You’ll have to do some work to find Lakefield, Minnesota on a map. It’s a tiny speck of a farming community in the state’s southwest corner – a place that has more in common with the Dakotas than with Minneapolis. That’s where Teresa Resch grew up – a high school athlete who figured she’d wind up close to home, working in agriculture until a very different opportunity beckoned. It’s not like there was an obvious path from playing small college volleyball into professional sports management. And even if there was, it’s not like there were a lot of role models - women working in front offices who could point the way. But Resch kept making an impression – first with Disney, then with the nba, and then with Masai Ujiri. She’s a full-blown Torontonian now in the process of taking her next big professional step as the president of the city’s new WNBA franchise, the Tempo, which begins play in 2026.

Stephen sat down with Teresa in the Toronto Raptors dressing room at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario.

00:00 - Intro

1:45 - Stephen welcome's Teresa to the podcast

2:38 - Teresa's career path

5:35 - Role models

6:30 - Challenges in sports business as a woman

11:20 - What did she learn from Masai Ujiri

11:50 - Growth of women's team sports

16:40 - What is it like building a franchise

This series is supported by GroupM Motion Entertainment.

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