Entrepreneurial Appetite

Expanding Horizons: Fran Harris on bringing a WNBA team to Austin, TX

• Fran Harris • Season 5 • Episode 53

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Discover the remarkable journey of basketball trailblazer Fran Harris, as she shares her inspiring story from her Dallas roots to becoming a WNBA champion. Fran opens up about her experiences at the University of Texas and with the Houston Comets during the WNBA's inaugural season. She shines a light on the transformative power of media and social platforms in elevating women's basketball and creating vibrant opportunities for the league's expansion. Join us as we learn from Fran's journey and her vision for the future of WNBA.

Explore the thrilling potential of the WNBA's expansion to Austin, Texas, a city brimming with economic strength and enthusiasm for women's sports. We'll delve into the league's dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion, particularly its commitment to uplifting Black women and the LGBTQ+ community. We tackle the challenges that accompany progress and discuss the pivotal role of the WNBA Players Association in ensuring fair compensation for athletes who excel at the highest level.

Lastly, embrace the empowering fusion of sports and entrepreneurship. We delve into the myriad of opportunities for student athletes to forge successful business paths beyond the court. The episode emphasizes the importance of mentorship and experiential learning, encouraging athletes to step out of their comfort zones. With dynamic cities like Austin offering robust platforms, there's never been a better time for athletes to harness their personal brands for entrepreneurial success and seize the exciting prospects that lie ahead.

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Langston Clark:

What's good everyone. Welcome to the African Americans in Sport podcast, a unique podcasting format where each episode is a lesson and each season is a semester where we detail the diverse experiences of African Americans in sport. What's up everybody. This is Langston Clark, co-host of the African Americans in Sport pod class, where we feature guests and former student athletes and folks who have had some type of experience as an African American or can speak to African American experience of sport. And today we have a wonderful opportunity to talk to somebody who has had a range of different experiences Fran Harris, who has been a WNBA champion, ncaa champion, she can swim with sharks and she is an entrepreneur, and she's here to talk about her opportunity to bring a WNBA franchise to the great city of Austin, texas.

Langston Clark:

And I'm also proud to say that I have a special guest host, my doctoral student, ms Brianna Dubose, who herself is a former intercollegiate basketball player at VCU and American University, and she is studying the intersection of Black student athletes and entrepreneurship, so it is great to have her here to be part of this conversation. So, fran, you've previously been on the pod class and you've talked about your history as a student athlete and your transition to entrepreneurship. Just real quick refresh us on your academic and sports career and your evolution as an entrepreneur and how it's carried you to the current moment and the current opportunity to be someone who's the centerpiece of potentially bringing a WNBA franchise to Austin Texas.

Fran Harris :

Yeah, thanks for having me on. Good to see you again and great to be talking about a topic that I've been speaking about for the last year and a half nonstop. I grew up in Dallas, texas. I came from a hoop family. My brothers played basketball.

Fran Harris :

I started playing when I was 15 and fortunately was able to get a scholarship to the University of Texas where I think in my four years in Texas we lost nine games and finished my senior season as a 34 and 0 national champion. There was no NIL back in those days. There was no WNBA. So when I graduated I went to play overseas in Italy and Switzerland and fortunately was young enough to still be in good enough shape to play in the WNBA when it started in 1997. I was also fortunate to be on the first championship team.

Fran Harris :

So that year my great fortune just continued because in 97, the Houston Comets was the championship team that year. They went on to win four. I played on the first one, played one more season in the WNBA with the Utah Stars and then I went into broadcasting for the WNBA, and so I've been literally rolling with the W from day one and still to this day I'm an announcer in the WNBA. This probably is my 16th season of calling games for some franchise in the WNBA, so I've been there from the beginning.

Briana Dubose:

So, fran, thanks again for being here. We're excited to talk a little bit more about this exponential growth that we've seen in the WNBA over the last couple of years. We aren't just going to chalk it up to the last year. We know that this has been like a steady incline over the last five to 10 years and so there's a lot of buzz kind of going on around the league. Can you talk a little bit about the current state of women's basketball in terms of popularity growth and like why is this such a great moment for expansion?

