MS. ALEMANY: Hi again, everyone. I’m Jackie Alemany, anchor of the Power Up newsletter at Washington Post.
MR. HAFNER: The indications certainly are there. I mean, we had days last week at Kayak where our search volume was actually up versus 2019, domestically. So, I think the leisure demand certainly is there, particularly for domestic markets.
International leisure, I think will take some time to develop, and the real question, especially with the airline, is what happened [audio distortion].
MS. ALEMANY: Sorry, Steve. I had a little bit of trouble hearing the end of that answer there, but I want to ask you about an announcement that Kayak just made that you guys are going to open a hotel in Miami Beach. Can you talk a little bit about that venture and how you're using technology to shape on-site guest experiences in a post-pandemic world?
MR. HAFNER: Sure, Jackie. We actually opened the hotel April 1st. So, it's been operational now for a little over two months.
It's an interesting question: Why should a flight metasearch company like Kayak be opening hotels? What business do we have in that? And it actually stemmed from an insight that we had as travelers, which is small hotels are great hotels, but they can't really keep up with the big change in terms of technology, so that many of them don't have apps. They have antiquated check-in and check-out procedures, and they lag behind in a lot of the other amenities that big hotels have. So, we thought, well, why can't Kayak solve that problem for them? And what better way to start than by learning the business by operating our own hotel.
It's open. It's in Miami Beach. It's a great hotel experience, first and foremost, but it also features a lot of new technology through the Kayak app.
MS. ALEMANY: That's not where you're Zooming in from right now, is it? I notice the interesting façade behind you.
MR. HAFNER: No, I'm actually in our headquarters in Stanford, Connecticut, and it's inspired by an airline fuselage that we saw in Amsterdam Airport.
MS. ALEMANY: During the pandemic, we saw brick-and-mortar businesses, unfortunately, go out of business and transition to a more digital presence. Kayak obviously has been a digital first business, making a venture now into brick and mortar. Why was this the right moment to make the jump?
MR. HAFNER: You know, it's something we've been thinking about for a couple years, and actually, we accelerated our efforts with COVID. What you saw with the pandemic is a lot of people started using digital not just to shop but also to change their consumer behaviors like going to a restaurant, you now are familiar with scanning a QR code to see the menu and to order from an app and to pay from an app, and the same thing is happening in travel. We thought we could take that expertise that we had in technology and bring it to independent hotels. This is not for the Marriotts and the Hiltons of the world. They've got pretty good apps already. But this is for the independent hotels that are often great places to stay like Kayak Miami Beach that could use a little heft on the technology side.
MS. ALEMANY: And the European Union recently announced that it is going to allow vaccinated Americans to travel in certain parts of Europe this summer, so long as the American has proof of vaccination. Since the U.S. isn't issuing a similar requirement for travel, could you see airlines trending towards requiring vaccination certificates or passports?
MR. HAFNER: Absolutely. I think airlines, first and foremost, want to get demand back and start flying those routes, and anything that gives consumers comfort that they're in a safe operating environment is something the airlines will do on a voluntary basis.
There's a couple of different paths forward on vaccine passports. First off, they're almost all app-based with QR codes that link your test results or your lab results to your vaccination status, and then when you get to the airport, the airline can scan that. And when you get to your destination, the customs or immigration agents can scan that as well. I think it's a great step forward, and there's a couple different standards out there, but they will be adopted.
MS. ALEMANY: I'm actually curious how much of the traffic on Kayak is from domestic Americans who are planning trips overseas versus people using Kayak across the globe in Europe and Central America, for example.
MR. HAFNER: Yeah. The bulk of our business particularly these days is domestic, and if you look at our domestic queries--so that is U.S. travelers staying within our borders--we're only down about 15 percent versus 2019. Some days, we're actually up. International travel, so U.S. folks going outside of the U.S., is still down 45 percent for 2019. It varies quite a bit by destination. You can't really go, get to France right now, although tomorrow you can if you're vaccinated, but you can certainly get anywhere in the Caribbean, and that's where we've seen actually query volumes above 2019 levels for those countries.
MS. ALEMANY: Are you able to tell from the data that you guys have how much of this domestic searching is for business as opposed to leisure and what that breakout is like?
MR. HAFNER: We can't because we don't ask our users to tell us what the purpose of their trip is, but if we look at the travel of query parameters--what's the number of days an advance purchase, how long are you staying for--we can discern what's business travel. So, usually, shorter than seven-day advance purchase and you're staying one night and it's a business destination, that's business travel, and that is down markedly, particularly in the big cities like New York, Chicago, L.A., San Francisco. So, when people are traveling right now, it's primarily for leisure, although since so many people are used to working from remote, I suspect they're doing a little bit of business while they're there as well.
