"There are so many other experiences and types of women whose stories are being ignored."
On addressing the quantity and quality issue within sports media with Jamie Mittelman
Quick note before we get started.
On Saturday, March 8, I’ll be giving the keynote at Our Space in Sport, a free conference dedicated to equipping high school girls and non-binary athletes with the knowledge to thrive both in and out of the athletic space.
This event is for high school athletes and their coaches. Workshop topics this year include: Nutrition, Leadership, Physiology, Mental Skills Training, Advocacy, and Inclusion. The event will be held at Federal Way High School, 30611 16th Ave S, Federal Way, WA 98003
I first connected with Jamie Mittelman in 2020. I was just starting to report my book and I was trying to reach out to a wider range of athletes. A mutual acquaintance connected us, figuring that we had things in common and might be able to help each other out. At the time, Jamie had just started a podcast featuring women athletes and I was trying to reach out to athletes beyond those in the running/endurance/action sports world.
Since then, it’s so fun to watch Jamie grow Flamebearers, her media production company, not only in terms of the type of work they do (podcast, live events, video production) but also how they do their work. There’s a level of thoughtfulness to Jamie’s approach that I don’t often see from other media outlets, especially with the constant drive for producing more and more and more content over the quality and integrity of those stories.
I’ve been wanting to chat with Jamie for some time about the media landscape, the state of women’s sports media, and her approach to storytelling. I’m so glad we finally found a time to talk.
Jamie
I’m Jamie Mittelman. I am the founder of Flamebearers, which is the world's first media production company that specifically tells the stories of our world's best female athletes. We are not a sports reporting platform. We focus on human interest stories, and we tell stories in three main ways—video production, podcast, and live events.
If you look at the sports media landscape as a whole, it's very warped. Sports media is very much a misnomer because 85% of it goes to men. It’s male sports media, not sports media. Of the 15% of media coverage that goes to women, it pretty much goes to a very narrow type of women, usually able-bodied, white, heteronormative women who play normally soccer or basketball.
And that's great. I played soccer growing up and for a little bit in college. But the point is that there are so many other experiences and types of women whose stories are being ignored. The aperture can be broadened so a wider range of women can have their stories told. There's also a quality issue in terms of a lot of women have their stories coopted, their words twisted. Flamebearers tries to address the quality and the quantity issue.
Christine
Where did the idea for Flamebearers first come from?
Jamie
Honestly, this was not the plan. At the time, I was getting my Master's in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and I spent months networking my way to the International Olympic Committee board of directors. I approached them with what I thought was going to be my dream internship position. I very gutsily approached them with a a position that didn't exist, but I said, I think it should exist, and I think I'm the one who should do it for you.
It was essentially around their gender equity work but no one knows about any of this work because it's buried in a report on their website. I told them, let me help tell the world about all the cool athletes that you have supported who are doing incredible things in a format that people will actually consume.
There was initial interest in this position, but the world turned upside-down because COVID happened and the Olympics and the Paralympics were postponed. I still needed a summer internship so I said, I'm going to do this on my own. I thought a podcast would be the perfect format, specifically during the pandemic when people couldn't be together. It allowed people to stay connected in a world that basically had minimal barriers.
I also like to be really transparent that when I was thinking about this work in the beginning, I had not originally included Paralympians. One of my advisors challenged me to think more expansively about who elite women athletes are. This was right after the murder of George Floyd. I'm a white individual and I was having a lot of conversations with other white people about the role of allies and responsibility of allyship.
My advisor said, how can you apply the lessons of George Floyd to ability and disability, and it stopped me dead in my tracks. I was missing a huge part of the athlete population, and this is a group that is significantly underrepresented. If you look at that, 15% of the media pie that goes to women, pretty much all of it goes to able bodied individuals. I took that as a really important learning to before I'd even did a single interview, reframing how I thought about the potential for Flamebears.
Christine
I think that's something that you do well, highlighting the wide spectrum of athletes, including paralympians, athletes from non-western countries. I'm curious, has that been hard? As you’re trying to expand this lens more and get people to think about what it means to be an elite athlete, what’s the reception been like?
Jamie
Selfishly, I love it but to your point, it is very challenging. There's definitely a language barrier, a very practical concern. When conducting interviews with someone like Zahra Nemati of Iran, we need to have a Farsi interpreter on the line with us. Same thing when interviewing in French or Spanish or Italian or Chinese.
