1976: Why Women's Sports Might Makes Us All Richer with Tess Waresmith

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There's a lot of feeling that women are moving backwards, and there's a lot of things you could say about that are very true.
This is one area where there's a lot of good news, incredible momentum.
As a feminist and somebody wants to make sure that I continue to have my rights, I want to see any way women can make more money. If you really think about it, if this continues to move in the meteoric direction that it is, professional women's sports, it's not just about athletes getting paid more, it's about women in leadership, it's about executive ranks of sports, it's media, it's sponsorships, it's women connecting with C-suite women, women in sports connecting with women in other brands and businesses. This is really something that could more broadly impact it. Welcome to So Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Torabi. We don't talk about sports a lot on this show, if ever, but today we are because this is really a story about money. Right now, women's sports are having a moment, investment is pouring in, media deals are growing, and athletes are finally starting to see bigger paychecks. But this isn't just about what's happening at the professional level. This story is also about what it takes to even get in the game. Youth sports are getting more expensive, access is shrinking, and yet the research shows that girls, especially who play sports, are more likely to become leaders, earn more, and build wealth over time. So the big question for us today is, what does this moment mean for women and our financial future? Today, we're digging into the economics of women's sports, the controversy around athletes like Eileen Gu making bold financial moves, and why this could be one of the most important and overlooked wealth stories right now. My guest is Tess Waresmith. She's an investing educator and former athlete herself, who's been connecting the dots between sports, opportunity, and financial power. Let's get into it.
Tess Waresmith, welcome back to So Money. Thank you so much for having me back. I love being on this podcast. We always have such awesome conversations. We do, and today we're going to pivot a little bit. Normally, we talk about investing when you're on. You're an investing expert. You've helped so many women build wealth and learn how to build wealth. And this is kind of an adjacent topic. We're talking about sports and women and how there's some happy news in this arena. You have an athletic background. You grew up in sports. And as you've been sort of looking at how to continue this conversation around women and wealth, you've been looking at this world of sports. And you kind of like started around the Olympics to kind of identify some ways to have these conversations about wealth, looking at athletes. Eileen Gu, for example, right? She's just a phenom, but also somebody who represents what it means to stand in your power, in your financial power as a female athlete. There's other things going on too in the world of sports. And you're going to tell us about it. It's really exciting, I think, for girls as well, as well as women athletes. But let's start with Eileen Gu, because you actually did a post about her and the decisions that she was making as an athlete. Kind of controversial for some, but I think your POV was the right POV, in my opinion. Thanks.
And it went viral. But tell us a little bit about her move, right? She decided to play for China, made millions doing it, but it was controversial. Why? Yeah. So Eileen Gu is a freestyle skier. She has competed in the past for the United States, but she has direct Chinese heritage. And so in this Olympics, she was competing for China. And a lot of people criticize that decision. Some people criticized the viability, like whether it was fair against Olympic rules. But regardless, that's not really why people were upset, right? People were upset because they felt like she was American, betraying the US and competing for China and really she has this deep, rich connection and heritage to her Chinese heritage. And I also think that she was making a lot of money. She was incredibly successful. She was standing in her power. She was doing interviews and saying exactly what she thought about politics and the world. Now I don't think we should be asking athletes in the first place to answer for politics, right? They are athletes. They are incredible people. They don't need to be politicians too. But of course, we're in this moment where politics is infused in everything. But a lot of people were really angry at her and her comments. And I think a lot of it has to do that she's successful, that she made a choice, that she is making a lot of money. And the point that I made is that regardless of how you feel about which country she chooses to compete for, really important to note that China pays their athletes way better than the United States and the amount of brand deals and sponsorships she has gotten far surpass what she likely would have gotten in the United States. There are Olympic athletes competing for the US that are making less than 15 grand a year. When you medal as an American, you make less than 30 grand a year and then it's taxed. So there's this big money conversation around her decision. But also at the end of the day, really important to understand that athletes train in different countries all the time. So when that post went viral, the amount of comments that were like, she uses American resources, she trains in the US, she should compete for the US, she has dual citizenship, and lots of athletes train in other countries and then end up competing for the country that they want to represent. So I just thought it was interesting and when I really thought about it, I felt like it was controversial because she was a strong woman that was really successful, financially and otherwise. $23 million reportedly in one year. Yeah, and I think if she was a male athlete, would we be so concerned with how much she raked in? No. As though there was some responsibility that she had to the United States as far as how much she should have in her bank account. Yeah, absolutely ridiculous. Everyone was so mad that she's not competing for the US and calling her a traitor. If you think so little of her, are you glad that she's not representing the US? You can't have it both ways. It was super frustrating to me. I had to eventually turn off the comments and stop looking because the point I was trying to make is if you're in this woman's shoes and you have the opportunity to compete for a country that you deeply care about, I don't care what their politics are. Of course, China is very controversial in many ways, but at the end of the day, this is her heritage. This is a part of who she is. And she made this choice that was incredibly smart financially. No one should be punished for that. And if you polled polled people, they would never compete for the US. If someone was like, you're going to make tens of millions of more dollars if you compete for this other country, that would also be OK for her to say yes if that was the only reason. All right, so let's break this down a little bit. The economics of women's sports. So I have two kids who play soccer, and we are hardly in it, like I hear so many other families are. With travel sports, and I'm on a lot of these Facebook groups where at the high school level, parents say, my son just started high school football. But unbeknownst to us, we need to get him training outside of practice so that he can learn football and actually play these games because the coaches aren't actually teaching them how to play football. Like what? So there are all these layers of expenses that parents now have to be accountable for, not to mention all of the expenses for travel, the uniforms, etc. And that's like, just so that they can play.