MS. ALEMANY: And new research has come out indicating that people with certain autoimmune conditions, blood disorders, some cancers, and transplant recipients are not creating the antibodies against the virus after being fully vaccinated. This pandemic has really highlighted the importance of considering the safety net of the most vulnerable among us. In light of that, do you think that airlines and airports should still be enforcing social distancing measures like blocking middle seats, keeping masks on for an indefinite period of time, things like that?
MR. HAFNER: I don't, because for the folks who are vaccinated and where they produce antibodies, they're not at risk to fellow travelers. In fact, they're the safest folks you want to be around. I also don't think the airline operating model is sustainable if middle seats aren't available for sale, because fares would just have to rise too much to sustain that.
I do think and hope that some of the good consumer behaviors that we've shown that work during this pandemic like social distancing, like staying home when you're not feeling well, persist because that will protect us not just against COVID-19 but also flu and other contagious diseases.
MS. ALEMANY: And the U.S. is doing okay and Europe is doing relatively well with the vaccine rollout, although we haven't yet hit President Biden's stated goals of the percentage of population that he would like to see vaccinated, but some popular international destinations like Brazil and India are still doing quite poorly. What is your outlook for global air travel, considering the challenges facing these countries in addition to the lower efficacy in some of the international vaccines like the ones China is using?
MR. HAFNER: I think each country is going to have its own domestic challenges for travel, but I think international travel to those countries by vaccinated travelers will probably be the first thing that comes back. If you're a vaccinated American and you need to go to India or Brazil, you can do that safely now without concern for your own personal situation or bringing something back to the U.S. in terms of a variant.
But I'm eager to see the U.S. vaccine supply start getting diverted to other countries that desperately need it because I think we have the logistical tools and operational chops to help those countries in a major way.
MS. ALEMANY: When you became CEO of Kayak, was it ever in your mind that you would have to navigate and lead a company through a pandemic, especially a travel company at that?
MR. HAFNER: No, no. But in my prior life, I also helped to start a company called Orbitz, and just six months into launching that, we had 9/11 happen, which was a big disruption. And then a few years later, we had this Icelandic volcano blow up and halt air travel to Europe. So, we have macro events that tend to occur in travel, particularly since it's a global business in nature. Nothing on the scale of COVID, and I hope we don't see it again. But I'm very proud of the way the good folks at Kayak and OpenTable, my colleagues, have navigated this crisis.
MS. ALEMANY: Did you make any specific hires that are strictly focused on the pandemic and how it might travel across borders through flights and traveling?
MR. HAFNER: Not specific hires. I'd say we had a pretty early window, like a lot of other companies, into how this pandemic might spread, because we do have operations in Asia, and we had had past experience with other viruses like the swine flu and SARS. We knew what a virus could do to our business and the travel demand.
We obviously didn't predict how big this would become, but we saw it in real time unfolding in APAC, and then once it finally got to the U.S., we started saying, "Gosh, we need to rethink our staffing, our overhead, our marketing, et cetera." We were very nimble and quick to make the required changes there, and then we also were very nimble and quick to make the required product changes to help folks who were traveling and also to help people shift from booking flights on Kayak to booking hotels and cars on Kayak.
MS. ALEMANY: As someone who really covered the economic devastating of the pandemic, I'm really curious to ask you about what you saw in your capacity overseeing OpenTable. Early on in the pandemic, you had predicted that 25 percent of restaurants wouldn't survive. According to the National Restaurant Association, 17 percent of U.S. restaurants have permanently closed. What's your outlook for the restaurant industry today as more people are finally dining out again?
MR. HAFNER: Yeah. Most people's line of business, we've actually seen demand come back very strong. So, as our biggest market is New York City, when that reopened last month, restaurants were actually exceeding their 2019 seated diner, particularly not just from the demand inside the restaurant, but a lot of these restaurants added outdoor space. I think there is a natural inclination for people to dine out, particularly when they've been stuck at home for a long time and they want to socialize and see friends and family. The restaurants that did make it through this pandemic are actually stronger than they were before, and OpenTable did our bit as well. We waived our fees the whole--well, the last 12 months. So, I think that helped keep a couple great restaurants in business, and I'm looking forward to our business on that side of the ledger prospering again, probably more quickly than Kayak's.
