Is That T-Shirt Worth $100 Million?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Everybody’s Business

Episode: Is That T-Shirt Worth $100 Million?
Air Date: May 22, 2026
Hosts: Max Chafkin & Stacey Vanek Smith, Bloomberg and iHeartPodcasts

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Overview

This episode dives into three of the week’s most unexpected and revealing business stories:

1. The fast fashion giant Shein’s purchase of the ethical basics brand Everlane
2. The meteoric growth and milestone pay deal of the WNBA
3. The out-of-control ticket prices for the World Cup and a “Super Saver” hack to help fans cope

With contributions from fashion reporter Lauren Sherman and sports writer Megan Greenwell, the discussion explores the collision of business models, ethics, and evolving markets—alongside memorable street interviews and first-person hacks for fans.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Stock Market, Bond Market, and the Economic Chill

• (00:54–04:24)
  • Stacey opens with concerns about the bond market, referencing recent economic indicators (rising oil prices, stagnant job market) amid a booming stock market.
  • Megan Greenwell: “The worry is that the market is not pricing risk properly…betting that this AI trade…that’ll just carry us all through.” (01:32)
  • The bond market is “flashing red,” with the 30-year Treasury yield at levels not seen since 2007. (02:20)
  • Max asks: “Which market should we trust?” — setting up the theme of unpredictable business shifts.

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2. The Everlane–Shein Bombshell: A Tale of Ethics and Fast Fashion

with Lauren Sherman, Fashion Correspondent (05:20–18:34)

Who/What is Everlane?

• Once the darling of “radical transparency” in fashion; known for direct-to-consumer basics with ethical sourcing.
• Lauren Sherman: “Everlane is many things to many people—or actually many things to very few people. That’s why they were sold to Shein… It was essentials, post-modern Gap. The whole thing…built around...‘radical transparency.’” (07:32)

The Shein Acquisition

• Shein—a massive, opaque Chinese fast fashion company—bought Everlane for $100 million.
• The irony: a brand known for ethical, transparent supply chains is now owned by a company with the opposite reputation.

Public Reaction

• Max: “It’s like SeaWorld buying PETA…” (08:25)
• Lauren on Instagram reactions: “Was this an Onion headline?” (09:01)

Why Did Everlane Fail?

• Venture capital poured money into DTC (direct-to-consumer) product brands as if they were tech companies, but physical products take time and trust to build.
• Lauren: “Product takes time. You have to build the trust of the customer…if you want a nice t-shirt…go to Uniqlo. If you don’t care…go to Amazon or Shein.” (13:00)

What Does Shein Get Out of Everlane?

• Access to Western markets and Everlane’s supply chain expertise, as Shein aspires to diversity and eventual IPO.
• Changes in tariffs (“de minimis” law) and Shein’s move to Singapore also play a role.
• Lauren: “They have the money, and why not experiment and see how different consumers consume?” (13:39)

On Fast Fashion Ethics and Consumer Choices

• The line between “ethical” and “fast fashion” is increasingly blurry—Vertically-integrated Zara may produce locally, but is still called fast fashion.
• Lauren: “Anything made or put into the environment is not good for the environment. If you care, shopping secondhand is a good first start.” (16:52)
• Memorable story: Lauren’s search for a luxury sweater, realizing that buying multiple “almost-right” items didn’t satisfy what buying quality did.

Closing Thought:

• “No one enjoys their clothes. Enjoy your clothes…Take pride in it. And I think that’s what’s sort of been lost in the last decade.” – Lauren Sherman (17:40)

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3. WNBA: Record Growth and a Historic Pay Deal

with Megan Greenwell, Sports Writer (21:28–33:57)

The Big Salary Deal

• Players now have a minimum salary of $270,000—higher than last year’s average.
• Salary cap per team jumped from $1.5 million to $7 million.
• For the first time, WNBA players get a revenue share: from 0% to 20%.
• Megan: “The reason the players won this deal was because there was just no denying it is a dramatically bigger business…” (23:09)
• “My favorite stat is that the minimum salary is now more than the average salary was last year.” (22:30)

How Did the Growth Happen?

• The surge predates star Caitlin Clark—NY Liberty’s owner Clara Wu Tsai invested in the team like a “real business,” which boosted attendance and revenues.
• Wu Tsai pushed for improvements like charter flights and professional staff, which eventually became league-wide standards.
• Megan: “When you treat players more like professionals…that kind of has this positive feedback loop.” (27:17)

Negotiation Secret Weapon: Nobel Economist

• WNBA players recruited Harvard Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin to build their case data-driven charts that helped win the revenue share.
• Megan: “I’ve heard multiple players say, we probably don’t get revenue sharing if it’s not for Claudia Goldin.” (26:13)

Tidbit: Accessibility of Women’s Sports

• Max discusses NBA vs. WNBA ticket prices—Liberty games are still relatively affordable for families (approx. $20–$60 for good seats), while NBA playoff tickets can hit four-figures.
• Megan notes the challenge of balancing legacy fans with new, larger audiences as prices rise.

