[MUSIC FADES IN]
David Greene, Narrating: This is "In Conversation," from Apple News. I'm David Greene,
filling in for Shumita Basu. Today, the WNBA is building something,
and it's not just a female version of the NBA.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
It's a really exciting time to be a fan of women's basketball.
[ENERGETIC MUSIC]
From college to the pros, women ballers are on fire
and fans are taking notice.
[START ARCHIVAL CLIPS]
[CROWD CHEERING, INDISTINCT ARENA CHATTER]
Announcer 1: Fulwiley! My goodness! A show-stopping highlight!
Announcer 2: Jonquel Jones, muscling her way inside.
[INDISTINCT ARENA CHATTER]
Announcer 3: JuJu Watkins, 51. And everybody else on the Trojan team.
[BUZZER SOUNDS, WHISTLE BLOWS]
Sixteen points. What a night.
[INDISTINCT ARENA CHATTER CONTINUES]
Announcer 4: This is incredible! Sabrina Ionescu!
[CROWD CHEERING, SCREAMING]
The greatest performance we have ever seen in this contest!
Announcer 5: [INDISCERNIBLE]
Announcer 6: A'ja Wilson looking for some space.
Crowd: Defense!
[CROWD SCREAMING, CHEERING]
Announcer 7: There it is!
The all-time leading scorer in women's college basketball.
[INDISTINCT ARENA CHATTER]
Arena Announcer: [INDISCERNIBLE]
Announcer 8: And for the first time in 21 years, the WNBA has a back-to-back champion.
[END ARCHIVAL CLIPS]
Greene, Narrating: This past year, the WNBA had its most-watched regular season
in more than two decades. Viewership was up 27%. And the league
has never been more profitable, generating nearly $200 million in revenue.
That's roughly double what it brought in just a few years ago.
Sheryl Swoopes: You know, I don't know if any of us when the league started
back in '97 thought that we would someday see the attention
that women's basketball everywhere is getting, not just the W.
Greene, Narrating: That is the voice of Sheryl Swoopes, a WNBA legend.
She's a three-time WNBA MVP. She's won four national championships
and three Olympic gold medals. Sheryl was also the first player
signed to the WNBA when the league launched.
Swoopes: I can tell you there's such a big difference in where we are today
and where we were back in 1997. So, [CHUCKLES] I am super proud of the league.
I'm, I'm proud of, of the players. I'm just proud of everything they're doing
on the court, off the court. And just to see the league
continue to grow every single day.
Greene, Narrating: A new documentary called "Shattered Glass" takes a look at how current players
[MUSIC FADES, CONTINUES SOFTLY]
are building on the foundation Sheryl and her generation laid
for women's professional basketball, and what players say still needs to be done.
Sheryl's story is featured in the film, which is directed by Andrea Buccilla.
[ENERGETIC MUSIC RESUMES]
Andrea Buccilla: I didn't think we could tell a story about today's WNBA and the success
that they're seeing without acknowledging where it came from
and acknowledging that that success is not brand-new. They were selling out
NBA arenas back when Sheryl was playing.
Greene, Narrating: In fact, Sheryl was so good, that before she even went pro,
she got a chance to go up against Michael Jordan. It was 1993.
She had just wrapped up a wildly successful college ball career
at Texas Tech, and Michael Jordan's people had asked her to come work
at his basketball camp in Chicago.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Swoopes: I was, like, so super excited. My coach, Marsha Sharp, was like,
hey, Michael's people want you to come work his camp, seriously.
My response to her was, oh my gosh, like, how much do I have to pay? [LAUGHS]
[DAVID GREENE LAUGHS]
She was like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how that works.
Now mind you, I'm a small town girl. I've never really been anywhere.
So I got a chance to go work his camp, and it was several of us.
We were at the back of the gym waiting on Michael to come in.
He had over, gosh, over three, four hundred campers there. So finally,
Michael starts walking in the gym, and I immediately got so nervous…
And out of nowhere, he says, where is Sheryl Swoopes?
Greene: Oh my.
Swoopes: And I-- I froze.
[GREENE CHUCKLES]
And the young lady that was next to me kind of elbowed [CHUCKLING] me like…
Greene: [CHUCKLING] "I think he's talking to you." [LAUGHS]
Swoopes: Yeah, she's like, that's you. I'm like, I know it's me, but why?
Like, why is he asking? What do I say?
Greene: Yeah.
