Latest / Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More / Episode 16 | WNBA Season Preview, USWNT vs. Japan, PWHL Playoff Push

Transcript

Episode 16 | WNBA Season Preview, USWNT vs. Japan, PWHL Playoff Push · Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

• 0:00
  The other thing that's genius about this is Emma's signaling.
• 0:03
  OK, I don't care about this game right now.
• 0:07
  I care about winning a World Cup in a year.
• 0:10
  I also care about winning a World Cup in five years.
• 0:20
  Hi, I'm Caitlin. Hi, I'm Alex.
• 0:22
  And this is Raising the Game women's sports podcast covering
• 0:26
  primetime performers, the business behind the athletes and
• 0:29
  leagues, and what the growth of women's sports means for the
• 0:32
  next generation of women's athletes.
• 0:35
  We're back this week. We've got quite a bit to to
• 0:40
  handle here. We've got WNBA preseason
• 0:43
  starting up. Yep.
• 0:45
  Training camp started yesterday as of the time of this
• 0:48
  recording. Yep, we have.
• 0:50
  US women's national team just finished their three games
• 0:52
  against Japan. Yep, we're gonna talk all about
• 0:55
  that. And I think we've got a few
• 0:57
  other things in the in our what to watch PWHL is.
• 1:00
  Coming down to the wire. Coming down to the wire here.
• 1:03
  Playoff spot in the PWHL regular season ends on Saturday.
• 1:07
  Saturday. Yep.
• 1:09
  And then we had some finals over the weekend, NCAA, college
• 1:14
  gymnastics and LOVB, the League One volleyball.
• 1:19
  Yeah, that's right. Happened over the weekend too.
• 1:22
  So we'll get into all of that and more over the course of the
• 1:26
  next little bit here with all of y'all.
• 1:29
  But before we dig into headlines, kind of favorite
• 1:33
  thing. I do we, you went to pick up the
• 1:36
  equipment for the soccer team that you were coaching for our
• 1:40
  Aldous's team and she was so excited for the jerseys and
• 1:44
  like, OK, like she was excited for that.
• 1:47
  She seems really excited to start.
• 1:48
  Like she is talking about it constantly, getting all her
• 1:51
  equipment ready. I just it's really fun to watch
• 1:53
  her get excited about that and getting to watch you coach her
• 1:57
  team. It's been many years since I've
• 2:01
  coached rec soccer, so mom's gonna have to figure out how to
• 2:08
  pull the. Computer back a little bit,
• 2:10
  yeah. Looking forward to that with her
• 2:13
  and giving back kind of like helping the next thing in like
• 2:19
  that, the next generation. Yeah, for sure.
• 2:21
  Young girls. My favorite thing, man, I mean,
• 2:29
  it was probably watching that third game for the national team
• 2:32
  on Friday. They looked so solid.
• 2:34
  It was kind of like everything sort of clicked.
• 2:38
  I think Emma has been like running, Emma Hayes has been
• 2:42
  running with her like Michelin star chef analogy.
• 2:47
  And so she was like, we were able to like kind of put out the
• 2:50
  full courses of the meal and that was really exciting to see.
• 2:56
  I I got to say though, I watching the LOVB final with.
• 3:01
  Your dad. Alex's parents were in town this
• 3:04
  weekend and he was like he was getting pretty into the into the
• 3:08
  game. We were admiring the skill and
• 3:11
  like athleticism of the ladies playing but also learning.
• 3:16
  The. Way like I kept I can't tell you
• 3:18
  how many times I like used my phone to look up.
• 3:21
  Look at the rules. What's the rule?
• 3:23
  Yeah, yeah. Something about the rules or
• 3:24
  something about the league. So.
• 3:26
  That was pretty cool. We always loved sharing.
• 3:28
  Like some of these maybe lesser known leagues or lesser known
• 3:32
  sports with potentially new. Fans.
• 3:34
  Yeah, exactly. So all right all.
• 3:37
  Right, let's dive into this. Yeah, let's take a look here.
• 3:43
  Asia Wilson signs $5,000,000 three-year deal with Las Vegas
• 3:48
  Aces, the largest contract in women's professional basketball
• 3:51
  history. Yeah, the bags keep coming.
• 3:53
  For these. Ladies, under their new CBA
• 3:57
  deal, I think we'll talk a little bit in our WNBA segment,
• 4:00
  but the Aces always also were able to re sign the point God,
• 4:05
  Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Jewel Lloyd, who are like their
• 4:09
  core 4 from a starters position last year of the team that won
• 4:14
  the championship. So they are definitely on my who
• 4:17
  to watch list along with a few other teams.
• 4:19
  We'll talk about it a little bit. 2026 WNBA Draft draws 1.5
• 4:24
  million average viewers, second only to the 2024 draft when
• 4:28
  Caitlin Clark was the number one overall pick.
• 4:31
  Yeah. So I think this is interesting.
• 4:33
  Viewership peaked at about 1.81.9, up 20% year on year.
• 4:40
  And I think this is just tracking the same way that so
• 4:43
  many of the other things we're seeing in the West, but across
• 4:47
  women's sports right there just like more interest.
• 4:50
  Something that was really interesting to me in the article
• 4:52
  I read about this was that the top, the the draft, excuse me,
• 4:58
  was the top program on ESPN that night that it aired among male
• 5:04
  identified adults ages 25 to 54. So that's really fascinating,
• 5:11
  too. I think we often will hear this
• 5:13
  refrain of like, well, yeah, women are watching the women's
• 5:16
  sports. And it's like, no.
• 5:18
  Men are watching, too. There's a lot of guys that are
• 5:20
  really, you hear this a lot with like the W, There's a lot of men
• 5:24
  who frankly say the basketball is.
• 5:26
  Yeah. Better product or like more true
• 5:29
  to the game maybe, maybe not a better product.
• 5:32
  They're very different products, right?
• 5:34
  So I think that's cool. Yeah.