Memorable Moment: A Player’s Joy

• Clip from Courtney Williams, Minnesota Lynx (32:14)
  • “We f*** around to be millionaires, bro. The first millionaires in our families…This is a historical day, bro.”

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4. Super Savers: Hacking World Cup Ticket Madness

with Luke, “Seat Sidekick” Creator (36:44–44:01)

The World Cup Ticket Problem

• Tickets for 2026 FIFA World Cup in the US have soared to thousands of dollars, even for group-stage games.
• Max: “$4,000 for the cheapest ticket…for us to watch a group stage in Missouri. FIFA. How can you get away with these prices?” (37:08)

One Fan’s Hack

• Luke built “Seat Sidekick,” a website scraping FIFA’s resale marketplace and last-minute sales to help fans find and track deals in real-time.
• Luke: “I just wanted to have a better way of being able to see cheapest ticket or tickets in a certain section without…click into every single section. I can just see everything in a list view.” (41:29)
• Site went viral; FIFA allegedly tried to shut it down, but Luke keeps adapting.

Luke’s World Cup Reality

• Despite his tool, Luke overpaid—he bought a $800 ticket that now sells for $500: “That excitement was demolished within, like, seconds…” (40:00)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Everlane/Shein:

  • “It’s like SeaWorld buying PETA.” – Max Chafkin (08:25)
  • “All they could find is Shein—which is going to start buying more Western brands. That’s what I was told this week.” – Lauren Sherman (09:12)
  • “When was the last time you shopped at Everlane?” – Lauren Sherman (10:15, on changing consumer ethics)
  • “If you care…shop secondhand…enjoy your clothes.” – Lauren Sherman (16:52)

• On WNBA Pay Deal:

  • “No matter how low you were drafted as a rookie, nobody is making less than $270,000.” – Megan Greenwell (22:30)
  • “When you start treating things like a serious business…the popularity will naturally increase.” – Megan Greenwell (25:04)
  • “We f*** around to be millionaires, bro. The first millionaires in our families…This is a historical day, bro.” – Courtney Williams, Minnesota Lynx (32:16)

• On World Cup Tickets:

  • “$4,000 for the cheapest ticket…for us to watch a group stage in Missouri.” – Max Chafkin (37:08)
  • “That excitement was demolished within, like, seconds…” – Luke (40:00)
  • “The reason why I built it…was for me personally…to have a better way of seeing the cheapest ticket…” – Luke (41:29)

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Additional Street-Level Insights

• (10:26–12:14): Producer interviews New Yorkers about Everlane/Shein deal.
  • Young consumers acknowledge the ethical issues but admit to still buying fast fashion, often citing the lure of low prices and convenience.
  • “Sometimes I will find myself though on like the TikTok shop buying really cheap...running pants or something.” (11:35)

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Conclusion

This episode captures a week of seismic changes—a beloved “ethical” fashion brand bought by an opaque fast-fashion juggernaut, women athletes finally getting a cut of the booming business they built, and the lengths ordinary fans go to outsmart an often unfair ticket marketplace. The underlying message: business values, consumer expectations, and markets are in flux—and so is the meaning of what we buy, who we root for, and which side of the deal we’re on.

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For story tips or comments, email [e-mail] (As per host mention—04:36, 18:42, 44:10)

Transcript

[Max Shafkin]

Modern enterprise. It's a lot of moving parts. Comcast Business helps orchestrate it all with SD Wan keeping 150 hospital locations connected and zero trust security protecting a bank's 2000 branches. No one does business like Comcast Business, so there's a lot of noise about AI. But time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions, not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off. Deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM,

[Lauren Sherman]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, Radio news.

[Max Shafkin]

Stacey, you have a hot new topic that you wanted to talk about this week.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Well, my hot new topic is neither hot nor new, but it is a, an important topic. It is the bond market, so brace yourself.

[Max Shafkin]

Well, you brought this up a couple days ago when we were meeting and it made me think about the conversation we had last week with Kyla.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, Kyla Scanlon. She was talking about all of the not great economic indicators we've been getting. Oil prices going up, job market kind of stagnant. At the same time, the stock market has been just going gangbusters all year.

[Megan Greenwell]

So I think the worry is that the market is not pricing risk properly. Like it doesn't seem very aware that there's this like very big thing happening that it should have more of a concept around rather than betting that this AI trade which is reliant on the straight of Hormuz being open, that that'll just carry us all through.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, I mean basically Kyla made this point to us that the market isn't necessarily a good sign of our, our countries and economy's health right now.

[Max Shafkin]

Stock market, because the stock market is at record highs now. The bond market though is not doing so well.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, the bond market's been flashing red.

[Chase Business Representative]

Another day, another sell off in the bond market. And although the moves today is not as drastic, the levels that we're seeing

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

are pretty eye popping.

[Max Shafkin]

But if you stay focused on the

[Megan Greenwell]

US treasury market, we're seeing the 30

[Max Shafkin]

year yield hit its highest since 2007. So that's before the great financial crash, the big, big banking crash of 2008.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So oil prices, the job market, AI worries, none of that could quell the stock market, but the bond market finally did it and has been kind of rattling the stock market for the Last week.

