows its name from a German acronym filled with words I can’t pronounce, but in English stands for women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary trans, and agender people.

EMILY: I’m Emily. Uh, she, they pronouns and I live in Bernal Heights.

ELOISE: Emily is a trans woman and a newbie soccer enthusiast who often plays goalie.

EMILY: I was going to some of the spikes practices and I liked them, but it was like, I don’t wanna play with these men who are somewhat aggressive or don’t understand what I really want. Um, I’m tall. Maybe I give off that energy sometimes. Uh, but coming to FLINTA, it just, it’s just automatically a space that’s inclusive.

ELOISE: Everyone I talked to at FLINTA practice said something similar. They wanted a space to play soccer that prioritized community over competition, where they felt safe and comfortable trying new things, sharpening skills and existing in their bodies.

SHELBY: We’ve had I think around a hundred new people come to spikes this year through FLINTA. So clearly there was an appetite for this…

ELOISE: Shelby adds that in less than a year the number of players showing up to any given Flint of practice has grown from five or six to as many as 40.

SHELBY: You can make someone’s life better if you offer something like this. Um, it’s only gonna make the world a better place.

SPEAKER 2: Just spikes on three. 1 2, 3 spikes.

ELOISE: Across the bay, another group of soccer players are doing high lunges across their designated corner of San Pablo Park before launching into a spirited pickup game. This is the East Bay chapter of the National Dyke Soccer Club.

GABY: I feel like dyke can sometimes scare people off that don’t self-identify as a dyke…

ELOISE: Even if that’s not you, member Gaby Cohen wants you to know that you’re welcome.

GABY: It definitely feels like it holds a lot of space for folks that are, like, gender non-conforming. And sometimes we’ll even pick up, like, random kids that are like playing at the park or people will bring, like, friends along…

ELOISE: I should mention that Gabby is wearing a dyke soccer shirt, which says No turfs on the turf. Overall, the vibe at Dyke soccer is a little more casual than FLINTA. There’s no coach, but there are group leads who organize practices, like Sammy, who’s been playing soccer for as long as they can remember. 

SAMMY: I love that it’s a game that you can like, you know, play on the street with a crappy ball or you can, you know, scale it all the way up to super professional, super intense, super tactical. I could talk for hours about why I love soccer. It’s like, love of my life.

ELOISE: Dyke Soccer practices a friendly, low to no contact style of gameplay. They cheer and high five when someone scores and compliment each other’s forms on the field. Everybody’s out here for a simple reason. They wanna move their bodies, make friends, have fun. Many grew up playing competitively, but stopped because the environment got too toxic or the gendered structure stopped aligning with their identity. It’s Rachel’s first time at Dyke Soccer, but she’s already a convert.

RACHEL: The things that I feel like I learned growing up from being a part of team sports were so valuable. Thinking about what that could have looked like if I had also been able to be my full self when I was that young as well, I’m like, oh my gosh, I could have learned even more about what it means to, um, move through the things. ’cause I feel like I moved through so much. By, by playing and by running and by, um, screaming on the field, you know?

ELOISE: What Rachel is imagining — an athletic space for youth that explicitly welcomes queer and trans people rather than shutting them out or forcing gender conformity — is what the Oakland based gym radically fit is trying to create.Radically fit has been operating in Oakland since 2018. Tucked away in an industrial business park near the Embarcadero, the space is sparse, but colorful and bright, with a training facility where instructors offer classes and personal training sessions.

BLARE BARRON: My name’s Blair. I’m one of the personal trainers at, um, Radically Fit. Um, what we’re trying to achieve with the gym is essentially make as open of a space as we possibly can…

ELOISE: Their larger mission is to invite everyone who doesn’t fit the gym stereotype into the fitness fold. People with bigger bodies, who aren’t white, who are queer or trans or differently abled. This year they started a brand new training program especially for trans and gender non-conforming youth, who Blair says are often left out of traditional athletic spaces.

BLARE: Trans bodies are very politicized right now, so a lot of these kids are being excluded, excluded from spaces at the schools they’re in or the teams they could potentially be on.

ELOISE: In recent years, California has been a battleground for trans athletes, specifically trans women in high school and college sports. In Southern California, high school track star and volleyball player AB Hernandez made national headlines for her participation in competitions. And here in the bay, San Jose State volleyball player Blair Fleming was the catalyst for an anti-trans lawsuit brought by her own teammate. When it comes to the debate about fairness, Blair from Radically Fit says:

BLARE: Bodies are different and there’s always something else that’s dividing or, um, separating people from each other. Society just loves to throw this gender binary on everything and think it makes stuff simpler when it really doesn’t. And at the end of the day, trans kids have a right to play sports too….