MS. ALEMANY: How can OpenTable, though support independent restaurant owners who were more likely to go out of business than these bigger conglomerates?
MR. HAFNER: We put in place this COVID information hub that shared best practices for restauranteurs on what they could do to minimize the financial impact of the pandemic; for example, having a discussion with your landlord about your lease payments and see if you can get some forgiveness there, how to pivot to delivery and takeout, how to safely operate outdoor spaces, how to improve your cleanliness procedures. And then, finally--and this is what OpenTable is really known for--is how to get diners into your restaurant and using your services, so use us to the full extent as your marketing partner, too. And that seemed to have worked pretty darn well.
MS. ALEMANY: There has been a lot of reporting recently of the way Americans are reevaluating their quality of life and work. There have been many anecdotes, as I'm sure that have trickled up to you, about how restaurants are trying to feverishly hire as many people as possible and are simply just not getting the applicants. Jobs are available, though. Do you believe that this is a signal that the restaurant industry needs to reevaluate the wages of their workers and to the way workers are treated?
MR. HAFNER: I think that's been an issue that has confronted the restaurant industry for many years, and I think overall, the tough part about it is restaurants are a tough business to operate, and they don't make very much money. So, labor costs are going up, ingredient costs are going up, and then their base rents and overheads are going up too. That doesn't leave them with a lot of wiggle room.
One silver lining from the pandemic, though, I think is restaurants can now see that they can get much more efficient with their staff. Do you really need a host stand, for example, when someone can just use an app to check in? Can they just go to the table themselves? Do you need the same amount of tables per server if someone can actually order from an app and pay from an app? Those efficiencies, I think, will make the staffing crunch and the wages and productivity of workers go up, and I think that should solve what has been a perennial issue for restauranteurs, which is what's the fair way to attract and retain your staff.
MS. ALEMANY: I want to now get back to travel. Prices of airline tickets have gone up again after dipping pretty low during the pandemic due to the lack of travel. What have you seen from a pricing perspective, and how far in advance do you think Americans need to start booking their travel again in order to get more reasonably priced airfare?
MR. HAFNER: Yeah. I mean, there's some deals to be had out there, but there's fewer and fewer of them every day because leisure travel is back. You know, if you're taking a flight to Mexico, which I consider as a leisure market, from the U.S., you're going to have a full flight, and if you're going to Florida or other beach destinations or even mountain destinations, you're going to have a full flight. And when airlines have full flights, they raise fares, and that's happening right now.
I encourage any of your viewers who are considering a trip, even to Europe, by the way, this summer, to book it now if you can.
MS. ALEMANY: Actually, I am in the midst of planning my first, for leisure, international travel trip this summer. Where should I go? Any deals that you think I can get at the moment, specific pockets of the world that are exceptionally cheap?
MR. HAFNER: I mean, it all depends on what you're looking for, but right now, Greece is open for business, and Italy just opened its doors, and both are fabulous destinations in Europe, and both are very reasonably priced, especially Greece.
MS. ALEMANY: Before we wrap up, just one more question. Is Kayak going to start providing guidance for users of the website of how to travel in a healthy way that's sort of cognizant of this post-pandemic world?
MR. HAFNER: Yeah. I mean, again, if you're vaccinated, the science says you're safe to travel and good to go anywhere you'd like to. If you're not vaccinated, then I think you want to pay more attention to what the COVID status is in each of these areas that you may be interested in.
Overall, I thought you were going to a sustainable travel question, which is something we also have a lot of passion for, and we've introduced new tools on Kayak about what's an eco-friendly flight, what's a sustainable destination to go to, and I think that's a trend that will outlive the pandemic once we put that behind us.
MS. ALEMANY: I'm actually going to ask about your sustainability question as well, if there's anything more you want to add about that.
MR. HAFNER: Well, overall, travel is inherently polluting because if you get on an airplane, airplanes are big adders of carbon to the environment. So, what we try to do is try to steer people to shorter flights, direct flights, more fuel-efficient planes, planes that have a higher load factor, the percent of passengers who are on that, so that your overall weighted carbon footprint is smaller, and encourage people, especially within Europe and APAC to use rail.
These are all great options, and I think when people have the data to make better decisions, they do so.
MS. ALEMANY: I have one friend who actually plants a bunch of trees with each flight he takes, although I'm not sure that is eliminating the carbon footprint that he's causing as much as he would like to believe.
Unfortunately, though, Steve, we're out of time today. Thanks so much for joining us.