• 5:37
  WNBA commissioner Kathy Engelbert indicates the league
• 5:39
  is looking to stage international games as soon as
• 5:42
  2027. So this is really interesting.
• 5:45
  We talked last week when we were kind of diving into that
• 5:49
  Deloitte Game Changers report about the growth of the game of
• 5:52
  games globally, right? And so you see mostly domestic
• 5:57
  league. Obviously now we have the
• 5:58
  Toronto Tempo as part of the WNBA, but start to want to
• 6:03
  expand that footprint and get exposure outside of, you know,
• 6:07
  primarily the United States. Yeah, cool to see.
• 6:11
  Oklahoma women's gymnastics takes home the national title
• 6:14
  trophy over a stacked field in the final four on the floor,
• 6:17
  earning their second title in a row, and they're and four in the
• 6:21
  last five years. Just like sheer dominance,
• 6:24
  crazy. And they won over like we like,
• 6:27
  it said. They're stacked field, really
• 6:29
  fun to see. Shout out to Minnesota making it
• 6:31
  in. The 13th.
• 6:33
  Seed. Making it to the.
• 6:34
  Final Cinderella story there. Right.
• 6:36
  One thing I do want to comment on that I was reading when it
• 6:39
  was happening, when the final was happening on threads, people
• 6:43
  were getting really pissy about the coverage because ESPN, for
• 6:49
  whatever reason there'd be. So if you've ever watched a
• 6:52
  gymnastics meet, especially when there's four teams competing at
• 6:55
  once, there is always somebody. Going constant.
• 6:58
  And usually there's two athletes going in some level of overlap.
• 7:02
  So like in reality, if you're broadcasting, you should almost
• 7:06
  never not have somebody going on screen and they do split screen
• 7:12
  and things like that. And they are people were mad
• 7:14
  because I think the for the Gophers, I think there were
• 7:17
  turns. So when they're doing a certain
• 7:20
  element right where you know, you're supposed to have six
• 7:23
  athletes go and you'd see one on the broadcast.
• 7:27
  And so there's a lot of calls for you got to clean this up,
• 7:30
  like even it out. So interesting.
• 7:33
  LOVB Austin clinched back-to-back championships in
• 7:36
  Golden set match win over LOVB Salt Lake in a in front of a
• 7:40
  sell out crowd. Yeah, this was.
• 7:44
  Like I said, learn so much about this.
• 7:46
  They play a two match. Like, I don't know, it's not a
• 7:52
  tournament, but like it's two matches.
• 7:55
  You don't just play one match for the championship, and Salt
• 7:58
  Lake had won the first match on Thursday, so they came in kind
• 8:02
  of ahead. If they had won the match, they
• 8:04
  would have won the championship. Austin was down like they went
• 8:09
  down 2 sets to one, had to win that fourth set.
• 8:14
  They did, and then they ended up winning the 5th set to force
• 8:18
  what's called a golden set. So then they play one set to 15
• 8:22
  to determine the champion. It's crazy.
• 8:24
  And they just owned them, so they kind of turned it on there.
• 8:27
  But yeah, this was Madison Skinner is like the big kind of
• 8:31
  star player on Austin. She's the one that's also part
• 8:34
  owner of Austin Or is that a different?
• 8:36
  Yeah. I'd have to look that.
• 8:38
  No, I thought that was with the Omaha.
• 8:40
  Team Yeah, it would be Omaha. This is like her 4th
• 8:44
  championship in six years between college because they
• 8:47
  won, like Alex said, back-to-back for Austin and then
• 8:52
  she was at Kentucky and Texas and won national titles.
• 8:56
  Crazy, she and she. Was If you ever want to watch
• 8:59
  somebody really good at volleyball, right, go watch her.
• 9:03
  This is crazy. US Women's National Team ends
• 9:08
  three-game series against Japan with emphatic 30V after a gritty
• 9:13
  one nil defeat in midweek. Yep, we'll talk about these in a
• 9:16
  little bit here. In other international women's
• 9:18
  football competition, England took down world #1 Spain in the
• 9:22
  quest for four early birds to the 2027 Women's World Cup.
• 9:28
  And when Alex said early birds, he meant early bids.
• 9:30
  Early bids, Early bids, yeah, I put an R in there.
• 9:32
  Yeah, we'll, we'll talk a little bit about the different
• 9:36
  qualifiers, which teams have qualified for the World Cup and
• 9:40
  what's remaining to go. What's interesting in Europe is
• 9:44
  the top 16 ranked teams in UEFA, the European Federation, They
• 9:50
  play in what's called League A pools and they play in these 4
• 9:54
  League A pools in. The winner of each of those
• 9:57
  pools advances and then the remaining teams from those
• 10:02
  League A pools go drop down to play the team.
• 10:06
  In the BMC. Pools in another round of
• 10:08
  tournament. So like you really save yourself
• 10:11
  a lot of stress and anxiety by winning these pools.
• 10:14
  And England now is ahead of Spain in their pool.
• 10:19
  We're halfway through, so there's still two more games to
• 10:21
  play. Germany and Denmark also won
• 10:24
  over the weekend, their pool, the respective pools, and I
• 10:27
  think the Dutch are at the top of the fourth one.
• 10:30
  So definitely an interesting breakdown.
• 10:34
  Lots more to go for qualifying the rest of 2026 here.
• 10:38
  PWHL playoff picture Titans heading into the final week of
• 10:41
  regular season play with Montreal locking up the number
• 10:43
  one seed, Boston with the number 2 and Minnesota with the third
• 10:47
  seed with a battle for the final playoff spot between three teams
• 10:51
  going down to the wire. I have a small breakdown in the
• 10:54
  in the what to watch so we will talk about it OK?
• 10:58
  PWHL surpasses 1,000,000 fans in in person game attendance for
• 11:02
  the first time. So I was just reading about this
• 11:05
  and it sounds like they did this in 46 games less than what they
• 11:12
  had projected. Crazy.
• 11:13
  So they, they obviously run these projections and and we
• 11:16
  talked about a couple weeks ago, maybe it was even last week
• 11:19
  about Stan Cast and one of the Advisory Board members and he
• 11:24
  was saying that like the growth is ahead of schedule.