ELOISE: She says excluding trans youth from sports also deprives them of the chance to be part of a team, win scholarships or have a crucial athletic outlet.

BLARE: So you’re telling a whole group of kids they don’t get to experience that joy.It’s really messed up. So I think for us it’s all about just making sure everyone has an opportunity to engage with what they want to do.

SAMMY: Do you wanna join us?

ELOISE: Yeah.

ELOISE: Back at Dyke Soccer. The group continuously encourages me to join them on the field, despite my repeated insistence that I’m not an athlete.

SPEAKER 3: Middle, sorry.

ELOISE: Eventually they look like they’re having so much fun that I relent. I actually join the game. Okay, I hardly touch the ball or move around much – It’s all too fast for me – but they make me feel like a part of something. The three trans inclusive athletic initiatives I visited made me appreciate the community that can emerge from playing sports or working out in a way I never had. For Northgate Radio. I’m Eloise Rollins Fife. 

(MUSICAL INTERLUDE)

 Meg: Over 18 million fans tuned in for the WNBA basketball championship last year, making it one of the most-watched basketball games in the country, men’s or women’s. That said, it can still be hard to catch your favorite women’s teams playing on screens at your local bar. But, as Skylla Mumana reports – things are shifting.

SKYLLA: It’s a Friday night, I’m in a brightly lit sports bar in San Francisco’s historic Castro District. Laughter and chatter mix with the occasional whistle from a women’s soccer match playing on multiple TV screens. Near the bar is a wall full of medals from the Federation of Gay Games and framed Sports Illustrated covers featuring athletes like Tara Vanderveer, Michelle Wie West, and Toni Stone, one of the first black female professional baseball players. It’s the kind of place people like Sarah Yergovich had been searching for. 

SARAH: Yeah, after games we just wanted to like watch women’s sports somewhere and it was really hard or really tricky.

SKYLLA: Sports have always been a huge part of Sarah’s life. With four active older brothers, she grew up watching and playing sports like soccer and volleyball. Now, at 36, she’s still out on the field as a member of the San Francisco Spikes soccer league. That’s how she met her friend and now business partner, Danielle Thoe, and together they decided to build a place where fans could actually watch women’s professional games. Rikki’s, the Bay Area’s first and only women’s sports bar. 

SARAH: We’re queer owned bar that centers on women’s sports. Ricky is named after Ricky Stryker. Um, she was a bar owner in San Francisco from the sixties into the nineties. Uh, and she was known for creating spaces that were really inclusive and really known for being like community spaces.

SKYLLA: Do you possibly have like. A favorite memory of like, being in this space so far

SARAH: an event for the pioneers that were the like first women’s professional basketball team that were in San Francisco.

SKYLLA: The San Francisco Pioneers were one of the first professional women’s basketball teams in the U.S. Founded in 1979, they played in the Women’s Basketball League, or WBL, until the league dissolved in 1981. 

SARAH: I think most of them hadn’t been in a space like this before and hadn’t been like fully celebrated. all of a sudden it was like this rush of emotion of like, oh wow, like this is what it’s about. Like this is why we’re doing it. Like they started by playing and now like, look how far we’ve come and like, so far how far we can still go.

SKYLLA: So as coverage and fan interest continues to grow, Sarah believes that the value of women’s sports is becoming harder to ignore.    

SARAH: Women’s sports absolutely sells. Even just seeing the media deals that they’re getting now for like broadcasting rights for the different sports on major channels, I mean, it’s completely unheard of from when I was a kid, which wasn’t that long ago. Like, um, growing up I couldn’t imagine watching women’s sports on TV outside of like the Olympics. Um. And so I didn’t, I didn’t even think that I liked watching sports in general because I couldn’t see like women playing or see myself in it in any way. Um, and so, yeah, I think that women’s sports absolutely sells. There’s so much talent out there that I feel like has just been hidden because you haven’t been able to see it.

SKYLLA: At the start of 2025, there were only 6 women’s sports bars across the country, with Rikki’s included. According to NBC, that’s set to quadruple by the end of the year. Across the Bay bridge, another pair of women’s sports fans are looking to start up their own bar.

SKYLLA: It’s the bottom of the first half when Bay FC scores their first goal against Seattle Reign. I’m standing at a watch party at Xigones Cantina in Oakland, where beer and burritos flow under florescent lights as fans wearing beige shirts labeled Hysteria cheer on their favorite players. I’m met by Meadow Holmes and Erin Wadell, two sports lovers who organized the event. Similar to Sarah and Danielle, these two were having trouble finding a great spot to watch their favorite women’s games 

MEADOW: I think we spent a lot of time as friends who love watching sports, trying so hard to find venues. Where it was easy, where you could walk in and the game was on, and we still really haven’t found that. So we’re gonna make it happen.