Swoopes: So I go out, and he actually had watched the Final Four
the year we won it in 1993. And he said to me, watched the Final Four,
love your game, mad respect. Right? And I was like, oh, thanks.
So then he says, but one-on-one, me and you.
Greene: My God.
Swoopes: I was like, as in like, [LAUGHING] basketball? [LAUGHS]
Greene: [LAUGHS] You're like, like a hot dog eating contest
Swoopes: Yeah! Like, what?
Greene: or what are we talking about here? [LAUGHS]
Buccilla: Like a one-on-one conversation, or…?
Swoopes: Yeah. Right? Like one-on-one… I don't know. Yeah.
Greene: Yeah. [LAUGHS]
Swoopes: We're talking right now, right?
Buccilla: [CHUCKLING] Yeah.
Swoopes: And so he's like, yeah, I hear, you know, people saying
you're the female Michael Jordan, so one-on-one, me and you. And I said,
wasn't me, like, I never said that, that's what other people have said.
He said, yeah. He said, so one-on-one. So I was like, okay, like,
how am I gonna say no? Right?
Greene: Yeah, you can't say no.
Swoopes: So we start playing. It's a game to seven. I get the ball.
My first shot was a big old air ball.
[GREENE LAUGHS]
And so, you know, the kids let me hear it, right?
Greene: Uh-huh.
Swoopes: They're like, air ball! So I was just like, okay, get it together.
Right? He gets the ball, shoots, scores, whatever.
I get the ball back. My second shot was like a brick. So finally, after this,
right? I'm like, okay, listen. You're representing for all the women,
like, get your you-know-what together. So I get the ball back. We start playing.
I score. So we're going back and forth. Finally, Michael gets the ball
and all of his campers are like, dunk it, dunk it! Right? And my pride, though,
I'm like, there's no way I'm gonna let you dunk on me.
Greene: Wow.
Swoopes: So he goes in for a dunk. Just out of nowhere, I grab him, right?
I pull him [CHUCKLING] out of the air [SPEAKING NORMALLY] I'm like, nope,
you can't dunk. Uh, he had his favorite North Carolina T-shirt on.
I'll remember this story until I die. I got lipstick all on the shirt.
[GREENE CHUCKLES]
He ended up giving me the shirt. To this day, I still have it.
One of my most prized possessions.
Greene: Wow.
Swoopes: And, uh, it was just such a fun time. And, and I'll put this out there
'cause everybody had been asking before. Yes, he did win. We only went to seven.
I think the score was, like, seven to four.
Greene: Have you, have you, have you washed that shirt?
Swoopes: No. I still have that shirt at home with lipstick on it.
[THOUGHTFUL MUSIC]
Greene: Not washed. [LAUGHS]
Swoopes: Mm-mm.
Greene: That's amazing.
Swoopes: Like, I would never wash it.
Greene: No, I mean, who, who would?
Swoopes: Like, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that would happen. Ever.
Greene, Narrating: A few years later, in 1996, the WNBA formed.
Sheryl joined the Houston Comets.
That first season was scrappy,
but it generated a lot of buzz.
The NBA got behind it and the WNBA inked a five-year contract
with NBC. Behind the scenes, conditions for the players
often didn't feel so pro.
But, Sheryl said, they were just grateful to be playing.
Swoopes: We didn't care that we had to share rooms with each other, didn't care that,
you know, it was commercial flights. We had back-to-back games.
Like, none of that stuff mattered because we were just happy to play.
Greene, Narrating: Teams only had a two-week training camp to prepare.
Coaches say they had no basic equipment,
and sometimes, they doubled as general managers.
Base salaries for players were $15,000. And Sheryl actually had to miss
the first-ever WNBA game because she was giving birth to her son.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Swoopes: I remember the very first game when the W started,
it was the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks.
I remember lying, literally lying in my hospital bed.
I had just given birth. And I turned the TV on because I wanted to watch
the tip of that game. It was history being made. And for me,
it was all about the birth of two things.
Greene: Mm-hmm.
Swoopes: The birth of my son, the birth of the WNBA. And, when I watched the tip
and it was like, this is really happening, because I don't think a lot of us really…
Like, we knew it was gonna happen, but I don't think a lot of us
really understood what that meant or what that was gonna look like.
Greene: What was it like to miss out, though, when things just got started?
You know, because you were becoming a mom.
Swoopes: It was very important to me to be a part of the inaugural season.
