Kavitha A. Davidson
Date: October 24, 2019
Location:The Great Hall
Reflection | Podcast | Video | Photos
Sports columnist covering the intersection of sports and society, culture, politics, race, gender and business.
Kavitha A. Davidson is a sports writer based in New York. She was previously a columnist at espnW and Bloomberg, focusing on the intersection of sports and business, culture, race, and gender. Her work has also been published in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and NBC News THINK, and has been noted in Best American Sports Writing. She also has appeared on SportsCenter, Outside the Lines, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC.
Reflection
Sports writer Kavitha A. Davidson spoke to SUU students and community on October 24th, 2019. Davidson is widely respected by media outlets such as CNN, Fox Sports, and MSNBC, to name a few. After her introduction by SUU athletics director, Debbie Corum, she was welcomed to the stage by Dr. Lynn Vartan, director of A.P.E.X. Events, and David Berri, Professor of Economics at SUU. Dr. Berri has also written numerous articles on economics and sports, focusing primarily on the race, gender, and culture issues and aspects of sports; him and Davidson had interviewed each other in the past for their respective journalism sites, which is how they met. The panel for this event consisted of Dr. Berri, Davidson, and Dr. Vartan, and the three discussed how they would be discussing the intersection between race and gender and its role in sports culture.
Dr. Vartan began the discussion by asking Kavitha how she got into sports and about her new project with Anders Kelto and involvement with the Yogi Berra Museum. Kavitha recalled her experience at the 1997 MLB World Series, where the New York Yankees had won; Kavitha instantly became a sports fan, and based her career off of her love for sports. She is currently working on co-hosting the podcast, “The Lead,” which covers deeper behind-the-scenes reporting of sports scores and has recently joined the Board of Directors for the Yogi Berra Museum in New York.
The discussion then shifted to gender issues in sports and how women’s sports aren’t covered nearly as much as men’s sports are. Davidson noted that women’s sports only get about 5-11% of coverage compared to men, and that only 10% of sports writers are women; the numbers are even smaller when discussing women of color in sports. She relates this to the idea that women aren’t interested in sports, and the panel discussed how this adversely affects the unequal coverage women in sports do receive. Davidson and Dr. Berri both mentioned that 40% of sports fans are women, but it seems that that number is smaller due to the belief that sports is “men’s space” as well as the difference between how sports coverage is approached between men’s and women’s sports, where in women’s sports, it’s common for reporters to focus on the fashion choices or aspects of women athletes more so than the sports aspect itself.
The discussion ended with Dr. Vartan asking Kavitha what advice she would give to the students in the audience who are interested in writing about sports and/or how race and gender is treated in sports. Kavitha began her response by saying, “Journalism is not dying, it’s shifting,” and how it is important to be skeptical, ask questions and dive deeper into why things are the way they are, constantly doubting facts that are told by others in order to seek knowledge for one’s self. “It’s part of our system of checks and balances,” Davidson says, “Don’t pigeonhole what journalism is and can be, but always be diligent,” encouraging future writers to question everything and seek answers for themselves.
by Emily Sexton
Kavitha A. Davidson Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, everyone, this is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the A.P.E.X Hour on KSUU Thunder 91.1. In this show, you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to some new sound and new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. or on the web at suu.edu/apex. But for now, welcome to this week's show. Here on Thunder 91.1.
Lynn Vartan [00:00:46] All right. Well, welcome in, everyone. How is everyone doing today here on SUU campus? Fall is really definitely here and we are just off of our fall break. And we had an awesome event today and we are talking about all things sports, sports, culture, gender, race, economics, all things you can think of. I've got two awesome guests in the studio with me today and I'd love to just get started and get them introduced. First, we have one of our own faculty members, Dave Berri. Dave, welcome to the studio. Hey. Tell us a little bit about what you do and also what you do at SUU, because I think both populations don't know what the other part of your life is like.
Dave Berri [00:01:31] So at SUU, I am a professor of economics, technically. I teach sports, economics, gender economics. I teach history. I spend a lot of time not seeing economics. I do a lot of stuff is not economics. And then I do a lot of writing. So I've written for Forbes and The New York Times and I've written books all on topic of sports and economics. So I do an awful lot of stuff in that area and I get interviewed a lot by the national media. And that brings us to our guest here.
[00:02:00] Yeah. You've been telling us some great stories about doing interviews like during class so that the students can really see what that's like. And I think that's amazing.
[00:02:08] Yes. Interviews are a little different than what students typically do. So students take tests. You get a study for the test. If you do well on the test or badly on the tests, as the professor sees it, interviews like this one right now is you do not know the question before it comes. And the minute the questions asked, you must start answering now and then. The audience is, of course, judging your answer right now.
