There’s a massive gender gap in the sports world. It's no secret that men’s sports get higher viewership and more funding (don’t look at us, we’re huge NWSL and WNBA fans!). 

But it’s also about media — the podcasts, articles, and shows around both men’s and women’s sports. As of 2021, most of these projects are led by white men. 

And when the same group dominates the conversation, it starts to feel like that’s what a sports fan is supposed to look like. You start to wonder, “wait, are sports even for me?” 

That’s exactly how Sloane Weinstein felt when she first started her basketball podcast Sloane Knows five years ago.

“I don't think people realize there's a demographic like me that's interested in sports,” Sloane explains. “But my 12-year-old self, who also absolutely adored makeup and clothes and stereotypically female things, also was obsessed with basketball.” 

Sloane’s got that kind of easy confidence you can’t fake. She talks with her hands, sits with her shoulders back, and lets her big hoop earrings swing side to side as she explains how she got her start covering the game she loves. 

That same energy shows up on Sloane Knows, where she interviews hoopers, dives into the culture around the sport, and sometimes stops people on the street just to hear their takes. 

But confidence didn’t always come easy. In second grade, when she was the only girl on her flag football team, Sloane remembers feeling like an outsider.  

“My friends showed up to my game with giant posters that said, ‘Go Sloane,’ with pictures of my face on them. I was so embarrassed, because I was like, ‘I'm the only girl here, I need to prove myself,’” Sloane remembers. “I felt like it was making it seem like I didn’t belong, so I started crying on the field.” 

That feeling where you’re trying so hard to fit in, but you can’t help but stand out? We’ve been there. 

Then, in 2020 (when she was 13), the pandemic pushed Sloane to figure out what she was actually interested in — not just what she was taught in (Zoom) school. She tried a tie-dye business (who didn’t during COVID?), but quickly realized it wasn’t for her. So she went back to the drawing board, and came up with three conclusions: 1. She loves to talk 2. She loves to listen and 3. She loves basketball. She knew starting a podcast could bring in a new POV. 

In July, The Gist announced an increase in women’s sports podcasts in recent years, with retired legends like Sue Bird and and today’s faves like Angel Reese taking the mic. 

This means Sloane got involved in sports media long before lots of athletes did — and before the rest of the world caught onto how important female-led sports media is. 

So she created Sloane Knows. And she started sending DMs, writing cold emails, and even approaching athletes in person for her first interview (she’s an LA girlie, so catching ballers out for a smoothie is actually real life). But it was rejection after rejection. 

“My dad always told me when I was little, ‘If you don't shoot, you can't make it,’” she says. “So I shot, like, 5 million airballs, but eventually one had to go in.” (Sloane talks in basketball metaphors, BTW. It’s kind of perfect). 

After a while, she finally got her first bite: former NBA player Chandler Parsons. 

“I think he agreed to do the podcast just because he thought it was the nice thing to help an aspiring sports journalist out, which it was,” Sloane remembers. “About 20 minutes into the interview, he mentioned a player by the name of Bones Hyland. And he said, ‘I don't know if you know who Bones is.’ And I started telling him Bones Hyland's life story. I watched his eyes click, where he realized this was no longer a favor he was doing. Like, I had legit ball knowledge. I actually deserved to be sitting there across from him.” 

Once Chandler set the tone, she stopped being afraid to ask anyone to come on the pod. Plus, more athletes started saying yes. Remember when Lady Gaga said “there can be 100 people in a room and 99 don’t believe in you and you just need one”? It’s totally true. 

Caring deeply is Sloane’s superpower. She speaks just as passionately about her Jon & Vinny’s order (she misses their discontinued snap peas) as she does about ball.

That passion helps make her podcast even better — and allows her to stay confident in her game. Even when she’s scrolling, her algorithm is shaped around what she wants to learn, not just what fills time. 

“I love reading [formerly] Twitter, reading Threads, watching TikToks,” she says about her online research. “Every day, I play basketball games: Poeltl, which is like NBA Wordle, HoopsGrids, I Called Game, and NBA Connections or LeConnections — there’s two different versions.”

And yeah, it’s work, but it feels natural. 

“At the end of the day, it's what I love to do. So it's not always like, ‘Oh, I'm doing work right now.’ I just want to,” she says. “When I get home after school, I want to go watch a video about Steph Curry's college career. I really enjoy all of it.” 

Like most people with an online following, Sloane deals with mean comments. She admits it gets under her skin sometimes, but for the most part, she’s gotten better at blocking it out. 

She has Warriors power forward Draymond Green to thank for that. 

“He basically said, ‘You can't ride the wave. You can’t keep surfing all those hate comments and paying attention to them. You just sort of have to ignore it all,’” she said. “And it might sound cliché and like a metaphor my teacher would want me to use in an essay, but it really did help me.” 

The silver lining? She admits that seeing a few hate comments makes the love she gets from fans and friends shine brighter. 

Second-grade Sloane would be proud.