SKYLLA: Now, Meadow and Erin are starting up their own spot in Oakland called Hysteria–and they picked a great time. Right now, women’s sports are having a real moment with more eyes on female athletes, more fans showing up to games. Yet stereotypes about who women’s sports are ‘for’ are ongoing. But Erin, co-founder of Hysteria, says they’re ready to push back.

ERIN: I think one of the things we’re gonna challenge is the older notion that like, only women watch women’s sports. You know, we know that people who identify as. Women watch women’s sports. We know that people who identify as men watch women’s sports and people who identify as non-binary watch women’s sports. And we also have seen kids of all identities really enthralled with watching women’s sports too. Hmm.

SKYLLA: Fans are at the heart of sports. Sports bars mean little without fans inside them bringing the energy. That’s why both Erin and Meadow hope that women’s sports fans will come out to their watch parties and turn every game into a celebration–cocktails optional, hysteria guaranteed. 

MEADOW: We’re all in shirts right now that say raising spirits for women’s sports and we mean that beyond the cocktail that you’re hopefully having or non-alcoholic cocktail. And I think we wanna create a space where people feel like they can come in, they can sit down next to a stranger who becomes a friend, who might teach them throughout the game what’s happening.

SKYLLA: For North Gate radio, I’m Skylla Mumana

(MUSICAL INTERLUDE)

 Meg:  The age of professional college sports is here. And, for the first time, athletic departments are sharing revenue with student athletes. Up to 20.5 million per school for the 2025-26 year. This follows a federal antitrust settlement last summer between the NCAA and student athletes. Now players can make money off brand deals, keep their scholarships, AND get a paycheck from their university. 

Reporter William Woodhams looks at what this means for Cal women’s basketball.

Meghan Williams: I think now’s a really great time for women’s sports.

William: That’s Meghin Williams, the very first general manager of Cal women’s basketball, a new job that really only exists because of the new money flowing into college sports. She hopes new fans pack Cal stands after the record setting inaugural WNBA Valkyries season.

Meghan: Now that the WNBA season is over, we are looking to fill that void for a lot of those people. I think we finished better than, um, most first year franchises. But the fact that the Bay came out in that way to support women’s basketball shows that there is a love and a pride there.

William: All this looks like a win for Cal women’s basketball, but it also ramps up the pressure. As the sport’s popularity grows, college players are looking for more money. And, everyone I interviewed about the anti-trust settlement told me college sports doesn’t just feel like the wild west, it feels like the wild, wild west. 

Meghan: So there’s no standardization. There’s truly no gauge of how much a student athlete. Is actually worth from a fair market value. It’s more of a bidding war or um, truly just like fictional numbers that you’re chasing. It is the wild, wild west. There are numbers that are being thrown out to these student athletes that are at a disparity depending on what university you’re a part of.

William: She says players’ hopes for a big pay day are running into the reality of a University of California budget. Cal women’s basketball lost star Marta Suarez to Texas Christian University this offseason, and reports are that Cal was unable to match the money that TCU offered her.

Meghan: It feels like the athletes and their parents think, think it’s like monopoly money. And I’m like, just to be clear, this contract is more than what I make as the general manager at Cal. 

William: Currently, players can hop from team to team between seasons, seeking the highest bidder. 

Kellie McElhaney: You’ll have kids on the field, one’s making 10 million, one’s making zero. That creates really weird dynamics.

William: Kellie McElhaney is the founding director of the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. She believes all this money is changing how college teams operate.

Kellie: You have a kid who’s played for five schools in four years, there’s no loyalty. It’s hard to get a team to gel in general, but when that’s new people every year. That’s really difficult. It’s massively wild now.    

William: There’s a lot of money being thrown around – and, most of it, is still being thrown at men’s teams – especially football programs. This year Cal women’s basketball got about 5% of the 20.5 million UC Berkeley is allowed to pay athletes, men’s football got around 60%. And, that’s because men’s football brings in so much more revenue.

Kellie: I would love to not have to see Sharman Smith, the women’s basketball coach, physically deliver pizzas to dorms to try to get people to come to a game you will not see the men’s basketball or the football coach. Do that sort of thing. I’m hopeful because I saw what happened at the Valkyrie Sell out every single game, but you’re not seeing that translate to women’s sports on college campuses.

William: Meghin wants to change that in her new role as general manager.

She says she’s working hard on all aspects of the revenue front – helping players secure lucrative brand deals while also figuring out how to get a greater percentage of university revenue for her players. 

William: Until then…

Meghan: We believe that if we lose a kid strictly because of money, they weren’t going to be successful at Cal anyways. Um, there’s always gonna be more money and so if, if players are chasing the dollar signs and, and sometimes you just have to let ’em go. 

William: For North Gate radio, I’m William Woodhams.

