Plus, Why The WNBA’s Next Contract Negotiation Could Change Women’s Sports Forever |
It’s been an exciting week in ForbesWomen land: Wednesday marked the launch of Forbes’ 2025 list of America’s Most Powerful Women in Sports! In collaboration with our colleagues on the SportsMoney team, this ranking offers a look at the owners, athletes and executives who are making big-money decisions, advocating for better opportunities for female players and overall shaping the future of sports in the U.S.
I don’t want to give too much away before you click on the full list, but what I will say is that you’ll see a mix of names recognizable from watching ESPN along with stories of women who are quietly responsible for billions of dollars worth of betting, merchandise, and ticket sales off the playing field. And among those recognizable names is tennis great Billie Jean King. The 81-year-old advocate and icon came in at No. 23 on the list; she spoke to ForbesWomen reporter (and newsletter pinch hitter) Erin Spencer Sairam about her illustrious career, and I recommend reading the full profile here.
Erin’s profile has loads of great details, but there’s an anecdote that we had to leave on the cutting room floor that we both wanted to share with all of you. I’ll let Erin take it from here:
At the close of the interview, King and I were discussing tennis—King and [wife] Kloss still play three times a week. I told her I played in high school, but wasn’t very good. She stopped me right there.
“You just said the magic words. Women always preface with, ‘I like it, but I’m not very good.’ Men never say that to me. I've had two men in my whole lifetime say they're not very good.” She then asked me what I was good at with tennis, and I told her my accolade wasn’t MVP, but that I ended a season with the team's “most spirited” award. “I think that’s great,” King said, and she seemed to mean every word. “That’s exactly what you did well. Lead with that next time.”
Cheers to that!
Maggie |
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| | Exclusive Forbes Analysis |
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| Caitlin Clark, Sabrina Ionescu and the league’s top players want to be paid like the superstars they are following the highest-rated season in women’s basketball history. Other sports are watching closely. “The W has been around for so long, and they are a fierce collective group,” says Tori Huster, deputy executive director of the NWSL Players Association and the person who helped negotiate two landmark NWSL CBAs, including a 2024 deal. “When we are looking at trying to have solidarity amongst our members, they are a prime example. No matter how many Caitlin Clarks or Breanna Stewarts have made their own name, they do an excellent job of understanding what the collective needs of their members are.” |
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ICYMI: Stories From The Week |
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Speaking of world class athletes… ballerina Misty Copeland made history in 2015 as the American Ballet Theatre’s first African American principal dancer. This week, Copeland returned to the stage for the first time in five years to take her final bow as an ABT dancer—retiring from the company but not from her work in the larger world of dance.
Sanae Takaichi made history Tuesday when she became Japan’s first female prime minister. Despite Takaichi’s historic election, traditional roles for men and women are still the norm in Japan, and the country still has wide gender gaps when it comes to economic opportunities for men and women: According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, Japan ranked a low 118 out of 148 countries.
For more on Takaichi and her rise to power, check out this analysis from geopolitical expert and Forbes contributor Wesley Alexander Hill. He writes, in part, “If an unabashedly conservative, controversial, but nevertheless trailblazing female prime minister of an island nation with a constitutional monarchy who has expressed a penchant for economic liberalization and tactical remilitarization sounds familiar to you, it is because she has explicitly drawn inspiration from the U.K.’s Margaret Thatcher.”
Zarna Garg never set out to be a comedian. She grew up in Bombay, came to the United States as a teenager, became a lawyer and spent 16 years as a stay-at-home mom. “I really thought I was going to be a lady who lunches,” she told ForbesWomen contributor Jane Hanson. The reality is far different from Garg’s imagination: Today Garg has two streaming specials (One in a Billion and Practical People Win), a bestselling memoir (This American Woman) and a touring schedule that includes sharing the stage with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. |
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 | 3. Understand why and how “forced fun” backfires. A new study on teams discovered that almost half of employees say traditional team-building activities make them uncomfortable or feel fake. A better approach is to build exercises that mirror real challenges and respect different working styles. Instead of “escape rooms” and “trust falls,” try some of these ideas. |
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