So… I remember just having a conversation with my doctor saying, you know,
is my son okay? Is he healthy? Yes. Check. Am I okay? Am I healthy? Yes. Check.
Can I go back to playing? And when he was like, I mean, yeah,
you can, but you probably shouldn't.
[GREENE CHUCKLES]
So… [SIGHS] six weeks, maybe seven, six or seven…
Greene: After giving birth, you're back on the court.
Swoopes: After giving birth to my son, I was back out on the court.
Greene: That's amazing.
Swoopes: Because I really wanted to be a part of the inaugural WNBA season.
And even though I didn't really play very much, I'd never really looked at it
as if I was missing out, right? Because I was still there.
I was still a part. I was still being the best teammate I could be
and all the while, like, just… Like, being a mom in that moment and,
and having my son around all these incredible, amazing women,
was very important to me.
[LIGHT, RHYTHMIC MUSIC]
Greene, Narrating: In the 28 years since Sheryl first stepped on a professional court,
the WNBA has come so far. It's blown away revenue
and attendance expectations.
It has secured some major TV deals.
There's more investment in the league than ever before.
And the caliber of play has never been higher.
In 2020, players and the league reached a collective bargaining agreement
that secured better pay and benefits, like fully-paid maternity leave,
a child care stipend and mental health services
tailored to working moms. And even as players were thrilled
to get these benefits, many say they don't go far enough.
Take the league's advertised max salary of $700,000.
As sports journalist Lindsay Gibbs explains in the documentary,
actually earning that amount is a real long shot.
[START DOCUMENTARY ARCHIVAL CLIP]
Lindsay Gibbs: You have to make the All Star game. You have to be All Star MVP.
Your team has to make it to the Commissioner's Cup.
Win the Commissioner's Cup. Commissioner's Cup MVP.
Become MVP of the league. Make it to the finals. Is that all?
[CHUCKLES] It's pretty much impossible to [CHUCKLING] do
all of these things, and even if you did, only one person
could possibly do that. So that amount of money
would only be available to one single player out of the 144.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
[END DOCUMENTARY ARCHIVAL CLIP]
[INTRIGUING MUSIC]
Greene, Narrating: Part of the reason why male players earn an average of nearly $10 million a year
is because of how the NBA shares its revenue with its players.
When a reporter for "Bloomberg News" crunched the numbers,
they found NBA players receive about 50% of basketball-related revenue.
For the WNBA, the share is closer to 20%.
Here's the deal: For the average women's player,
the salary is so low that nearly half opt to play abroad
in the offseason. This pays good money, but it also comes with a lot of downsides.
Swoopes: It's tough because you're in another country
where lots of times you don't speak the language,
so you have to translate. Like, you're having to adjust
to different culture, different lifestyle, different weather, different food.
Greene, Narrating: And of course, there's the risk of being in countries that are adversarial
to the United States. For example, China and Russia are two major countries
that historically recruited WNBA stars and paid them well in the offseason.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Swoopes: I can't help but to think about Brittney Griner's situation.
Greene: Yeah.
Swoopes: Right? And so when people say, well, if the women were making more money,
she wouldn't have to go play in Russia or anywhere else. There are also--
and Dre, feel free to speak up-- there are also women who are making really,
really, really good money. And not just from the W,
but from brand deals and sponsorships and endorsements,
that even though they're making good money,
they still choose to go play overseas.
Buccilla: Yeah, to capitalize those, you know, money-earning years, right?
Swoopes: Yeah.
Buccilla: J.J. said that. She was like, if I could make 80% of what I make overseas
during the offseason back home, I would stay.
But I have to stack my money now while I can.
Swoopes: Yeah. While you can, because at some point
you're not gonna be able to do that.
[LAID-BACK, RHYTHMIC MUSIC]
Greene, Narrating: Let's be clear: Sheryl and other current and former pro players are not asking
that the women make what the men do. What they want is more investment
in their product, independent of how they perform compared to the men.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Swoopes: Well… [SIGHS] I think when you start talking about women's basketball
versus men's basketball, or just women's sports versus men's sports,
I do feel like there's different expectations for female athletes
versus male athletes. And for myself personally,
I've tried to get away from comparing the two, right?
Greene: Mm-hmm.
Swoopes: But what, what does kind of bother me from someone who's…
I've been playing ball since I was seven years old.
And even at the young age of seven,
I felt the pressure of always wanting to prove people,
in particular, to prove men, wrong.