[00:02:32] No judgment here.
[00:02:32] Yes, there's always judgment. So that's that's a very different. I've done interviews in the middle of class where, you know, someone needs to talk to me right now. And so students get to see me doing that.
[00:02:43] I think that's a great experience for our students. But we do have another person in the studio and she has been our guest on campus. She's kind of in residence with us this week. And I've just been so impressed with her. And we've just been really enjoying getting to know you. So welcome into the studio. Kavitha Davidson, thank you.
Kavitha Davidson [00:03:03] Thank you so much for having me.
[00:03:04] And we'd love for you to tell our audience a little bit about all the different places. I mean, you've been featured. Of course, we know with Bloomberg, with ESPN, ESPN W.. But tell us a little bit. Do your do some name dropping of places where you've been featured.
[00:03:21] Sure. OK. Well, I'm a sportswriter at the Athletic and I host our daily podcast with Wondery called The Lead. And we just launched this past September. So we are fairly new. But basically my background is in sports business reporting, which is how I met Dave over here. And yeah, I started my sports writing career at Bloomberg. I was a columnist and a daily columnist at Bloomberg View, now called Bloomberg Opinion. And then I moved to ESPN. I wrote for ESPN W and ESPN the magazine. And now I'm at the athletic and and doing this podcast thing, which is which is very cool. And I have some TV and radio experience. But the podcast space, I'm very new to.
[00:04:06] Well, I've been loving the podcast again, that's called The Lead. And I mean, I've got more questions to ask you. We've been talking about it a lot today and I've just been digesting it wholeheartedly for the last few weeks and really excited to talk about it more. So welcome in. Welcome to SUU. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you.
[00:04:24] My first time in Utah. Also, it's been so beautiful. And I think Dave's going to take me on a hike tomorrow. So, yeah.
[00:04:31] That is exactly what we're gonna do. A very long hike.
[00:04:37] Give her a break. Well, we've been talking a little bit about your background and kind of how you got from there to here. And I would love for you to talk a little bit about how you kind of got maybe your first break story. I mean, I know that you started out doing you were telling some of our SUU, some maybe not so glamorous, you know, jobs and then building in to how you kind of made your break into sports writing. So I'd love for you to share that.
[00:05:04] Yeah. I mean, when I applied for colleges, I kind of knew that I wanted to be a sportswriter. And, you know, that's not to scare your students who don't might not know what they want to do because most people in college don't know what I want to do. I'm that weirdo new and actually kind of manage to make it happen. But yeah, throughout college, I mean, I was the sports editor of my college. I went to Columbia. I was the sports editor of the Columbia Spectator. And I just kept doing internships paid and unpaid. But honestly, they needed to be paid because my family didn't have a lot of money. That kept my foot in the door, whether it was sports related or media related or journalism related or some combination of the above. So one of. My first jobs in sports. It was very unglamorous and it was basically watching games that had already aired, noting the timestamps of when advertised men's or signage would appear in that game. And then writing survey questions to like kind of measure brand recognition. And I did that for Nielsen. And eventually I had a real job at Nielsen where I worked for the sports marketing and analytics department. But, you know, that was kind of my stepping stone. And then, you know, I did a media relations internship with the Michael J. Fox Foundation. I interned with the Staten Island Yankees. And, you know, as a native New Yorker and a huge Yankees fan, that was kind of the first time I had worked for a front office and kind of realized I didn't want to work for front offices anymore. Yeah. You know, when you see how the sausage is made and all of that. Yeah. I interned at Time magazine for kids, illustrated for kids. And just going down the line just again, just trying to keep keep the writing muscles going and keep yourself relevant. Eventually, I ended up as a research intern at the Huffington Post, which basically means I was doing research for articles that are CEO and editor in chief. Was writing for speeches that she was giving. Things like that and eventually moved into the newsroom. But in the course of being that intern there, you know, I went to the Huffington Post and I knew that I wanted to be a sportswriter. So the first day that I was there, you know, very wide eyed and naive and very gung ho, some might say pushy. I made a meeting with our then executive editor and sports editor where I was just like, we should be writing all of these sports stories. And they were thoughtful, you know, progressive minded sports stories that I thought I wasn't seeing anywhere. And I literally came prepared with a two page list of these stories. You know, my executive editor there at the time kind of looked at me and said, you know, we don't really put these resources into our sports reporting, but these are great ideas. You know, keep at it. That kind of thing. And then the London 2012 Olympic Games came around and this same editor reached out to me because they wanted to do an Olympics themed issue for the magazine and asked me to pitch a couple of stories. And I ended up writing a few of those pitches, and one of them ended up being the cover story of the magazine. And it was a sprawling several thousand word feature on the history of women in the Olympics, because it was the first year that women's boxing was an events was the first year that every sport had both male and female participation. But it was also the first year that Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Brunei sent a woman. It was the first year that we had a female athlete from every participating nation. So it kind of took this broader historical sense, this broader historical lens to study that. And then I went back and did U.S. history with that and Title 9 history and the first women's basketball team, all that anyway. So fast forward to my editor on this piece. Ends up going to Bloomberg View again now called Bloomberg Opinion and they wanted to expand their sports coverage. So he ended up reaching out to me. And at this point, I was a world news editor. And in addition to running the world news page for a full week, I somehow cranked out five try out sports columns a day.
