Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Odessa Jenkins Full Interview

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Odessa Jenkins Full Interview · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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1:00
Speaker 1: Sports Service and the AD Council. Welcome to Money Making Conversation.
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Speaker 1: I'm your host Rashan McDonald. I recognize that we all
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Speaker 1: have different definitions for success. For some, it's a sizable paycheck.
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Speaker 1: special one. Thank you for coming on a short ahead
1:45
Speaker 1: of time. I'm about to introducer. My next guest is
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Speaker 1: the co founder and CEO of the Women's National Football
1:51
Speaker 1: Conference the w n f C. The Women's National Football
1:54
Speaker 1: Conference is the groundbreaking organization that exists to create and
1:58
Speaker 1: foster and environment for fee athletes to sustain healthy lifestyles
2:03
Speaker 1: through playing, coaching, and participate in American football at the
2:07
Speaker 1: highest level. Again, at the highest level, the w NFC
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Speaker 1: has over one thousand athletes and coaches across seventeen stage,
2:14
Speaker 1: which makes up twenty teams with thousands of fans. We're
2:17
Speaker 1: gonna turn that into millions. The w n f C
2:20
Speaker 1: was started in twenty and eighteen in order to bring
2:22
Speaker 1: the sport of women's tackle tackle football, not touch, not fluff,
2:26
Speaker 1: not football to the masses. Please welcome to money making
2:30
Speaker 1: conversation to co founder and CEO of Women's National Football Conference,
2:35
Speaker 1: Odessa Odessa Jenkins. Yes, sir, let's just okay. First of all,
2:45
Speaker 1: let's talk. Let's talk about your name first, because I know,
2:48
Speaker 1: I know you have a beautiful name. Oh that's a Jenkin.
2:51
Speaker 1: Wherever you it's out like your uncle calling you, your
2:54
Speaker 1: your daddy calling girl. When did you get the name
3:00
Speaker 1: Odessa Jenkins from? You know? That's my grandmoma's name. Name
3:06
Speaker 1: from the South? I am. I am. I am actually
3:09
Speaker 1: born and raised in Los Angeles, California, but I'm born
3:13
Speaker 1: to a Southern queen and the Southern kid. My mother
3:18
Speaker 1: and father are both from uh. My dad from Palm Bluff, Arkansas,
3:22
Speaker 1: and my mom's from Little Rock. I have a Southern
3:25
Speaker 1: woman's name. My actually, my fool name is o Death
3:29
Speaker 1: a Landale Jenkins. So I'm named after both my paternal
3:33
Speaker 1: and paternal grandmothers. They have big planes for death. Oh yeah,
3:36
Speaker 1: oh yeah, oh yeah, it's beautiful. So so give us
3:39
Speaker 1: a little back. I know your your former athlete and
3:44
Speaker 1: and so, but you know, athletes get a bum wrap
3:47
Speaker 1: sometimes because they just they just people just recognizing for
3:49
Speaker 1: their talent, their physical talent, and we all know that's
3:52
Speaker 1: as a short window, a short window. So you have
3:55
Speaker 1: to plan what the realistic path is for long term
3:59
Speaker 1: financial to test and being at your female sometimes the
4:02
Speaker 1: options are even more limited to try to pursue your dreams.
4:05
Speaker 1: Talk about the athletics side of your life going through
4:08
Speaker 1: high school into college. Sure, um so, as I said,
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Speaker 1: I grew up in south central l A. Sports have
4:15
Speaker 1: always been a tremendous part. I lived in l A
4:20
Speaker 1: fifteen years. Well where do you work to high school?
4:22
Speaker 1: And what you call in south central l A? Just
4:24
Speaker 1: for my listal So, I grew up on ninety nine
4:27
Speaker 1: in San Pedro my family and that was where I
4:30
Speaker 1: was pretty much raised. But my childhood was a watch. Um.
4:35
Speaker 1: I lived in the Jordan Downs, I lived in the
4:38
Speaker 1: Nickinson Project away so my home church, which is still
4:44
Speaker 1: a home church today. Uh is on a hundred and
4:48
Speaker 1: seventh inkl Maya, right in south central l A. So
4:52
Speaker 1: when I say south central after what I mean, Actually
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Speaker 1: my mom worked outside of l A in in Bellflowers,
5:00
Speaker 1: so I actually bust the school with my mom. So
5:03
Speaker 1: after elementary school, when I went to ninety ninth Street Elementary,
5:07
Speaker 1: shoutout to nine nine Street Elementary. My mom busted me
5:10
Speaker 1: to school. So I wrote a bus in the train
5:12
Speaker 1: to school from the seventh grade until I graduated high school.