Meg:  San Francisco’s first professional women’s sports training facility is coming to Treasure Island. The groundbreaking ceremony took place this September.

Mayor Daniel Lurie: We are proudly breaking ground on the Treasure Island training facility, bringing Bay FC one step closer to San Francisco. 

Meg: Mayor Daniel Lurie made as much as a 1-million-dollar investment in the project. Bay Fc’s 3,000-foot training facility with three soccer fields is planned to open in 2027

And Grace McCarty reports that’s not the only big change coming to the small island many of us overlook. 

Grace: It’s 8:00 AM on the Bay Bridge, peak rush hour. Never fun. But right underneath is San Francisco’s Treasure Island. And, it’s a beautiful morning. Residents enjoy themselves at Cityside Park, overlooking the waterfront.  

Nelly: Hey Sed. Hi Nelly. How you doing? Good. Good, good.,

Grace: Nella Goncalves is the Executive director of One Treasure Island, a non-profit that works with low-income residents. But, everyone on the island calls her Nelly.

Nella: It’s a very calm place. It has a small town feel in a big city. 

Grace: Next, Nella took me to Panorama Park, one of Treasure Island’s new outdoor spaces, that offers a 360 view of the entire bay area.

Nella: It feels like I’m on vacation a lot of the times when I’m here because look at the view. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? Spectacular. Look, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge. It is spectacular. 

 Grace: Built in 1937 for the World’s Fair and later used by the Navy, Treasure Island became a small low-income community after the base closed in the 1990s. For decades, fewer than 3,000 people called it home, it was quiet…some may call it sleepy. But, Treasure island is waking up – and residents can’t escape all the construction noise. 

A massive redevelopment plan is underway on the island. And, Bay FC’s new training facility is a big part of it. The team represents all 9 Bay area counties, so they were looking for a central location and researching multiple options.

Lisa: We narrowed it down to Treasure Island. Um, one of the things I find super fascinating is that the study said that it actually is the best climate for professional sports and for working out.

Grace:  Lisa Goodwin-Scharff is Bay FC’s Executive Vice President of Communications. She says the demand for women’s professional soccer to move closer to San Francisco came after Bay FC broke record numbers at a game this past August. 40,000 fans. More than any professional women’s sports league in the United States.

Lisa: Women’s soccer has been so strong in the bay for so many years, and so like, there’s been a need and a want for it. This will be a dedicated space for us and our athletes. Deserve that, right? They’re professional athletes who are the best at what they do.

Grace: The hope is that the athletes not only train on the island, but will want to live there, too. A public/private partnership that is expected to grow Treasure Island’s population to 20,000 people over the next decade. They’ve already completed 1000 new units, with more still being built. Nella, again.

Nella: New streets, new street names. Lighting. We got our first stoplight ever, you know, since I’ve been here 25 years.

Grace: Nella says Bay FC has already begun building relationships with Treasure Island residents — offering free soccer clinics, internship opportunities…

Nella: They gave us tickets and we went with a nice crowd of people and so many people were like, oh, I didn’t realize soccer could be that fun. Or, you know, I wanna go again or I’d like to get my kid involved.

Grace: There’s only one school on the island —  Life Learning Academy. It’s a high school for at-risk youth— And, Nella says they don’t have many athletic resources.

Nella: The fields that are here, the baseball field, the soccer fields are for leagues and teams that are not based on Treasure Island.

Grace: David Cattivera , Development director at Life Learning Academy, is developing a partnership with Bay FC, where his students will have access to their athletic facilities. He says they already had a successful trial internship this past summer.

David: And hopefully we’ll hook our young people into, you know, a future career and a pathway that, you know, can allow them to stay in the Bay Area.

Grace: David says that Life Learning has no intention of being left out of Treasure Island’s bright future.

David: We’re written into the, you know, the, the master redevelopment plan. And so we, you know, we’re, we’re planning to be here for another 30 years is the main idea. Um, and we think as more people come onto the island, there’ll be more opportunities for young people right now, if you look around there, there’s no gas station. You know, no services. There’s just not a lot. And so the more of that that happens, um, the better.

Grace:  Anthony, a student at Life Learning, doesn’t love being caught in the middle of all the construction.

Anthony: It really makes it feel just undone. You know, just, it feels like it’s still in development, you know, you can’t really enjoy to the fullest if there’s a lot of construction going on.

Grace: I spoke to a number of long time Treasure Island residents about the redevelopment. Nearly all refused to go on the record with their full names. But, I got a sense that there was both excitement and anxiety. Excitement about the potential for jobs and amenities on the island. Anxiety over the possibility of being pushed out and losing the small town feel. And nearly everyone, like Travis Choyce, who’s lived here for almost two years, was worried about the traffic on the one way on and off the island.