Right? Like, I belong in this space,
and I'm good enough to be in this space, and I can do exactly what you can do,
or maybe I can do better. I grew up with two older brothers
who told me I wasn't good enough, right? Wouldn't let me play.
And so, as I got older, I've just always felt like it was a responsibility of mine
to represent for all women, right? To be able to prove to men that we belong,
and the expectations that you have of us and the expectations that you put on us
shouldn't be any different from the expectations that you have
for male athletes. I look at women's college basketball today.
Some of the best players that are playing today, to me,
are more exciting and more entertaining to watch
than a lot of the male basketball players right now.
Greene: We just saw Caitlin Clark from, from Iowa
break the NCAA women's basketball scoring record.
Swoopes: Yeah.
Greene: [CHUCKLING] It was incredible. It was incredible.
I mean, yeah.
Swoopes: No doubt, right? You, you got Caitlin. You got Juju Watkins.
You have Hannah Hidalgo, who's just a freshman at Notre Dame.
Like, I could go on and on and on.
But when you see that a lot of people are saying,
yeah, well, she's doing that 'cause she's a girl.
Do you know what I mean?
Greene: Mm-hmm.
Swoopes: And I'm like, no. Like, she's good. It's not about her being a girl
playing against other young girls or, or women. Why can't we just
give her the credit of being really, really good and really talented
at what she does?
Buccilla: Can we just say, Sheryl, that I was enraged
when people came for you for the take that you had on…
Swoopes: You can say it.
Buccilla: …you know, rookies coming into the league? Did you see that, David?
Greene: No, t-- tell me what, what did you say Sheryl,
about rookies coming in?
Buccilla: Oh, Sheryl said the most reasonable thing, which was just like, you know,
when you're a rookie coming into the league,
you can't really expect to dominate immediately.
Greene: That seems reasonable!
Buccilla: First of all, she's speaking from experience, and it's also just
a human opinion she's allowed to have. People were so mad.
Greene: Why?
Swoopes: Well, it's not just about Caitlin.
You know, I said the same thing about Angel, and…
Greene: Angel Reese, yeah.
Swoopes: But also, I mean, history speaks for itself. You can look at,
you know, Sabrina coming out of Oregon, didn't have the type of rookie season
that everybody thought she would. My thing is this: The expectations
that media, fans put on these young ladies in college, in thinking they're gonna
go to the pro and do exactly what they're doing in college,
I think you're doing them a disservice because you're putting all this pressure
on them, and then when they get to the league
and they don't dominate right away…
Greene: You're like, they-- they've failed.
Swoopes: Yes. Now it becomes, well, she was a bust, or she was a flop,
or she wasn't that good.
Greene: Yeah.
Swoopes: When you go from being a college student athlete to a pro,
everything changes. Right? Your schedule changes. No one is there
saying, get up, go to class. Like, [CHUCKLING] all those things.
Like, it's an adjustment. And then you throw the talent in.
Like, that's a whole different ball game.
Greene: Well, Sheryl, I wanna, I wanna kind of have a, a step back moment with you.
I mean the, the WNBA, 27% increase in viewers from 2022 to 2023.
Swoopes: That's pretty good.
Greene: And women's sports expected for the first time overall
to top a billion dollars this year, driven by basketball and by soccer.
It feels like this moment when the WNBA has basically said, this is who we are.
We're getting more and more fans. Let's celebrate this.
Let's market this well. The teams, the players, their stories.
And maybe not be so stuck in some sort of historic battle to be equal
or not equal with men. Let's just be who we are, celebrate it and,
and have swagger. Is that what you're… were trying to portray?
Buccilla: Yeah, well, I think that it's such a trap to get caught up in the comparison.
I wanted to portray these women as ballplayers, pure and simple.
Swoopes: Mm.
Buccilla: You don't have to say, like, oh, they're good for a woman.
Swoopes: Yeah.
Buccilla: Or they are women's basketball players. No, they're just ballplayers.
Greene: Mm.
Buccilla: They're just hoopers.
Swoopes: Just ballers.
[GREENE CHUCKLES]
Buccilla: Yeah. Yeah.
Swoopes: Yeah.
Buccilla: It's part of why we got, you know, Jaren Jackson Jr. to do the baller scene.
[EMOTIONAL STRING MUSIC]
[START DOCUMENTARY ARCHIVAL CLIP]
Jaren Jackson Jr.: A baller. Let me tell you something about ball players. Hoopers. Ballers.