Fran Harris :

Well, a lot, a lot in that question, and the first one has to do with the, the explosive growth, growth of the WNBA and, as I've said, in many shows like basketball, women's basketball been litty, like, it's been all that, but what hasn't been there are the eyeballs that social media brings, that the media being on four or five networks during the season brings the enhanced media attention from online and print media that has grown over the last, you know, 20 or 30 years.

Fran Harris :

But what has happened in college women's basketball is that that audience has become more viral, that audience has become more rabid, if you will, and that has created this, this windstorm of support for women's basketball that is honestly carried over to the WNBA because those stars have left college and gone to the W. So it's been the best cocktail for growing a business. You know the WNBA is a business and so the perfect cocktail is always media attention, social media, players leading their own brands being their own microphones, not being kind of filtered through their media relations department. So it's been more of a democracy when it comes to access to athletes now, and that's what's made the growth so exciting and explosive.

Briana Dubose:

Absolutely. Can you speak a little bit about, while the WNBA is growing, there's also you know we're in an era where there's a lot of talk against DEI policies and implications, but simultaneously the WNBA is growing. This Women's Basketball League is growing exponentially. It's always been on the forefront of, you know, great social causes and inclusivity and all this really cool stuff. So what are your thoughts on that?

Fran Harris :

thoughts on that. I love where the WNBA is and I can't love what's happening on the good side and not also be grateful for what's happening on the shadow side. And that's what we're seeing a lot of hatred online. We're seeing a lot of vitriol online. We're seeing a lot of just, you know, just nonsense for the most part, but for me, that tells me that we're doing something right, and that rightness for me is elevating black women.

Fran Harris :

The League is 70% 80% African-American women. There is an LGBTQ plus community. That's a big part of it, and people are taking note of the fact that these women are doing it, and doing it at a very high level, and that's going to bring some naysayers and the naysayers, by the way, have always been there, but they, too, have a bigger platform. So I think what we have to do as a community W community is to not amplify the voices of the people who are hating us more than we amplify the voices of people who are loving us, and so they are going to be there. They're never going away.

Fran Harris :

But, number one, the league needs to put some safety things in place to make sure that these things don't get out of hand, and, whether that's online or whether that's offline safety. Those things have to be first and foremost. And then the second thing is again, we can't pay too much attention to people who are saying what we are not, because we know what we are. And what the W has done has defied what most people thought women's sports would ever do, let alone do it in like two years. What they've done to elevate this game has been absolutely remarkable, and the media rights deal is about to show them that their increase in pay is about to show them that an expansion is another big piece of that puzzle as well.

Briana Dubose:

Absolutely. You hit it on the nail. You cannot deny what the product is and the product of the incredible basketball played. Okay, so just to pivot a little bit, you know you have some deep roots in Texas. You know foundationally right. So what is it like, what is the feeling like of being tabbed to bring austin and wmba team and like why is austin the right city for wmba team?

Fran Harris :

why is austin the right city? Great question. And it is very simply that austin is the only city that is w ready, and when I say that I mean they've got the built-in audience. Like everybody can say, oh, we'll support women's basketball, we'll do that. But Austin is the only city at the table that actually actively has a population that is supporting a women's basketball team in that city. So the University of Texas averages seven, eight thousand, whatever it is something like that. We can pick those off. You know that's telling us that there is an appetite for women's basketball here.

Fran Harris :

Austin has the. It's a free agency heaven. I mean it's great. I mean, barring the 100 degrees weather during the summertime, it's a great place to live. I mean the airport, you know you've got everything. You've got weather, you've got sports, you've got entertainment. It's not overly crowded, although I think most of us would like for people to stop moving here. But what Austin is, it's everything that W wants. They want a thriving corporate environment. They want a city that loves women's basketball. They want a city that's demonstrated that it loves women's basketball by showing up. Obviously we have to build a practice facility. That has to be our own, can't be something where we get displaced, we're sharing it with somebody, they're kicking us out when they don't like the weather or whatever, and then a great arena, and we know that We've had very friendly conversations with Moody, with the Moody Center. So we have, we are the full package. We are the total package.