5:17
Speaker 1: So I never went back to l A Unified after Um,
5:20
Speaker 1: my elementary school. Parks start to become a part of
5:26
Speaker 1: your life, you know, it was it was, it was.
5:29
Speaker 1: It was huge for us because, um, growing up in
5:32
Speaker 1: the city, there was a lot of my family was um,
5:35
Speaker 1: you know, no shame in my game. My family was
5:37
Speaker 1: into a lot of uh you know, the drug trade
5:41
Speaker 1: and a lot of violence, and there were a lot
5:43
Speaker 1: of things, a lot of great people in my family,
5:44
Speaker 1: but there was just a lot of stuff around us,
5:47
Speaker 1: and sports was the one thing that kind of kept
5:49
Speaker 1: us away. So I started becoming known around town as
5:52
Speaker 1: a girl with the ball, whether it was a basketball
5:54
Speaker 1: or football or volleyball or whatever. I just I just
5:57
Speaker 1: always wanted to do something different. Uh it was it
6:00
Speaker 1: was just inside of me to want to compete. I
6:04
Speaker 1: was a competitor, and so I picked up a football.
6:07
Speaker 1: My first sport was football. All the boys and cousins
6:10
Speaker 1: of my family they allowed me to play. As long
6:12
Speaker 1: as you can ball, That's what they always told me.
6:14
Speaker 1: As long as you can ball, now, I will let
6:17
Speaker 1: you play. So I started playing, and I played football
6:19
Speaker 1: up until the eighth grade. And a coach at the
6:22
Speaker 1: time told me like, hey, yo, you're gonna if you
6:25
Speaker 1: want to go to college, and I know you do, um,
6:28
Speaker 1: and you want to get your college pay for it
6:30
Speaker 1: through athletics, you need to play a girl's sport, um,
6:33
Speaker 1: and you need to pick up basketball or something else.
6:36
Speaker 1: And it broke my heart because I was pretty decent
6:38
Speaker 1: football player and I'm small. Were you playing and what
6:42
Speaker 1: kind of speed were you? Right? Sound like the whole time,
6:46
Speaker 1: I don't like people to be bragging pretty pretty pretty
6:49
Speaker 1: decent football player, you know who? It was pretty decent, dope.
6:53
Speaker 1: That's a pretty fat woman. Up in to the eighth grade,
6:56
Speaker 1: I was probably still averaging um, a couple of TVs
6:59
Speaker 1: A game. Probably want a buck fift team the boys.
7:02
Speaker 1: So I was putting up a hundred yards of game.
7:04
Speaker 1: And even up until the eighth grade, UM, there was
7:07
Speaker 1: never I was never interested in playing against boys, so
7:12
Speaker 1: that I know a lot of people grow I was.
7:14
Speaker 1: I always wanted to play against other girls, UM because
7:18
Speaker 1: obviously once you get to the eighth grade, the boys
7:19
Speaker 1: start getting bigger and stronger and faster, and it's like
7:23
Speaker 1: me right and me there, and so I always wanted
7:27
Speaker 1: to play against the girls. But there was just no opportunity.
7:29
Speaker 1: Girls football didn't exist. There was nobody UM that was
7:33
Speaker 1: making that available. So I went on high school, play
7:36
Speaker 1: some basketball, won a couple UM district championships. Now in
7:41
Speaker 1: l A, UM got the l A Times Player of
7:44
Speaker 1: the Year, started to get recruited, and I end up
7:47
Speaker 1: going to be one with a school, a small v
7:49
Speaker 1: once called cal Poly up in Sandwich Be School, California.