[CROWD CHEERING, CAMERAS FLASHING]
The women of the W, never be fooled by them. They are ballers.
They are born with it. They come with it every single night. You should tune in.
[END DOCUMENTARY ARCHIVAL CLIP]
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Buccilla: I actually thought it was important for a respected male athlete
to sort of speak directly to the haters, the male haters, you know, that say things
like, well, it's just too slow for me, women's games. I think people think
the women's game is slower than it is because it's not shot the same way.
The media is not covering those games with the same techniques…
Swoopes: Mm.
Buccilla: …and quality camera operators, um…
Greene: Oh, interesting.
Buccilla: …and just money behind it, so when you watch, you know,
the WNBA finals this year, and it was shot like an NBA game,
you're like, oh man, these women are fast.
Swoopes: Crazy. Crazy.
Buccilla: These women are strong. Yeah. And, like, of course it was more exciting.
Greene: That's amazing that the camera shots and the number of cameras
can totally change the perception of, of what's happening.
I-- I never thought about that.
Buccilla: Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Swoopes: Wow.
Greene: Well, it's interesting because it, I think it's…
Even if you are fighting, you know, like I feel like I am, for--
for people to watch and get into the WNBA because it's so fabulous.
Like, I fall into this place of, well, it should be equal, like, you know,
WNBA players should be getting the same kinds of benefits and money
as NBA players, but then that risks falling into the trap of
that the blueprint for women's basketball should be men's basketball.
So it's a hard thing. It's like you almost… you don't want to compare,
but as your film showed, there are things that the players in this league deserve
that they're not getting right now.
Buccilla: Yeah. Well, I think it's a matter of ROI.
Swoopes: Mm-hmm.
Buccilla: Return on investment. I don't think… I don't want anybody to think
that any of us, either filmmakers or women of the W
or the leadership at the PA, think that women should make
the same amount of money as NBA players.
Swoopes: Right.
Buccilla: The NBA brings in more money and that is why their salaries are higher.
Swoopes: Yes.
Buccilla: What I want people to look at is why the NBA brings in
so much more money. It's because brands and investors were willing to delay
an ROI or not have a sure-thing return on their money for a long time.
But when people think about investing in women's sports,
they're too afraid to take the risk. They're not willing to take the risk.
And now we're finally seeing that brands are seeing
that this is a good investment.
And it's why these women are getting paid more.
It's why they're getting more brand deals.
I mean, thank God that brands are finally getting it.
Swoopes: Yep.
Buccilla: So we're not saying, oh, pay them the same as the men
just because equality.
Greene: Hmm.
Buccilla: We're saying invest in them the same way that you're willing to invest in men.
And we promise you the product is good enough to give you an ROI.
Swoopes: Yep.
Greene: I-- I want to ask, I mean, I think about my own sports fandom.
And when I think about the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I think about
my love of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and I'm a Philadelphia 76ers fan…
There are generations in my family of rooting for teams like that.
Like, my Pittsburgh fandom is so linked to my mom and, like,
the history of Pittsburgh. And, and that's so much part of it. Like,
this league is young. [CHUCKLES] I mean, this, this league hasn't had time
to generate generations of fans being passed down from one to the other,
and I, I just wanna note that, like, we're celebrating a moment of success here
in this league that you helped build, Sheryl,
and it feels like we need to remember
this has just been a small, small part of what's gonna hopefully be
a very long journey.
Swoopes: You know, AND I'm so glad you brought that up
because I think people tend to forget…
the NBA, they didn't get successful overnight.
Buccilla: No, at the 27-year mark, they weren't, they hadn't, didn't,
Swoopes: [LAUGHS] No. No.
Buccilla: had not experienced this much growth.
Greene: Yeah.
Swoopes: So it is. It's a very, very young league that is only continuing to grow and,
and only continuing to get better. You know, I want people who truly…
Well, you know what? Even if you don't know the game or even if you don't watch,
one, you should start watching, um…
Greene: Yeah.
Swoopes: 'Cause, 'cause it's good. Like, it's great entertainment.
It's great competition. And we even have, you know, I know people like to watch,
like… Well, when Detroit had the Bad Boys, right? Like, a lot of people tune in
because they wanna see the bad boys. Well, we have bad girls
[LIGHT, PLAYFUL MUSIC]
in the [LAUGHING] league. We do!
[GREENE LAUGHS]
Greene: Mm-hmm.
Swoopes: But if you don't watch it, you're never gonna, gonna know that.