• 11:28
  And so this is one thing that's pointing to like that, that
• 11:31
  schedule being ahead of that schedule excuse.
• 11:34
  Me. We say it every week.
• 11:35
  They are about to announce expansion teams any moment.
• 11:40
  I don't know how it hasn't happened yet, frankly. 3 Winter
• 11:45
  Olympians Alyssa Liu, Hillary Knight and Chloe Kim headline
• 11:48
  Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People list.
• 11:52
  Yeah, I didn't get to like, I didn't really explore.
• 11:54
  The rest of the list. I'm sure there's other athletes
• 11:56
  there, but that was pretty cool, especially considering the just
• 12:00
  the clout that that those they kind of brought from a media
• 12:05
  attention, storyline, all that kind of stuff throughout
• 12:08
  throughout the Winter Olympics. And WSL is reportedly looking at
• 12:13
  a calendar shift from spring to fall season to European style
• 12:17
  fall to Spring Framework. This is interesting.
• 12:22
  So the MLS voted last year to make this change.
• 12:25
  The MLS is playing its final season right now in the spring
• 12:28
  to fall timeline. As you can imagine, the men's
• 12:32
  World Cup is this year. And so that that season gets
• 12:35
  super disrupted by that, right? And so the argument is switch
• 12:40
  the calendar so that we're better aligned with the
• 12:43
  international major tournaments at the Olympics and the World
• 12:46
  Cup. And honestly, it's doing that in
• 12:49
  some, I mean, depending on who's hosting or also the other league
• 12:54
  that might be playing, right, the women's, the NWSL is going
• 12:57
  to get disrupted this year for the men's World Cup.
• 13:02
  The players association right now is is pushing back on this.
• 13:06
  And they're kind of arguing that like we don't have the right
• 13:09
  infrastructure to do this and play really high quality soccer.
• 13:13
  It's kind of funny, like. I'm surprised the MLS did this.
• 13:17
  So I was thinking that too and I was like.
• 13:19
  Minnesota in February. Yeah, they had to have made
• 13:22
  like, I don't know how they decided like that.
• 13:25
  That was a good move. You think of like European
• 13:28
  countries and it's like they're they're.
• 13:30
  Oh. Yeah, their climate is so
• 13:32
  different than ours. It does not get that cold or
• 13:37
  frozen, frankly, in the months that they play in the majority
• 13:41
  of the the countries that that are in that.
• 13:43
  So that is going to be something to watch.
• 13:46
  It would be weird to have the two leagues opposites, but also
• 13:53
  maybe helps potentially with scheduling if you're sharing
• 13:56
  venues. And then I also think about like
• 13:59
  the value of the brought does like like how does broadcast
• 14:04
  and? Things like that work.
• 14:05
  Into it because you were kind of.
• 14:07
  Maybe you could team up on the broadcast a little bit if they
• 14:10
  somehow were able to. Well, if they go, yeah.
• 14:13
  But like what's going to be interesting is you have right
• 14:17
  now they they are together, MLS and NWSL, they are together then
• 14:22
  they're going to shift away. So I'm wondering is it is
• 14:25
  broadcast going to say no, we need you to be prepared or it's
• 14:29
  better for us to be a separate. So it's just really interesting
• 14:32
  to think. About Wild.
• 14:34
  All right, let's get into it. We are going to talk about this
• 14:37
  women's national team three-game series against Japan.
• 14:41
  OK, so last week they had played one game.
• 14:46
  We talked a little bit about that, but just to refresh our
• 14:49
  memories, that was a 21 win in San Jose, CA Goals in that one
• 14:55
  from Rose Lavelle on her 100th cap with an assist on that goal
• 15:01
  from Trinity Rodman. And then Lindsay Heap scored on
• 15:04
  a goal, a goal on an assist from Rose Lavelle.
• 15:09
  That was Sophia Wilson's first start since October 2024 after
• 15:13
  having her baby Gigi. She is the 18th mom to play for
• 15:19
  the national team, which is. Yeah.
• 15:21
  I mean, we talked about it a lot, but let's keep celebrating
• 15:24
  it. It's amazing.
• 15:25
  Yeah. And the average caps for these
• 15:29
  starters was around 56. So I think if we've been
• 15:34
  tracking, they had some friendlies in January, I think
• 15:37
  the average caps was like 6 or something.
• 15:42
  And then we played, she believes.
• 15:44
  And I think it like crept up to like 30 or something like that.
• 15:48
  And now we're at 56. You had talked about like
• 15:54
  efficiency coming out of that game.
• 15:56
  They had had nine shots on goal with, or excuse me, nine shots
• 16:00
  with, three shots on goal and two goals.
• 16:02
  It's like a really good yeah, yeah.
• 16:04
  Ratios across the board. I I sort of tracked that through
• 16:09
  the. The rest of the games?
• 16:11
  Here for us to to think through. So talked a little bit about
• 16:15
  that game. We're going to kind of group all
• 16:17
  of this together. So a second game was a 01 defeat
• 16:23
  in Seattle, WA. So this game was played midweek.
• 16:27
  The weather was horrible. It was pouring down rain in
• 16:30
  Seattle like Seattle does. But that did not stop record
• 16:35
  attendance for a stand alone women's game in in Seattle.
• 16:40
  So they had. Over 36,000 people show up.
• 16:44
  It was the first time that they had been played in Seattle in
• 16:47
  almost 10 years, and I also learned that they have never won
• 16:52
  at Loom and Field. I saw that and that is wild to
• 16:54
  me. Yeah, I saw that too.
• 16:56
  I was like, they have to have at least drawn, but then I'm like,
• 16:59
  they also haven't played there. In 10 years, maybe.
• 17:01
  That's why they don't go back. I think the next AD also you
• 17:04
  have down here was also wild to me considering what we just
• 17:06
  talked about in the first game. The completely different
• 17:10
  starting eleven. Yeah.
• 17:11
  So. So Emma decided, hey, I'm
• 17:16
  testing, I'm working out like how do these teams, you know,
• 17:19
  bring pull the recipe together effectively completely different
• 17:23
  starting 11 than she had in the first game.