7:53
Speaker 1: U yep, start bawling. At the time I went there,
7:56
Speaker 1: we hadn't won anything yet and ended up ended up
7:59
Speaker 1: her me cal Poly into a pretty good program, a
8:02
Speaker 1: pretty good winner out there in the Big West. One
8:04
Speaker 1: of one player of the year a couple of years
8:06
Speaker 1: and had a pretty decent college career, so I was, um,
8:09
Speaker 1: you know, successful, But as soon as I graduated from college,
8:12
Speaker 1: I went to go FID football again. So um, it's
8:16
Speaker 1: always been the thing that I love. I love to compete,
8:19
Speaker 1: and I know you probably talked to a lot of
8:20
Speaker 1: athletes and entrepreneurs, but football is unique. You gotta have
8:24
Speaker 1: a different level of team and compete to want to
8:27
Speaker 1: do this, uh for a long time. So let me
8:29
Speaker 1: tell you about football sport. I could never play by
8:32
Speaker 1: the way, because I see, I can't see. I can't
8:35
Speaker 1: look at somebody who's gonna run at me as fast
8:39
Speaker 1: as I'm running towards them and not there left the right,
8:42
Speaker 1: but they just want to stay dead on. See, that's
8:44
Speaker 1: a different mentality for me because you know what I
8:48
Speaker 1: like to call it. Well, I'll just tell you, boy coward. Okay,
8:51
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you right now. Well, I'm not gonna
8:54
Speaker 1: do That's not gonna get on the football field and
8:57
Speaker 1: know him that food coming at me to hurt me. Yeah,
9:05
Speaker 1: a half ability as a matter of fact, so so so,
9:09
Speaker 1: but before we get into the league, you know, we're
9:11
Speaker 1: right in the midst of a COVID nineteen pandemic. Is
9:14
Speaker 1: affecting all sports. And we saw ESPN basically get shut
9:18
Speaker 1: down basically because they had no sports to cover spots.
9:21
Speaker 1: Fox Sports one as well had no sports. So how
9:25
Speaker 1: has it impacted And give me give me a feel
9:28
Speaker 1: for what what when does the league start? What's that
9:30
Speaker 1: window for what the league is? Yeah, so the league
9:34
Speaker 1: we played the spring, right, we planned the spring. The
9:37
Speaker 1: whole concept was to try and not compete with major
9:42
Speaker 1: men sports, right, Um, So give them in their their
9:46
Speaker 1: their platform that they've turned over the last hundred years
9:49
Speaker 1: and create something for when the NFL fan or they
9:52
Speaker 1: frankly the NBA fan, the MLB fan, whatever sports they're playing,
9:56
Speaker 1: is looking for that next competitive thing. Sort of the
9:58
Speaker 1: same concept that the X OFFLS and the a f
10:01
Speaker 1: L had. Um. But we play April to jump live.
10:05
Speaker 1: So frankly, this last weekend would have been our championship weekend.
10:09
Speaker 1: We've been going into our championship. We canceled our season
10:12
Speaker 1: in February, knowing are anticipating with COVID would do to
10:18
Speaker 1: the world, um, and knowing that we don't own facilities, right,
10:22
Speaker 1: we coordinate with high schools and colleges for our fields
10:25
Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff, and knowing that it would
10:27
Speaker 1: hit us hard. So frankly, if it hit us just
10:30
Speaker 1: as hard as it did everybody else. But one thing
10:32
Speaker 1: that it did do is it helped the world of
10:36
Speaker 1: sports carriers and content providers realize that there's different content
10:40
Speaker 1: out here in sports a k. A. Women's football has
10:42
Speaker 1: some pretty exciting content to provide um if you point
10:47
Speaker 1: your camera headed. So in a lot of cases people
10:50
Speaker 1: said this has been detrimental to their business. In my case,
10:54
Speaker 1: I see it as a come up, as an opportunity,
10:56
Speaker 1: right um, as an opportunity for us to bring our
10:59
Speaker 1: business this to the masses and our sports and the masses.
11:02
Speaker 1: So this has been a win. I don't look at
11:04
Speaker 1: anything as a loss. I look at it all as
11:06
Speaker 1: an opportunity. And this is a major opportunity for us
11:09
Speaker 1: to put the content in this football and for us
11:11
Speaker 1: from folks who wouldn't have normally look well, you know,
11:14
Speaker 1: I tell everybody that you know this whole year my
11:17
Speaker 1: brand money making conversation. I used the pandemic period to
11:22
Speaker 1: catch up. I thought from us, I caught a lot
11:24
Speaker 1: of my competition. The fact that you know they when
11:28
Speaker 1: you when you launch your brand, you kind of behind
11:30
Speaker 1: everybody else. And so if the brand is stalled and
11:34
Speaker 1: you still have a plan to market and brand and
11:37
Speaker 1: promote and get your and and get in front of people,
11:40
Speaker 1: then guess what people take notice because guess what everybody
11:43
Speaker 1: else is stalled and their mind is very curious right
11:46
Speaker 1: now as to what else I can do to to
11:49
Speaker 1: entertain my brain because there's so much available time for
11:52
Speaker 1: me to be. But that's why Netflix blew up, you know,
11:55
Speaker 1: because everybody was sitting at the house. Everybody found Netflix.