MR. HAFNER: Thank you, Jackie. Great to see you.
MS. ALEMANY: Stay with us, everyone. We're going to be back very shortly with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert in just a few minutes.
[Video plays]
MS. MESERVE: Hello. I'm Jeanne Meserve. Most of us are emerging from our pandemic cocoons, and many of us are contemplating or undertaking travel, sometimes by air. So, what can be done to ensure that we and those around us remain healthy in a crowded aviation environment? Here with some answers, Dr. Deepak Nath. He is president of Siemens Healthineers Laboratory Diagnostics.
Dr. Nath, great to have you with us. Let me ask you first, what should we as travelers be thinking about and doing?
MR. NATH: Jeanne, it's such a pleasure to be with you today.
As travelers, first of all, we need to be aware that even as some of us are emerging from the cocoon that you referenced, large parts of the world are very much in the throes of this pandemic. There are hotspots all around the world that we need to be aware of. Second, that the access to vaccines are not uniform. There are big parts, large parts of the world where people don't yet have access to vaccines, and kids around the world, particularly under the age of 12, are not yet eligible for vaccines. So, therefore, not everyone has the same level of protection that some of us have. It's important for us all to be aware of those two factors. Second, to respect and follow the guidelines, particularly as we traverse borders, to be aware of local health guidelines and advisories and to respect those; and third, to know our status, whether we have antibodies levels, post-vaccination or post-infection, natural infection, or to know whether we currently are infectious because we are carrying the virus. Those are three things that we as travelers can be mindful of as we emerge from our cocoons, Jeanne.
MS. MESERVE: And what about testing? Airports and airlines are not in the healthcare business, and yet some of them are setting up testing protocols. What can be done to make those as effective as they can possibly be?
MR. NATH: First off, over the course of the last year, airports and airlines in the world have access to a great suite of tests, high-quality, highly reliable and accurate tests, and there's also a range of testing protocols where different testing solutions can be brought to bear. So, we're in a very different place than we were in the early stages of the pandemic.
So, as airlines and airports seek to instill confidence among travelers and also do their part in preventing the spread of this disease, there are a range of testing solutions that they can access to provide the accurate, fast results from tests that they need in order to keep travelers from infections from boarding airplanes and also to instill confidence among the traveling public.
MS. MESERVE: Are there some examples of places where this is being done exceptionally well?
MR. NATH: Yes. In Germany and Japan, for example, airlines or airports have deployed testing protocols to screen incoming, incoming passengers. There are new solutions; for example, laboratory-based antigen tests that offer fast, high throughput, and accurate information about infection status of travelers.
For example, in Germany, a company called Centogene that is a diagnostic company, that uses data-driven insights to provide information about a range of diseases, has gotten into coronavirus or COVID testing in a big way and is able to offer a solution, where travelers coming into an airport are able to get tested and within the course of an hour have their results. And those results are communicated directly to the airlines with the passenger content so that only travelers who are negative or who test negative are able to board airplanes. That's one example of a solution that's been deployed in an airport in Germany that's able to facilitate travel across national borders.
MS. MESERVE: What is the future going to look like? Is testing just going to be part of air travel for the foreseeable future?
MR. NATH: It's important to remember, Jeanne, that we're still very much in the throes of the pandemic. While important advances have been made, as I mentioned earlier, there are parts of the world that are very much in a hotspot, and it's going to take some time before the impact of vaccines are going to be felt on a global scale. So, therefore, for the foreseeable future, we expect testing to be an important solution to enable borders to open, for economies to come back to life again, but with the judicious use of high-quality, reliable tests that are available as part of thoughtful testing protocols, we are able to open up borders. We are able to open up travel again so that people can go back to doing things that they were doing before the pandemic, but it's going to take some time before we go back to a fully normal state. But between now and then, testing will continue to play an important role.
MS. MESERVE: Is it important for travelers to keep in mind that this is being done for their benefit?
MR. NATH: Absolutely, Jeanne. It's important to remember that we all as individuals have a role to play in knowing our status, doing our part in preventing the spread, but also to place our trust in health care authorities around the world as they undertake programs in order to safeguard the lives of the traveling public.
MS. MESERVE: Dr. Deepak Nath, thanks so much for joining us, president of Siemens Healthineers Laboratory Diagnostics.
And I will now hand things back to The Washington Post.
MR. NATH: Thank you.