[00:09:12] That's amazing. I don't know how you did that.
[00:09:14] I probably slept for two hours a day for that week. But, you know, I was hungry for it and I wanted to do it. And I don't think I could do that today at the ripe old age of 30.
[00:09:25] I don't know. You're pretty energetic. I like your game. I had four cups of coffee.
[00:09:30] Well, you know, I read when I was looking up articles and wanting to read as much as possible that it was I mean, you have hundreds and hundreds of articles. So that's why I was thinking like, wow, you've been churning out so much for so long. Yeah.
[00:09:42] And it's funny because I've done it for outlets that have never prioritized quickness over quality. So Bloomberg Bloomberg's whole thing was, you know, obviously be timely, but this has to be good. Right. There was no mandate. There was no quota. And then I think a lot of especially newer media companies, you know, there really is like a 10 article a day kind of thing. And that wasn't the case. And then at ESPN, it was even more of a step back. I wasn't necessarily writing daily. I was writing about twice a week. And now at the athletic, I mean, the whole thing is the athletic is that the reporting is so important. And because we're a subscription based model, you know, we have to give our readers something more than just an aggregation or a recap of the news like they expect. You know, our reporters who have incredible sources and have been covering these teams on the ground for years, in some cases decades, to give them something more than just, you know, a straight reporting. And they have to you know, they have to really have a reason to pay for our writing. So in that in that sense, yeah, I'm lucky. It's been slightly slower paced, but still kind of a grind.
[00:10:54] Before we get into the podcast, I want to sort of highlight one of the through lines between the two of you is dealing with issues of gender and sports. And I'd love for you both to just maybe comment about what what it what is important about that to each of you individually. I mean, I know there are some obvious answers to that, but just since we have you both here, you're coming at it from two very different perspectives and backgrounds. What is it about gender in sports in particular that is so important and so passion driven for for both of you? Dave, how about you?
[00:11:33] Let me take a really broad picture of this. Think about economic growth like a sporting contest of some sort. So you want your economy to grow. You want to do better. If you are a sports team, you'd want to make sure that everybody on your team was participating. The way we have it set up now is we don't have full gender equality. So basically, we have half our population is not doing is not allowed to do as much as they could do. It's really hard outside of sports to highlight this as clearly as you'd like to. Inside of sports, we have data, we can see it, it's visual. If you can highlight for people inequity in sports and and highlight women doing things that they were not expected to do, it makes it easier to take that argument outside of sports and say we're all gonna be a lot better off if everybody's participating and everybody is allowed to do us what they are capable doing. So for me, the issue is it's a broader economic sociological issue. It's not just sports. It's this is good for society to think about this. And the people who oppose these ideas, who oppose feminism, oppose gender equality. They're typically the people who benefit from the current setup. And it's the case if everyone gets to participate. If everybody gets to run the race, the outcome will be different. If you restrict who gets to run the race as we do, and you or you make the race harder for them, there are people who are winning the race in society who get positions of leadership, who end up coming out on top, who end up in a more equitable society, are not going to have that outcome. And they probably know that. And so they don't like feminism and they don't like gender equality and they don't like racial equality. They don't like those things because it makes them losers. And that's the really the big issue for them. And so I think that's really what I think gender equity is all about. And I think sports is a great way of highlighting this.
[00:13:29] Oh, great. Thank you for that. Kavitha, how about you? I know that this has been I mean, you're a professional woman in sports journalism. Tell me some of your current, you know, opinions on this topic.
