Illustration by Trevor Lightsy
Sports Illustrated and Empower Onyx are placing the highlight on the various journeys of Black girls throughout sports activities—from the veteran athletes, to up-and-coming stars, coaches, executives and extra—within the collection, Elle-evate: 100 Influential Black Ladies in Sports.
If anybody is aware of the stress to attempt ahead, break new floor and succeed regardless of the unknown, it’s Ndidi Massay. In her position as vp of office tradition and diversity initiatives for CBS Sports, Massay is charting new territory. Shortly after George Floyd was murdered, the community was in search of somebody who might take cost instantly to spice up the community’s diversity and group service. Massay’s management fashion matched completely.
“You get in, you get it began and also you get it finished,” she says.
CBS Sports already had a stable status for inclusion, “however we will all the time be higher,” Massay says. Her prime objectives embody constructing a extra various workforce, with higher retention, and extra senior degree diversity that features extra girls of shade, disabled and LGBTQ+ workers. Since taking the job in February, she’s been on a company-wide tour sparking candid conversations round bias, privilege and belonging. “We’ve weekly conferences with senior management to debate what’s occurring inside our partitions, and what’s occurring in communities round us,” she says. “We confront points like microaggression or hiring biases and look at them by way of totally different lenses.”
It hasn’t all been straightforward, however Massay isn’t the kind to throw within the towel. “I believe, how am I going to get by way of that wall? I can get round it or go over it, and even dig and go underneath, relying on the state of affairs,” she says. “However the problem simply will get me extra fired up as a result of if you win, it is that a lot sweeter, since you went by way of XYZ and also you got here out on prime.”
And that tenacity is paying off. “When somebody tells me, ‘Hey, this occurred and I remembered our dialog and went in a distinct route,’ that’s main progress,” she says. “People are ingesting the coaching and it’s displaying up of their conduct.”
Massay’s affect is making an affect on the broadcasts, too. She’s met with community producers, administrators and on-air expertise, and the consequence has been extra various, in-depth tales and options. “People are tweeting compliments,” Massay says. “That exhibits us the viewers is paying consideration and so they acknowledge the thought and intensive analysis that goes into our storytelling.”
Massay instructions consideration. She says she’s spent most of her time thus far with CBS Sports listening, attending to know folks and understanding their voices, however it’s apparent that when she speaks, folks act. It was the identical when she led Northwestern’s softball crew to the Ladies’s Faculty World Collection as a catcher. By no means hesitant or second-guessing herself, she earned a status for stealing bases and was inducted into Northwestern’s Athletics Corridor of Fame in 2009.
In lower than a yr, Massay has intensified the community’s focus and made inclusion and diversity the guts of not solely the office, however of how CBS Sports does enterprise. “I’ve a chance to report on to the chairman of CBS Sports, which permits me to actually see all components of our enterprise,” she says. “Every half has a committee that works on diversity and inclusion, however I’m the one one who does it as a full-time job.”
She’s fast to level out her success is largely as a result of crew she works with. “As a pacesetter, I believe gratitude is a power. Particularly if you hit a wall. How boring would life be if it was all straightforward? I’m lucky as a result of we work collectively … in order that subsequent time, we keep away from that problem. I’m grateful for what we be taught and the relationships we construct.”
Previous to becoming a member of CBS, Massay was a commissioner of the New York State Athletic Fee. Earlier than that, she labored as a guide to ABC and ESPN, and, in 2015, helped launch the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (now RISE). She’s additionally an legal professional. “This is a dream job as a result of it’s the primary time I’ve been capable of actually bundle all of my passions and experience and put them to work in a single position,” she says.
As a result of Massay was born in Nigeria and grew up biracial, she has a powerful private connection to her work. “I’m married to a Black man and have two Black sons,” she says. “I do know what it’s prefer to be ignored and mistreated. I have a look at my sons and their associates and begin calculating the percentages. I see the challenges my husband faces. He’s one in all only a few within the office. So am I, as a girl of shade. It’s a actuality for us each day.”
Massay likes to win. Fortunately, her CBS Sports colleagues have purchased into her methods and are operating together with her plan to develop the D&I initiatives on a worldwide scale.
“Our world is actually so small as a result of know-how brings us collectively. It’s my hope that in 5 years, these little flames that I’ve helped begin turn into fires that make D&I much less of a method and extra of a lifestyle at CBS,” Massay says. “We wish to give everybody a voice and construct a tradition much more welcoming in order that we’re bringing one of the best within the area by way of diversity of thought, diversity of skillset and diversity of expertise.”
Madelyne Woods is a contributor for Empower Onyx, a various multichannel platform celebrating the tales and transformative energy of sports activities for Black girls and women.
