Christen Press Is Determined to Reimagine the Way Female Athletes Are Seen

For two-time World Cup winner Christen Press, who made her debut in the U.S. Women’s National Team in 2013, it’s no surprise that women’s sports have been having their moment—both before and throughout these Paris Summer Olympics.

Press, along with her teammate and partner Tobin Heath, have bet big on the public’s love of women’s sports. The duo launched their podcast, The Re-Cap Show, during the 2023 Women’s World Cup—the highest attended in history. It wasn’t their first foray into entrepreneurship in the women’s sports space; they are co-CEOs of Re-Inc, a global community for sports fans and changemakers, which launched ahead of the 2019 World Cup. The Re-Cap Show has amassed a dedicated online fan base, with video clips circulated among Re-Inc's 49,000 YouTube subscribers and 123,000-strong Instagram following. 

On The Re-Cap Show, the duo bring fans behind the scenes of professional women’s soccer, both at the international level and in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). They debrief games with high-profile guests such as defender Ali Krieger, previous national team head coach Jill Ellis, current national team captain at the Olympics Lindsey Horan, and Angel City FC co-founder Kara Nortman. Press and Heath also break down and share their own perspectives on buzzy topics like scandals in the NWSL, what it’s like to date your teammate, and the recent cheating saga with the Canadian team.         

Press and Heath launched Season 3 of the podcast in June, just in time to document the national soccer team’s journey at the Paris Summer Olympics. For Press—who returned to the pitch for Angel City FC on Thursday for the first time in over two years, after four surgeries to repair her torn ACL—it's up to women’s media to meet this moment and capitalize on it.

TIME delved into the Olympics, The Re-Cap Show, and why this moment in women’s sports is so important during a video interview with Press.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

TIME: The momentum for women’s sports right now is immense. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese enjoyed record-breaking performances in the NCAA last year, and the WNBA opened their 2024 season with their highest attendance in 26 years. This is also the first Olympics with gender parity. How is all of this impacting the way you cover the Paris Olympics with The Re-Cap Show?

Press: You're spot-on that women's sports are having insane momentum right now. For us, all the attention has really increased our mission to reimagine the way women are seen and experienced in sports. We started our show during the World Cup because we’re women soccer players, and that's when we committed to turning on a spotlight [and] never turning it off.

But the Olympics is this huge opportunity to inspire and reveal what's already there: lots of leagues, athletes, and players that are doing their job all-year round, but they get to be at the highest stage this summer. From a business perspective, [it’s about] bringing those supporters, fans, and community members into the women's sports world, which is the most inclusive, diverse, and interesting community that uses sport as a vehicle for change.

Take us back to creating Re-Inc with your teammates Tobin Heath, Megan Rapinoe, and Meghan Klingenberg. How far have you all come since then?

We started Re-Inc in 2019 with a single T-shirt before we went to the World Cup and it said “Liberté, Égalité, Défendez.” It was a play on the French motto [“Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”] as we had headed to France, so we switched the word “fraternity” to “defend” because as the U.S. Women's National Team, we were defending our title, but we were also defending the principles of liberty and equality.

But since then, it’s grown into a community. Watching women play sports is an act of revolution. Not so long ago, women were not allowed to play sports, and until recently, we were not paid to play sports or paid very well. And so I think as women's sports get heightened, it is just the living and breathing symbol of progress in society that women can rise and be stars on the court and on the field. With launching our media division, we saw how the coverage was failing to represent the lifestyle and culture of us, and it was just a copy and paste from the men's side. The broadcast and the commentary was so off-putting that it was spoiling the sport for us. No one knew how to talk about gal culture.

What kinds of commentary were you used to hearing while you were playing with the U.S. Women’s National Team?

Sometimes, when I'm watching people commentate, I feel like they’re a kindergarten teacher explaining the basics of soccer with the assumption that the person who's watching has no idea what they’re watching.

I think there's a lot that needs to be improved. Also, when it comes to addressing social issues and the institutional prejudice that happens within sports, especially how we talk about Black athletes… The media should make sure you're seeing this vision of a woman athlete in a way that can be a badass—not self-conscious, but laughing loud and really proud of her success. So I think all of those lifestyle and social issues are baked into the game. 

And then obviously, as the game grows, we're going to have more expertise and fundamental knowledge and that will just make the broadcast so much better. Part of why the Olympics is so great is because you get the best—the best commentators, the best camera angles—and that's another reason why people will fall in love with all the sports, since it's not, you know, just an iPhone shot of the last 50 meters of a race. 

Your former teammate Kelley O’Hara is working with Just Women's Sports. Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird are bringing back their podcast, A Touch More, and your former teammate Sam Mewis is also hosting her own show, The Women’s Game. Why do you think this is the moment where so many female athletes are working in media?

I haven't heard of another market that people are talking about that is successful right now, other than AI and women's sports. I feel very proud to have started this business five years ago and kind of be positioned as ready for the moment as opposed to reacting to the moment. As athletes, we're all inspiring each other and the businesses that are cropping up are inspired by a desire for all of us to raise the game and continue to have an impact. I'm very proud to be about it, to be a part of it, and to be alongside pioneering women. I think the competition is healthy, and it's necessary. It pushes us and I love that.

Many people view women’s sports as a sacred, safe space—something you talk a lot about on your podcast. Is there any fear that as the women’s game becomes more popular and more fans join, that other energies will enter into the space?

I always say the air gets thinner at the top. I think women's sports is a very diverse, inclusive space. And I actually know that members of the community feel very protective of the space. We have our membership community and our members often speak about protecting the space. There will always be challenges as it gets more mainstream.

That’s why I love doing our show: every week, we're talking about the challenges. We’re talking about how the women's sports community feels about someone's bigoted comment or someone who misrepresented them. And it's a two-way dialogue. I think that's really essential to maintain the integrity.

I remember when the social media scandal with midfielder Korbin Albert—who’s currently on the Olympic roster—came out earlier this year. You and Tobin went straight into talking about it. I think a lot of fans were curious to hear from you about it.

It was hard to talk about that, because we were afraid of someone just clipping a tiny piece of the conversation and, like, missing all the nuance and kind of misconstruing our language, but we thought it was important enough to do it anyway. Nuance is something that's consistently missing from the echo chambers.

What are you hoping the Olympics brings to the world of women’s sports?

Kara Nortman, who is the co-founder of Angel City, always tells a story that she was at the 2015 Women’s World Cup, and was completely moved and inspired by us winning. Then, she came home to try to watch us play, and couldn’t find any games, and she couldn't find jerseys. That’s why she started a women's soccer team. I think that story is so beautiful, because it really emulates what's so special at the Olympics.

I think there's a huge opportunity to uplift sports—even the sports that aren't as popular as women's soccer—and for people to go home and become lifelong fans.