The ROAR Podcast: Renee Washington

2014, Renee Washington is at Lehigh University, coaching college soccer, working on a master's in educational leadership, and sitting with a decision she didn't really want to make. She was a three-time All-American at LaSalle, a professional player, a Hall of Famer. But the NWSL had just wrapped up its first season. Professional women's soccer paid a couple thousand dollars a year, not a salary, not benefits, not a life you could build on. So the question was never whether she was good enough to keep going. It was whether she could afford to. She stepped away, and in those two years, she found the distinctions she still uses today. There was Renee the soccer player, and there was Renee the person. More than a decade later, that person is a broadcaster, a host, a speaker, a founder, and soon, a published author. This summer alone, FIFA World Cup coverage out of Philadelphia and North Jersey a show at the MLB All-Star Game, the NBA All-Star Weekend in Chicago, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, she launched her own company, Renee Washington Media and Consulting. She'll tell you the multi-hyphen thing isn't vanity, it's a hedge. Someone told her earlier in her career that the job she wanted would look different in five years. She's built everything since around believing that was true. In this conversation with Caroline, Renee talks about the athlete transition nobody prepares you for, What it actually costs to bet on yourself when there's no fallback. The role faith plays when the timing isn't in your control. And why, despite tracking every metric she can get her hands on, she refuses to live and die by the data. I'm Bryce Clinton, and this is Aurora Podcast.

Welcome to the Roar podcast. I'm your host, Caroline Valvardi, and with me today is Renee Washington, broadcaster, host, founder, and speaker. Welcome to the podcast. Caroline, thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. You have had a very interesting summer. We saw each other at WNBA All-Star Weekend in Chicago, so that was one of your many stops along your summer tour of all the different sporting events that happened this summer. And so would love to hear, and I'm sure our audience would as well, all the things that you were up to this summer and anything that was your favorite or highlights. Really just love to hear what you were doing and gives us kind of a feel for what you do.

Yeah. So, oh my goodness, it's been a whirlwind of a summer. I mean, the sports calendar in general has been so kind to us to have so many great events and moments in our backyard. And I was fortunate. I was brought on by FIFA actually and hired to work with them starting at the end of 2025 in getting involved around hosting some of their content for FS1 and being on their shows and panels and interviews and game coverage. And so to be able to cover the world cup, in primarily philly and north jersey were my two hubs for host cities was something like a dream i mean i'm a former soccer player myself i was a three-time all-american at la salle university played professionally i'm a hall of famer and so to be involved in soccer in the biggest the biggest sporting event in the world on the