I'm so excited to see how far the, the league has come,
and absolutely where the league is going 'cause I think it's headed
in the right direction.
Greene: So now players are gearing up for a potential new round
of bargaining negotiations with the league.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Greene, Narrating: They're asking for pensions for retired players.
Chartered flights to ensure player safety and promote physical recovery.
Also, compensation high enough
that offseason play abroad isn't necessary.
I asked Sheryl what some of this would mean for the players.
Swoopes: When I say there's more work to be done, I look at the new CBA, and I look at how
it's changed and how things have gotten much better.
When you look at maternity leave and players who are taking time off
because they're having kids and, and the whole mental aspect of it,
having mental health days and having people there to help you,
like, we didn't have any of that stuff. So when I say there is still work
to be done, those are the types of things that I talk about
and things that I think about when I say there's more work to be done.
I just think, when, when more people decide that, you know what,
we want to be a part of this, when more brands and more sponsors say,
we want to be a part of, of this because women's basketball is great,
then the money will come. I really do believe that.
I think it's a lot of the other stuff that these players are talking about
that these players need. And, and I think it's just a matter of time
before we get there.
Buccilla: Sheryl had a great quote in the film, David.
Greene: Yeah.
Buccilla: It was, "I think it's important to be grateful for what you have,
but I also believe in asking for what you want."
Swoopes: I remember that.
Buccilla: And I just don't want people to think that these women are not grateful.
They, they understand that they get to do their dream every day for a living.
They, they get it. But it's okay to ask for more as well,
and they're willing to work for that.
Swoopes: Yeah. Because it's not, like, we're not asking anyone to,
just give us something.
Buccilla: Right.
Swoopes: You know? Like, we absolutely wanna work for it.
And I just wanna end with this.
Greene: Yeah.
Swoopes: It's basketball. Like, I-- I started playing ball when I was seven.
I'm gonna say this without getting emotional.
Greene: You can, you can take all the time you need.
Swoopes: Basketball has, and it continues to change my life, like, every single day.
So when, when I say grateful for what we have, every day
when I wake up, I am grateful for all the opportunities that basketball
has afforded me. You know, to travel the world,
to meet amazing people, to build lifelong friendships
and relationships, because of basketball.
And I say it like that because it's supposed to be fun.
It's not supposed to be stressful.
You know, we're not trying to save someone's life.
That's what's stressful, right? But at the same time, just because
we're grateful and, and we're happy that we're in this space
and we have this opportunity, it doesn't mean
that we don't deserve more. And we also know that we're willing
to work for more. And, and that's from every single player
that is currently playing, every player that has played,
and every player that, that will play. I think it's important
that we not lose sight of what we're trying to do
or what we're trying to achieve. And the story that Dre tells in,
in the film of Nneka and Stewie and J.J., I hope everyone will tune in and watch
because each one of them, they all have their own individual stories,
[MUSIC FADES IN]
and they're all three incredible women who happen to be a part
of 144 amazing women.
Greene: Sheryl, what an honor talking to you. I really appreciate it.
Dre, absolute pleasure and, and wonderful film and, uh,
really, really, really appreciate meeting you both.
Swoopes: Thank you, appreciate your time.
Buccilla: Thank you so much for having us.
Greene, Narrating: The documentary "Shattered Glass" is streaming now on Tubi,
and we will link to it in our show notes.
Hey, I wanna thank you all for listening to these last few episodes.
It has been a real pleasure and honor filling in for Shumita this past month.
There is nothing better than the power of conversation,
and this show showcases that time and time again.
Hope to be back here sometime soon.
Up next in the host seat is Brian Stelter. He's the former chief media correspondent
for CNN, and for his first episode, Brian is talking with Susan Glasser,
Evan Osnos, and Jane Mayer, staff writers at "The New Yorker"
and co-hosts of "The Political Scene" podcast.
This trio is answering the questions that everyone has right now
about the 2024 presidential election.
Brian Stelter: If not Trump, who could the Republican nominee be?
Is there any world where there's gonna be a contested convention
or some other X factor happens on the Republican side?
Jane Mayer: No.
Stelter: Really?
[JANE MAYER LAUGHS]
Susan Glasser: You know…
Stelter: Really?
[SUSAN GLASSER LAUGHS]
Evan Osnos: Well, we've all learned never say never, but no.
Greene, Narrating: Hope you enjoy that next episode, and I really appreciate you listening.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]