[Max Shafkin]

Wait, just back up, though. Yeah, I know. And I think most listeners have a very intuitive sense of what we're talking about. When we're talking about the stock market, those are people. You're buying a little piece of a company. Yeah. Bond prices just tell people what they are. And. Because it gets confusing, because when they go up, that's actually bad. Right. And I have to remind myself of that every time I feel like the

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

reason people talk about the stock market instead of the bond market, even though the bond market is pretty definitively more important than the stock market, it's just that it's so hard to talk about because it gets really confusing really fast. So essentially, the bond market, these are little loans. When you get a bond, you're essentially giving the government a loan, and the government pays you a little interest on that loan.

[Max Shafkin]

Could be a company as well, but often a government.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So this is a loan that you are giving to the US and the, the appeal for you is like, this is a really safe place to put my money. Nothing bad's gonna happen. There aren't that many really safe places to put your money in the world. So governments, companies, they're pouring money into the US Bond market. It's very popular. And for the government, they basically get a bunch of free money because it's seen as so safe and stable. The US does not have to pay a high interest rate, essentially, for these loans. It's like, maybe I'll loan you money.

[Lauren Sherman]

Sure.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I will do you the favor of, of accepting. I will take this money off your hands. You are welcome. Here's a little something. So at the end of 10 years, 30 years, if you lend the U.S. government, say, a thousand bucks, maybe you get back 10, 50 bucks. Like, it's really, really low money, but very safe.

[Max Shafkin]

Traditionally low interest rates, but they are going up. And like, that's what's so interesting because investors are now asking for more return when they loan the U.S. money. And that kind of raises a question, which is what? Which market should we trust? All right, we're going to keep an eye on these shifting markets, and we do want to hear from you listeners. Do you think we should be listening to the bond market or the stock market? Send us an email or voice memo. Everybody'[e-mail] that's everybody's with an [e-mail].

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Speaking of shakeups, we have three stories this week that are all about unexpected shifts. So the first one is Everlane, which is this beloved millennial fashion brand. It has a new owner Shein, the Chinese company that sells clothes and lots and lots of other things.

[Max Shafkin]

Two peas in a pie.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

And what this means for the future of our closets as a whole. We are gonna break this down with fashion reporter Lauren Sherman.

[Max Shafkin]

Yeah. And, Stacey, I've been so excited for this one. The WNBA is back. It is one of the fastest growing sports leagues in the world. They're attracting record attendance numbers, new fans, and is translating to the salaries of the players. Reporter Megan Greenwell has the story. And I spoke to somebody about the unique ways that you can save money while still going to these very, very expensive World cup matches. That is for our brand new Super Savers segment. We've got a packed show. I'm Max Shafkin.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

And I'm Stacey Vanek Smith. And this is everybody's business from Bloomberg Businessweek. So, Max, I know that you are not like, super, super into clothes, but.

[Max Shafkin]

It's harsh, but.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

No, no, not in a bad way. But, you know, I know you've got kids and you're married, and so, like, clothes come up a lot in your life, I'm sure. Do you know about Everlane?

[Max Shafkin]

Yeah, I know about Everlane. Everlane makes kind of drab basics. I would, but. Yes, basics like Mark Zuckerberg. That's how I would define it.

[Lauren Sherman]

Wow.

[Max Shafkin]

That voice you heard is Lauren Sherman, friend of the show, fashion correspondent, and Puck joining us down the line in Paris. Hey, Lauren.

[Lauren Sherman]

Hi, guys. Nice to see you.

[Max Shafkin]

We should note that Lauren broke a huge story. What was it, Lauren, like earlier this week or last week?

[Lauren Sherman]

It was Sunday afternoon, and I was like, guys, I have a scoop that is so goofy. But it was true.

[Max Shafkin]

The goofy scoop was that Everlane, this clothing brand that Stacey and I were talking about that I think I defined badly, is being bought by Shein, which is the big Chinese fast fashion thing that.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes. So, okay, Lauren, how do you define Everlane? And tell us about this scoop? Why is this. Why is this a big deal?

[Lauren Sherman]

Everlane is many things to many people or actually many things to very few people. That's why they were sold to Shein, because no one was buying it. But I'd say it was like. Do you remember that term normcore? It was essentials. It was post modern gap. The whole thing that they kind of built the business around was this idea of, quote unquote, radical transparency. So it was with the rise of venture capital backed direct to consumer brands. It was in that sort of chunk of brands like Warby Parker and Glossier and Outdoor Voices. But I would say that Their big thing was like, we're selling it directly to you to cut out the third party middleman. We're gonna sell it for cheaper than other people would, and we're gonna show you exactly how much money we're making and how much money you're saving. And also, the product looks good.

[Max Shafkin]

I don't know who said it, but. But, you know, somebody's referred to it as. It's like SeaWorld buying PETA or something like that. It's like the company that is the opposite of sort of ethical shopping or whatever.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah. Transparency, ethical sourcing, price breakdown. Yeah.

[Max Shafkin]

Because, I mean, I think the brand promise of Xi' an is like, we made this in a sweatshop.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

This is an 8. No, the promise is like, this is $8.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah.