[00:13:41] I mean, yeah, I think that I maybe grew up relatively naive, maybe or at least sheltered from how difficult the world can be for women. You know, I was a sports fan. My mom's a scientist. I was kind of never told that I couldn't do something just because I was a woman. And just by virtue of being a sports fan, I think was kind of the first time that I ran up against that, that it was just weird for me to be in the space. And, you know, Dave and I talked about this earlier. You know, when you mentioned to somebody that you're a sports fan and you're a woman, you immediately get tested. You immediately get the question, well, you know, who was who won the batting title in 1985? And I'm that kind of thing. And so like for me to have personally run up against this, obviously, you know, I I'm I'm going to work toward changing that that part of our culture in that part of the status quo at the same time. I know I have a financial journalism background. I'm a very pragmatic person. So I think I've tried to to make the case that, you know, gender equality, while obviously, you know, we we should and we can make the moral argument for it. But it's, you know, women we're not a charity case. And, you know, if you can make the pragmatic financial argument that by ignoring equality just to maintain the status quo, you are leaving money on the table, which is the reality of it. Then you can reach so many more people. I do kind of wish that we lived in a world where we could just be like, hey, 50 percent of our population is women. So we should treat 50 percent of them as we treat the other half. But yeah, we don't.
[00:15:15] Yeah, well, thank you both for those. It's just great to kind of hear what your current perspectives are. So that brings us to our first musical break. I always pick, you know, some fun things and I have some fun surprises. I have a fun surprise for can beat that coming up. But the first thing I'm going to play, I was looking for like girl power kind of songs. And I looked for, you know, like the top 10 songs that women athletes like to listen to when they're working out and when they're practicing. And I came up with a few that I liked too. And the first is Unstoppable by Sia. Have a listen. Then just a reminder, you're listening to KSUU Thunder 91.1.
[00:19:30] Okay, everyone, you are listening to the A.P.E.X Hour, welcome back in the studio. That was Unstoppable by Sia. With our Girl Power playlist, I am in the studio with Dave Berri and Kavitha Davidson. Welcome back. Well, we've been talking about your writing, but you have a new project that has just launched. And that is the awesome podcast called The Lead, which you can find on anywhere you listen to podcasts. And it is first of all, it's just great. But can you tell us a little bit about what the lead is all about, what's its platform, all those kinds of things?
[00:20:09] Yeah. So we launched at the beginning of September. And the idea is, you know, there's so much shouting in sports, talk radio or podcasts. And there's you know, everything's about having a hot take and having in some cases an uninformed opinion about everything. But what we wanted to do was put together a show that dives a little bit deeper and also takes advantage of just this incredible network of reporters that we have at the athletic. So we've partnered with Wonder for this for this podcast, four of which is called The Lead. And as you mentioned, it's daily. And every day we do a deep dove into one issue, one event that's happening in sports or, you know, in some cases, you know, some fun bits of sports history. So, you know, I'll give you an example. Are our launch episode came the day after the Saints and the Rams opened. The NFL season will open that that Sunday against each other. And we went back and we looked at, you know, defensive at the pass interference challenge that went back to the NFC championship game from last year and kind of used that as a jumping off point to talk about the New Orleans Saints fan base and the feeling of being an underdog and an underdog city and what survival means and and all of those things. And on top of the fact that, you know, Saints fans launched this incredibly detailed campaign where they had billboards and boy, they boycotted the Super Bowl. And, you know, they brought some they brought some stuff to the Senate floor, even in that kind of thing. So that's an example of one kind of episode that we did. And then another kind of episode is, does anybody remember Big League Chew? Totally. Right. Yeah. They're still around, first of all. But we did a history of how Big League Chew came about. And I won't give it away here because you should go and listen to it. But it's a really fascinating history. It's kind of a heartwarming story. So that's just kind of the range of topics that we can. That we've been hitting on. And then, you know, we we fast forward to current events and events of today specifically.
[00:22:15] Yeah. So, you know, depending on when people are listening to it, we're we're here and in late October, 2019. And I'd love for you guys to tell us a little bit about the episode that dropped today. And then we had news within the last hour and something that's happening right now.
[00:22:32] Yeah. So, I mean, earlier this week, there was a report from Sports Illustrated about an Astros executive taunting a group of female reporters in the clubhouse this past weekend. And it was about a player who had been acquired in the middle of serving a domestic violence suspension without going through a whole story. That's a pretty serious thing to do. And then the Astros immediate response to this report was not just to deny the behavior, but to basically say that this female journalist lied. They said that she fabricated the story. Now to a reporter, that is one of the most serious charges that you can make. The other but you know, beyond that, the mistake that they made, obviously, other than owning up to what this executive did, was they tried to deny that something happened in a roomful of reporters. So, I mean, I know came out and denied it anyway. There has been this whole backlash about it. And what this means for when, you know, a team at an institution rushes to the defense of somebody who does something that really amounts to workplace intimidation. And so we did a Deep Dove episode about that this morning. And just breaking in the last hour, the Astros have fired this executive after facing, you know, several days now of backlash. So, you know, sometimes it takes them, it takes teams, it takes leagues a long time to get to the right decision. But I guess we should be grateful that finally they arrived there.