• 17:26
  Now we're going to talk a little bit about this in a second.
• 17:29
  I'm going to talk about it. I these games don't matter, they
• 17:33
  do impact your FIFA rating and ranking and things like that,
• 17:37
  but like at the end of the day, they don't matter.
• 17:40
  They. Impact fans feels.
• 17:41
  They impact feels and I think I'm going to talk about that
• 17:44
  because it's important to think about, but she changed the
• 17:48
  starting 11. We now are at about 24 average
• 17:51
  capsule, half of what we had in the first game for reference.
• 17:57
  Just to put it in perspective, within a calendar year, these
• 18:02
  teams probably play on average like 12 to 15 games.
• 18:07
  So when we're talking about in a cap is getting time in a game,
• 18:11
  right. So when we're talking about
• 18:13
  going to from 56 to 24, you're talking about years.
• 18:18
  Three to four year average versus one to two year average.
• 18:23
  In the system, in the program like that sort of thing.
• 18:26
  So it's, it's, it's significant. Now the other thing that's
• 18:30
  interesting about the changing out of the full 11.
• 18:35
  Yep, that has happened only 9 times. 9/9 times for your Ferris
• 18:40
  Bueller fans. Yes, in US women's national team
• 18:44
  history, OK, Emma has done it four times so.
• 18:48
  Almost half. So almost half and she's been
• 18:50
  there two years, three years, three years.
• 18:56
  It feels like it's been 6 months.
• 18:57
  Yeah, she's still. So she came in right before the
• 19:03
  her 10th game was winning the gold medal in the 2024 Olympics,
• 19:08
  so 2024. So that was interesting.
• 19:12
  We saw Claire Hutton where the armband, one of the youngest, I
• 19:16
  think the youngest captain since like 2001. 2001 is a sad I.
• 19:20
  Had something like that. I saw a real, actually a really
• 19:24
  like touching video of Lindsay putting.
• 19:27
  Oh yeah, I saw a fan too. Her in the locker room and I was
• 19:30
  like, and that is why I know, I know.
• 19:35
  We'll talk about Lindsay Heaps. Her, I always say this, her
• 19:38
  leadership, her grit, her at like the way she shows up to
• 19:41
  lead on a field. I have massive respect for her
• 19:45
  and people. You can see the respect.
• 19:47
  You could see Claire kind of being like, oh, this is like,
• 19:50
  yeah, yeah, OK. I think, I think also just for
• 19:55
  reference, I believe she was the one who got the $1.1 million
• 19:59
  transfer. Was that right?
• 20:01
  Claire Hutton did, yeah. And then she just signed an, an
• 20:04
  extension on that deal for, so the transfer fee was $1.1
• 20:08
  million. And then she signed an extended
• 20:11
  contract for about one point to I think I believe that was, it
• 20:17
  was over $1,000,000. I know that.
• 20:19
  So also in this game, just a few quick stats, the US did have 67%
• 20:24
  of the possession, which defies some of the logic we think of
• 20:27
  when we play Japan. Usually it's like if you can own
• 20:30
  the possession, you can beat Japan.
• 20:32
  I to me, like this was just a messy game when the weather's
• 20:37
  like that. You just.
• 20:39
  Yeah. And then we also saw in this
• 20:42
  game 12 shots total, 5 on goal, so a much lower kind of
• 20:48
  conversion rate of taking shots to scoring opportunities
• 20:53
  essentially. And then finally on this game,
• 20:56
  we saw Tieran Davidson come back into the lineup.
• 20:58
  So she subbed in the second-half.
• 21:00
  They actually subbed a lot of their veteran players.
• 21:03
  And in the second-half, I actually think Lindsay Heaps
• 21:06
  came close to scoring. I think so.
• 21:08
  So came close to scoring, we just couldn't couldn't put it
• 21:12
  past the Nadashima. So then we move on a few days
• 21:20
  later, rounding out the series in Commerce City, Co.
• 21:24
  With snow at the edge of the pitch.
• 21:27
  With tons of snow like they had to shovel off the field for the
• 21:31
  game. I think the starting temp at
• 21:33
  kickoff was 38°, so they won three to zero.
• 21:39
  We mentioned that in headlines this was I had sort of predicted
• 21:43
  that we were going to see sort of like a best of lineup based
• 21:47
  on the performances in the first two games.
• 21:49
  I think that's what we. Got.
• 21:51
  With the exception of I don't know if I don't know if Tierna
• 21:55
  is quite yet at like best of, but I love that Emma put her in
• 21:59
  the starting lineup planned 45 minutes did that, and then her
• 22:03
  substitution of Kennedy Wesley looked.
• 22:06
  Yeah, I did have that it this felt like the team you expect to
• 22:11
  see when you turn on the TV. Right.
• 22:14
  I think the I think the interesting thing they, they
• 22:17
  talked a little bit in the broadcast of this game about,
• 22:20
  you know, why not start Sam Coffey?
• 22:22
  Like she's probably. But Emma had said she's like, I
• 22:26
  haven't seen Lindsay Heaps play with Hutton with Yeah.
• 22:30
  And she wanted to see how those two work together.
• 22:32
  And I got to be honest, I thought it was good.
• 22:35
  I liked it. I still think Sam Coffey is one
• 22:39
  of the best sixes in the game right now.
• 22:42
  Like she she just plays that position so well.
• 22:46
  But I like Claire's got a little bit more of Sam's kind of like a
• 22:50
  sit down and like anchor the the offense.
• 22:56
  Claire's got a little bit more of a like a flow and a freeness
• 23:00
  to how she plays. So plus like, fantastic to be
• 23:05
  building that skill set. Yeah, right.
• 23:08
  Yep. At her age.
• 23:09
  At her age, yeah. So this was also I wrote down
• 23:14
  this was the center back bonanza.
• 23:17
  So couldn't score a goal in the first half.