[Lauren Sherman]

Their supply chain is very opaque, so we don't know where it's being made or if it's being made by humans or robots, which is possible and would actually be better, I think, than the sweatshop scenario. People on my Instagram posts were like, was this an Onion? Is this an Onion headline? And it's true. You know, the founders aren't with the company anymore. Most of the early. I don't think anyone who started out there in the core leadership team is still around. The board is basically all gone. They were owned by private equity firm El Catterton, and they had some debt that needed to be cleared. And El Catterton. I did some reporting in March that El Catterton was willing to put a little more money in if some. Someone else came in and took the debt. All they could find is Shein, which is gonna start buying more Western brands. That's what I was told this week, that they're looking at a bunch of different companies and they were interested in Everlane's very good supply chain. So it's. Yeah, the irony is just crazy. And then you just get so many people on the Internet with these sorts of things who are like, I will never shop at Everlane again. I can't believe this. I'm so disappointed. And sure. But then you're also kind of like, when was the last time you shopped at Everlane?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Lauren, I think you'll be really interested to hear this. We have not heard this yet. We sent a producer of ours out into the streets of New York to

[Max Shafkin]

ask Miles J. Herzenhorn to talk to

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

the people of New York to see what they thought about this. If they knew Everlane, if they knew Shein, and what they thought about this whole deal.

[Max Shafkin]

So Everlane just Got purchased by Shein. Do you have any thoughts on that development?

[Megan Greenwell]

It's not going to be a good thing for the fast fashion industry. I mean a good thing for the fast fashion industry, but not a good thing if we're trying to work towards getting rid of the fast fashion industry. I used to shop on Shein a lot when I was like younger and stuff. But then I realized how bad it was. So yeah, I try not to do it anymore.

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

What do you think of fast fashion?

[Max Shafkin]

I try to avoid it. The problem with fast fashion is that a lot of the materials are made of a lot of plastic. So I notice a degradation of the Adidas tracksuit I bought 10 years ago to the one that I bought last year. It has a lot more polyester in it than it used to be. A lot more cotton. What are your shopping habits? How would you describe them?

[Megan Greenwell]

Probably like I'm like super not into over consumerism so I try not to shop that much. Or if I do, I go to thrift stores. But probably like once or twice a month.

[Max Shafkin]

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I will find myself though on like the tick tock shop buying really

[Megan Greenwell]

cheap like, like running pants or something.

[Max Shafkin]

But I, I do try to because I just don't like ethically I don't find how it's made to be good.

[Megan Greenwell]

I would say I do purchase quite a bit of clothes. Living so close by to Soho also does not help my case. But yeah, I'm a frequent buyer, I would say.

[Max Shafkin]

What's the last item of clothing that you purchased?

[Megan Greenwell]

It was a cardigan from Zara.

[Max Shafkin]

Yeah, so some fast fashion.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Max Shafkin]

Lauren, why do you think that this company that clearly mean something to a lot of people, you know, nonetheless managed to run into all this trouble?

[Lauren Sherman]

Yeah, look, a few things. One is the sort of promise of venture capital for product companies. In the 2010s there was this idea that you could scale a product company the way you scale a tech company and you simply can't. And so pouring a significant amount of money into a startup that a product startup isn't, you really need to sort of build the business and build the brand. Then you can put a bunch of money into it. But like the Row, for instance, the luxury brand owned by the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, they raised at a billion dollar valuation I think last year or the year before. But they, yeah, it's huge. But they make, you know, $400 million a year in sales and that took 20 years to get to that point. Product takes time. You have to build the Trust of the customer. You need them to believe in it. And if you want a nice T shirt in a really good fabric that's made at a good factory, you go to Uniqlo. If you don't care about any of that stuff, you go to Amazon or. Or Shein.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So what is the appeal for Shein? Why would they want to buy Everlane?

[Lauren Sherman]

They are interested in buying Western brands. First of all, they're valued at $100 billion, and they will IPO someday, or they hope to IPO someday. So they need to understand this market better. They need to understand different areas of this market, and to buy Everlane for $100 million and get a peek into their supply chain, which is really good. So I think that's probably why, more than anything, they have the money, and why not experiment and see how different consumers consume?

[Max Shafkin]

But it also, for me, raises the question, like, why? And we heard it on that in. In that sort of bit of tape, people talking about how much they dislike fast fashion and how much they want to not buy fast fashion.

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

This.

[Max Shafkin]

This comes up a lot when we talk about AI too. There are a lot of people who are saying, oh, yeah, I hate AI, right? But then they're. It's not like they're, you know, not using ChatGPT or whatever to write their emails. How do you think about that? Like, everyone hates fast fashion, but it's also this huge business.

[Lauren Sherman]

Yeah, exactly. I think that people don't always realize what they're buying is. Could also be fast fashion. And what is fast fashion? And what does that mean? It just means quick turnaround. Zara, for instance, is totally vertically integrated. A lot of their manufacturing happens near their corporate headquarters in Spain. So is that environmentally, if you're doing localized manufacturing, there's so many things that go into this stuff that it's really hard to measure what is good and what is bad.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

One thing that did occur to me was that I know that Sheehan has been kind of hit with all the changes to tariffs that President Trump put into office. Particularly there was something called the de minimis law, which essentially let you know, very inexpensive imports come into the US for free. And I know Xian and Temu really took advantage of that, and that was really built into their business model, at least as far as their, like, US Business was concerned. Is this possibly a response to that? Does this help them navigate that in any way? Are they.

