The Interview: Meg Swanick

The globetrotting writer joins me to discuss her new Substack site, following the USMNT & USWNT at big events, why there are so few women covering the USMNT and much more

Meg Swanick was in France for the entirety of the 2019 World Cup and is writing a book on the U.S. team (Photograph courtesy Meg Swanick)

I met Meg Swanick on a bus in El Salvador. It was last September, and she was the only female writer traveling to cover the USMNT in its first qualifying game for World Cup 2022. She’s doing a lot of cool things, including writing as a freelancer for The Guardian, working on two book projects (one on the U.S. women’s World Cup winners from 2019 and the other on USMNT World Cup 2022 qualifying) and recently starting her own Substack site, The Swan Dive. She’s based in Philadelphia but always traveling, and I caught up with her recently for a conversation.

The entirety of the written interview below is reserved for paid subscribers. As always, you can still get the entire free audio version of my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to go for your pods.

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Grant Wahl:

Our guest now is doing really interesting work in the United States and global soccer space. Meg Swanick recently started The Swan Dive, her Substack newsletter that I subscribe to and you should consider doing so as well. She's also a freelance writer covering U.S. soccer for multiple outlets, including The Guardian. I met her while we were both covering U.S. World Cup qualifiers in Central America. You can find her on Twitter at @Meg_Swanick. Meg, congratulations on everything you're doing and thanks for coming on the show.

Meg Swanick:

Hi Grant. Yeah, thank you. And thanks for having me.

Grant Wahl:

So let's start with your Substack site. Congratulations on that. What went into deciding to do that, and what kind of stuff are you going to have on it?

“I'm as interested by the [U.S.] fan base as I am by the sport. And so I try to pay attention to what's interesting to them, or how they're consuming the sport, where they're consuming it, why they consume it, and try to tell those stories as much as anything else.” — Meg Swanick

Meg Swanick:

All kinds of stuff. And it's been something I had been mulling over launching for a while. And as you know, I was on the road covering the World Cup Qualifiers home and away. Only missing one, the game in Austin, because I was in Mexico City for the Canada game at the Azteca. But so many stories pile up along that process that are related to what's happening on the field, but also far beyond it, whether that's with people in the city or other members of the media or people in the fan base. And I wanted to bring that more 360 inside look to what the world of U.S. soccer and global soccer in our region and beyond is like.

And so I wanted to start the Substack to have a home for all of those stories beyond what I might be publishing in The Guardian or elsewhere. And then in terms of what you can look forward to: So there's a few specific projects coming up, but there's a few kind of general themes that I write about. So U.S. soccer is a big overarching theme, the culture of the sport in the United States, what supporter groups are like, what different cities bring, what local flavor different MLS teams bring to the game, USL teams, all levels, NWSL as well. And I'll be writing a lot about the women's game and how that's developing here and abroad, how that compares here and abroad, different leagues, different national teams, including ours of course.

And then in terms of big projects coming up, so I think we'll talk about it in a bit, but I've got some non-Swan Dive projects I'm working on, but in terms of The Swan Dive, I'm going to be in England this July. So I'm doing a lot to gear up for that, where I'll be writing about and enjoying the women's Euros, which are happening there. And then of course in the background is the lead up to Qatar, which I'm going to be doing a lot of writing and researching about on The Swan Dive.

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Grant Wahl:

That sounds awesome. I'm looking forward to all of that. Women's Euros is the biggest international tournament happening this summer. Probably bigger, I would say, than the CONCACAF women's World Cup qualifying tournament, but that's also happening too, down in Monterrey. But I associate you with travel. I mean, you do a ton of traveling, both inside the U.S. I saw you recently, you were in Seattle for the CCL final. I think you were in Nashville for the opening of the stadium, and also globally. I mean, on Twitter, I'll see you posting from Europe, or Central America, or Mexico. Where all have you been in the past year?

