Sue Bird retired from the WNBA in 2022, but she’s still fighting hard for women’s sports — and she’s feeling optimistic about the future.
“I do see us making major strides in the next couple years,” Bird, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly, referring specifically to the WNBA’s infamous pay gap with the NBA. “We have a media deal that’s coming up. We have a new [collective bargaining agreement] that’s coming up. These are the moments, these are the contracts that really can ignite change and really can help continue to chip away at that pay gap.”
Bird, who just became the newest face of Barbie’s Role Models line, noted that “the biggest hindrance” in pay equity has been the way “society views women’s athletes,” but that’s been changing for the better in recent years.
“You can throw the Barbie doll in there,” Bird added. “The more we can change how culture views athletes, I think the more we can change that pay gap.”
Bird, who played for the Seattle Storm her entire professional career and won four championships with the team, said it’s “exciting” and “surreal” to see herself as a Barbie doll.
“You don’t necessarily think this is gonna be an option, which is actually what makes this Barbie that much more meaningful to me,” she explained of the doll, which is available this month. “It’s a Barbie of a professional women’s basketball player, and that representation is 100 percent going to inspire and empower young girls. It’s also probably gonna change the minds of young boys. Growing up, I didn’t really have a lot of female athletes to look up to. I played with Barbies, and I definitely didn’t have any female athlete Barbies to look up to. So this is so exciting to be a part of something like this.”
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Bird sees the Barbie as just one more building block toward helping women’s sports become as popular as they’ve deserved to be all along — and she wants young fans to start seeing themselves as future pros.
“Where I’ve landed is this difference between the word inspirational and aspirational,” she explained. “Specific to sports, we always talk about how … a young girl can look up to a female athlete and be inspired. I still think that’s very much true because what athletes do is it might awaken something in you — they’re dreaming big. That’s really what we do. And so no matter what career path you end up taking, there’s always an aspect you can connect to with athletes because there’s a dream big part to it. But I also want little girls to see a professional women’s basketball player in the form of a Barbie doll, and that creates some aspirational goals. Maybe they could be that athlete one day.”
As Bird pointed out, little boys have long watched sports and thought, “I could do that one day,” but that hasn’t always been the case for girls.
“For a lot of young girls, it’s been like, ‘Oh, play sports, because you learn good skills,’” Bird told Us. “Which is true, but I also want this aspirational part to kick in, and I think that’s really important. And then to get to the young boys, having a doll like this can change perceptions. To change young boys and how they look at women who are professional athletes, I think that’s an important part of how we shape society as well.”
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In addition to partnering with Barbie on the Role Model doll, Bird is hard at work on numerous other projects, including through her Togethxr platform (cofounded with three fellow athletes) and her production company, A Touch More (cofounded with her fiancée, Megan Rapinoe). She’ll also be in attendance at the Summer Olympics later this month as a spectator after winning five gold medals with Team USA.
“[I have] a healthy amount of FOMO. I talk to my therapist about that, so we’re working on it,” Bird quipped. “I’m half kidding. Where I’ve landed is I’m always gonna miss it, right? There’s always gonna be aspects that I’ll miss, but I’m also really thankful that I got to experience what I got to experience, and I really enjoy going to games and being a fan. So that’ll be me at this Olympics as well. I’ll be in the stands cheering the team on.”
She won’t just be cheering for women’s basketball either, telling Us that she’s also got her eye on break dancing, which is new to the Olympics this year.
“It’s a thing. I’ve seen it up close. It’s gonna be cool,” Bird said. “I have no idea how they judge it. I’m assuming it’s similar to figure skating, like you have to know to know, which I don’t. But yeah, I’m excited. I’m also really lucky. There’s First World problems — I’ve seen a lot of Olympic events in my time. … I’ve seen it all. So, I’m excited that I get to choose what I want, and that’s break dancing.”