[Lauren Sherman]

Sheehan is a huge operation. I'm sure they are. One. One thing they've done is they've moved their Headquarters to Singapore. I'm sure that there is many strategic reasons why they moved their headquarters out of China to be based in Singapore. The thing that I found is that the Shein side has been extremely, as they always are, like, extremely opaque about the reasons. All I know is that they're looking for brands, and they are not stopping at Everlane.

[Max Shafkin]

Now, maybe the values of transparency and sustainability are going to go to the Millennial cringe graveyard or whatever, and, And. And we won't have them. But, but for consumers who do care about these things, like, where should they shop? And if it's not Everlane, where is it like? Or what would you, if you're giving advice to a friend about, you know, if you want to bring that spirit of Everlane to 2026, where would you look?

[Lauren Sherman]

Yeah, and I should say, I know I sound cynical about this stuff, because I've just been doing this for so long that I'm always kind of like, you know, anything made or put into the environment is not good for the environment. But look, I think that the thing. If you care, and there are people who really care, I think shopping secondhand is a good first start. I remember there was this sweater that I wanted. This is ten years ago now from the LVMH owned brand Celine. It was this chunky turtleneck sweater. And it was now, in 2026 terms, it would have cost four times the amount because the prices of luxury goods have gotten so high. But it was so expensive. And I thought, I can never buy this. I can never buy this. But you know what I ended up doing? Just buying the same sweater. Like, not knockoffs, less nice knockoffs of a similar sweater ten times and never. It wasn't until I finally just spent the money on the sweater that I was satisfied. You want something new immediately. We're in such a quick Instagram gratification culture. You wouldn't. You wouldn't buy a new couch every week. Like, you spend money on a couch and then you have it for 20 years. And so I think if people thought about clothes like that a little bit more, they would be. Be more satisfied with. With what they wear. Like, no one enjoys their clothes. Enjoy your clothes. Like, maybe if you don't have a lot of money, go to Goodwill and get something tailored, but, like, take pride in it. And I think that's what's sort of been lost in the last decade.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Thank you so much, Lauren. Enjoy. Enjoy Paris.

[Lauren Sherman]

Thank you all so much.

[Max Shafkin]

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[Max Shafkin]

The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across hr, IT and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slashed repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM in the fourth quarter of game three, four seconds, Ionescu will heave and hit and hit Sabrina Unescu with the biggest shot in Liberty history. Stacy, you remember this moment. 2024 Sabrina Unescu Game 3 WNBA Finals Huge moment for the New York Liberty. Our our, our home team. Yeah and I I wanted to play this because the WNBA season is back that it's really exciting. I am going to try to get to a game this year. I actually haven't been yet. There's so much going on here not just with the WNBA but in, in sports in general.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes, there are, I mean women's, especially basketball I feel like is blown up in recent years. I feel like there are all kinds of deals being made. And then earlier was it last year or this year there was like the big salary negotiation which I was very excited about. Where I Think the players got something like a 400% raise?

[Max Shafkin]

Yes. That negotiation happened just a couple months ago, and we wanted to bring in Business Week contributing writer Megan Greenwell to talk both about the pay deal, which, like you said, it was huge, and also just the. The growth of the WNBA and women's sports in general. Megan's also the author of Bad Company. She's a friend of the podcast Friend of the Magazine. Megan, welcome to everybody's business.

[Megan Greenwell]

Thanks for having me, y'.

[Max Shafkin]

All. So just to start, how do you see this. This pay deal that was struck between the WNBA players and. And the league? As Stacy said, when you look at the kind of pay increases, it was pretty substantial.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah, the pay increases are wild. So my favorite stat is that the minimum salary is now than the average salary was last year. So no players, you know, no matter how low you were drafted as a rookie, nobody is making less than $270,000.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

That's pretty good. I mean, it's not professional sports money, really, but it's.

[Megan Greenwell]

It's not professional sports money. But a lot of people have also pointed out that, like, men's professional sports money was not what it is now when they were 30 years in. Right.

[Max Shafkin]

Which is the age of the WNBA.

[Megan Greenwell]

Exactly. And so the growth is, like, starting to get serious. And the reason the players won this deal was because, like, there was just no denying that it is a dramatically bigger business than the last time the contract was struck. Also, the total salary cap for each team rose from 1.5 million to 7 million. So all of a sudden, teams can do a lot more, you know, in terms of, like, how you build out your roster. They're now required to have 12 players, which they weren't before, so you could kind of understaff your team. So it's a really big deal and a huge leap forward. The other thing I'll mention is, even aside from the salaries, for the first time, WNBA players get a revenue share. And that was the thing that they were really, really pushing for, was to say, okay, look, when the revenue grows, it grows because of us, and we want a portion of that. The NBA has about a 50% revenue share. So this is not as much as the WNBA players were asking for, but they went from 0 to 20%.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So how. How did this growth happen from 1 million to 7 million? I mean, these raises are big and I imagine quite overdue. But, like, how did this happen? Was it the popularity that drove this? Was it other things that drove this? How did we get here?