[Video plays]
MS. ALEMANY: Welcome back if you're just joining us. I'm Jackie Alemany, and I'm delighted to introduce my next guest, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. The WNBA marks its twenty-fifth anniversary this year, and I have the proud distinction of saying that the first ever live sporting event ever I went to was the WNBA Liberty game in New York City. So, Commissioner, welcome so much to the Washington Post Live.
MS. ENGELBERT: Hey, Jackie. It's great to see you. Thank you so much for having me on today.
MS. ALEMANY: Likewise.
After the pandemic, do you see new ways for the WNBA fans to engage outside of television, whether it be VR or other new technologies?
MS. ENGELBERT: Yeah. Well, Jackie, it's so interesting because last year at this time, we were in crisis mode, and one thing I learned over three decades in business is that a crisis tends to accelerate and deepen issues that existed before the crisis, but it's also an opportunity to fix the problem. So, think we used this crisis to have some changes stick and I think some ways to be better, particularly around second screen experience.
As you know, everybody said whenever you go to a sporting event, they're already holding a second screen, let alone at home, and I think we had to be really nimble last year going from millions of fans in our seats to zero. I think before COVID, the industry was just chipping away at the surface of technology and digital fans, and now I think it's going to be a new skill that we all had to get up to speed with. And it really amplified how young fans and digital natives consume content and how much that's drastically changed, like you said, Jackie, whether it's streaming or reliance on digital platforms, but how do you focus on the data behind what our fans want? How can we target to grow our fan base? These are all the things we're looking at.
And last year, we piloted something called "Tap to Cheer" on our app because we said fans still probably want to engage in some way, and we actually had 140 million taps during the season last year. And it was a shortened season during the pandemic, but that was just like, wow, the fans will come and engage on digital and now using that data how to draw fans in and keep them there.
MS. ALEMANY: Did you actually find that WNBA fandom grew over the course of the pandemic when people were looking for an outlet, something to cheer on as everything else came to a standstill?
MS. ENGELBERT: Yeah. So, yes, which again, like I said, during a crisis, our weakness was we didn't have enough fans. We grew our fan base. We're now at 33 million fans total. We grew our social presence, obviously all the great work by the players last year, because we really hit two crises, Jackie, at one time. We hit the pandemic and then a racial justice crisis, and then we got thrown in the middle of the political campaign. So, I mean, think about everything the WNBA players accomplished last year and how important it was for them to have their voices heard.
And I think, you know, some people already knew what the WNBA players stood for, and I think now millions do as a result of there being a lot of people in quarantine in their homes, using their, again, second screen to also engage with content. We had a huge increase, a 68 percent increase in viewership last year, and then this year, we're up 75 percent in the first five games. We're early in our season. We're a May-to-October sport, but really--and the engagement on our social platforms and the players is just through the roof.
MS. ALEMANY: And before we get to the politics aspect of the conversation, you had said in an interview with the host recently that there was a newly formed 25th season advisory council that included iconic players like Lisa Leslie and Rebecca Lobo, and that it was providing great marketing ideas to elevate the league. Can you share some of those ideas and some of the issues that the council has spotted and how the WNBA is working to fix them?
MS. ENGELBERT: Yeah. One of the first things for people who are not following the WNBA, we are in our 25th season, the first women's professional sports league in the U.S. to get to 25 years, by the way, by double any other league. This is a time to capitalize on the momentum of being in the 25th season, and as Jackie just said, we took some icons who were around at the time the league got launched, including Val Ackerman, who was the president in the first season of the WNBA and launched it with David Stern and Rick Welts, Rick Welts who--the Golden State Warriors fame now. He was at the beginning of the WNBA, and then players like Leslie and Lobo and Sheryl Swoopes and Cynthia Cooper and so many others--Fran Harris--that are giving us innovative ideas.
The W25, we're going to have a fan engagement. Fan voting about the 25 greatest players in WNBA history came from that group. They gave us marketing ideas around our 25th anniversary logo, our Commissioner's Cup, which is a new competition we're standing up this year to get the players paid more with a half-million-dollar prize pool, and the 25th greatest moments on WNBA history also came from that group. So, we just continue to really be excited and to actually honor them in a look back in history but also set forth what the future, 25 years going forward, is going to look like.
MS. ALEMANY: Congratulations on hitting this 25th anniversary. But one of my favorite topics, which I think we've really seen an explosion of, is the intersection of social justice issues and sports teams.
The WNBA Players Association has a social justice council that has been raising awareness about issues of racial and gender equity and LGBTQ rights. We saw back in March the stark contrast between the weight rooms provided for the NCAA men's basketball teams versus the women's. What's the WNBA doing this year to keep fans informed about these issues, and what do you hope comes from it?
