Jordan Ligons and Haley O'Shaughnessy

Jordan Ligons and Haley O'Shaughnessy are the co-hosts of Spinsters. Follow Jordan on Twitter here, Haley on Twitter here, and Spinsters on Twitter here.

Why is Spinsters different than most sports podcasts?
When we were developing the podcast, we wondered what the audio version of a magazine would sound like. Basketball is multi-dimensional but it’s rarely presented that way on pods. We ran with the idea: Some of our episodes are feature stories brought to us by contributors, some are deep dives on the questions that keep us up at night, and some are us talking about what happened over the weekend.

I love the podcast because I can feel your friendship. Can you talk about it?
First of all, thank you! This has been our favorite feedback, along with people saying they feel like our friend, too. We’re still early on in our careers, so having the chance to create our own thing after working together in the past still feels like a dream. Isn’t it the end goal to make cool shit with your friends? We feel really lucky. (We will say that our friendship has squashed any chance of this being an “embrace debate” sports podcast, but that’s probably for the best.)

What's a perfect example of a sports story that makes you think, "this is a Spinsters story?"
We’re both very curious people inside and outside of sports. So looking at basketball history and asking, “What actually happened here?” or dissecting misconceptions -- like our episode on why people wrongly think women can’t dunk -- are things we’d be talking to each other about even if we didn’t have a podcast. There are so many throughlines between what’s happening in the world and what’s happening in basketball. We’re always trying to find stories that reflect that.

What's the biggest thing people don't understand about women in sports?
How long do you have? It’s the galaxy brain meme: First cis men accept that women like sports. The next stage is acknowledging that we are capable of understanding them. After that is coming to peace with the fact that women can cover sports and have individual skill sets, be it analytics-heavy writing, using the eye test, or leaning on reporting. Finally comes the understanding that all marginalized genders struggle to have their voices heard in this field, as fans or as media, not only cis women. (This is important for cis women and white women covering sports to accept as well.) Sports media can be so bland! That’s what happens when everyone who covers the sport looks alike. There are many, many other perspectives out there that can contribute to spicing it up, if we only allow them in this space. If that’s you, email us! We want Spinsters to be a place for those voices.

Can you shout out some women in sports everyone needs to know about but doesn't?
We’ll shout out some of our contributors first: Natalie Weiner, Katie Hiendl, and Nia Symone. Everyone should be subscribing to the Dishes and Dimes podcast, the Triple Threat pod, and Burn It All Down. Buy every edition of Flagrant Magazine. Follow Jasmine Watkins on Twitter. Thank us later.

Thanks, you two!