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah, the popularity has really Just skyrocketed. And a lot of the conventional wisdom attributes that to Caitlin Clark, who is, you know, by far the biggest name in the league right now. I push back against that conventional wisdom a little bit because the growth did start before that. So I am a big New York Liberty fan. You saw Liberty games really start to take off a year before Caitlin Clark entered the league.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

When was that?

[Megan Greenwell]

That was in 2023. And then in 2024, the Liberty won the championship. And it was. I mean, the vibes were so good. I profiled Clara Wu Tsai, the owner of The Liberty, for BusinessWeek last year, and she had really made this change where she was treating her team like a business and investing in it like a business in a way that, you know, for Most of the 30 year existence of the league, a lot of the owners were sort of like treating it like a cute little charity project. And it turns out that when you start treating things like a serious business and really marketing them and trying to bring in the biggest stars, the popularity will naturally increase.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

One of my favorite details of this latest round of negotiations was that they got an economist to come help, I guess economist Claudia Goldin, who's a Nobel prize winning economist at Harvard. Can you talk a little bit about that? I mean, they really brought in like, I mean, she has been studying like gender and pay equity for decades.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah, I love this. So the WNBA Players Association, I guess, emailed Claudia golden, who is at Harvard and just said, like, would you, can we hire you as a consultant essentially? And she said, listen, I'll happily work for you. You can't pay me. So she was just doing this like out of passion and out of a belief that they should be paid better. And I've read multiple stories that make really clear that her research was incredibly crucial to getting that revenue sharing agreement because the WNBA did not want to share revenue. And she made all these charts that essentially said, okay, here's how this measures up to other leagues. And basically making the case through data that if you want to be taken seriously as a professional organization, this is what you have to do. And I've heard multiple players say, we probably don't get revenue sharing if it's not for Claudia Golden. So, I mean, it's just. It's just a really delightful story. Part of the story.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

You've said this a couple of times now. You said when you treat something more like a business, then it kind of performs more like a business. And when you treat players more like professionals, like that kind of has this positive feedback Loop, can you talk a little bit about that? Like what does that mean? Treating it more like a business, treating people more like professionals. Like, what is this transformation?

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah. So Clara Wu Tsai, when she came in as the owner of the Liberty. So the Liberty had been owned by James Dolan, still the owner of the

[Max Shafkin]

Knicks, Famous non vindictive billionaire.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yes, exactly. Totally normal, well adjusted person. We love the Knicks. We have questions about James Dolan, but James Dolan did not care at all about the New York Liberty. And so it was just a matter of like when he was going to let go of them. And so Clara Wu Tsai, she and her husband Joseph Tsai, one of the founders of Alibaba, already owned the Brooklyn Nets and owned the majority of of Barclays Center. You know, she takes the most active role in the Liberty even though she and her husband co own the team. And she kind of came in with the assumption that if I pour a ton of money into this business to, you know, at the time she couldn't do anything in terms of raising salaries. Right. Because those were limited by the salary cap. What she could do was create the biggest training staff in the league. They would only have one trainer for an entire team. Charter flights were a huge deal. Clara Wu Tsai really pushed to get everybody on charter airplanes when at the time it was not just that not everybody was taking charter flights, it was that you literally were not allowed to take charter flights. And so you ended up with all of these situations where like people would miss games because their Delta Airlines flight or whatever was delayed. It's just sort of like amateur kind of stuff. And I think, you know, the argument of my piece last year was in some ways, Claire Wu Tsai is actually the most powerful person in the WNBA right now. And I really think the CBA bore that out because it forced every team to treat its players the way she was treating her players.

[Max Shafkin]

You mentioned James Dolan, you mentioned the Knicks. Knicks are in the playoffs right now in New York. Also, the WNB NBA season is just starting. And I've been thinking about this because, you know, I would love to see the Eastern Conference finals in person, but like the cost is going to be prohibitive. Like the average price in Madison Square Garden right now. I haven't looked lately, but it's, it's in the sort of $500 range or something like it, maybe even more.

[Megan Greenwell]

I think it's in the four figures.

[Max Shafkin]

Yeah, yeah, it's huge fees. Yeah. You know, you want to see the Liberty in the next couple of days. You're talking about the get in price being something like 20 bucks to get, like, decent seats, you know, in the kind of $60 range or whatever. We've talked a lot on this podcast about the way that sports in general and, and this has to do with, you know, your world of private equity. They've gotten more expensive, and it's got. It's gotten more expensive to, like, take your family to a major sporting event. Do you think the WNBA has benefited to some extent from that as the fact that like the. The NBA or Major League Baseball or the NFL have just put themselves more and more out of touch in terms of, like, getting into the. The venue and seeing some live sports?