• 23:21
  I will say maybe the first like 1520 minutes was kind of like
• 23:24
  what is happening, right? Here like we look a little
• 23:27
  rusty. And then it was that second-half
• 23:31
  of the first half that last 25 minutes or so where like you
• 23:35
  started to see the chances in the combination play working
• 23:38
  out. And I really, I love that
• 23:42
  momentum. But you also could sense the
• 23:44
  frustration. Like the team storyline
• 23:48
  throughout this year so far has been the national, the national
• 23:54
  team's inability to convert right.
• 23:58
  And you would call that out like, right.
• 24:01
  And so I think they were like, we're getting the chances.
• 24:06
  It's just not going in. And I have to imagine that Emma
• 24:11
  at halftime was like, there's this fine line of you're doing
• 24:16
  all the right things. But what I, I heard in some of
• 24:19
  the post game press conference was like, you have to have
• 24:23
  conviction. You have to mean it when you do
• 24:27
  the right things, right? It's not enough to just do them
• 24:30
  and kind of go through the motions.
• 24:31
  You have to want to see the outcome happen.
• 24:36
  And I just like, I love that. I love her.
• 24:40
  So I have AI have a little note about her later.
• 24:42
  Too. So we did see.
• 24:45
  Goals start in the second-half. There subbed on Kennedy Wesley
• 24:48
  to pair with Naomi Germa and sent her back.
• 24:51
  That was how they had started the first game.
• 24:55
  So Tierna came out and right up went almost right away off of a
• 24:59
  corner kick. You had Naomi Germa scoring her
• 25:02
  third international goal off of a Kennedy Wesley header back
• 25:06
  across school on that corner, and then Wesley scored a goal
• 25:12
  off of a. Corner.
• 25:12
  Kick from Jaden Shaw like just a beautiful finish and like her
• 25:16
  joy. She was so excited her.
• 25:18
  Joy at scoring that goal was it was contagious.
• 25:23
  And then the one of the most beautiful goals I've seen in a
• 25:28
  while. The slip pass from Trin through
• 25:33
  the legs, but like, perfectly angled too.
• 25:37
  To get to beat the defender into a on, you know, running on Rose
• 25:42
  Lavelle with the perfect finish. It's like one of those things
• 25:45
  where you get that perfect pass like please do not.
• 25:48
  This is like the best pass you've ever seen.
• 25:51
  You have to convert. I'm sure Trinity was thinking
• 25:54
  that too. 'Cause.
• 25:54
  She's was we talked about a couple.
• 25:56
  Weeks ago, like she's been kind of like, seemed a little off.
• 25:59
  But she actually. Looking at some of the stats
• 26:02
  here, like she, she had a good showing, she had a couple of
• 26:04
  assists, she created some things, she had some, you know,
• 26:08
  and I think you mentioned too, like she draws defensive
• 26:11
  attention, right? Whether you she scores or not,
• 26:14
  like she's doing, she's playing a role on that field to draw
• 26:17
  attention. So those goals were really fun
• 26:20
  to watch. Just a lot of and and like you
• 26:23
  could feel. I know we mentioned Wesley's
• 26:25
  joy, but like you could feel like.
• 26:27
  All the all the smiles, yeah. All like they were finally, like
• 26:31
  finally like it. It's.
• 26:33
  Interesting. We talked about like the idea
• 26:35
  that you with like Soph and like Alex Morgan talking about when
• 26:39
  they became a mother, kind of some of that weight lifted.
• 26:41
  And I'm wondering if like they finally got to a place just kind
• 26:44
  of totally different. But like a weight was lifted by
• 26:46
  starting to score and starting to feel like, oh, this is
• 26:49
  feeling more natural now. Like we can do it.
• 26:51
  We can do it right. Yeah, exactly.
• 26:54
  So going back quick to Rose Lavelle, I said this to Alex
• 26:59
  when we were prepping for this is like we are not talking
• 27:02
  about. The form she.
• 27:04
  Is in right now. She's had ten goal contributions
• 27:07
  in the last 10 games and I think you had seen a stat that like
• 27:09
  prior to. Like 7 out of 9 or 8 out of 10
• 27:13
  before that, something like that.
• 27:14
  She's just and she looks really healthy.
• 27:17
  She looks fast. One of the.
• 27:19
  Things we were also talking about was like the speed the US
• 27:23
  has up top. They were is crazy with Soph.
• 27:28
  And trend and then you add a list of Thompson, Thompson in
• 27:31
  there. You rose Lavelle is fast in her
• 27:34
  own right. You throw Giselle coming up the
• 27:37
  the left flank. Yeah, I think I.
• 27:38
  Remember during that game we were just like, why they're so
• 27:40
  fast suddenly like. Right.
• 27:43
  So and then then in this game, just for our stat trackers out
• 27:46
  there, we had 15 shots. So what's good is in each game
• 27:50
  we were generating more shots, which is good, but then seven
• 27:54
  shots on goal, so kind of hanging around that 50%.
• 27:58
  But then you had three goals on 7 scoring chances, right?
• 28:02
  So really good to see. The volume up a little bit.
• 28:07
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good.
• 28:09
  So I mean, what I was going to kind of bring out here is we
• 28:12
  talked about Emma and her lab quite a bit.
• 28:15
  I know she's moved on to kind of the more chef and kitchen
• 28:19
  analogies here, so I probably should have made it like that.
• 28:23
  Just some numbers here. 27 different players used across
• 28:27
  three different matches, which is wild.
• 28:31
  Yeah, like we I think we talked about this already, the full 11
• 28:35
  swap in Game 2, which was the ninth time in program history.
• 28:38
  And then just some some of those players that we discussed.
• 28:42
  Kennedy had her first goal and 1st assists in 45 minutes off
• 28:46
  the bench. Claudia Dickey look great, 5
• 28:50
  saves in game, 1/3 in game three and her 8th clean sheet and 10
• 28:53
  appearances. And then like we talked about
• 28:57
  Claire Hutton, youngest captain since 2001, three games, two
• 29:00
  starts, 210 minutes, and then she hit, went off the crossbar.
• 29:04
  I believe in in game. Yeah, she had a laser on the
• 29:07
  shot in the first half. And she's 20/20/20.