Meg Swanick:

I'm really fortunate to be able to travel as much as I do. And it's been a really central part of my life, both personally and professionally. I've lived abroad a lot. I've worked in the travel industry kind of on the side and still a little bit doing some stuff in the travel industry in addition to writing. So it's a big part of my general ethos as a person to try and explore as many different locations as possible. In the past year, I've been to all of the away World Cup qualifiers and try to spend as much time there as possible before and after the games. As you know, sometimes it's difficult because they have us in these tight windows.

And so you're in the U.S. for a few days, and then you're in Central America for like a two-day time period and kind of running around with your head cut off trying to get this COVID test, or try as much food as possible in between the actual games. So I've been to all of those away World Cup qualifier locations, and that's been the focus of my travel internationally in the past year. You're right, domestically, so my home base is in Philadelphia technically, but I float around a lot.

I'm pretty nomadic in a certain sense. And I try to, and especially from now until the World Cup, I'm going to be doing a lot of U.S.-based travel related to NWSL, to MLS. And seeing different flavors of different locations and the teams that are there. So that includes, yeah, I was just in Nashville for that home opener of their stadium. And then in Seattle, you might see me posting from some East Coast cities to that are a bit easier for me to get to from Philly. So I'll be in DC shortly. I'll be in New York in the near future. So yeah, a lot of U.S.-based travel coming up too.

Grant Wahl:

So what's kind of your backstory with soccer? Because it seems like everyone has a story, especially in the United States, who's connected to the sport.

Meg Swanick:

I mean, first of all, I grew up playing it, and I think like a lot of people kind of in my age range, that 1999 women's team had a big impact on me wanting to play myself, but also really falling in love with the sport and from all people who were playing it. And so I grew up playing soccer. I always loved soccer. I played competitively through high school and then for fun since then. But I think when soccer started to become something I really wanted to hone in on and write about was after college, a little bit, when I was studying abroad in college. But after college I lived abroad and it was really in those last few years of college and then after into my 20s, when I was traveling around the world, I started to pick up on the fact that there was this kind of giant party, or giant world that everyone was a part of. 

And it was something that connected people from all types of backgrounds and countries. And it had this own specific language that people could talk to from all over the world. And I wanted to understand it more, and I wanted to be a part of it. And so that kind of led me to go into World Cups, and then building a lot of friends and contacts and in the global space of the sport. And as part of that process, I then became fascinated with how the sport grew up in the U.S. and what makes it different here and how we relate to the world with it.

Grant Wahl:

I mean, one thing I've sensed so far in following your work is you do a really good job bridging sort of traditional journalism covering soccer with having a real sense of the pulse of U.S. fans in particular. And I'm wondering how you go about doing that, and approaching that, and how you see U.S. fans in the fan base as it grows. What's your sense of it?

Meg Swanick:

I think one of my favorite things about the U.S. fan base is it's kind of impossible to describe it as any one thing. It's such a large, vast country. People come to the sport from so many different backgrounds, from so many different tournaments that got them hooked. And like you said, everyone's got their origin story, whether it's, "My parents are from Germany, or I grew up in El Salvador." Or whatever it might be. I think that background, like a lot of things in the U.S. and that origin story for everyone who watches and likes the sport, is brought to the culture of soccer in the U.S.

So it's so varied. It's varied for the reasons why people come to the sport. It's varied because of all the different regions in the U.S. I think it's one of the things that fascinates me most about it. But in terms of relating to the fan base, it could be in part that I'm as interested by the fan base as I am by the sport. And so I try to pay attention to what's interesting to them, or how they're consuming the sport, where they're consuming it, why they consume it, and try to tell those stories as much as anything else.

Grant Wahl:

And this won't surprise you here. There are very few women working as soccer journalists in the United States, and even fewer who travel to World Cup qualifiers in Central America and Mexico and elsewhere. Basically it was you and Jenny Chiu from CBS, it seemed like. Why do you think that is? And I find myself asking what we can do, what I can do, to help make that change in the future?