[00:24:03] Yeah, we should be pointing out that it did take them a long time to get there. And along the way, they said a lot of things that weren't true, including the general manager saying, I believe it was yesterday. Right. Saying I'm not sure about the intent of this executive when they were doing this. And apparently today he discovered what the intent was, which we all knew what the intent was when it happened.
[00:24:21] Well, and I can't speak I can't speak on this with direct knowledge. But we do know that MLB said that they. We're investigating this. So, you know, perhaps some pressure came from the league or maybe the Astros just saw that this PR fallout wasn't going to get any better. And that also it just was kind of an unfair position to place this woman reporter and other woman reporters and just other reporters in general in the position where they would have to contend with a high ranking executive who basically accused them of fake news.
[00:24:53] Yeah. And do you feel like the journalistic community really rallied in this case and helped?
[00:24:59] Absolutely. I think that that's you know, it's we're living in a time right now where journalism is under attack and we all have a responsibility to do better at our jobs, to own up when we need to correct something to make sure that we double, triple, quadruple fact check things. But at the same time, you know, the erosion of the fourth estate of journalism can only lead to worse things for the country. So when we accept at face value, when people in our highest institutions call into question very reputable and credible and, you know, call corroborated reports and you know that that really puts the entire institution of journalism under fire. So I think that we all recognize that. And obviously, you know, we're competitive with each other. We don't always agree with each other, but we recognize when a fellow reporter is being gas lighted.
[00:25:53] Yeah. One of the other episodes that I thought was really fun and interesting and current and all of these things with the episode about the juiced baseballs. And I was wondering if you could comment on that and tell our audience a bit about that and where things stand with the with where the ball is right now.
[00:26:13] Yeah. So Major League Baseball saw an unprecedented home run rate this year. And we're not talking standard deviation or standard variance. We're talking like really wild numbers of record breaking home runs. And, you know, we can see that from a league perspective. If you take the totals, we can see that from a team perspective. The Minnesota Twins set the record. The New York Yankees were very close behind in second place. Both of them having record setting years. But then we can also see that from an individual, from an individual perspective. And I bring this up as an example, as a Yankees fan. You know, you have hitters like Brett Gardner who are not home run hitters hitting 28 home runs on the season. That's just ridiculous. Yeah. So there started to be this sense in the middle of the season that there was something about these baseballs. And it wasn't just about the numbers. It was also about how these baseballs were flying through the air. And there have been some studies done. And we had an astrophysicist who has been studying this actually on the show to talk about the composition of the baseball, the changes in the manufacturing techniques and the things that kind of lead to these baseballs being being hit farther than they ever have before. Now, we're very careful to note that we don't necessarily think this was some nefarious scheme, that no Major League Baseball got together in a boardroom, some in a dimly lit boardroom somewhere with like candles and wax dripping and, you know, decided to like change the composition of the baseballs. But this is something that happens now in the postseason. It seems and Major League Baseball denies this, but it seems that the baseball's have gone back to what they were in years past because the home run rate has really dipped. And the way that they have just been flying off the ball has dipped. So we had an astrophysicist on to talk about that, to explain the science to us. You know us as newbies who aren't who aren't physicists. And then we had Jason Stark on, the fabulous Jason Stark to talk about what a higher or lower incidence of home run would mean in the World Series.
[00:28:13] Yeah, I thought that was really fascinating. And again, not to give too much away, but knitting and crocheting comes up in that episode, which is fascinating. And then the fact that that there is this change kind of between the regular season and the post season is just fascinating. So that was a really interesting episode. The episodes are not too too long, which I think is also something that was probably a conscious decision.
[00:28:38] Yeah. We try to keep to the 15 to 20 minute range if something deserves more time or there's just so much material there, we obviously will deviate from that. But you know, our thought is it shouldn't take more it shouldn't take longer than that to tell a story, if you can tell it well. And that's the idea. So we hope that they're digestible and we try to go. We try to go fairly deep into these into these issues. And we also don't assume, you know, we're obviously there for a hardcore sports fan. I'm a rabid, crazy person when it comes to sports, but we also try and make it accessible if you don't know a ton. You know, I think like we talked about it at the top of this conversation, so much of my career has been based on using sports as a lens to explore broader issues in society or, you know. Intricate, intricate details and intricate issues in ways that are accessible because sports is so universal. At the same time, if you're not a sports fan, some of these stories are just compelling. These are interesting people and we'd like to think that you care about them, whether or not you care about these games.