We have found that the reception is mixed. In general, our stories on bigger household names, like Sue Bird, perform better. There's more clicks. There's more downloads. There's more comments. What we do, though, is for every household name, like a Sue Bird, we elevate five to six athletes who people may not know about, someone like Ritah Asiimwe from Uganda or Masomah Alizada from Afghanistan.
We believe this is important, because we're trying to show the range of what it means to be a female athlete. Being a female athlete in the United States is great in certain ways and challenging in other ways. And it's not comparing apples to apples when we talk about being a female athlete in Uganda or in Afghanistan. There's no judgment here. We're not saying one is better than the other, but I think it's important for people to realize that the lived experiences are vastly different. I think that there's room enough for everyone at the table. It's not a you have to choose. It's not an either/or, it's rather a yes/and situation.
Christine
How do you approach storytelling? What are you looking for? What's the essence of a Flamebearer story?
Jamie
It's such a good question and something I've given a lot of thought to. It's usually people who center around our values like fearlessness. These could be individuals who unabashedly go towards their goal in spite of cultural or economic or social pressures, or they could be individuals who have been fearless after an injury. It's this idea of inward strength of individuals who have challenges and continue to pick themselves up and go towards their goals. So that's the first thing that we look for.
There's also a level of honesty and transparency. Some of the best conversations we have are with athletes when they're talking about things that they don't necessarily feel super great about. They're not the rah-rah moments or gold medal moments that everyone talks about. They're the time they got something wrong. It's the time where they messed up or they didn't show up for a friend or goofed. What's important or helpful about that is everyone can relate to that whereas very few people can relate to the gold medal moment.
The third thing that we think about is diversity in terms of geography, sport, race, religion, sexuality. The way I think about it is thinking broadly about the world and the range of girls and boys who watch the Olympics and the Paralympics, and trying to make sure that we have a role model who every girl and boy can look up to and say, Yeah, that looks and sounds like me. We want to make sure that future generations have that in a much wider aperture.
Christine
What has that been like to grow this business from a podcast during COVID to now doing live events and video production?
Jamie
It's been really scary and very exciting, simultaneously very daunting. And I would also say lonely. That's something that entrepreneurs don't really talk about. This is a very untraditional path. I look at my classmates from both Dartmouth, where I got my MBA before Harvard, and now Harvard Kennedy School, and my colleagues from the media world before I went back to grad school. Everyone has continued down a very different path, and that's great, but I have had to check those voices inside my head when I have moments of doubt where I think you should just stop doing this. You should just take a quote, unquote normal job.
That has been my biggest hurdle. Yes, there are absolutely, very real external hurdles, like lack of funding or connecting to the decision makers who want to allocate budget or support some of these lesser known athletes. But I think the biggest challenge for me doing this has been getting out of my own way.
Christine
How do you turn that around?
Jamie
I have a whole host of different strategies, many that I learned from the athletes who I’ve interviewed. I have a mantra that I say to myself every morning and every night, and I have it taped to my mirror.
Another one is surrounding myself with people who truly do have my back. I have built a personal board of advisors who challenged me and also very supportive and helpful for me when I have had those doubts. They've also given me some really hard input and feedback at times. It's a form of tough love that I think is really beneficial.
And surrounding yourself with people who have skill sets you don't have, making sure that I have people around me who are really good in areas that I'm weak. That's really challenging because most people, myself included, like to focus on what they’re good at and surround themselves with people who are like them. I found that it's much more beneficial to be very clear about what I'm really bad at, and therefore I need teammates who are really good at it.
Christine
Can we talk a little bit about the project you did with the US Women’s National Team from 1999 aka the 99ers?
Jamie
It came about because Michelle Akers was on that team. She was on the founding 1985 team, the very first US women's national soccer team, and they had largely been ignored. They're not in the US Soccer Hall of Fame. And I was the first one to say this is kind of bullshit. I did a podcast series that, for the first time, told the story of every single player on that team.
Michelle was played on the national team until 2001 and this past summer, the 99ers were honored for the 25th anniversary of the 1999 World Cup win at the Rose Bowl. That’s the iconic event with Brandy Chastain taking her shirt off after the final penalty kick. The 99ers hired Flamebears to provide on the ground media support in the form of social media, videography and content creation. We followed the team to the Today Show, to the New York Stock Exchange, and then the next day to the Olympic send off match with the current USWNT team.