Travis: I think it’s gonna be a beautiful thing to bring a soccer team here, especially for the women, and many people will like to come, but um, as far as the traffic, it’s gonna be bad.If you ever been here during Fleet Week or, um, any type of events taking place here on Treasure Island, um, basically stuck until it’s all said and done.

Grace: Nella says there will be growing pains but the plan is to keep what’s beautiful about Treasure island and expand on that. So, everyone benefits

Nella: To be part of intentionally creating a mixed income community in a place as beautiful as this, there’s no better feeling for me.

Grace: Bay FC’s new training facility is set to open in 2027.

For North Gate Radio, I’m Grace McCarty, reporting from Treasure Island.

(MUSICAL INTERLUDE)

Meg: As the newly named number one women’s sports region in the country, we decided to talk to a Bay Area sports expert. 

Meg DeMarsh: Marcus Thompson is a lead columnist at The Athletic…

Marcus Thompson: …which is the sports section of the New York Times. I am a three time author. I’m from Oakland, went to school in an HBCU in Atlanta, Clark Atlanta University. But I went to Oakland Tech, grew up in Sobrante Park deep in East Oakland. I am a diehard sports fan who was raised on sports, been a part of sports since I was a little kid and now 30 years in the industry of sports journalism.

Meg DeMarsh: We talked to Marcus about the future of women’s sports in the Bay and what he’s already seen change

Nia Coats: On behalf of North Grade Radio. Thank you for joining us. 

Marcus Thompson: Thank you for having me. 

Nia Coats: Was being a sports journalist ever a goal or was it like, “I wanna do sports and be written about,” rather than writing about sports? 

Marcus Thompson: Crazy enough? I wanted to be an architect, and when I was in high school, I wrote for the high school paper and we had this guy volunteer, he actually went to Cal. His name is Mike Silver. He was a writer for Sports Illustrated. He says he just wanted to give back, so he ended up volunteering at the newspaper in my high school. I think he got arrested and had to do community service, and that’s what I tell him all the time, like, What’d you do? But he was the first person who told me like, Hey, you could, you could be a sports writer. Like I didn’t really know that that was a thing you could do. So I did it in high school. But it felt like just that thing you just do. Mm-hmm. Like extracurriculars to make your college application look good.

So when I went to school in Atlanta, ’cause I went to Clark Atlanta, I was gonna major in architecture and then when I’m looking to register. For a major, it’s like they don’t have architecture. Mm-hmm. So let me find something else. And I saw journalism and I was like, oh, I did that in high school. I’ll major in journalism. And then that was it. I wrote one article and they acted like I was Ralph Wiley. It was just, they were like, this is so good. Can you be the sports header? And I was like, what? 

Nia Coats: What was the first story about? 

Marcus Thompson: I went to cover a football game and you know, they care about bands and stuff like that. And I didn’t really, we didn’t really have bands and all that stuff.So I get there, I’m like. This is irritating. Can they shut up? I’m trying to watch the football game, so I’m doing stuff like analyzing the football game. So I write a story and they were like, what? This is incredible. 

Nia Coats: My story for this project is about the majorette team here on campus. So when you got to Clark Atlanta and you saw these Battle of the bands, the majorettes, what were your thoughts about that?

Marcus Thompson: First off, it was impressive because I had never seen that many black people in bands. Like the few people who did instruments in my high school were like nerds. You know what I’m saying? It was like, you playing a flute, dude? Like what? Like what are you doing? Like they weren’t the cool kids. But then when I got to college you knew who was in the band. Mm-hmm. Like in the dorm, like that was a big deal, right? They were like, yeah, I’m in the band. I’m like, so first you snicker a little bit, then you realize you the only one laughing like, oh no, the band people were cool. So then you start seeing like. It’s an entire culture. You know, this is cool, why we don’t do this on the west coast. Right? Because it’s so involved and, and then they practice so much and it’s so tied to like the culture of the crowd and you know, the history of celebrating it, you know, especially at an HBCU, right? It is just where the whole thing feels like a celebration of Blackness. So, as many kids is throwing footballs in the parking lot is  as many kids twirling the baton. And like, like you kind of get to see like, this is just as much a part of the culture. 

Nia Coats: And in that time at Clark, did you guys have women’s sports or like, were the women…

Marcus Thompson: Yeah. In high school. I covered women’s sports too. They were all my friends. So I was covering Oakland Tech girls basketball, like it was the Warriors, right? Yeah. And, softball. We had it, volleyball, you know, I was covering the stuff where we covered all the sports. So to me it wasn’t that big of a deal to cover women’s sports. So then I get to college and I’m like, okay, women’s Hoops is starting, women’s volleyball, let’s go.And they’re like, we don’t cover it. I’m like, nah. So for Women’s Hoop, and I think it was, soccer maybe? Mm-hmm. Like, it’s just me, bro. Like there’s nobody there that’s nobody paying attention, but I’m writing it and they, they loved it. Like, what are you doing here, bro? When volleyball hit suddenly everybody’s, I’m like, why is this packed in volleyball? They’re wearing really tight shorts. Yeah. And a lot of these girls are very thick, and it was like, oh, that’s why nobody’s at basketball and the crowd is packed here. That was wild to me that it really wasn’t about the sports. 