MS. ENGELBERT: Well, first, I mean, I couldn't be more proud of the players, what I call our "social justice council," which is player-led but league-facilitated, so we do a ton of work surrounding the pillars of the social justice council, which this year--I mean, these players are so smart this year. One of their pillars is health inequities, particularly in communities of color, and a focus on mental health, so really important.
If you think like every week we're seeing now record numbers of fans tuning into women's sports and why, I think because as the fan population wants to engage in very socially conscious and community-minded athletes, women's sports and the WNBA players are where you go find that. I think we're really excited with that momentum, and if you look at the NCAA women's, despite the controversy--and I wrote an opinion piece on that controversy, that it's way beyond the weight room, but that that basketball tournament had 66 percent increase in viewership. We were in the 60s. Women's softball, that's just in their super regional and their college world series, is seeing most viewed games. Women's sports is here to stay. It's growing.
We also see companies seeing the value, and this, Jackie, is the most important part. For those that don't know, Jackie was a college basketball player. They're seeing the value in partnering with women's sports and female athletes, like Breanna Stewart, one of our reigning MVP of the WNBA finals last year, just signed with Puma and will have a signature shoe, and Sabrina Ionescu with Nike. We just had a CarMax commercial that featured Sue Bird with Steph Curry that got a lot of attention and then a State Farm one with Sabrina and Chris Paul, an NBA player. The recognition is long overdue.
There's still a lot of work to do, particularly around how women's sports is valued, but I intend not to rest until that's transformed.
MS. ALEMANY: I think, obviously, it must be a center of your focus to make sure that women are getting the same, are reaping the same rewards and very well-deserved attention as men's players, but I think there was a lot of news coverage and attention devoted to the political efforts of players in the NBA. But we have had our sports reporters write actually a number of stories at the Post about how WNBA players actually, I think, ultimately emerged as even more of leaders in this realm when it came to incurring change, for example, the push to start wearing hoodies and publicly supporting Senate candidate and now Senator Raphael Warnock. How do you think this ultimately has helped, boosted the profile of the WNBA, this social justice and political push that we've seen from players like Sue Bird?
MS. ENGELBERT: Yeah. That's a great question and kind of a great lead-in because the thing I learned--and I've only been in the league close to two years now--is that the WNBA players have always been doing this. It wasn't just because of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and everything that happened last summer. They've always been activists in the social justice area, and they've always done so much work.
The former MVP and WNBA champion Maya Moore--and I wasn't even in the league yet--she took a year off and now a few years off to work on criminal justice reform. We've got Natasha Cloud who's got an amazing platform, Renee Montgomery who just retired from the league and how has taken her platform to become a part owner in one of our teams. If you just think about everything they have worked on and now--like I said, you know, maybe before last year, you know, some people knew about Maya Moore, but now millions know how engaged civically, the Atlanta Dream specifically with new owners there now and how just all the WNBA players like Sue and others and Nneka Ogwumike who is the leaders of the players association. She's the player president on the executive committee, and she's been such a great advocate for civic engagement and was very involved in voting and civic process this past election cycle.
Again, there's probably not a WNBA player that doesn't really get really in their communities and really civically engaged, and it's so impressive, Jackie. It's such an impressive part, and I did not know all this when I came in the league. But I think what's important is they've been doing it for a long time, not just for the last year.
MS. ALEMANY: And I'm not sure if you are going to be able to answer this question, and it's probably something that the social justice council is working on. But the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is currently stalled in the Senate. That's something that your players and NBA players have been lobbying for and in support of. Are there any next steps planned in pushing to get this legislation passed to finally break this stalemate that we're seeing in the Senate?
MS. ENGELBERT: Yeah. I think, as you have seen, again, using their social platforms, the WNBA players have really been advocating for the right answer here. I mean, it's certainly something, whether it's voting rights or access to other legislation as far as advocating. They are there, and as I said, health equity, civic engagement and voting rights, LGBTQ rights, and then on the mental health side, very important. I think all of those are an important part of the social justice council's work.
Again, as I said, it is player-led, league-facilitated, so we are doing a lot of work behind the scenes to help our players. One shoutout went for our Indiana Fever team. They partnered with Anthem, and Indiana University put on a program for WNBA players on the Indiana Fever called "Athlete to Activist" [sic], really because you think about how activist you need to be in today's environment as an athlete. And it was a great program that our players went through, a five-week program with Indiana University, and Anthem helped us sponsor that. It was amazing.