[00:29:43] Yeah, I totally agree. Are there any future episodes that you like to sort of drop hints about?
[00:29:49] I will drop a hint that we have been very lucky to have some major political players on. We had Governor Gavin Newsom on a couple of weeks ago to talk about the bill that he signed in California, granting college athletes the rights to profit off of their names, images and likenesses. And next week. Well, I can't really tell you when exactly. But next week we will be running an episode with Senator and presidential candidate Cory Booker talking about his plan to expand that legislation nationwide and also potentially to form a federal commission to oversee all sports.
[00:30:28] Fascinating. OK. Well, once again, the podcast is called The Lead and you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts. It's time for another musical break. I've got another one of my girl power songs. This is Bad Girls by M.I.A. Check it out. Have a listen. You're listening to the A.P.E.X Hour KSUU Thunder 91.1.
[00:34:26] Welcome back to the A.P.E.X Hour, everyone, that we're getting on our Feisty Girl playlist, that's Bad Girls by M.I.A. Welcome back. You're listening. KSUU Thunder 91.1. Welcome back into the studio. Dave Berri and Kavitha Davidson. So I'm going to let you guys take it because I know one of the topics that that comes up all the time when we were men, we've talked with the Women's World Cup and the U.S. team. They've been taking such a strong stance, not just this year, but four years on on pay and equal pay and payment for athletes. And I'd love for you guys to open up a conversation about about pay and take it from there. And let's hear about it.
[00:35:07] Let's talk about that. So so we have this this bill in California, name and likenesses. Where do you see this going? Where is the worst and where will this lead us?
[00:35:18] Well, so, first of all, what Lynn was referring to was equal pay for women's teams and women's sports. This bill is referring to is college athletes. Now a college athlete, Bill? You know, people are trying to look 100 steps ahead and say that this will lead to salaried players and pay for play. And that's debatable. What this bill actually is, is is saying is if there is a, let's say, college football player who Nike wants to sign to a Jersey deal, as long as that doesn't interfere with an existing apparel deal that the school has with another company, that players free to do so. And to a lot of people, myself included, that seems like a fair, let's say, free market argument that this player should be able to make money off of his name, image and likeness. And I think the you know, the the argument the argument there is that every other student on campus is allowed to work, is allowed to make money outside of being a student except athletes.
[00:36:25] I agree. And so what's going to happen here is other states are going to adopt the same law. That's clearly happening already. Right. Eventually. And I think everyone should see this. Every state will have to do this, because if your state doesn't do this, then your colleges will not be able to recruit top athletes because they're going to go where they can make money. So we now take the next obvious step. Every state now does this. So we are now. These players are now taking money for putting college athletes. And there's gonna be some who are going to be fairly wealthy doing this.
[00:36:59] Right. And the argument against this has been that it will disrupt competitive balance and it will create the system of haves and have nots. And that's probably true. But I think the argument against that is we don't really have competitor out.
[00:37:13] There is no competitor.
[00:37:14] He has more power 5 conference in the NCAA play, right. Like Wesleyan University is not recruiting to the same level than Alabama is.
[00:37:22] So this is this is this is a I've done research on this. This is in my my mind sports economics textbook. If you look at every single sport in college, you will find that every sport is dominated by a small collection. And it's not the same colleges. So but, you know, women's volleyball is not the same collection of colleges as men's basketball. But every sport has a collection of schools that win most of the titles. And that's what happens with the student athletes is since you're not going to pay them a salary, they're going to choose their college based on where they're going to win. And they know how do they decide that they like who won in the past so that whoever won of the past will recruit better players going forward. So before the college men's college basketball season starts. Who are the top teams? Michigan State. Duke, Kansas, Kentucky. Yeah. You know what? Those are the same teams. For the last 50 years, they've been the same teams because those players go to those schools. So now they're gonna take money from names and likenesses. Some of those players are going to make a lot of money. And I think what ends up happening is every state does this. People are going to become comfortable with the idea that college athletes get paid. And eventually the obvious next step is. Well, then why don't we just pay them? And I don't see how that I don't see how people are going to resist that idea. I don't think they're going to say I'm okay with Nike paying them, but I'm not okay with Kansas just paying them directly. What difference does it make?
[00:38:44] I think to a lot of people there is a difference there because it's kind of a separation of church and state. It is the argument that, you know, they're not salaried and not being paid to play, but they are being paid because they're their play is valuable. I'm not coming down either way on that issue. But what this does really get out is making people more comfortable with the idea of athletes being paid gets at the heart of the purity of amateur and the purity of college sports, which to me is a myth, right?
