Bringing compelling storytellers together during Pride Month

ESPN Los Angeles-based lead video editor Rachel Pearson understands the power of allyship.

Pearson is a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and PRIDE Chair of EQUAL, ESPN’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Ally (LGBTQIA+) Business Employee Resource Group (BERG). She has been instrumental in partnering with the company to promote LGBTQIA+ equity and inclusion.

Last year, Pearson filmed her story as a pilot feature that inspired colleagues across the company to share their stories similarly to help ESPN and The Walt Disney Company celebrate Pride Month.

“I hope that the Spotlight series we produced last year accomplished a couple of things,” Pearson said. “I hope that it sets an example for other Business Employee Resource Groups regarding the representative content they can create for their membership and beyond. I also hope that the employees that we featured were able to feel seen and heard at work in ways that they never have before.

“And the third thing is, I hope that people who heard those stories got to know my community a little bit better, what we go through, what we still go through, the importance of active allyship, and how to know us is to love us. So, I was thrilled to be able to share some of my favorite people with Disney and ESPN.”

And as two queer women, we recognized the platform that we had with ESPN EQUAL during Pride Month and couldn’t wait to reach out to Jenny, also a queer woman, and bring her in to share her story with the people who create content for ESPN.
— Rachel Pearson on working with Susie Piotrkowski, Vice President, espnW, to make a panel discussion with The Sports Bra owner Jenny Nguyen happen

This year, in partnership with ESPN EQUAL and Susie Piotrkowski, Vice President, espnW, Pearson organized a panel discussion for ESPN employees with Jenny Nguyen, founder of The Sports Bra, the country’s first women’s-sports-only sports bar.

“Susie came on board like a tornado as the new VP of espnW, and in one of our very first conversations, we aligned on the impact that the Sports Bra was making, not only in Portland and the West Coast but the entire women’s sports ecosystem,” Pearson said.

“And as two queer women, we recognized the platform that we had with ESPN EQUAL during Pride Month and couldn’t wait to reach out to Jenny, also a queer woman, and bring her in to share her story with the people who create content for ESPN.”

Reflecting on the motivation behind organizing the employee panel with Nguyen, Pearson said:

“Honestly, I’m just a huge fan of Jenny and the Sports Bra’s mission, and I think that spaces like this are the future. The cool thing about the women’s sports universe is that it’s a diverse collective of minority groups that are all reaching out their hands and their resources to build this support system because no one group has enough to build it themselves.

“So, I just saw this as an opportunity for ESPN EQUAL to shine a light on one of our own out there, not just thinking about it, but actually doing it and building it and creating real change in this sports industry that we all love so much.”

Besides speaking with content creators in an ESPN-employees-only Zoom session, Nguyen visited SportsCenter last week. In the video above, watch excerpts of SportsCenter anchor Linda Cohn’s interview with Nguyen as well as learn more about Pearson’s thoughts.

Spencer T. Jackson produced the video at the top of the post