Briana Dubose:

I hear that. So what do you say to those that are like the naysayers and may express some concerns with Austin, because you know cost of living, there's no major sports teams specifically for women right now, women's basketball, like. What do you say to them? I know that the Valkyries I hope I pronounced that right the Valkyries just announced you know as expansion in Golden State. The Valkyries I hope I pronounced that right the Valkyries just announced you know as expansion in Golden State. And that's another concern. It's like you know, can the W like, can the players be able to afford to live and what's that? Like you?

Fran Harris :

know like those dynamics. Yeah, first of all, the economy in Austin is strong. When I look at the top 12 teams that are vying for a WNBA expansion team, austin's at the top with the economy. So the high rent and mortgages is indication of the economy. But we also have some of the lowest unemployment. We have some of the highest salaries.

Fran Harris :

I've done all my homework because I got to talk about this stuff. When people try to talk to me about Cleveland and Detroit and all these other places, austin is literally the perfect WNBA city because of the things. Now, yeah, people have to have a livable wage and people have to do that and that's what the WNBA's union, the Players Association union, is fighting for is getting, not just expanding teams so that there are more rosters, but getting the current players up to a livable wage. Everybody needs to be in six figures and at the 250 and whatever they're fighting for, they deserve every single bit of that. They proved that this last season with the product on the floor and how great the season went. So those things, those economic indicators in the city of Austin, make it perfect for the WNBA Because, remember, there's game is a charity and the oh, we got to get free tickets. We have to know this is a legit professional league. Austin only has one other professional sports team. We would be the first women's professional sports team, and I think that's how it should be.

Briana Dubose:

Absolutely. You're making a hard case for Austin right now.

Fran Harris :

You got me on this fan. I love it.

Briana Dubose:

We're're seeing. We're seeing the vision, but we have to ask you are a former comet, a former Houston comet. Did you feel conflicted at all choosing Austin over Houston? Like, why is this the moment for Austin to bring a WNBA team?

Fran Harris :

Oh my, gosh, great question. I've had that question one time. I've had that question 113 times this week and it's just Monday. But yeah, so Houston Comets, they have a team. They have a team on the table. Their owner, the Houston Rockets owner, is vying for this spot, this last spot as well. And I think the honest answer is when I played for the Comets in 97, that was the moment for Houston. It was the perfect time for Houston. There was a Rockets team there, houston was ready for it at that time and it just worked.

Fran Harris :

Now is Austin's turn. I've actually had people say why don't you go do what you're doing in Houston and leave Austin alone? Austin, it's kind of the W's at that inflection point, and so is Austin. You know, a long time ago maybe Austin would not have been my first choice to bring a WNBA team here, but now, given the fact that Austin does well in ratings with the WNBA, there are all these little data points behind the scene that most people don't know about. For a city Like, a lot of people are nostalgic about Houston. Right, bring the Thomas back, just like you were. Like, bring the Thomas back, but we have to have Detroit. They want to bring all the former WNBA cities back into the fold. But you got to look at the economic indicators of a city to know why one city is better than the other. And I'm going straight data right now. Numbers don't lie.

Langston Clark:

And Austin has the numbers. So you make a great and compelling argument for Austin. As someone who lived in Austin for a significant part of my life as a fellow loan going to graduate school there, I love Austin and I would love living in San Antonio right now. I would love to be able to drive an hour down the road and go see some, some, some really good basketball.

Langston Clark:

This course, this podcast, this podcast is meant for student athletes. That's our primary audience, right? So imagine you're literally a guest in my class and Brianna and I are having this conversation with you and half the class is filled with student athletes and someone asked you the question what is it like for you to be sitting at these tables? What are the dynamics? What are the type of skills that I need to develop to be prepared to not just think about being a student athlete but to be a business woman, right, to be someone who's not just thinking about playing, not just thinking about coaching, but thinking about, like ownership and being the person who brings other people together to make big business deals happen. Talk a little bit about that.