Nia Coats: Yeah. I guess a lot of it doesn’t end up being about the sports, especially when it comes to women.So how did you tailor your coverage to be sports oriented when you’re talking about women’s sports?

Marcus Thompson: I just don’t treat it any differently. To me. It’s sports. Mm-hmm. You know what I’m saying? Like, I’m in this for the game. I had a cousin when I was coming up, her name was Francine Williams, and she went to tech, she was like maybe three years ahead of me.I could not beat her for anything. She was so good at hoop. Like, I, I, I was, I thought I was pretty good. And, I played her. I just. I could not win. So the idea of women being really good at basketball wasn’t, it wasn’t foreign to me. Like I knew why my cousin was nice. Mm-hmm. Right. I knew it.So it was just always very normalized early. So the problem I had was I treated it more serious than normal. Mm-hmm. So, which means when you’re, when you’re good. They loved it. But when you suck, like, I’m not, I’m not about to patronize you. Yeah. Like, yo, you’ve lost seven in a row. I need you to explain why are you turning the ball? Like, talk about this. 

Nia Coats: How were your editors responding to the way that you felt about women’s sports? Like you said, at Clark, they weren’t necessarily caring about the sports rather, more of the things around it.

Marcus Thompson: Well, I, I was the sports editor immediately. Oh. Like I did one story and it was like, you’re the sports editor. So it was like, I can kind of do it how I want. That battle you’re talking about came once I became a pro. Mm-hmm. I started off as a high school sports writer at the Contra Costa Times. It was like, yeah, we cover boys’ basketball, but I’m over here at the girls’ basketball thing too.Uh, like, why are we not covering these games? And some of these girls were good. Berkeley High had a really good girls basketball program. I don’t know if they still do, but Jean Nakamura was the coach. They produced some really good players, and I’m like, why are we not, why are we not covering this? So that was the fight, like, we need to cover this, especially for somebody who’s trying to build a career by telling stories. And so I, I would go to cover a game and write about it or write a profile on a player. They’re like, we don’t know if we have the space. I’m like, come on man. And this is, by the way, I’m old, so this is before we were posting on the internet, this is when everything was in print, right? So it’s like, ah, we don’t have the space. So you’re fighting to get the story printed if you do it on women’s sports. Mm-hmm. So men, you don’t have to fight. But women, it’s gotta be a story that is a bit above. 

And that’s the thing about women’s sports, the same things that. Men’s sports great. They’re, they exist, if you like, the drama of, you know, the NBA and players getting traded and people not getting along, that exists in women’s sports. Mm-hmm. Right. If you like players who like came from nothing, work their way up in the superstars, like that’s there too.So if you like it, if you actually like it, you would like it no matter where it comes from. So that’s the part that was always confusing to me. So I’m gonna find a good story. Period. If there’s aliens playing hoop, I’m gonna be able to break down the game. So why would I not do this for women? That that’s the part that I never understood. 

Nia Coats: Yeah, I think it’s just people don’t see women as people a lot of the time. 

Marcus Thompson: Bruh, preach.

Nia Coats:I don’t know. Do you feel like your coverage has changed the way people view women’s sports? 

Marcus Thompson: I, I, I, I definitely don’t think it has anything to do with me. Uh, I think, I think women have changed how people, I think the athletes, the players, uh, I think there’s an element of the media that needs to kind of get on board. 

Nia Coats: And what do you think that some journalists need to do better, especially when it comes to covering women’s sports? Like especially here in the Bay, like the Bay is such a big place for women’s sports, for sports in general, but women’s sports have had a great boom, 

Marcus Thompson: Just watch it.

Nia Coats: Mm-hmm. 

Marcus Thompson: Uh, if you’re a journalist and you’re paying attention, you will see the stories. Step one is, do you even know who Veronica Burton is? If you watch. Steph Curry. There’s another point guard who plays in the same building who has a similar story of got cut and was and was struggling, and now she’s the star for the Valkyrie, which ended up being the playoff team.I feel like step one is just. Seed is worthy to participate in watching it. And then when you do that, you’ll be more inclined to be like, Hey man, that’s pretty interesting. And the part that that really makes me want to write about women’s sports is it like when you watch it, there’s just stuff you want to know.Mm-hmm. Right? Like Chris Paul just got. Sent home from his team. He is a legendary point guard, plays for the Clippers. He announce he’s retiring and the month into the season they’re like, bro, go home. We going, wow! 