• 29:12
  This is what we have to look forward to on this team, right?
• 29:14
  Like it's, there's so much depth there.
• 29:19
  I was going to ask, is this a confidence in depth or are there
• 29:23
  gaps that Emma still kind of has to figure out?
• 29:28
  So I like the question. I have a couple.
• 29:30
  I have a couple of different thoughts on it.
• 29:32
  One, I I want to go back to you commented on the goalkeeper
• 29:37
  situation. We had talked about that as like
• 29:39
  a point to to watch that. We don't we we didn't really
• 29:42
  figure out like a true number one.
• 29:46
  I think Claudia Dickey made her case pretty clearly here Now,
• 29:50
  Fallon tell us Joyce, who was kind of.
• 29:53
  I who I thought was the front runner.
• 29:55
  Had the short stick on the draw and had to play the rain game,
• 29:58
  but she looked so uncomfortable the whole like whether it was
• 30:03
  back to her feet or just different saves, like just
• 30:07
  didn't look so. So maybe she was just having a
• 30:10
  bad day. But I thought Dickie looked
• 30:12
  poised. I thought she looked like she
• 30:14
  knew exactly what she wanted to do with the ball when she got
• 30:17
  it. And like, and then probably that
• 30:19
  confidence comes through and directing traffic and manning
• 30:22
  your back line, making sure your defense stays organized.
• 30:25
  All of those things plus her hands.
• 30:29
  We were like, there were things she was catching that no
• 30:33
  goalkeeper I know would actually try to catch.
• 30:36
  Like we Perry, we or or knock it down so we can recover and she
• 30:41
  was just catching them. So I I love I really like
• 30:46
  started. I not really watched a lot of
• 30:47
  her play. I thought I'm.
• 30:49
  Going to ask a question that I'm really not prepared to ask, but
• 30:52
  I read an article headline today.
• 30:54
  I didn't get to read the article.
• 30:56
  OK. It said some of the effect that
• 30:57
  Emma's maybe not going for a true #1 goalie, but almost like
• 31:01
  a goalie by committee. Do you think there's any any
• 31:04
  realisticness to that like? I think, I think so Japan did
• 31:09
  that. Japan played three different
• 31:11
  keepers across all three games and they were all very, very
• 31:14
  good, right. I think it can be done.
• 31:20
  I I can see both sides. So there is different keepers
• 31:25
  have different skill sets so. Depending on the opponent you're
• 31:27
  playing, it's nice to have it in your back pocket of like, hey, I
• 31:31
  need a really good distributor of the ball in this game.
• 31:34
  Or I need a really good shot stopper in this game.
• 31:40
  My personal like reaction to that is I think of all of the
• 31:47
  positions on the field outside of maybe the center back, center
• 31:52
  back consistency. And, and just again, it's that
• 31:57
  coach on the field, it's that person who's seeing the game
• 32:00
  who. Understands the tendencies of
• 32:02
  their own teammates in like a really clear way.
• 32:05
  I think that helps. The more you play them, the more
• 32:08
  you're going to get that, yes, I know what they're going to ask
• 32:11
  of me as I'm in the backfield there, yeah.
• 32:14
  You can anticipate a little bit more what they're going to do.
• 32:17
  They're able to anticipate what their teammates are going to do.
• 32:20
  So I am open to it. I would say after this
• 32:23
  three-game window, I don't know how you aren't putting Claudia
• 32:27
  as the number one. OK.
• 32:30
  But going back to your question, so that was one thing from a
• 32:32
  depth. I mean that's there's depth in
• 32:34
  that position right now. I think.
• 32:41
  I think she knows who her starting 11 are.
• 32:43
  Yeah, probably. Coming out of this barring
• 32:47
  barring some kind of the only variable I can see there is that
• 32:55
  center back pairing of you know, as Tierna continues to get back
• 32:59
  up to speed. Tierna just brings a very
• 33:02
  different set of skills than Wesley does.
• 33:06
  But I think those two were good. We didn't see Tara Rudd in this
• 33:09
  camp, which was kind of interesting Clubs those spirit
• 33:13
  have been struggling so hasn't been playing well, but she's had
• 33:16
  some time back there. But I, I mean, Wesley looked
• 33:20
  good in the two games that she played in.
• 33:24
  But outside of that, like I think she knows her starting 11.
• 33:30
  I think we've answered the left back position.
• 33:32
  I think Giselle, I think it's Giselle Thompson's position to
• 33:35
  lose. Her playing there creates so
• 33:39
  much versatility in the, the formations and the strategies
• 33:42
  that they can employ because she's so freaking fast.
• 33:47
  And, but, but I, I think she will want to continue to test
• 33:55
  that depth because you don't win a World Cup with 11 players.
• 33:58
  You win a World Cup with 23 players, or maybe it's 25, I
• 34:02
  forget. We saw we, there's a rule change
• 34:04
  somewhere in there. And I think what she might want
• 34:07
  to look at next is I played sort of the experienced players and I
• 34:14
  played the really inexperienced players.
• 34:16
  And I played mostly the experienced players.
• 34:19
  What happens if I mesh those? Does a Lily Johannes look
• 34:24
  stronger in a game when she's surrounded by a Rose Lavelle and
• 34:28
  a Sam Coffey? Right.
• 34:30
  Like does a trying to think of other players now I did you see?
• 34:36
  A Moultrie out. There, Yeah, we do.
• 34:38
  Olivia Moultrie, that's yeah, that's who one of them who I was
• 34:41
  thinking of Avery Patterson, right?
• 34:43
  Like even though I think I think of the places where she's going
• 34:47
  to play are probably in that midfield in the top line, I
• 34:50
  think that back 4 is set. I think this, I mean I think
• 34:55
  this kind of bleeds into your first point of our next section
• 34:57
  here and I something I'll say towards the end of our show, but
• 35:00
  I think Emma Hayes is put on a master class in the first
• 35:03
  however many games we've had this year.
• 35:06
  She's the best coach in the modern era.