Fran Harris :

Yeah, from the beginning you have to be thinking about ownership. I remember the first day I walked into the court for the WNBA's inaugural season in 1997, and I was looking around at 16,000 people in the summit where we played in Houston, and I remember thinking one day I want to own a WNBA team. That thought was planted in my head in that moment, because I'm looking at the sidelines the players, the product they're Black, the product is Black. The players the product they're black. The product is black. The players, the coaches some of them, maybe one or two of them, are black. But after that, that's where. That's where the blackness was. That was the end of it. Like that was the black and there was no black and brown ownership in the WNBA at that time.

Fran Harris :

And I remember how, what a stark reality that was and how I wanted to to make sure that I changed that, not just for my family but for other people who look like me. So the first thing I would say is always be aspiring to the top, always wonder well, who's owning? How can I be a part of the ownership group and then understand that you don't have to own everything? And the famous thing that Mark Cuban says, that little bit of a watermelon is better than all of a grape, right? So it's not that you have to own the whole team. Maybe you don't have to be a billionaire, but when you're thinking about ownership then you're thinking about the level of impact and influence that you could have on an organization. So when people know that I am putting an ownership together, group together, for Austin, it changes the way they see themselves. It changes the way they see what's possible for themselves, even white people, you know no-transcript.

Langston Clark:

The current state of NCAA higher education institutions can do to be more thoughtful about preparing more student athletes to have the type of disposition towards business that you have, and considering that we're in the current era of nil, and nil is a lot about owning your name, image and likeness, but I don't know how much of it is about owning something else. Some, some business, some corporation Talk a little bit about how maybe I could do my job better to plant the same pair of student-athletes to be sitting at the table doing the negotiations, doing the pitching, doing the bidding, like you are.

Fran Harris :

Yeah, number one you need to put owners in front of student-athletes, right? You remember when we were, when you were probably in school and I was in school, like if somebody came in who was in a role that you never saw black people then you were like I didn't know I could do that. And for me, when I was growing up, that was a television announcer there was this woman who read the news on Channel 8, abc in Dallas and I remember coming home from school and I was like like she looked like me, was a white guy mostly, or a white woman or whatever. So you have to put them in front of people, live bodies of people doing things that most people don't do, who belong to that group. You have to put them in front of students. You have to bring them Like I tell my men, my football coaches, this I'm like why y'all always bringing motivational speakers to football players who are guys?

Fran Harris :

If you only put guys in front of guys, guys don't learn how to appreciate love, respect, celebrate the genius of women. You wonder why some guys not all of them, and I'm preaching right now you wonder why some guys only see women for sex or they see them for what they can. They don't see them as geniuses. They don't see them as the person who you know put this incredible tech company together. Because we never usher them in that way. We serve them up like this, and so my football got my football coach.

Langston Clark:

They're like hey, like I never thought about that, so you always bring it out these guys.

Fran Harris :

They're all saying the same thing Bring some woman, a woman, in there, bring women. Same thing Bring owners in there, bring women who are owners of teams. I was saying the way you transform students' lives right now is by putting people in front of them who are doing what they aspire to do or who are introducing to them different paths that they could take that is unreachable, that they think is unreachable because they they are thinking that. They are thinking, because I haven't seen a black owner that we, we can't do that.

Langston Clark:

So you gotta, you gotta diversify what you serve student athletes if you want them to think at a higher level I think you brought up a really good point, because I think sometimes as men and I'm speaking as a man we sometimes always seek out mentorship and sponsorship from other men and don't even think like yo, I need this lady to be my mentor, not just beyond the mothering oh baby, you can do it, you can get it done but like the very serious strategic mentoring and things that you can get from from anybody Right strategic mentoring and things that you can get from from anybody Right. So we've talked about what institutions can do, what coaches can do, to prepare student athletes to be more expansive in their horizons as it pertains to business. But what would you suggest that the student athlete do to prepare themselves to be sitting at the seats that you see yourself sitting in right now, to be sitting at the seats that you see yourself sitting in right now.