Nia Coats: I didn’t know that. 

Marcus Thompson: First thing you wanna know is what happened? Like what? What’s going on? So now everybody’s cramming to find out. What happened? What do you, if you pay attention, you’re gonna want to know things based on what you watch. So if you watch women’s sports, you’re gonna wanna know some things and it’s like, oh wait, why does that happen? And the frustrating part as a fan is you just never get to know ’cause nobody’s writing about it.

Marcus Thompson: Right. That’s the part that drives me crazy. I was a big, I’m a big Skylar Diggins fan, like, and I, and I love diner tessi to death. So I’ve been watching the Phoenix Mercury since. The league started in oh seven. They’re on a bench arguing at each other and, and you know, I know black women, Skylar Diggins is so mad.

Marcus Thompson: She’s over there shaking. She’s just off to the side like this. I’m like, oh, she is mad. I wanna know what happened. Never found out. Nobody writes an article about it. Like if that was, if that was Steph Curry and Clay Thompson, it would be all over the place. 

Nia Coats: Yeah. I mean, we know what happened. Absolutely.

Marcus Thompson: Right. Like, exactly like we know. So to me. It starts with just paying attention to it. ’cause it is actually, it’s actually really compelling. Yeah. Like not even being like, we should watch it because women are worth it. Take all that out and just watch it. It is compelling. Like it is crazy. Kaitlyn Clark is amazing to watch and also how much they hate her is amazing to watch.

Nia Coats: Yeah. And in recent years we’ve seen people take more notice and care more about women’s sports. How does that make you feel as somebody who’s been a champion of women’s sports?

Marcus Thompson: it makes me very happy. ’cause now I get to know, right now it’s like, okay, more people are covering this, so now we get to know, right now we get to know like what’s actually happening and like. Yeah, obviously there’s another element where women are gonna be able to get paid. They’re gonna ever be, they’re gonna be stars, right? Mm-hmm. And nobody deserves this more than women, right? Like nobody deserves this opportunity to be this in America, more than a woman, especially more than a woman of color. Mm-hmm. If you just take like what you’ve endured, let’s, let’s kind of, even that scale, that means more women should be stars. Right? Like, just based on what it should be. Uh, so that is one thing where it’s like, Hey, this is a sign. Of a nation that it is at least attempting to rectify its existence, right?

So as we see women like get proper due, you know that that is just like. It should be warming to people like, all right, this thing, there are elements of it that somehow find its way. Dr. King said the arc of justice bends, you know, I’m like, or whatever the quote is, like, so the thing bends somehow and we end up in the right place if, if you want to be so hopeful.To me, that idea that eventually we’re gonna be able to see women athletes making a hundred million dollars. It’s only fair. Yeah. It’s only right. And so seeing us get there is like, that’s cool. I don’t know. You know, maybe, maybe you have a child ends up with Star. Like why do they have to make $70,000 to play in a professional league or go play in Europe every year. Like, why you can’t come here, make 50 million in a year, like, like, like your son could. Right? Like that. That to me points to a, a society that’s saying like, we’re gonna at least attempt to be just about this. Right. And let actual fair market stuff determine it. But more than anything, it’s like, it’s great to watch and the more people who are covering it means I get to know what’s happening. Right. I want to know just like a TV show. I wanna know what’s going on, like, let me know. 

Nia Coats: Yeah. For our project, we read the column why the Bay Area is number one for women’s sports that you wrote. 

Marcus Thompson: Yeah. 

Nia Coats: What inspired you to write this? 

Marcus Thompson: Do you want, do you want the real answer or do you want the one that sounds good.

Nia Coats: Was it assigned?

Marcus Thompson: Yes. I was doing something else. And Mag Linehan, who is our lead of women’s sports, she was like, I have this thing and you’re perfect to write it. And I’m like, Meg, I’m really busy, but I don’t know how to tell you no. So what’s the story? And she was like, all right, we voted, the Bay Area number one and I just don’t know nobody who can write this better than you. And I was like, all right, I won’t let you down. Like that’s a badge of honor. I see that as a badge of honor. Even now when I write something and some young woman’s like, oh man, now you interested in women’s sports? Like, I love being able to say, man, I was into this before you were born. Right? Like, how old are you? Like, I’m sorry, but do you know who so and so is? And then I’ll drop a name. Like, oh my bad. Like, so watching that kind of develop is like, it’s, it’s a really cool thing to see. It’s one of the reasons like, you love The Bay just because it is different, man. We aren’t new to this, we true to this, right? Like we, we have this kind of scope about us. And like, I, I, I just love that. So I feel, I feel honored to be able to say like, I was there, I was part of it. I saw it, I covered it. I wrote about it. Like, this is, this is important. Like I went to high school games to watch Sabrina Ionescu at Miramonte High, right? When you hear like, Hey, there’s a good player, we go see. That’s what we do. If, if it’s, if it’s women or men, but if it’s women, like, yeah, we’re going to see that too. We’re gonna, we’re gonna check this out. Like, so I, I love that about The Bay, that that’s what makes us great.