It was really special to be able to bear witness and elevate these women who I grew up idolizing. That was personally very special to be able to do. We actually are in the process of putting together something with that team now, but I can't share more about that at this time.
Christine
When you think about the state of media for women's sports now, what are the opportunities and what do we still need to be doing better?
Jamie
I love that question because I think we can point out the wins and the excitement while continuing to beat the drum for areas that need change. The two can coexist, and I think that we need to do both.
When I started Flamebears, less than 5% of media coverage went to women. We're now at 15% so that's over 10% growth in five years. That's outstanding. The fact that we are only at 15% is pathetic at the same time. So you can say hooray for progress. This progress is not coming fast enough.
One opportunity that has largely democratized opportunity has been social media and NIL. I think it is a double edged sword, though, in certain ways. It has provided the opportunity for women and individuals to monetize and develop personal brands. I've also had quite a few athletes tell me that they just want to play their sport. They just want to compete. For some, it is an extra burden that they have no interest in participating in. So it's great because it can put more dollars into the pockets of the players. At the same time, it is an extra task that some of them feel like they have to do in order to develop their brand.
We're also seeing athletes like Ilona Maher diversify the conversation in terms of what's acceptable for athletes to talk about, which I love. Ilona, I think, was largely the face of the Olympics this past year because she is hilarious and so relatable and really talked about being a beast and brawny and beautiful at the same time, really challenging notions around what being a female athlete looks and sounds like. Then afterward, she went on Dancing with the Stars, really capturing that entire journey and being open about that. The result is we're seeing people think about women athletes differently, and women athletes themselves showcasing all different parts of their lives, which is cool for those who are comfortable doing so.
There's been an incredible opportunity for allyship globally, too. We saw this with countless Olympians actively talking about and tuning in for the Paralympics, which I think is really cool to see and is very new. The fact that Simone Biles is posting about supporting Team USA during the Paralympics. That is not something that used to happen. Or females on one team supporting females on another team around the world. It’s unique and different and exciting.
Christine
What do you think it is that makes women and girls unique as storytellers?
Jamie
I would agree that the way women tell stories and girls tell stories are different. They are incredibly powerful and are grounded largely in connection and relationship, which to me, feels different than how the traditional media portrays the stories of women and girls versus when women themselves are talking about it.
But it’s something I'm still trying to crystallize. I would say that I think it's really important to have women tell their own stories, because there's a different model that is that is surfacing that we haven't previously been privy to.
Christine
What have been some of your favorite interviews or interview moments?
Jamie
This is always so hard for me.
I loved working with Caster Semenya. Caster is a three-time world champion and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and she has just been dragged through the mud and the dirt.
For those who aren't familiar with Caster's story, born a woman, identifies as a woman. Not related to the trans conversation at all, although frequently lumped into that conversation, and this is not a commentary on that either way, but she is has naturally high testosterone levels and has been banned from competing internationally for about the last decade.
And I worked I've worked with Caster for the last four and a half years now, and spoke with her right before her human rights case this past summer,
What has been really interesting to bear witness to is the first time I spoke with her, she was still really hopeful of competing and getting back out there for herself. And I think what has been both tragic and simultaneously beautiful to see is she now is not trying to get back on the world stage. She very much is fighting this case for future generations of women and girls who are born with the same condition that she has, which is just naturally high testosterone levels. She very much views her court case as less about her and more about supporting future generations.
Christine
Everything surrounding her case is just horrible.
Jamie
Absolutely horrible. It just felt so unethical to me that whatever I could do to support her in a time of deep vulnerability and pain, to me, felt like a massive honor. I felt like that I was the one being honored to help give voice to someone who I thought people were just getting it wrong about.
With everything I publish, the athlete has to be 100% okay with. Otherwise, I'm not going to publish it. It's just not worth it to me. I would prefer to have a boring piece that the athlete loves than the most clicked story on the internet that the athlete feels like totally misconstrued story. That, to me, is a trade-off I'm willing to make because I think long term, having those athlete relationships and doing the right thing is what matters.
Links & Things
I admit, I cried when I saw this.
I have listened to this poem more times than I can count over the last few weeks.
This is a great timeline about transphobia in sports, laying out how we got to where we are today. (And a reminder that sports is a civil rights issue.)
So excited that Alison Wade and Sarah Lorge Butler from
have launched a podcast!
Thanks to Jamie for sharing her story and to you for being here. More soon.
Christine
I love this dialog and Jamie is the best at her craft.