11:58
Speaker 1: Netflix stock is like almost earn of dollars because of
12:01
Speaker 1: the fact that people are trying to find information. That's
12:04
Speaker 1: why people watching Korean baseball, they're trying to find information.
12:08
Speaker 1: NASCAR ratings are up because of the fact that people
12:11
Speaker 1: can find information. How are you keeping your brand in
12:15
Speaker 1: the forefront or in front of our eyeballs? Yeah, there's
12:19
Speaker 1: a couple of things. So one I think we went
12:21
Speaker 1: we did one of the smartest things that we could
12:23
Speaker 1: ever do, and that's invest in some real PR, brand aid,
12:27
Speaker 1: marketing and content strategy. So um, we went and we
12:32
Speaker 1: went signed up on this with this organization called ice one,
12:35
Speaker 1: which is an amazing organization that helps women and startups
12:39
Speaker 1: get funding right UM, and so through them we were
12:43
Speaker 1: able to be awarded a grant for helping the world
12:46
Speaker 1: to reimagine sports. So Adidas UM pump some resources and
12:50
Speaker 1: some funding into us and with that we went in
12:54
Speaker 1: higher professional pr which a lot of women and sports
12:57
Speaker 1: don't have. UM. We have a focus on our head
13:01
Speaker 1: of branding and marketing to put more content out on
13:04
Speaker 1: social UM well be we're beating up our website and
13:08
Speaker 1: our web present and making content available to our users
13:12
Speaker 1: to go spread out. So that's those are the two
13:14
Speaker 1: biggest things that we're doing. Beautifying our content so making
13:18
Speaker 1: it more alreadily available, prettier UM. And then we're also
13:23
Speaker 1: investing in others that can go tell our story. But
13:27
Speaker 1: you bring up a great point of being able to
13:29
Speaker 1: catch up because those are things that we would frankly
13:31
Speaker 1: never do UM were it not for COVID nightcing. Absolutely.
13:36
Speaker 1: You know, you know, when you're dealing with marketing, it's
13:38
Speaker 1: all it's all a competition and so and also the
13:41
Speaker 1: bigger level of competition is like everybody has a you know, McDonald's,
13:45
Speaker 1: they have Hamburgers, Burger King has Brand Burgers, five Guys
13:48
Speaker 1: has Hamburgers, and you know tucking for our chicken as
13:51
Speaker 1: chicken Popeyes as chicken, Chick fil A has Chicken. And
13:54
Speaker 1: so when those brands are out there ahead of you,
13:58
Speaker 1: then you have to figure out how do I step
14:00
Speaker 1: parade and clearly define who I am. And so that's
14:02
Speaker 1: why I brought that up. Because of the fact that
14:04
Speaker 1: COVID and eighteen you can't see it as a disaster.
14:07
Speaker 1: This is a setback because we all want to be planned,
14:09
Speaker 1: we all want to be feeling the stands. We all
14:11
Speaker 1: want our brands for more importantly, now you're dealing with
14:16
Speaker 1: the details of death. You know about correct being very
14:20
Speaker 1: meticulous about what exactly the messaging you're trying to tell.
14:24
Speaker 1: What are you talking to you when you when you,
14:26
Speaker 1: when I when I talk like that? What are you
14:27
Speaker 1: telling your team, your marketing team? What's the over the
14:31
Speaker 1: mandate right now? Yeah? The manthdate is alignment right that
14:37
Speaker 1: we are an organization that has a mix of people
14:42
Speaker 1: and content that's about a purpose that everybody's kind of
14:46
Speaker 1: clamoring for. Um. The women in our league are of color.