[00:39:13] Oh, it's absolutely a myth that that never happened. OK. College sports became professional in 1858 when they sold tickets to the first rowing match in 1850. So it's been. And if you go back to the 19TH century, they were paying players. One of my favorite stories is the story of a star college player. He was at a Marshall's, and a school in Pennsylvania, wanted him. So in the middle of the season, they enrolled him as a student. He played one game with them and then he went back to Marshall and they paid him to do that. Wow. And that's how college sports was when it was pure that they did stuff like well.
[00:39:49] And we we actually did an episode at the lead on SMU. Now, I think those of us I was not born in the 80s. I was born in 1989. But those of us who did watch college football in the 80s remember as SMU as this powerhouse program. People who watch college football today probably have no idea. But basically this year, SMU is ranked for the first time since they received what's called the death penalty by the NCAA in 1986. So for 1987, what that meant was they were not allowed to have a football program and they were not allowed to recruit. And basically, the whole program is shut down and it's taken them 30 years basically to rebuild that program. Now, what were they given the harshest penalty ending in the NCAA life for recruiting violations. And and this kind of goes to Dave's point that this has been happening since the beginning of time. It's just a matter of whether we accept and acknowledge it and whether we want that behavior to happen under over the table. And one of the best stories that came out of that SMU era was that, you know, Hall of Fame, NFL running back Eric DICKERSON. He was part of a backfield for SMU known as the Pony Express, because the SMU team is the Mustangs. But basically, when he was being recruited out of high school, they saw that he was this once in a generation talent. He was being highly recruited by all the colleges in in in Texas.
[00:41:12] And he had committed to Texas, CNN very famously. He rolled up after committing in a gold Trans-Am. And the joke was this was the gold trans A&M. And this was one of the under the table payments. That that the Aggies gave him two to sign with to commit to them. Suddenly, you know, he's got this gold Trans Am. He changed his mind and he sides with SMU in the midst of kind of this culture war. This booster wore off. Who can get which players in Texas. And to this day, Eric DICKERSON will not tell you exactly what he got in return for changing his mind.
[00:41:49] Oh, wow. And it's going to be interesting going forward if you can sell likenesses and get paid for that. What stops a college from arranging that? You get the likenesses contracts? Because I think that is obviously what the colleges are going to start doing, is, look, I can't pay you directly, but if you come to my school, I will make sure that you get these contracts and we're going to sell your likenesses and they're going to arrange the contracts for them. So, again, you're essentially going to be paying them.
[00:42:17] But again, this is also coming, you know, in a year when we've had an FBI investigation into Adidas and agents and and college programs and boosters arranging these contracts already for players. So I think it's just you know, it's kind of it's a similar thing to the sports betting legalization argument. This is behavior that we know goes on.
[00:42:36] It's a little odd. The FBI investigates and suitably rules because it's like that's not government rule. It's the incivility is not the government. So it's a little odd. The FBI gets involved it and my understanding of it as the legal rationale that they did that is not entirely clear, but we're not clear what it is you were legally investigating.
[00:42:56] Well, I had never thought about it from the perspective of, you know, other college students. You can get paid for their talent and makes me think of, you know, being a music teacher. I mean, when I was in school, I was playing gigs all the time. And we would we would be sort of contracted out as college students, like you'd call a school. You'd want a string quartet, let's say, and then you could go in and play and get money for that. So I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. You sort of think of sports as being this own thing. And because it's things like Nike and Adidas, which are huge, you know, or organizations, huge amount of money. So I hadn't thought about it from that perspective.
[00:43:35] Which brings me to my next topic, and that is music. And one of the things that I just came just was completely tickled about was that in my research of year, let's see, there's some Juilliard training and there. So I wondered if you could just tell us a little bit. Not only is she an amazing sports journalist and radio TV personality, but you're also a fantastic musician.
