Martina Navratilova: commitment

Transcript context

…Say you’re starting in the NBA. You’re a good player. You have a proven record. Very few people in that position have come out. Do you think it’s about endorsements or commercial factors or fandom? Because they’re not going to bench you the minute after you say . . . It’s privacy. It’s your teammates. Some may know. Some may not. I know professional team sports, there’s definitely a lot of players out there that their teammates know. But it’s still a taboo, and it’s uncomfortable. It attracts attention in a way that these macho sports don’t want. Even on the tennis tour, I was lucky that I could come out because I knew I could still play tennis no matter what happened. Endorsements, I didn’t care. I lost a lot of money, but I just wanted to play tennis and be true to myself. I knew I could still play no matter what. The ranking is this — you get to play. But on team sports, it’s tricky. I get that, that it’s difficult, especially for men. On the men’s tour, the guys are so far in the closet I don’t even know who they are. [laughter] It’s disappointing because the women are much more brave on that front. I don’t know why actually. You were born in Czechoslovakia, what’s now the Czech Republic. Do you follow Czech politics still at all?…

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