14:52
Speaker 1: We have the story of adversity and triumph and everything
14:56
Speaker 1: we do. Because women's tackle football players don't get paid
14:59
Speaker 1: to play. So there's this story of triumph and and
15:03
Speaker 1: our adversity that we tell. We are women. Women are
15:08
Speaker 1: the fastest growing sports consumer on the planet. Tackle football
15:12
Speaker 1: will eventually surpass um soccer as the number one of
15:18
Speaker 1: sport on the planet. So the mandate is to go
15:22
Speaker 1: find brands, go find people that want to tell this
15:26
Speaker 1: story that don't know we exist, and align with them,
15:30
Speaker 1: get sticky with them, let them know that there are
15:33
Speaker 1: certain pieces of glue. Whether it be diversity inclusion, whether
15:38
Speaker 1: it be LBTQ communities will, whether it be how to speak,
15:42
Speaker 1: represent and inspire women. We have all of that in
15:45
Speaker 1: one organization that's packaged and ready to go. So that's
15:50
Speaker 1: the story we've been telling you our branding and our
15:52
Speaker 1: PR teams and frankly, we're powerful organization. It's like a
15:56
Speaker 1: group of women that are playing women tackle football. Are
15:59
Speaker 1: you meet to the world. It's a sport that so
16:01
Speaker 1: many people say we couldn't do. That's our story. It's
16:05
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18:00
Speaker 1: E r AI. So right now, what does the twenty
18:04
Speaker 1: one season prepping and look like? Yes, so it's an
18:09
Speaker 1: exciting time we're actually looking at It's what expansion looks
18:13
Speaker 1: like by trying to be smart and not move too fast,
18:16
Speaker 1: but looking at other cities. There are a lot of
18:18
Speaker 1: other cities who want a team, a w NFC team
18:21
Speaker 1: because of what we represent. So that's step one, just
18:25
Speaker 1: evaluating and and doing a market research on what are
18:28
Speaker 1: the right cities for us to bring a team too,
18:30
Speaker 1: because there's might be existing teams out there already. There
18:33
Speaker 1: might be new markets that we need to expand to.
18:35
Speaker 1: So that's that's step one UM. Step two is bringing
18:39
Speaker 1: on investors right working on our investment strategy, who are
18:43
Speaker 1: the kind of people that we want to invest in
18:45
Speaker 1: the business. And step three is our TV deal. So
18:48
Speaker 1: how do we bring UM O T T to a
18:51
Speaker 1: content from an over the air standpoint and a content
18:54
Speaker 1: from over the internet standpoint? So working with which partners
18:58
Speaker 1: we want to partner with UM to bring our content
19:01
Speaker 1: to TV. We have a huge production investment going in.
19:05
Speaker 1: We're gonna have ten games that are going to be
19:08
Speaker 1: professionally produced and trying to find the right medium to
19:12
Speaker 1: put those ten games on. And then last but definitely
19:15
Speaker 1: not least, this partnerships and sponsors. We are lucky enough
19:19
Speaker 1: right now to have an awesome sponsor and Adidas and
19:22
Speaker 1: another awesome sponsor in reddel Sports. We were the first
19:25
Speaker 1: women's tackle football league to be sponsored by either of
19:28
Speaker 1: those global companies. And we're just looking for the next
19:32
Speaker 1: where thel the next Adidas to help take us to
19:34
Speaker 1: the next level. Okay, the word tackle football. Okay, let's
19:38
Speaker 1: talk about that right quick, because you know I know
19:40
Speaker 1: where I can give me some basketball players I know
19:42
Speaker 1: if I had started a baseball league, I could just
19:44
Speaker 1: bring some softball players from college. Okay, they can probably
19:48
Speaker 1: all a little bit smaller, but they can play professional
19:51
Speaker 1: base baseball if I wanted to where do I get
19:54
Speaker 1: my tackling women? Where do I get my women? If
19:58
Speaker 1: I want to start a professional women still on it
20:01
Speaker 1: for everywhere. But frankly, I got you. It's it's a.
20:09
Speaker 1: It's a. It's a. It's one of those if you
20:11
Speaker 1: build this day would come more women than you would
20:13
Speaker 1: ever know want to play football. So what we do.
20:16
Speaker 1: What we do is every team, every team and every
20:20
Speaker 1: city builds a trial, has a trial. So we have
20:22
Speaker 1: like a national tryout day in the w NFC. Um
20:25
Speaker 1: so every year on the same day, are around the
20:28
Speaker 1: same month, and this is going to be in November
20:30
Speaker 1: for this year, all of our teams are going to
20:33
Speaker 1: start marketing trials. Um So we do it on social
20:36
Speaker 1: we do it locally, we do it at gym's, we
20:38
Speaker 1: do we go to high schools, we go to local universities.
20:41
Speaker 1: UM I'm sure you've heard of. Now women's flag football
20:45
Speaker 1: is technically a varsity sport for the first time in
20:48
Speaker 1: the history of the world. So we're working with those
20:51
Speaker 1: schools and n A and the n AI to develop that.