Nia Coats: Well, from that story, did you find anything about what was happening on the ground in these different types of sports, like soccer, football, 

Marcus Thompson: Flag football. Hey, watch out. There’s a young woman at Oakland Tech who is gonna be a superstar in flag football. I think she, you know, it’s gonna be an Olympic sport. 28. Geez. So I think she might, 

Nia Coats: you know her name? 

Marcus Thompson: Yeah. Jhai Johnson. Like already a state champion basketball player, but 

Nia Coats: Wow.

Marcus Thompson: Yeah. Flag football, too.

Nia Coats: Go Jhai

Marcus Thompson: Yeah. Right. 

Nia Coats: What makes the Bay such a great place for women’s athletes? 

Marcus Thompson: I do feel like the Bay just in general is a, has a rebellious spirit. Right. And we were raised on a very anti status quo demeanor. Mm-hmm. Like we are anti-establishment. There’s a part of it, it’s just a natural discourse of how we are raised in The Bay. And there’s a number of movements that have happened in the Bay Area. That has kind of woven that into our culture from the Black Panther party and you know, the presence of women in that movement to the LGBTQ plus movement. We have some different ideas about how this is supposed to go right? And what the Valkyries did this year: an expansion team, brand new… is the number one in attendance in the league. Like that’s, that’s the bay right there. You put a team here. Oh, we showing up. Like we will show out, we will buy all the gear. Mm-hmm. And then the crazy part is, you know, everybody was pissed because the game wasn’t in San Francisco for the playoff game because they had this tennis event and they couldn’t move it, so they had to go play in San Jose, which was like, come on man. I, I, I hear ’em, I hear what happened. Like, I get it. They set that two years ago there was no team, right? There was nothing, there was nothing to do. It was still a terrible look for your first playoff game, but they would go to San Jose and have to play in the hockey arena. And it was like you walk in there, it’s like, ah, first off they gonna lose ’cause they don’t have their home court. And secondly, it just won’t be the same because they played in this venue all year and now they gotta go to this new venue.

But, it was lit there. Like you walk in and you were like, yo. This is The Bay. Like it don’t matter where you are, it don’t matter who you play. Like if they gonna show up, if, if they wanna support you, they’re gonna support you. So people trekked all the way to San Jose and it was purple and black all in there. And you know sharks is teal. Mm-hmm. All you saw was purple. It was lit in there and it was like, oh wow. If there’s any place that’s gonna support a women’s sports team, it’s here. And to me, nothing says that better than the Valkyries. ’cause everybody knows San Francisco is an awful place to get to, by the way. Terrible traffic. Muni like it’s horrible, and it don’t matter. It’s lit every game. 

Nia Coats: Well, thank you so much, Marcus. Do you have any last words about women’s sports? 

Marcus Thompson: Learn your history about women’s sports. That’s what I would say. Learn the history of women’s sports because everybody who’s here now is standing on somebody, and that’s one thing we do in men’s sports, we know the history, we know what began. So if you are a fan of women’s sports, prove it by learning the history of whatever sport you’re a fan of. 

Nia Coats: Oh, thank you. 

Marcus Thompson: That was a closing bar, right? 

Meg DeMarsh: That was Marcus Thompson, lead columnist for the Athletic speaking with Northgate Radio’s. Nia Coates.

Show Outro

 Meg: Why is the Bay Area the best region in the U.S. for women’s sports? Because the region invests in the future of its athletes and the spirit of its fans. Through infrastructure, intentional visibility, and a community that shows up whether it’s a high-school flag game or a sold-out Valkyries match, the Bay Area treats women’s sports like they matter. Because here, they always have. We want to thank our professor and executive producer Shereen Marisol Meraji. Shereen is the head of the audio program at UC Berkeley’s graduate school of journalism. Thanks, also, to Ethan Tovin-Lindsey for editorial support. 

Big thanks to Chris Hoff for sharing his pro-tools knowledge with us. As well as Rick Johnson for production support. Thanks, also, to Eli Cohen for mixing and mastering. And, once again, to the team who reported all our stories today: Eloise Rollins-Fife, Grace McCarty, Nia Coats, Skylla Mumana, and William Woodhams.

I’m your host, Meg DeMarsh. Thanks for listening to North Gate Radio – a production of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. On K-A-L-X.