Why retirement from Storm didn’t mean slowing down for Sue Bird

Sue Bird is not slipping away quietly into retirement.

If anything, she might be just as busy now as she was during her Hall of Fame basketball career, where she won four WNBA titles with the Storm, along with four FIBA World Championships and five Olympic gold medals with Team USA.

Since her professional basketball career ended Sept. 6, 2022, when the Las Vegas Aces eliminated the Storm in the WNBA semifinals, Bird has seemingly been everywhere as she heads into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Whether she’s hosting her podcast with fiancée Megan Rapinoe called “A Touch More” or “Bird’s Eye View,” where she interviews WNBA players, helping guide the direction of the Storm as a member of the ownership group or choosing the 2028 women’s Olympic squad as managing director of Team USA, Bird has stayed plenty active in the three years since she hung it up.

“I stand in awe of just how remarkable (she is),” USA Women’s National Team director Briana Weiss said. “I think there is no limit. If she wants to do it, I think she pursues it full steam ahead, and so far, seems to be wildly successful. Her list of accomplishments just continues to grow, and she’s having quite the post-playing career that I think a lot of players dream of.”

Weiss works closely with Bird for the latter’s work as the squad’s managing director, a job that didn’t officially exist before Bird stepped into it in May. She will piece together the USA squad for the upcoming 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup in Berlin and the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Her credentials are unmatched. Bird helped lead the USA to Olympic gold medals in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 and FIBA World Championships in 2002, 2010, 2014 and 2018.

“I just think I bring a unique perspective and a unique knowledge, given that I played for so long and just like having an understanding of what it takes to win gold medals at this level,” Bird said. “After a lot of thought, it just felt like the right thing for me personally, and I wanted the challenge.”

While the work of compiling Team USA used to be done by a committee, Bird’s resume means that the organization trusts her to take over the job.

“She has a pedigree and the respect of the stakeholders in the ecosystem,” Team USA CEO Jim Tooley said. “She served as a five-time Olympian plus multiple World Cups and has been involved with USA basketball going back to her college days. So she knows the organization, she knows the players, the stakeholders and what it takes to make it to the highest level on a national team. She is absolutely the perfect fit for the role.”

Storm co-owner Lisa Brummel sees Bird as “perfect” for her role as a minority partner in the franchise. Bird joined the Storm’s ownership in April 2024, a couple of years after the group first approached her with the idea.

Bird wasn’t ready to sign on immediately upon retirement but joined about a year later after becoming an investor in Gotham FC of the NWSL. She already had some front-office experience from her time as a basketball operations associate with the NBA’s Denver Nuggets.

She isn’t sure what her plans are for her future as a Storm owner, but she knows that in many ways, the team already belonged to her. As she puts it, she joined the ownership group for “all the obvious reasons.”

“I always said, I always felt kind of my ownership toward the franchise already, albeit in a totally different way. But at the same time, I knew this was a good business decision,” Bird said. “This wasn’t out of the goodness of my heart; this was a smart business decision.”

To Brummel, Bird’s past as a point guard gives her many of the tools she needs to succeed on the business side of the game.

“(Point guards) just have a mind that’s around the analytics of how you win and how you get the ball in the right place to win,” Brummel said. “And that really does carry over. … I talked to her, had talked to her numerous times as a player just in general, about business and opportunities and how she thinks about things, and she’s an amazing analytical thinker.”

There is one thing that Bird has admittedly struggled with in her post-playing career. As a podcast host, after spending her entire life being interviewed by the media, she’s now the one asking the questions.

She quickly realized that knowing what to ask isn’t always easy.

“Asking questions is a whole different skill,” Bird said. “So I feel like I’m just getting started and learning that skill. Being interviewed for many years, it gives me, like, some input into it, but it’s not the same at all.”

As she works hard to refine her interviewing technique, Bird has enjoyed the opportunity to talk to fellow players in a deeper way, revealing sides of themselves that wouldn’t be seen if they weren’t being interviewed by a fellow athlete, especially one of Bird’s caliber.

“Maybe you don’t know a lot about ‘fill in the blank,’ and now those stories get to be told about these players,” Bird said. “… I think that’s a really important part of growing the business as a whole, and allowing these players to, like, grow their own brands coming from a player – like a player-(to)-player conversation. It’s just a unique way to do it.”

Since stepping away from the game, Bird has continued to make her mark on the basketball world. Whatever she pursues, Brummel is certain that Bird will succeed.

“She’s really had a plan,” Brummel said. “She and (Rapinoe) both have really had a plan for how they want to build their post playing lives, and I have the utmost admiration for what they have done. The ground they have broken, the voice they have in women’s sports. I mean, they are the leaders, and it’s an honor to be a partner with her in the Storm.

“… I really am impressed with the way Sue has stepped from one world to another world and become a superstar there as well.”