20:54
Speaker 1: We're also working with the Boys and Growth Club to
20:57
Speaker 1: develop a mechanism for building a pipeline that way. But
21:00
Speaker 1: really we just put it out there and women show
21:03
Speaker 1: up from everywhere. We have former w w n b
21:07
Speaker 1: A players in our league for women's professional soccer players
21:11
Speaker 1: softball everywhere. But the way that it works is we
21:14
Speaker 1: generally have a call out for tryouts a private, some
21:18
Speaker 1: private and some public. We usually do some sort of
21:22
Speaker 1: recruiting mechanisms, so every team has a recruiting function where
21:25
Speaker 1: they're working locally to see who are the pro and
21:28
Speaker 1: semi pro female athletes in their city. So between that
21:33
Speaker 1: league wide tryout day and the private and public um
21:37
Speaker 1: city recruiting mechanisms, that's how we get our women. And
21:40
Speaker 1: those trials are usually held at universities are our local
21:43
Speaker 1: high schools. Okay, listen, I'm at your website right now.
21:46
Speaker 1: Fantastic website, by the way, w n FC football dot com.
21:50
Speaker 1: Amazing website. Now let's let's let's talk about the branding
21:54
Speaker 1: and marketing, because you know, when women try to do
21:58
Speaker 1: something athletic in the field of football, we've had a
22:01
Speaker 1: lot of our wonder I won't use your word sexes,
22:03
Speaker 1: but very you know, scatly clad football game, the puff
22:07
Speaker 1: football game, the flag It all led to skippy close
22:11
Speaker 1: and and non tackling sports. Now that is that Is
22:16
Speaker 1: that a competition that you have to that a branding
22:19
Speaker 1: that you have to avoid a deal with this maybe
22:23
Speaker 1: trampling into your approach to create a real football league
22:27
Speaker 1: where women really do tackle, where women really do play.
22:31
Speaker 1: It absolutely is. It's a it's a it's a it's
22:34
Speaker 1: a part of the it's a part of the world
22:35
Speaker 1: right selling sex, particularly sexualizing women and frankly sexualizing women.
22:42
Speaker 1: On your website, you say real women, real football, real football, correct,
22:46
Speaker 1: and so that is a part. Then when you say
22:49
Speaker 1: women's football to most people, they think of lingerie, right
22:53
Speaker 1: because it was, it was on TV, it had sponsors
22:56
Speaker 1: that had those things. But women have been playing a
22:59
Speaker 1: lot in all eleven uh tackle football for seventy years.
23:04
Speaker 1: And the reason that it hasn't broken out like in
23:07
Speaker 1: sixteen months we have done in the w NFC would
23:09
Speaker 1: no other leagues have done. And that's had the ability
23:12
Speaker 1: to get funding and do sponsorships. But it's absolutely in
23:16
Speaker 1: the way we have today. We have other leagues that
23:18
Speaker 1: are selling other things other than the sport and marketing
23:22
Speaker 1: the sport and marketing in different ways. Now, let me
23:24
Speaker 1: tell you, I'm not a fool to it. Like I
23:26
Speaker 1: believe in the beauty of women, and I believe in
23:30
Speaker 1: selling what is all all parts of a woman. But
23:34
Speaker 1: I don't believe that my product at all has to
23:37
Speaker 1: be a sexualized product in order for people to take
23:41
Speaker 1: it seriously. And that's the difference between me and some others. So, yeah,
23:44
Speaker 1: something I gotta fight again. But I'm a fighter. I
23:46
Speaker 1: told you where I was from early at the beginning
23:49
Speaker 1: of yeah, well better, well more Jordan, what if we
23:56
Speaker 1: if we had Yeah, if we have somebody we have
23:59
Speaker 1: that in front of us, We're gonna overcome it, just
24:01
Speaker 1: like everybody else. That's just money making conversation. We talked
24:04
Speaker 1: about the entrepreneur side. We talked about the barconty side,
24:08
Speaker 1: the brandy side, and you have to do your competition
24:10
Speaker 1: order to beat your competition, because that's where we're We're
24:12
Speaker 1: in the winning game. And this interview and when I'm
24:15
Speaker 1: looking at the teams, you have the Pacific Conference of
24:17
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Conference. Now I know I'm from Houston, Texas,
24:21
Speaker 1: and I know Texas is big. Now you've got two teams,
24:23
Speaker 1: the Houston Heat and the Texas Elite Spartans. Now I'm
24:28
Speaker 1: assuming to Houston Heat is in Houston, Texas. Where's the
24:31
Speaker 1: Texas and Eatue Spartans located? Where are they located? There?
