'We Need To Talk' on CBS Sports Network celebrates 10th anniversary 

Rewatching the first episode of a long-running television program can be cringe-inducing for those involved.

The tone is off, the personalities are ill-defined, the entire thing lacks direction.

Not so with “We Need to Talk,” the all-female CBS Sports Network/CBS show that is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month.

Its premiere happened to coincide with the height of the NFL’s Ray Rice domestic violence incident, and it led to heartfelt – and personal – reactions from the panelists.

When Suzanne Smith, the show’s coordinating producer / director, watched that episode recently, she told Newsday, “I got tears in my eyes.”

Right off the bat, the show illustrated its reason for existence: Giving women a forum to talk about sports from a perspective traditionally underserved in media.

“Our first show happened to be super, super powerful,” Smith said. “I was so proud of everyone involved. They had a platform they hadn’t had before, and they used it in the right way.”

Smith spoke at an event in Manhattan on Wednesday that celebrated the show’s anniversary and featured many panelists and executives, past and present. 

Several brought up that Ray Rice episode. But that only was the beginning. “We Need to Talk” continues to talk about issues of the day.

Emilie Deutsch, who with Smith helped launch the show, recalled driving to the studio for the premiere and hearing the Rice story come up.

“On the radio, the men were saying, ‘Well, my wife said this about that,’ or, ‘My daughter thinks this about that,’” she said.

“There are many situations like that where a woman’s perspective is absolutely necessary to really understand at another level and in a different way.”

The special vibe applies to guests, also.

“I think it made for a really comfortable environment,” Smith said, “that when you came on our show you knew that there was somebody who’s probably been through the same experience or a similar experience.”

Part of the show’s appeal is the sheer star power of its rotating cast, which has included journalists such as Lesley Visser, Andrea Kremer and Tracy Wolfson to elite athletes such as Lisa Leslie, Swin Cash, Laila Ali, Dara Torres and Summer Sanders to executives such as Amy Trask and Katrina Adams.

Said Deutsch, “All the guests, but the men especially, like Jay Wright or Adam Silver, they walk into that studio and . . . they’re starstruck. It’s really fun to see.”

Sarah Kustok, a panelist on the show who is YES’ lead Nets analyst, said she was amused to observe her colleagues try to figure out what to include in their bios – bios that featured multiple gold medals and Hall of Fame inductions.

“I’m always humbled on this show,” she said. “But you see the people behind the star power or the performance.”

Because the show was inventing something new, it had to forge its own path.

“I don’t think I knew what to expect when we first heard about it,” Wolfson said. “I actually envisioned it is as ‘The View.’ That’s kind of what it was to me. But it’s so different from that.”

Visser, who has been working in sports media for 50 years, said, “We just wanted to have a place where women could go to talk ball.”

She and others praised CBS for allowing it to happen, then for allowing it to grow.

For Visser, whose career began when credentials noted that no women or children were allowed in the press box, it is a sight to behold.

“Honestly, it’s one of the most proud shows or experiences that I’ve ever been associated with,” she said.

Two special episodes of the show will mark the anniversary, first on CBS at 1:30 p.m. Saturday and the other on CBS Sports Network at 7 p.m. on Sept. 30, the actual 10th anniversary of the premiere.

The visibility of women’s sports has grown since 2014, but for “We Need to Talk,” visibility remains a challenge.

Leslie, a four-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time WNBA MVP, loves working on the show, which she called “magic,” starting with that Rice episode.

“That show was so good, so heavy and so honest, I knew I was in the right place,” she said.

But, she added, “The only thing that I sometimes feel saddened by is that not enough people have seen ‘We Need to Talk.’ They don’t really know what they’ve missed.

“If you ask someone about ‘The View’ or about ‘The Talk,’ even if you don’t watch it, you’ve heard of it. I just feel like people have not heard about ‘We Need to Talk’ and we’ve really hit some amazing topics.”

(CBS Sports Network does not subscribe to Nielsen for viewership ratings.)

Said Kremer, “The show evolved, it found its sweet spot. What I wanted for the show, and truthfully, I can’t say we are there yet, I want to be the show of record for women’s sports. Not about women’s sports but about anything in sports.

“When something happens, I want people to say, ‘I want to know what the people on ‘We Need to Talk’ have to say.”

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.