Meg Swanick:

Yeah. That's a really important question I think to ask. And yeah, of course always have appreciated your support. I have to be honest, I was pretty shocked that I was the only woman at the away qualifiers alongside Jenny or the only one in the press box area. And then of course there's other women who write about the national team, but not as many traveling, and it's really interesting. And I wonder how and why that happens exactly. And there's so many women who I know want to be writing about the national team.

And I think like a lot of things, it just takes encouragement, having mentors, or offering that kind of thing to younger journalists who want to write about the men's team. And I think, unfortunately, it might just take time. It could just be that traditionally there hasn't been as many females in the press box, and it's going to take a lot of concerted effort in supporting younger female journalists to bring them in. I do think being aware that that's a thing and wanting that to change is a big part of that battle though.

Grant Wahl:

And I guess one question I would also have is just from sustainability, there aren't that many full-time soccer journalists in the United States. And as much as the sport has grown, because it undeniably has, and the business of soccer in the United States, professional soccer, has grown, the media landscape, I think, sometimes is reflective of the media landscape at large, not just in soccer, where media outlets are struggling. And I look at my previous employer Sports Illustrated, didn't send anyone to the CONCACAF Cup Champions League final in Seattle, which was a major, major story. What sort of tricks have you learned about sustainability, and still being able to travel and do what you want to do and make this work.

Meg Swanick:

Yeah, I think, well, one thing going back to your point about the landscape of soccer journalism in the United States, I do think it's more popular than some major newspaper, magazine outlets realize. And I think this is such an important year for the entire genre of writing about the sport in the U.S., because we can first of all bring more people in who are interested. I have so many people in my life who consume a lot of sports, are curious about soccer, but don't really know. And if we were able to, I think, tell more compelling stories, and this is part of why I wanted to start The Swan Dive, is tell more compelling stories about the full picture, not just the sport, but the cultures, the varied cultures that go into it, the background of the players.

I think we could bring more people and more eyes to the sport in this World Cup year and then have a case study to present to more newspapers, who should be investing more, I think. So that's one thing that I would say. And then in terms of sustainability, I think that this is where being independent can sometimes be a benefit, just in terms of pulling together different freelance projects. You do have to hustle to make it work, but you're less beholden to one outlet approving the one project you want to do. And you can just kind of do it, and then have those freelance projects come together to support you.

And then, one idea with The Swan Dive, which for now is a side project, but as it grows in content, I'd love to be fully independent if possible, and be able to just be in charge of what I cover, where I cover it and that kind of thing. So I mean, yeah, it's an increasingly crowded space, I think the space of independent journalism, and Substacking, and stuff like that. But I do think that's one of the answers to that problem, is you have people who perhaps can do it well, and they'll be able to direct what they're doing and where they're doing it.

Grant Wahl:

I mean, that's one thing I've learned doing my own Substack platform is that you don't need that many paying subscribers to get a benefit from that. You don't need like 50,000. I remember people telling me in the podcast space, "If you really want advertisers, you’ve got to get 25 to 50,000 listens an episode." And that's really hard. And so if you can get, I don't know, a few hundred, a couple thousand subscribers, this can be a sustainable gig. And I will say this, my guess is you've had a similar experience. It's nice being your own boss and being able to, if I want to approve a story, I don't have to ask anybody, I just go and do it. And I assume you like that as well.

Meg Swanick:

Absolutely. Yeah. And that was a big part of why I wanted to do this, and I think you'll find that there are a lot of people. I mean, I'm a patron of a lot of different independent journalists and creators on a lot of different mediums as well. And I think you'd find that a lot of people are interested to support projects that are able to do that and are able to step outside of what's expected, or what traditional media assumes about what's interesting in the sport, and support people who are able to go out there and tell more interesting things.

Grant Wahl:

How did you get connected to The Guardian in the first place?

Meg Swanick:

That happened at the Women's World Cup in 2019, which is actually something that I'm still writing about in the lead-up to the next World Cup. That's one of my book projects that I'm working on. And I write for The Guardian U.S., but I sent to The Guardian UK just a portion of what I was writing. And I mean, completely, just very boldly sent a section to the editor, and he replied back and was like, "This is very interesting." And that started a whole conversation between us. And I've been doing a lot of different projects in the interim years since 2019, but when this whole thing started up, this whole thing being World Cup qualifying, I reached back out and was connected to them, and started writing for them about the qualifiers.

