12. Sue Bird: “You Have to Pay the Superstars.”

People I (Mostly) Admire

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

She is one of the best basketball players ever. She’s won multiple championships, including four Olympic gold medals and four W.N.B.A. titles — the most recent in 2020, just before turning 40. She also helped negotiate a landmark contract for the league’s players. Sue Bird tells Steve Levitt the untold truth about clutch players, her thoughts about the pay gap between male and female athletes, and what it means to be part of the first gay couple in ESPN’s The Body Issue.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Some people collect comic books or sports paraphernalia or old vinyl records.
0:06.0	Well my guest today, Sue Bird, she collects championships.
0:10.0	She has four W NBA championships, five Euro League basketball championships,
0:15.0	two NCAA championships, four international basketball Federation World Cups,
0:20.0	and four Olympic gold medals.
0:22.0	And at the age of 40, she's still going strong leading the Seattle storm to the
0:26.2	W NBA title this fall and looking to collect her fifth Olympic gold if and win the
0:31.6	Tokyo Olympics take place.
0:34.0	Subur is busy off the court as well.
0:36.0	She recently helped negotiate a landmark collective bargaining agreement for the W MBA players,
0:41.0	and she and soccer star Megan Rapino got engaged last October.
0:47.0	Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Leavitt.
0:53.3	So this will be my first time interviewing an athlete and I really wonder how it will go.
0:59.4	I think this podcast works best when my guests are highly reflective and willing and able to self-analyze.
1:07.0	And in my limited personal experience with professional athletes, those are not very common traits.
1:13.0	So I've never met Su Bird.
1:15.0	People who know her say she's smart, thoughtful, generous, and open.
1:19.0	Well, I guess I'm about to find out. Sue, you turned out to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time, but I'm curious,
1:35.0	when did you realize how good you would be?
1:37.0	Did you already know that in high school?
1:39.0	Yeah, I think I started to understand in high school how things could turn out even as early as middle
1:45.1	school to be honest.
	...

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