MS. ALEMANY: And a year ago, in an interview with The Post, you had said that your two must-haves to keep the momentum going were competitive season with competitive players. The momentum appears to be a big theme with you and what you're trying to do. How do you want to use this momentum to position the WNBA in the next five years?
MS. ENGELBERT: Yeah. So, Jackie, really important is to--I'm a big studier of sports, and again, the NBA will be in their 100th year in the fall. NFL just had 100 years, and NHL is even longer. So, a big studier of sports in how you look at building household names, building rivalries.
One of the things that emerged in the first half of this season so far is conference rivalries because we introduced this new competitive part of our season called the "Commissioner's Cup," where again players will fight for an additional prize pool. It's really building household names and building rivalries so that you have compelling content that everyone wants to watch, and that's how you draw in fans. That's how you change the economic model. That's how you change the valuation model from today's decades-old looking at metrics that I think are highly, heavily discounted off the men's model. That's what we're trying to disrupt, and it's a big transformation. And we're going to need the whole ecosystem to participate in it. That's why I'm working pretty hard on that because I think we've seen the momentum.
We just signed Google as our newest WNBA changemaker, Amazon Prime Video, first, you know, basketball that they're streaming now. They have a Game of the Week, and they'll do our Commissioner's Cup final. ESPN has been a great partner over so many years and continues to up their game as well with the 25 for 25. A lot to transform, a lot to be disrupted, but we're ready for it, and I think the momentum has never been better.
MS. ALEMANY: How much of that momentum do you think is contingent upon women's players and their achieving parity between men's and women's sports and players?
MS. ENGELBERT: We don't really--I mean, as a league of our size and scale, 12 teams in 12 cities, 144 players, we don't compare ourselves to the men's side. That is not the goal. The goal is to get these players recognized, to get them paid, to give them benefits, to treat them like working women, professional working women that they are. They just happen to be--their craft that their best at right now is sports but also to work on what they're going to do their post-playing career because that's important to me as well, so we're working on internships and other things with companies who are sponsors and even some who are not. I mean, there's so many opportunities, I think, and especially with our league, a diverse league of over 80 percent women of color, and these players are so incredibly intelligent and smart. And I think any company would want to have them.
It's multidimensional. It's a business transformation, and it's really bringing in more marketing partners and certainly more media partners to drive their experience as a player to the next level. And, obviously, whenever you put in new benefits and a new pay structure, you need funding, so that's why we're focused so much on the valuation model as well.
MS. ALEMANY: Would you like to see some more assistance, though, from the NBA in terms of advocacy, partnerships, and support in getting this done? Would that be helpful?
MS. ENGELBERT: Well, a lot of people don’t know this, but the NBA is the reason why we’ve been around for 25 years. They’re huge advocates. They’re hugely supportive. We share some infrastructure, but, you know, I as the commissioner have the ability--work with Adam Silver, but have the ability to run this league and drive this league to higher levels. They’ve been huge advocates, and the players, I mean, look at the orange hoodie and the success of the WNBA orange hoodie. For those that haven’t seen it, you can get it at nike.com or Fanatics, but huge top 10 in the NBA store last year. So, merch is part of the brand and lifts the brand. The reason it got so popular was Kobe Bryant wore it before that awful tragedy with Gigi and those other young basketball players and their families, and then NBA players started wearing it in their bubble last season. And that’s continued with advocates and influencers.
Again, content is king right now, so capturing that content raises the brand, and when they see a Steph Curry or Lebron or KD or Kyrie wearing that WNBA orange hoodie, you know, it becomes a signal and a symbol of advocacy for women, and so we're just a microcosm of the broader world around men as advocates for women, and I think we have a great partner in the NBA and the NBA players in that. And I know many of them are mentored and mentoring cross-leagues, those players, and I couldn't be happier with how all of that is going.
MS. ALEMANY: WNBA finals are going to be held, I believe, in Phoenix, Arizona, later this summer. Arizona is one of the states where Republicans are currently conducting an election audit of the 2020 election, and Governor--Republican Governor Doug Ducey recently signed into law a limiting of the distribution of mail ballots. Would you consider moving the finals out of the state if these restrictions continue?