Fran Harris :

Get out of your comfort zone. No joking. I didn't play in an environment that was nearly as economically enriched as these student-athletes are, but I was always at a networking thing. I interned at all three stations in Austin, that's all there were at that time ABC, cbs and NBC because I wanted to be in television. I wanted to know what these people did how do you do what you do? And so I interned at that. I interned at the Austin American Statesman's. I was getting it and there wasn't even all the stuff that I could do, that these student-athletes can do.

Fran Harris :

And I found that most student-athletes and when I say most, I mean at least 90% of them will not do anything that truly stretches them mentally, psychologically or anything like that. They know how to work hard, they know how to get it in on the field or on the court, but going someplace where they don't know anyone, where they got to be the Oreo cookie in the milk, where they got to be different, where they got to be the Oreo cookie in the milk, where they got to be different, where they're the only woman there, they're the only brown person there, they're the only tall person there. I find that most student-athletes don't have that kind of confidence, but that's exactly the kind of fortitude you need to get to next level stuff. And so what's great about this current environment we're in is because they're having to do a little bit more business stuff. Right, they're having to, but I see I'm hearing about a lot of them not paying their taxes.

Fran Harris :

Y'all want to be grown folks. Let's do some grown folks stuff. Paying taxes, you know, having meetings, not fulfilling obligations in a contract All of these things are really, really great. So if I were a student athlete right now, or even talking to them, I would say listen, get out there, stretch yourself, go, go do some stuff where a lot of old people are, a lot of people who are way richer than you are, and see and feel that discomfort, that that kind of charges you up, so that you will ultimately do what's what it takes to feel like you belong in that environment.

Briana Dubose:

Fran, just to close out, I heard just hearing you speak and talk about your entrepreneurship journey is very motivational and I think about how sports and entrepreneurship are having a moment and we're kind of at this space where more athletes than ever are trying to get engaged within entrepreneurship. More athletes than ever are trying to get engaged within entrepreneurship, whether you see Ron James of the world starting huge media companies and investment firms, or you have the student athlete who's in college trying to get their own venture up off the ground to be able to have a sustainable business beyond the game. When you think of Austin because I think of Austin and all the companies that are down there what is the opportunity there for collaboration? When we think of, like whole athlete, holistic athlete development, for the WNBA to be able to engage in entrepreneurship in Austin, what are your thoughts on that?

Fran Harris :

It's wide open, like there has never been a better time to be a student athlete. There's never been a better time to be a student athlete. There's never been a better time to be someone with entrepreneurial dreams, especially the crossover, the intersection of entrepreneurship and sports. It's just wide open. There is literally no excuse. Maybe back in the 70s there wasn't that much access you could get, maybe I'm not even sure that was true then, but I know that there are more opportunities now because every time I turn around I'm listening to some student athlete who's done like a million dollar deal with an established brand. This person has zero business experience, but they have a brand. So you can't even say, well, I don't have an MBA, well, I don't have, you have a brand. Then you have an opportunity. And so with my, with our team here in Austin, it's the door is wide open.

Fran Harris :

And the thing that I'm so excited about is that there are many different partnerships that I can, that I can barter with companies who don't have billion dollar budgets. Right, like, we can do pop-ups. We can like we've already talked about doing things like pop-ups during games, like people being able to sell their wares who might only have a thousand dollar budget. But if they're with our 10,000 people, then they you know they've made a living for their brand for the next two months. So those kinds of opportunities would never have been available without this kind of environment. I mean, you know it's been very exclusive. If you were not a Fortune 100 company, you didn't do business with the NBA and you certainly didn't do business with the WNBA. But now it's more of an egalitarian situation and that excites me because that means more of us can get to the table.

Briana Dubose:

That's amazing. Thanks for sharing that.

Langston Clark:

Fran, I just want to thank you for joining us. I want, brianna thank you for joining us a special guest host, and we look forward to going to see some basketball games, some professional basketball games WNBA women's basketball games in Austin, texas. Thank you for joining today's class. If you learned from and like what you heard, please leave a review, give the class five stars or donate to our patreon. A link can be found in the show notes.