UConn and WNBA legend Sue Bird is getting deeper into business with Vox Media, launching a new podcast that will focus on women’s basketball.
The podcast, Bird’s Eye View, will offer an insider take on the WNBA, with its first episode debuting May 16. New episodes will drop on Fridays, and will be available on the major podcast platforms, including Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
The show will include Bird’s observations and analysis, as well as conversations with players, coaches, analysts and others.
“It’s definitely going to be rooted in the game. It’s going to be rooted in the ways in which the conversation that I can have might be different from an analyst or journalist. It’s going to be player to player, in a sense,” Bird tells The Hollywood Reporter. “And I also think there’s going to be parts of the show, pretty much at the top and bottom, where I get to just have my observations. Maybe it’s something I see, maybe it’s something I want to see, maybe it’s something I predict, and then maybe it’s something where I’m checking back in on that prediction.”
Bird, who gained national attention playing for the University of Connecticut Huskies before spending her WNBA career with the Seattle Storm, is no stranger to the podcast space. Bird and her partner, soccer legend Megan Rapinoe, already co-host A Touch More for Vox Media, which covers women’s sports a bit more broadly.
“I think with A Touch More we really got — and I say this in a positive way — thrown into the fire. Doing a weekly pod, it means you’re showing up every week, and you’re preparing yourself every week,” Bird says. “And I’ll be honest, when we first started, we had only really done live shows, and they were kind of these random one offs. So the idea of a weekly podcast had some intimidating factors to it, and now that I’ve done it, it’s not intimidating at all. It’s all about preparation and routine… I think it gave me confidence to add another podcast to my plate.”
And the new show comes as the WNBA continues to surge in popularity with viewers, and with new TV rights deals set to further grow the league and the game, with partners like Amazon, NBC Sports and Disney promising to invest in more coverage.
Bird notes that the WNBA, like the NBA, NFL and other leagues, needs to have a vibrant ecosystem of media surrounding it to drive awareness and engagement, referencing recent comments from NBA commissioner Adam Silver, sho recently argued that negative coverage of the league should be joined by more positive coverage of the game.
“If you look at Adam Silver’s most recent comments — and I agree with him — there’s a lot of times where you just need people to talk about the game so people can have an appreciation,” Bird says. “And that doesn’t mean there isn’t space for critique, but you’ve got to have that balance within the ecosystem.”
Bird thinks that her show will fill that gap.
“I think it just requires somebody who really understands and has that insight to fill that part of the ecosystem, and that’s really where I feel like I can come in,” she says. “That’s where my value is, the understanding, the insight, those are the conversations I want to have.
“If you watch a game, if the casual fan who’s new to the WNBA watches a game, they might not understand what’s happening on the court,” she adds. Maybe they’ve watched other leagues before, maybe they watched men’s basketball before. They might not understand what’s really happening out there, but they’re curious, and they want to know, and now they have a place to come where they can get that.”
“I couldn’t be more excited to build on the momentum from A Touch More, and expand our partnership with Sue to launch Bird’s Eye View,” says Vox Media’s senior VP and GM for audio and video Ray Chao. “As women’s basketball skyrockets in popularity, Bird’s Eye View will meet the moment with the expert analysis, in-depth coverage, and defining conversations that fans are hungry for.”