MS. ENGELBERT: Yeah. Let me clarify. Our WNBA finals will occur in the home markets of the WNBA teams that make it into the finals. There will be two teams that make it. It's the Commissioner's Cup. That is one game that we are scheduled to play in Phoenix. Obviously, we consider voting rights and access to be critical components of justice, and we know there's a lot of work going on. And our players are doing a lot of work. Our social justice council has this as one of their three pillars and continue to be civically engaged in all the states where they're advocating for the preservation of constitutional rights, wherever they may be threatened. We'll continue that fight, but that Commissioner's Cup game is just one game in Phoenix.
By the way, it comes off the Olympic break, and because of health and safety protocols, there's only so many places we can hold that game. It's one game, an important game for building rivalries and paying a half-million-dollar prize pool to the players, but we'll continue to monitor the legislation in various states--it's not just Arizona--in various states as the voting rights and access have been one of the three pillars of our social justice council.
MS. ALEMANY: Thank you for clarifying that. Just to be clear, in the case that the finals take place between two teams in which one of the states is actively implementing more voting restrictions, you would reassess whether or not to host those finals there?
MS. ENGELBERT: Yeah. We would certainly monitor what--again, it's not just voting rights legislation. There's a myriad of legislation in many states going on right now. I think, again, it's a reflection of the divisiveness in the country, and we continue to work with our elected leaders as well as our community leaders on the fight for justice, and so, yeah, we're always monitoring things.
To be a leader in today's environment, whether you're a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a government leader, a sports leader like myself, you're always monitoring these issues, which I think is why it's so important to be impactful in any social justice activities. And our players have been very impactful and want to continue to be impactful in the fight because they're used to fighting for everything that they have advocated for, and so this, absolutely, we would monitor that and make decisions based on those events.
Our finals are in October. So, obviously, we'll be monitoring over the course of the summer, coming off the Olympic break into the WNBA finals.
MS. ALEMANY: That was going to be my next question about the challenging role that you find yourself in trying to balance all of these, at times, competing interests. In your opinion, are these issues of social justice, parity, police reform, et cetera, all of the things that your players are so passionate about and have rallied around--are these all bigger than basketball for you?
MS. ENGELBERT: Yeah. I mean, it's just so interesting. When I was the CEO of Deloitte, I saw this trend of employee activism. We weren't in sports, didn't have that profile, but employee activism over the four or five years towards the end, before I retired from there, and how employees were stepping up with their voice. And they wanted me to speak out on every single issue, and I kind of used to say, you know, if you use your voice on everything, you lose your voice a little bit, so find the things that are important and match your values, and make sure then you have a strategy around how to activate around the advocacy for those things.
It is not easy. I think every CEO in America and globally is struggling with when to use their voice, how to use their voice. I was blessed to have a long 33-year career where I saw a lot of ups and downs as it related to the divisiveness in this country and the crises that we all went through, the financial crisis of '07-'08 and others before that, and then obviously the pandemic and social justice and racial injustice crisis.
So, you know, there's always something to balance, but that's why I think you need to be very strategic about it. It needs to be, in our case, player-led. I used to say we ran a very people-led agenda at Deloitte. Now it's very player-led agenda here and listen. By the way, one thing I learned a lot in our bubble or "wubble," as it was affectionately called last year, is to really listen. Listen to the burden that these women and women of color have taken on in the social justice crisis and make sure that you're supporting them, you're amplifying them, and offer various education sessions. Bring in social justice strategists, because these players are not--so, yes, Jackie, it is bigger than basketball. I think that was part of when we kind of signed on to playing in a bubble last year during the pandemic and the racial justice crisis. I mean, that was part of it is that we're going to support the players in what they're doing, and it's going to be really important to amplify what they're doing. And that's what we will continue to do during this season.
But it's not easy now to be a leader and determine where to find your advocacy, because I do think you have to really look at the impact you can make. And you can't boil the ocean, but you have to be very focused about how you do it.
MS. ALEMANY: That's really insightful advice. I think especially coming on the heels of this conversation that we've seen sparked from someone like Naomi Osaka and about athletes and mental health and what--the span of issues that women are dealing with today.
Unfortunately, we are out of time. Cathy Engelbert, thanks so much for joining us today and for making time for me.
MS. ENGELBERT: Thank you, Jackie. Great to see you again. Take care. Stay safe.
MS. ALEMANY: Please come back and join Washington Post Live tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. My colleague, Geoff Edgers, will interview Irish singer/songwriter Sinéad O'Connor about some of her most memorable pop culture moments detailed in her new memoir, "Rememberings." You're not going to want to miss it.
I'm Jackie Alemany. Thanks so much for watching.
[End recorded session]