• 35:10
  I, I, I'm just going to say it. I, I don't, there's nothing,
• 35:19
  there's nothing she's doing that you can't like she, she bring
• 35:26
  and she, the thing that she does is she like, brings people along
• 35:28
  for it kind of like helps you understand like why?
• 35:32
  So what I was going to say is there's nothing that she's doing
• 35:34
  that you can really point a finger at and say like, what are
• 35:37
  you doing? And so a couple of things that
• 35:40
  really have stood out to me. Can we talk about how
• 35:47
  uncomfortable it probably was to go into that second game knowing
• 35:55
  it was more possible that they could lose and accept that that
• 36:01
  might be the outcome. But it was worth it to test the
• 36:05
  young pool of talent that she has available to her in a
• 36:11
  program that expects to win. I was looking at the FIFA
• 36:17
  website today's while I was prepping for this.
• 36:20
  And they have this cool thing where you can look at each team
• 36:24
  and their FIFA rankings and they can go back like 30 years.
• 36:29
  Like it, there's a thing and it's a cool little like graphic.
• 36:32
  So the graph for the US I'm I'm making hand signals for those
• 36:37
  listening on on podcast. But for the US the the Y axis is
• 36:43
  and it goes down is like 135, so they've never been ranked lower
• 36:50
  than 5. Wow.
• 36:53
  Do you know how many years the line just ran flat at 1?
• 36:59
  So many years. 20 at least. Yeah.
• 37:02
  So what I'm the reason why I'm bringing that up is that this is
• 37:06
  a program that is expected to win.
• 37:09
  And I've talked about it here on the podcast before.
• 37:11
  We get all antsy when we lose 1 game, when they allow a goal, we
• 37:16
  get mad, not a friendly right? And so for Emma to sit back and
• 37:21
  say. We might lose this one.
• 37:24
  They're there. I have a plan.
• 37:26
  Yeah, Trust me. Yeah.
• 37:28
  And now I'm like, OK, you have a plan.
• 37:31
  I trust you. There's AI think there's a great
• 37:34
  video out there too on socials of her talking about maybe it
• 37:37
  was to the team or whatever. Right after the game, it was
• 37:39
  really. Good.
• 37:40
  So maybe we'll try to repost that.
• 37:42
  It's it's really good. Yeah, so she's and, and the
• 37:47
  other thing, just one more thought on this part.
• 37:52
  She had players sitting on her bench that she knew she could
• 37:57
  put into that game earlier and probably pull out a result, at
• 38:01
  least a draw, right? And she didn't do it.
• 38:05
  And I, just, I, we, we have to appreciate her willingness to
• 38:11
  sit in the discomfort of that, to allow the process to work and
• 38:17
  to allow her players to sit in that discomfort and to tell her
• 38:19
  players like, no, no, no, we can, we can lose a game.
• 38:24
  We're OK. And I think the other thing that
• 38:27
  people might not realize is it's not like she threw this team out
• 38:30
  there and said let's see what happens.
• 38:33
  They still fully prepped like this was a a regular game,
• 38:36
  right? Like they didn't just throw them
• 38:38
  out there to the wolves and say go at it.
• 38:39
  Yes, and and what I love about it.
• 38:41
  So to be clear, we've talked about this before in the
• 38:45
  podcast, that next 11 for the US women's national team would be a
• 38:49
  starting 11 for most countries. So we're not talking about
• 38:54
  slouches. These are very, very good
• 38:56
  players. But but she knew against the
• 38:58
  quality of Japan that like that was a risk they could have won.
• 39:02
  And that would have been awesome.
• 39:03
  It would have been great, right? And great for their.
• 39:06
  That they lost, right? Like you learned things in
• 39:07
  losing. But the other thing that's
• 39:09
  genius about this is Emma's signalling.
• 39:13
  OK, I don't care about this game right now.
• 39:17
  I care about winning a World Cup in a year.
• 39:21
  I also care about winning a World Cup in five years, right?
• 39:26
  That is what that signal is sending because she is putting
• 39:28
  the arm band on the 20 year old Claire Hutton, knowing Claire
• 39:32
  Hutton is going to be captaining this team. 2031.
• 39:34
  In 2031, right? And that is I don't, I've never
• 39:40
  seen that before, right? I I just haven't seen it at this
• 39:43
  level, right. To do it on the stage in the
• 39:46
  spotlight, she's doing it in is incredible.
• 39:50
  OK. The other thing that I wanted to
• 39:55
  talk about was just like this. It's I wrote down mindset.
• 39:59
  I don't think that that's really the right word, but it it's it
• 40:03
  builds on this idea of like being getting comfortable with
• 40:07
  being uncomfortable. We quoted Carol Lawson, the Duke
• 40:11
  women's basketball coach and Team USA basketball coach, a
• 40:15
  couple weeks ago. Is.
• 40:17
  Like. Do hard better, right?
• 40:18
  Do hard better, right? And I think that's kind of what
• 40:21
  Emma's doing right here. She's saying do hard better.
• 40:25
  One of the things that was very apparent in these games against
• 40:31
  Japan was that the team was coached to build out of the back
• 40:36
  they were possessing. They were not just clearing the
• 40:39
  ball. It was let's keep it, let's work
• 40:41
  it up through the midfield and then we break.
• 40:46
  If you've watched the national team long enough, the US has
• 40:50
  typically won on being faster and more athletic than most of
• 40:55
  the teams that they play and stronger and taller.
• 40:57
  Frankly, it was a lot of like long ball up chase, own it, not
• 41:04
  really counter attacking, but more of like that's just word
• 41:07
  attack, right? And so to see her ask for that
• 41:11
  patience, you could almost tell the players are uncomfortable
• 41:15
  with it and they want to go, right.
• 41:19
  But then you see a game like the third one against Japan and you
• 41:22
  see, they see how it pays off, right?
• 41:25
  We're going to build. And now this is going to open up
• 41:27
  channels. It's going to open up lanes for
• 41:29
  our speed to now take over. And I, I was talking to a friend
• 41:33
  at work about this and he made a really good point.