Grant Wahl:

You had an interesting situation happen a couple months ago when you broke the news that Brenden Aaronson was not going to be coming into the U.S. men's national team camp due to an injury, and then U.S. Soccer pushed back on that. And then it turned out you were right. What was that experience like?

Meg Swanick:

I mean, it was definitely an interesting 24 hours. And ultimately what happened there is that U.S. Soccer wanted to be the official bearer of the news. They wanted to be the one to break that news. They were also doing additional checks on Brenden, but the information that I had was obviously true, and it was also very solid and adamant that he was not able to come in. He was far too injured, they were sure. But then there was a 24-hour period where the U.S. Soccer was not willing to announce it yet, and were unhappy that I had. So there was a complete just a disarray of stories going on about what was happening to Brenden Aaronson because of that.

Grant Wahl:

It's really interesting because that brings in social media stuff. It brings in, just breaking news, which is something I do occasionally at this point. It's not something I do as much as maybe I did a few years ago when I was an insider for Fox. But that's an interesting position to be in. Because in my experience, if you get a hundred breaking news stories right, and then you get one wrong, people remember the one you get wrong. And so I always felt a lot of pressure to get it right. And so sometimes if someone pushed back publicly, it would be stressful during that for me. So I can imagine that was for you, and then you ended up being right.

Meg Swanick:

Yeah. And like you said, as someone who is a writer, who is a reporter, you never want to put false information out there. And so there was definitely a bit of an oh no moment, where I felt like, oh, I had put something not true out there. And obviously that's not good reputationally or just professionally, not something I'm interested in doing, regardless of reputation. I have to be honest, I was in Mexico City at the time. My cousin has a really lovely apartment and family with a dog, and a two year old. And so I really just unplugged, and was on the rooftop with her two year old son and was like, "Well, what will be, will be, and I'll figure it out."

Grant Wahl:

And then we talked a little bit about the media landscape for covering soccer in the United States these days. Is there anything else about it that has stood out to you?

Meg Swanick:

I think that it feels very cut off from the rest of not just the media, but sports media. And I think one thing that I have an interest in, just if possible in the next year kind of, and you see it a little bit and you see it in World Cup years, but I would love to see soccer, media, news about the sport, stories about the sport, be more integrated into the regular news cycle, into sports media. And I really do think that the atmosphere is ripe obviously in a World Cup year. But as I mentioned, there's so many compelling stories attached to this team. Where they're headed, where all these players came from, this kind of period of regeneration that we're in. And I think a lot of Americans could really get on board, but the stories aren't getting to them.

So I'd love to see the media take advantage of a World Cup year to bring those stories to everybody and have kind of mainstream sports media, but also media integrate soccer more soundly. I mean, even in a city like Philadelphia, it's such a frenzied sport city in a certain sense. And you have people like Jonathan Tannenwald doing an incredible job at the Philly Inquirer, but he's kind of been holding down the ship in Philly for a long time in terms of getting the word out there in mainstream news. I'd love to see it in more outlets. I'd love to see it getting more air time. Because the Union are such a compelling team. So I think bringing them into the central news cycle is important.

Grant Wahl:

Yeah, I totally agree with that. That's an interesting perspective. And I'm curious to see, not just in a men's World Cup year this year, but women's World Cup next year, and then hosting a men's World Cup in the United States in 2026, how we might see some changes, but I'm not sure. I'm not good at predicting this stuff, Meg. It's something where I never thought it was inevitable that soccer would get to the point it is in right now in the United States.

I'm glad it has. I went full-time soccer in ‘09 just because I really enjoyed telling the stories of this sport. And there weren't many full-time soccer writers at that point, and I've been doing that ever since, but are you like me? Is it hard for you to predict? Where do you see this in 2026? Basically exactly four years from now as we get really close to having a World Cup in the United States again.