[Megan Greenwell]

There's a tricky transition happening because as the league gets more popular, those prices have to rise. And so I have friends who have been really frustrated because they've been hardcore Liberty fans for years. And now, you know, I have one friend who's a season ticket holder and his season ticket price has increased dramatically in just a couple of years because there is so much more demand. And I went to a couple of like, late season games last year right before the Liberty started in the playoffs, and I think I paid over 100 bucks for, like, sort of mid tier seats, you know, not great seats. So there is this interesting challenge that I think is common to a lot of businesses of how do you prevent yourself from like, alienating those folks who were with you from the very beginning while still bringing in massive new audiences

[Max Shafkin]

just to bring it back full circle? You know, we've been talking about money and ownership and the revenue increase, but, you know, ultimately it's. It is the players, it's. It's the sports that make this sport wonderful and that are bring people in. And our producer, Stacy Wong found a really cool clip of Courtney Williams, who plays for the Minnesota Lynx, talking about this deal. Let's give a listen.

[Megan Greenwell]

Do y' all understand the history that

[Max Shafkin]

just happened today, bro?

[Megan Greenwell]

We f to be millionaires, bro. The first millionaires in our families.

[Lauren Sherman]

The biggest jump in any.

[Max Shafkin]

All the professional sports, all the professional

[Megan Greenwell]

girls, men, boys, women, whatever.

[Lauren Sherman]

This is a historical day, bro.

[Max Shafkin]

Historical turn up.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Oh, I love that.

[Megan Greenwell]

That's so great. I mean, I hadn't heard that clip before, but I mean, she's right. And the players did this. You know, you can talk about the importance of Claire wuai and other figures, but the reason this happened is because the players improved the league so much and had so much fan support on their side, the league didn't have much choice but to give the players a lot of what they were demanding. They didn't get everything, but you know, they should be proud. It is huge. It is absolutely historic.

[Max Shafkin]

Megan, before we go, Liberty 3 and 1 as of this recording. Are they your pick to win win the championship this year?

[Megan Greenwell]

I mean, they're the pick of my heart. I'm going on Monday to see them play the Portland Fire, one of the newest expansion teams. I'm very scared of the Aces. I mean, the Aces are just, they won last year. Asia Wilson is maybe the greatest player of all time. They're looking really, really good except for a disastrous first game. But I'm, I'm going with the Liberty. I feel like Satu Sabali was an incredible ad this off season. So yeah, I'm going. Liberty champions 2026.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

All right, thank you so much, Megan.

[Megan Greenwell]

Thanks for having me.

[Chase Business Representative]

Running a small business takes everything you've got. But with Chase For Business, you're not alone. They bring together local support and a broad range of resources to more than 7 million customers with a deep understanding of your day to day needs. They provide products and guidance built to help you thrive right now. Earn $500 when you open a new Chase Business Complete Checking Account for new Business Checking customers with qualifying Activities offer expires June 18, 2026. Chase business complete Checking has the flexible tools you need to accept payments, make deposits and manage your finances with confidence. Learn [e-mail] PodcastBizOffer Chase make more of what's yours. Fees may apply to Chase Business Complete checking accounts. The $500 offer is available for new business checking accounts with qualifying activities through June 18, 2026. Eligibility and qualification requirements must be met. Additional restrictions may apply. Please speak with a business banker for more information. JPMorgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC Everyone has been there. Your team's feedback is scattered across emails, chats and sticky notes. It's a mess, but PDF spaces in Adobe Acrobat gives you one collaborative workspace to streamline every file and comment. So if you need six departments to finally agree on a proposal, do that with Acrobat. Need to turn a mountain of feedback into one plan of action? Do that with Acrobat. Want to stop searching for files and finally get everyone on the same page? Do that do that do that with Acrobat. Learn [e-mail] do that with Acrobat Support

[Max Shafkin]

for the show comes from public Lately it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades, and others feel less like investing and more like a game, Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth on public. You can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts. Yep. High yield cash. Yes again. They even have direct indexing. Public has modern design, powerful tools and customer support that actually helps go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by Public Holdings Brokerage services by public investing member FINRA SIPC advisory services by public advisors SEC registered advisor crypto services by ZeroHash. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete [e-mail] disclosures Speaking of sports,

[Lauren Sherman]

there is something very disturbing about the FIFA World Cup.

[Megan Greenwell]

They want to say that this is a public transit event. While those are not public transit prices,

[Max Shafkin]

I went to the World cup in Qatar. I spent a thousand dollars on nine games for the price of one game at this World Cup.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I'm not doing that.

[Max Shafkin]

They just dropped the ticket prices for the World cup and La la la,

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

the most expensive ones in the US that's not surprising.

[Max Shafkin]

$4,000 for the cheapest ticket just for us to watch a group stage in Missouri. FIFA. How can you get away with these prices? The American dream. Hey, this is a story I've been following really closely this week, Stacy. And it's the perfect introduction to a brand new segment that we have been working hard on here at everybody's business called Super Savers.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes. This is where we highlight the kind of unique and sometimes extreme lengths that people go through to save money.

[Max Shafkin]

Yeah. And for our first ever Super Saver tm, I'd like to introduce you to Luke. Luke is his first name. He asked for a bit of privacy and I'll just let Luke Luke explain what he's been working on.