24:34
Speaker 1: They are located in Dallas. Okay, So it's another rival
24:38
Speaker 1: between big d in h towns. Yes, I like that.
24:42
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that. I like that. Yeah,
24:44
Speaker 1: the technically Spartans I actually, um, I own that team.
24:48
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm talking to Jerry Town. I'm talking to
24:51
Speaker 1: Jen Are Yeah you are you are? We The technically
24:55
Speaker 1: Spartans are the defending champion of the w NFC. Oh
25:00
Speaker 1: how conveyan the founder? Yeah that she owned wins. It's cold, um,
25:11
Speaker 1: but yeah, that team, that team is a is a
25:14
Speaker 1: chim and women's football. That team is hasn't lost the game,
25:17
Speaker 1: has been every top team in the country and there
25:23
Speaker 1: they set They set the trend in women's tackle football.
25:26
Speaker 1: So yeah, pretty good team. Now are you scaring those
25:31
Speaker 1: players up? There? Come the owner? You know, y'all better
25:32
Speaker 1: get back and ship you know from from Nickerson, she
25:39
Speaker 1: can hurt you'll congratulations, congratulations, and so and so I
25:47
Speaker 1: leave with love, I leave, you leave, you leave a
25:51
Speaker 1: little loving, might talk a little hurt, but you go.
25:53
Speaker 1: You get your point across. I'thing that right now. You
25:56
Speaker 1: better let them know absolutely. So when when sponsors coming
25:59
Speaker 1: too a brand, what are they expecting? Because you know,
26:02
Speaker 1: we all know that you need financial support, no bi no,
26:05
Speaker 1: you know, no no league can exist, even the NFL,
26:08
Speaker 1: they don't have financials aboard they last. So what does
26:11
Speaker 1: the sponsor expect from you when they sponsor your brand?
26:16
Speaker 1: And they usually they usually expect us to amplify a
26:22
Speaker 1: story or amplify a cause or a message, the same
26:26
Speaker 1: way that they do with other leagues. Right, it's like, um,
26:29
Speaker 1: we want you to put our brand in front of women.
26:32
Speaker 1: We want you to put our brand in front of
26:35
Speaker 1: a certain audience that either we're not in front of
26:38
Speaker 1: today or that we want to continue to be in
26:40
Speaker 1: front of. So usually our pitch is that we are
26:45
Speaker 1: women in sport, we are women in fitness, and we
26:47
Speaker 1: are diverse. We are women of color, and we are
26:50
Speaker 1: women of l g B t Q backgrounds in a
26:52
Speaker 1: lot of cases, but we're mothers, were sisters, were consumers.
26:56
Speaker 1: So the thing that brands really love about us is
26:59
Speaker 1: that we can be flexible. Right, there's a lot of
27:02
Speaker 1: us were in um you know, seventeen cities were national.
27:06
Speaker 1: That's always good. And then usually what's unique about a
27:10
Speaker 1: football team that isn't that you don't find in a
27:13
Speaker 1: lot of other women's sports is that football players cannot
27:17
Speaker 1: look the same if your team wants to be successful, right,
27:21
Speaker 1: so every football if every football player was five ft
27:26
Speaker 1: seven a hundred and fifty pounds, your team's gonna get
27:29
Speaker 1: the tailwhoof right, exactly exactly, So our sport is super
27:39
Speaker 1: super unique and that women have to be from completely
27:43
Speaker 1: different backgrounds um, socio economically, they have to look different.
27:47
Speaker 1: There's some women that are big, there's some women are small.
27:50
Speaker 1: So really we really do, in one sport have the
27:54
Speaker 1: total eclectic story of all women that we can tell.
27:57
Speaker 1: We can tell the story of big women, little women,
28:00
Speaker 1: short women, dog women, light women. And so it's a
28:03
Speaker 1: really unique place that our sponsors find as a gold
28:06
Speaker 1: mine when it comes to content. Awesome, I love it.
28:09
Speaker 1: I love it now. The reason I'll teach you earlier
28:11
Speaker 1: about being the owner and undefeated and uh the champion,
28:16
Speaker 1: UM you came through the Bill Waller's NFL Diversity Coaching
28:18
Speaker 1: Fellowship program. Correct, and you also want the intern coach
28:21
Speaker 1: with the Atlanta Falcons. So so you've you've been u
28:25
Speaker 1: as they say, coached up and the professional men's sports.
