The Mid-American Conference’s sixth-annual “Wednesday is FOUR Women” conference Wednesday had the goal of creating a conversation of gender equity within the sport and business realm.

This year, their focus was on women in sports media and the 2024 women’s Final Four of the March Madness tournament, which will be hosted by the MAC at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. The conference was held in the same venue. 

The event consisted of a panel discussion with four women who work in the sport industry. The moderator for the night was Cayleigh Griffin, host of the Cavaliers’ live pre-game, halftime and post-game shows. Other panelists included Rosalyn Durant, the executive vice president of acquisition and programming at ESPN and Nicole Auerbach, a senior writer and studio analyst for ESPN. 

The four women shared their experiences as women in the sports industry and how they came to be involved in the industry. 

“I stumbled into sports journalism,” said Auerbach. “I worked at USA Today for six years and covered two Olympics during my time there.”

The women also shared advice to anyone that wanted to be involved in sports media. 

“You need to find the initiative to bang on doors,” Dinich said.

She said a person needs to take the “no’s” they get and turn them into a positive because it only takes one yes to change a person’s life. In response, Durant said getting through those “no’s” is essential to making it in sports journalism.

“If you are disappointed by the first no, you will not survive in this industry or in life in general,” she said.

The panelists also said if it were not for their male colleagues, they would not be where they are today.

“The biggest way to show up for your female colleagues is to just listen,” Auerbach said.

A majority of the attendees said they were there to hear either how women work in a male-dominated industry or how women in sports have evolved over the years. 

“I used to coach college basketball, and my former player Holly Grober works for the MAC so I decided to attend to see what it was about,” Jessica Trembley, a former basketball coach at Walsh University, said.

Samantha Kaplan, another attendee, said she wanted to hear panelists talk about the evolution of women’s sports.

“I wanted to hear what is going on, knowing the state of women’s sports for me and seeing how women in sports have changed is very empowering,” Kaplan said.

Dinich said people should be paying attention to the state of women’s sports right now, as she feels there is a lot to be learned and – still a lot of work to be done.

“Women’s sports has a stage right now that is critical for people to be watching,” Dinich said. 

Emilee Cardani is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].