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

What I built was a website that is called Seat Sidekick. And what this website does is it pulls data in terms of ticket listings from the FIFA resale marketplace as well as the FIFA last minute sales portal and helps fans view all the tickets that are available to purchase directly from FIFA in one view. And they can track by price, they can sort by different prices by how many seats are available.

[Max Shafkin]

It's basically like it takes all of this World cup data that is very hard to make sense of and make sense of it. So you can create a list of the prices of games in a given city. You can slice and dice this. You get a sense of what Tickets cost, the way I've been using it is that, like, I would like to go to a World cup game, but the prices are crazy high.

[Lauren Sherman]

Right.

[Max Shafkin]

And so high, it's almost discouraging. At the same time, this is a fluid market. Because FIFA is pursuing dynamic pricing and because they started with prices super duper high, like in the thousands of dollars, there's a dynamic where you can kind of wait and see. And right now, the thing that's really interesting, like, as we speak, prices are falling. There are a lot. There's a lot of conversation from fans about potentially empty stadiums. And. And the. Luke's website actually went viral earlier this week because a single game, the price dipped below $100. So what you can do with set certain games or certain regions and get alerts, like, if the price falls below a certain level, then you know, you can go and grab a ticket. So you're not overpaying for a ticket that you don't otherwise need. Luke, what. What was the situation like for ticket buyers? What's it been like?

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

Yeah, it's been quite difficult for myself included. Uh, when I first found out about the World cup coming to the United States, I was extremely excited. I've never been to a World cup game. Soccer is not really huge in this country.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Are you a fan?

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

I am a fan. I am a fan. My team is Poland, but unfortunately, that team did not qualify.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Okay.

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

Sadly. But I was very excited about the World cup coming to the United States. When I first heard that tickets were going on sale, you had to apply for these lotteries to potentially even get a chance to buy tickets. I applied for, I think, like, three, four lotteries that FIFA would be doing to buy tickets. The reason why I originally built the website was I didn't get a chance to win in any of the lotteries, didn't get a chance to get any of the pre sales from Chase or Capital One. So I had to result to the FIFA marketplace when it opened, which is the official resale platform for FIFA. When I first logged into the website, super excited, and that excitement was demolished within like seconds when I realized that the only way to view tickets is by looking on a seat map. You have to, like, zoom into each section of a seat map, click on a specific ticket just to see the price, and you have to zoom out and do that 200 times over again around the whole stadium until you can see a ticket that you'd be comfortable buying.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So you're experiencing all this frustration. You try to, like, get in line to get tickets, you try to go to the secondary marketplace. The prices are crazy. So what was the moment you decided to develop this tool and what is it?

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

Yeah, so I think of what I. The reason why I built it in the first place was for me personally, I just wanted it to have a better way of being able to see cheapest ticket or tickets in a certain section without having to like, click into every single section. I can just see everything in a list view and then I can go and buy directly from FIFA at that point. And primarily, I think I saw on Reddit that people were having the same kind of frustrations that it's. They were complaining about how the user interface for the marketplace was difficult to use. There's no way to like, sort or filter, and they just were asking for something better. And at that point, I already had something figured out, so posted it on Reddit. It kind of exploded from there.

[Max Shafkin]

But, Luke, FIFA's been trying to shut you down, right?

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

Yeah, it seems like. I like to think that this is just part of their regular housekeeping. But the data that I collected comes from directly from the FIFA's own websites, so it's publicly accessible information. But I do think that there is patterns that they see and they can see somebody putting. Pulling data and potentially extracting it and posting it somewhere else. And I do think that at points they have made it very difficult to obtain that data and shut down ways that I usually would extract that data directly from their website. So it's been a little bit of a cat and mouse game.

[Max Shafkin]

Luke, where did this journey end for you? What games are you going to go to? Kind of. What's your personal World cup plan?

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

Yeah, so I originally tried to get tickets to a match in Dallas. This was a potentially a game that Poland could have been in if they qualified for the World Cup. It's a game against Japan. Unfortunately, Poland did not qualify for the World Cup. So it's going to be Japan versus Sweden. I feel like I did overpay substantially based on the market and what the prices are going for on the resale marketplace.

[Max Shafkin]

How much did you overpay by?

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

I think the cheapest ticket right now is like around $500. For that game. I paid like 800.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, well, when I feel like if you're seeing tickets for $11 million, like 800, you're like, well, that's an amount of money that I have had at one point in my life. You know, like, it's like these big, really high prices. Get normalized, Luke.

[Max Shafkin]

Thank you so much for being here.

[Luke (Seat Sidekick Creator)]

Thank you so much.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Our show is produced by Jasmine JT Green, Stacy Wong and Miles J. Herzenhorn. Magnus Henriksen is our supervising producer, Sam Rogich handles engineering and Dave Purcell fact checks. Special thanks to Jeff Muskus, Julia Rubin and Maria Ling. And if you have a minute, please rate and review the show. It means a lot to us. And if you have a story that should be our business, email us@everybody's bloomberg.net that is everybody's with an sloomberg.net and thank you for listening. We will see you next week.

[Max Shafkin]

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