Megan Rapinoe talks Trump, World Cup at Sonoma Valley summit
Megan Rapinoe scored big in Sonoma Valley earlier this week.
The fleet and outspoken soccer superstar spoke and posed with fans during and outside an invitation-only conference on mobile marketing that was headquartered at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa.
Rapinoe, co-captain of the U.S. national team that on July 7 won the Women’s World Cup in France, was the “Inspirational Speaker” at the elite summit of the Mobile Marketing Association. Appearing in a post-dinner talk Sunday at Hanson of Sonoma Distillery, she engaged in conversation with interviewer Kara Swisher, the New York Times contributor and co-founder of Recode, the tech news website that earlier this year joined with Vox Media.
“It was phenomenal,” the Carneros distillery’s Scott Hanson said of the Rapinoe-Swisher talk before about 250 guests of the marketing group’s summit for chief executives and chief marketing officers. “They talked about a little of everything.”
The stage conversation followed a dinner held at Ceja Vineyards.
Hanson said Rapinoe did address her widely publicized spat with the Trump White House, which she famously declared her soccer team would not visit were it invited upon winning the World Cup.
The vodka-from-grapes distiller said Rapinoe told the crowd Sunday the conflict was old news when it broke, as she’d made the remark about the unlikelihood of a White House visit in January, months before the tournament.
After her remarks went viral, but still before the U.S. team’s triumph, Trump tweeted in response, “Megan should WIN first before she TALKS!”
On Sunday night at the Burndale Road distillery, Rapinoe also said something to the assembled tech company executives that she repeated to ESPN FC on Monday.
Recalled event host Hanson, “She said the publicity around it (the White House controversy) was a little bit disruptive but it also inspired them and it charged her up.”
In the interview with ESPN on Monday, the chameleon-haired soccer forward said, “If anything, it kind of united everyone around us and united the team sort of around itself.
“And it was kind of emboldening in a way.”
In the distillery talk to invitees, Rapinoe also touched on the quest to resolve the inequity between what professional male soccer players are paid - including those for the men’s national team - and what she and her teammates are paid.
Hanson said it impressed him that Rapinoe spoke without anger or bitterness.
“We were taken by her groundedness, and candor, and honesty,” he said. He added that he and his wife, Judy, spent some time with Rapinoe and found her delightfully personable.
“I enjoyed talking to her,” he said.
The soccer star made a big splash also when she dropped in hours before the talk at El Molino Central, the acclaimed Mexican restaurant in Boyes Hot Springs.
You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.