Meg Swanick:

I feel pretty optimistic about it for a few reasons. One is I keep mentioning storytelling, but I think that's key. I was just talking to somebody about this who doesn't watch soccer, but they were like, "Okay, convince me." And I was telling them all these stories, and they were talking about how they got into F1 racing because of this documentary on Netflix. I think the more we see HBO Max, or Netflix, or even creators on YouTube, there's so many different methods to tell the stories of the sport generally, globally, but also in the U.S.

I think that I feel confident we're going to see more and more creative ways to tell the stories of the sport in the U.S. that will get people hooked and interested. I think that's a huge part of it is first of all, storytelling, but second of all, tapping into all the different ways that you can do that. And I think I felt pretty confident that we're going to see a huge influx even of people who are interested in doing that. And the second reason is I think that there is a clear concerted effort at a number of levels.

I know we just talked about how "mainstream media" or traditional sports media, not entirely integrating soccer just yet, but at the same time I think that there's more interest across the U.S. to bring soccer in, or to understand the movement more. And especially since we're hosting the World Cup in 2026, I feel pretty hopeful, but obviously always media as a general landscape is hard to predict. So with the caveat of who knows what will happen, I feel pretty excited I think about what we're going to see.

Grant Wahl:

Yeah. Drive to Survive has been hugely influential in making Formula 1 more popular. And to the point now where I know that there's video series being pitched all the time in different sports to do the Drive to Survive for X. And my thing with soccer is, I kind of think MLS should do something like that, or the NWSL. Though I would say that in the soccer space globally, access has not always been easy to get inside teams. And so it's interesting to me that such an international group like Formula 1, that they were able to convince the drivers to do that. And now they've seen the positive results.

So I'm just curious to see what sort of Drive to Survive things we might see in the soccer space, including domestically here moving forward. One of the most traditional things you can do in the media is to write a book, and you have a couple of book projects. Would you mind sharing a little about what you're working on?

Meg Swanick:

I would love to, and thanks for asking. I don't have release dates or anything like that for anybody, but I will give you a sneak peek. There's two of them. I kind of hinted at it a bit earlier. One is about the 2019 World Cup in France, The women's World Cup that of course the U.S. national team won. Quite a historic team, lots of interesting characters and storylines there. And I was there in France for the full tournament. And so the book is a mix of my stories of being in France for that full month and what that was like in the cities that were hosting the World Cup. And then also kind of digging into the very interesting storylines and games from that first game 13-0 against Thailand, all the way to that final against the Netherlands.

So it's been fun for me. I'm actually nearly finished with that one, but it's been a lot of fun to kind of go back and tell those stories. But also with the time passed kind of has added more perspective to what that tournament means in the grand landscape of the women's game. And so that's a part of it as well. And then the second book is about World Cup qualifying and CONCACAF and this incredible region of ours. So it'll start last summer, kind of in the Nations League/Gold Cup era. And I'll take you from Kansas City, where I was with the Gold Cup to World Cup qualifying in Costa Rica.

Grant Wahl:

That sounds amazing. I can't wait to read both of those. And I do think that 2019 women's World Cup team, it's crazy to say that a World Cup-winning team from the United States might have been undercovered, but I would say this: In retrospect as the years go on, I think there's aspects of that 2019 story that are even more special than maybe we realized in the moment, and that's sort of a rare thing to happen.

Meg Swanick:

I completely agree. And that's something like, as I said, it's only been a few years. I think we'll see it even more as more time passes. But I think that team is up there with the 1999’ers in terms of historic impact and just the incredible legendary nature of that entire tournament. There's so much in it, even beyond the U.S., because I think the global game is really changing. And you saw those wheels in motion at that World Cup.

Grant Wahl:

Meg Swanick recently started The Swan Dive, her Substack newsletter that I subscribe to and you should consider as well. She's also a freelance writer covering U.S. soccer for multiple outlets, including The Guardian. Meg thanks for coming on the show.

Meg Swanick:

Thanks Grant.