[00:44:04] Thank you. I'm blushing as much as my brown skin allows you to blush. So I am a three instrument player. I started playing the piano when I was six years old. I started playing the cornet and then trumpet in a British brass band in school at the age of eight or nine, I can't remember. And then I adopted the. Sean, when I was in high school, but trumpet is my main instrument. And I have been very lucky to play in some very highly touted orchestras from a from a very young age. And I've played at venues like I've played with the Birmingham Symphony. I've played. I've been a ringer on Broadway. I've I've played at Carnegie Hall. And Avery Fisher Hall now called David Geffen Hall and SUU. I have been very lucky in that regard. And yes, for a very brief time I did I did part of the joint program at Columbia and Juilliard. Knowing that I wasn't good enough to do this professionally. And then I also just didn't have the time resources to devote to it. But yeah, music has been a huge part of my life and of my growth then. And, you know, I am very I'm very protective of my musical identity because I think and I've written about this. There is such a divide between the arts world and the sports world. And I think so much of it is manufactured. You know, we're not monolithic people. We're not one dimensional. We have a multitude of issues of interest. And obviously the money in sports programs far outweighs the money and arts programs that are constantly being cut. But we don't have to sacrifice one for the other. And more than that, we don't have to pit kind of the jocks against the nerds or the theater kids. Some of us are both.
[00:45:44] And when there's so many I mean, the the way you prepare as an athlete and the way you prepare as a musician and you know, there's so many similarities there. And branding exercise. Yeah.
[00:45:56] Literally expanding your lungs or, you know, fingering exercise if you're a violinist and yet trying to shave a few seconds off for speed.
[00:46:04] You know, that's something that happens all the time in music. So I loved hearing about your background. And I happen to know that there's a certain trumpet solo- because I know most of your background was classical, but you did a bit of a four or at least have a passion for some popular music and one particular trumpet solo in one particular song. And so for our last musical break, I just had to bring up the song Italian Leather Sofa, which in the middle of it has this fantastic trumpet solo. So in honor of your trumpet history, I'd love to play that song for you. So let's hear Italian leather sofa by cake. This is KSUU Thunder 91.1.
[00:52:25] All right. Welcome back, everyone. So that was the slightly risque Italian letter sofa, but we were playing that because we really wanted to highlight that awesome trumpet solo in the middle that could beat that. Davidson Like so much so. Hope you enjoyed that. Listen. All right. We are almost out of time. And I have a favorite question to ask and it just gives our listeners a way to kind of get some new ideas for things, either to listen to or read or watch. We'd like to ask our guests what's turning you on this week? So, you know, what's what's something that is you're really excited about? And it can be anything. It could be a song. Could be a movie. It could be a book. It could be a TV show. It could be food. It could be anything. So, Dave and Kavitha, I would like to know what's turning you on this week?
[00:53:13] I'm going to go with an athlete as a long suffering Knicks fan. We saw the debut of Knicks rookie R.J. Barrett yesterday. And even though the Knicks loss and this is what it's like to be a next fan, we're finding the silver linings in a lifetime of losses. He became the youngest player to score 20 points in his first ever NBA game. And he's just going to be such an exciting talent to watch. And hopefully Knicks ownership and management doesn't muck this one up again.
[00:53:39] That's awesome. Well, thank you for that. All right, Dave Berri, what's turning you on?
[00:53:43] Well, I do a lot of analysis of player productivity in sports. And I could talk about R.J. Barrett's performance in college, but I won't. I'll talk about something else because I don't want to ruin things for next. Come on, don't touch the bubble, man. Knicks fans fall for this every year. Every year we fall for you, fall for every score. It's ridiculous. You never win. Could you keep picking the same players? All right. So what has been exciting me? I just finished a book by Katrine Marçal, I think as I pronounce it, called Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner. And so this is something that we talk about. We talked about gender issues earlier on and economics. And so one of the things that economics talks about is, is the invisible hand and the idea that, you know, it is not from benevolence that the butcher cuts your meat and the baker bakes your bread.
[00:54:28] Well, this woman, Katrine Marçal, wrote this book saying, well, Adam Smith came up with all that and he talks about how great markets are. Well, who cooked Adam Smith's dinner? Because the woman who kicked us dinner was his mother. And his mother didn't do it because of market forces. She did it because she liked him. Yeah. That's a part of economics that gets left out, is that people don't do things just for money. People are doing things primarily women are doing things that they're not compensated for. Right. And we don't talk about that in economics nearly enough, although in my gender economics class, we do actually talk about these things. But this is not that. I mean, we talk about enough. Yeah. Cool. What was the name of that book again? It is. Who Cooked Adam Smith's dinner.
[00:55:07] Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for that. It's been such a pleasure to talk with you both today. So thank you so much for your time. And we'd love to have you back anytime, but thanks again for being here. Ashley, thanks so much for having me. Thanks for having me. Awesome. All right. Well, with that, we're going to sign off and we will see you next time.
[00:55:29] Thanks so much for listening to the A.P.E.X Hour here on KSUU Thunder 91.1. Come find us again next Thursday at 3 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University. And new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime, we would love to see you at our events on campus to find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex until next week. This is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the A.P.E.X Hour. Here on Thunder 91.1.