28:28
Speaker 1: How did that help you? And you know with the
28:31
Speaker 1: with the Women's National Football League it was huge, um.
28:35
Speaker 1: You know, actually it was with the Falcons right before
28:38
Speaker 1: I started up that started to UM source a partner
28:42
Speaker 1: and investment for the w NFC. So being um, you know,
28:46
Speaker 1: Scott Poey, who was the general manager at the time
28:49
Speaker 1: of the Atlanta Falcons, was a is a mentor of mine.
28:53
Speaker 1: And there's a huge influence of mind UM and coach
28:57
Speaker 1: Quinn and all of those guys in the Atlantic. Yeah,
29:00
Speaker 1: they they are. They are exceptional men, but also exceptional
29:04
Speaker 1: leaders and businessmen. And so I really learned a lot
29:08
Speaker 1: from being in the room, UM and being in that
29:11
Speaker 1: organization about how to organize the sports business, what kind
29:15
Speaker 1: of people you need to put around the business, um.
29:17
Speaker 1: Because whether it was from coaches like Raheem Morris sitting
29:20
Speaker 1: down with me and teaching me the game, or whether
29:23
Speaker 1: it was first you know, yeah, that's a bad man Um,
29:27
Speaker 1: but the players, the players had a great deal of
29:30
Speaker 1: respect for me, Um, DeVante Freeman, all those guys, and
29:34
Speaker 1: they they actually set me down and start and talk
29:36
Speaker 1: to me, and I talked to them about the business
29:38
Speaker 1: of the sports. So it was a huge influencer to me. Um.
29:43
Speaker 1: Now my passion is women in sports. But they were
29:47
Speaker 1: all able to give me some some great building blocks
29:50
Speaker 1: on what I should do when I built out the
29:53
Speaker 1: w NFC. And the best advice that they gave me
29:55
Speaker 1: was not making don't make promises that you can't keep,
29:59
Speaker 1: and build it from the base. Well, you're fantastic. I'm
30:04
Speaker 1: talking to the co founder and uh co owner and
30:08
Speaker 1: coach of a team. She's managed by all female leadership
30:11
Speaker 1: brain trust over there at the w NFC. It features
30:14
Speaker 1: twenty teams playing a ten weeks spring session, you know,
30:18
Speaker 1: broadcast on national television. Her team, she's the owner. She's
30:21
Speaker 1: like the Jerry Jones because her teams based in Dalar.
30:24
Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking to, the black female Jerry Jones
30:27
Speaker 1: right now. I want to thank you for coming on
30:29
Speaker 1: my show. You're fantastic. I love your energy, you know
30:32
Speaker 1: your ability to be able to pivot and understand that Uh,
30:36
Speaker 1: you know, COVID eight team is not everybody. Disappointment is
30:39
Speaker 1: not gonna destroy me and a much success when when
30:42
Speaker 1: you when you when you get the league back up
30:44
Speaker 1: and running, please come back up. If you want to
30:46
Speaker 1: bring a player on with you. I want to support you. One.
30:49
Speaker 1: I got almost a million social media followers. Eight percent
30:52
Speaker 1: of my followers are female. By the way, I want
30:54
Speaker 1: to let you know. Okay, and now and so that's
30:58
Speaker 1: why I wanted to bring you on the show. Now
30:59
Speaker 1: you you coming to the right man. Okay, I got
31:02
Speaker 1: the lady, I got the ladies. Okay, everybody's got the
31:06
Speaker 1: ladies definitely. Well that's all, Dickens. I wanna thank you
31:11
Speaker 1: for coming on my show. Okay, thank you so much
31:14
Speaker 1: for having me. And I'm honored that you tell us story.
31:16
Speaker 1: And for all the women out there, go do what
31:18
Speaker 1: you do. I hope that this uh message of a woman,
31:20
Speaker 1: a black woman in football is helping you realize and
31:24
Speaker 1: inspire you to go do something that somebody said you couldn't.
31:26
Speaker 1: Go get it. Go get a girl. Alrighty, I'll talked
31:29
Speaker 1: to you later and be in touch with me. Okay,
31:31
Speaker 1: since some banners anything you want me to promote I
31:33
Speaker 1: support you on my social media. Okay, I sure will,
31:36
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Thank you very much. If you
31:38
Speaker 1: want to hear more interviews about that very record for
31:41
Speaker 1: money making conversations, please go to money Making Conversation dot com.
31:44
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