• 41:36
  He was like, the speed is always there, Yeah.
• 41:40
  No matter how the ball comes out of the back, your players are
• 41:42
  always fast. That's a skill to get it there.
• 41:44
  Yes, and get it in the get it there in the right way at the
• 41:48
  right time. So I love that she is she's
• 41:51
  changing the style of play. She's really leaning into, I
• 41:55
  think some a lot of what she learned when she was coaching
• 41:58
  over in Europe with Chelsea. You see a lot of like kind of
• 42:03
  Spanish influence with that kind of possession and little passes
• 42:07
  and like keeping the ball and we and it we saw results, right,
• 42:12
  Like they they out possessed Japan.
• 42:13
  I think every game. They didn't get the win in the
• 42:16
  second, but they won the other two.
• 42:18
  So I I love that. Her whole Michelin star
• 42:22
  restaurant analogy was really interesting.
• 42:25
  But again, I think of how Emma makes her approach relatable to
• 42:31
  the layperson who's listening or avid fan like me.
• 42:37
  And, and I just, I love how she does that.
• 42:41
  And then the last thing I want to comment on is just her
• 42:45
  mission to connect with her players, with her staff, with
• 42:50
  the press, with the people in the city that she goes to.
• 42:55
  We saw so many just like adorable videos of her with
• 42:59
  Gigi, Sophia Wilson's daughter. And like, not just like, oh,
• 43:07
  cute baby. It's like she's bringing her in.
• 43:10
  She's like making her a part of the thing.
• 43:12
  The TikTok dances, you know, and she like, bombs the videos of
• 43:16
  the girls she likes to go get manicures.
• 43:19
  And so she'll like invite players to go with her to get
• 43:22
  manicures and she she does. It's so I love it because it
• 43:27
  seems so surface like, oh, she's just really nice.
• 43:30
  Like no, no, she is building trust in relationship so that
• 43:34
  when she makes these players feel uncomfortable they say OK.
• 43:38
  We we talked about that and then C AA like in the final four with
• 43:42
  some of those. Corey close.
• 43:44
  Yeah, Corey close and the other, I mean, there's another coach we
• 43:48
  saw yelling. Was that Corey close yelling at?
• 43:49
  Her oh, Brenda Freeze. You don't and you don't get, you
• 43:52
  don't get that type of you don't get that type of coaching
• 43:56
  without the relationship. So she's building in like this
• 44:00
  relationship so she can, if she needs to be tough with them or
• 44:04
  tell them what they don't need to hear whatever it is.
• 44:05
  And it's not coming from a coach that doesn't have that
• 44:09
  connection. It's coming from someone that
• 44:11
  cares that cares, yes. That cares.
• 44:13
  Yeah. So, yeah, I, and then I think
• 44:18
  the other part that I'll add is like all of the players are they
• 44:23
  rave about her. They they talk about how
• 44:27
  fortunate they feel to be playing at the time that she is
• 44:32
  coaching this program. And she just seems like somebody
• 44:38
  who's very intentional about how she shows up.
• 44:43
  I love how she always posts little videos of like doing her
• 44:45
  workout, like she knows how important that is.
• 44:50
  But so smart and like fiercely competitive, but like builds for
• 44:55
  the I just it's so I love it so much.
• 44:58
  It's. Going to be a good long ride I
• 45:00
  think. I hope so.
• 45:02
  So I hope so. All right, what do we got next?
• 45:06
  We are going to round this section out with just the
• 45:08
  remaining kind of what to expect for international soccer before
• 45:12
  we talk a little bit about WNBA here.
• 45:15
  So there's a few remaining international windows this year.
• 45:19
  Early June, they're they don't have these scheduled or they're
• 45:23
  not public yet. They, they'll play two matches
• 45:25
  in early June and then in early October they have another two
• 45:30
  matches. I don't, I think because of the
• 45:33
  men's World Cup, I don't think there's something in between
• 45:37
  there that feels like a long break, but I, I don't think
• 45:39
  there is. And then their qualifiers for
• 45:42
  CONCACAF, the federation that the US plays in, will be in late
• 45:47
  November, early December, real quick rundown for the 2027 World
• 45:53
  Cup, which is what we're preparing for here.
• 45:56
  So there are eight teams of 32 that have already qualified.
• 46:00
  That's the host nation, Brazil. And then the Asian Federation
• 46:03
  basically has done all of their qualification.
• 46:06
  So that includes China, the Democratic Republic of Korea,
• 46:12
  People's Republic of Korea, the Korean Republic.
• 46:16
  I assume this is North and South Korea.
• 46:20
  Is going to be N, yeah. Anyway, Japan, well I knew that,
• 46:25
  but I meant Japan, Australia, the Philippines and then New
• 46:30
  Zealand was this is the single qualifier out of that ocean of
• 46:33
  federation. So kind of got that part of the.
• 46:38
  Yeah, figured out. Still to come.
• 46:41
  So UEFA, that's the European federation.
• 46:43
  They have 11 direct slots. We already talked about how four
• 46:46
  teams were will qualify for those and then an additional 7
• 46:50
  will come out of that, like extra poor play.
• 46:55
  They also get two playoff spots. So every federation gets two
• 46:59
  playoff spots. There will be a playoff
• 47:03
  tournament played early next year that will contribute 3
• 47:08
  spots to the World Cup. So you can imagine you're
• 47:12
  putting I think 12 teams in there and top three go.
• 47:16
  Out of three, OK. So that's UEFA, 11 slots, two
• 47:19
  playoff slots. The African federation, they
• 47:22
  play their tournament now. Remember it was supposed to be
• 47:25
  in March. They moved it and that is now
• 47:28
  slated to be played in July. They get 4 direct slots, two
• 47:32
  playoff slots. We have Con Me Ball, which is
• 47:35
  the South American Federation, and so that's three direct slots
• 47:39
  to playoff slots. Reminder that Brazil is one of
• 47:43
  those direct slots already, so they'd only get two more direct.
• 47:47
  And then CONCACAF, which is where the US, Canada, Mexico,
• 47:51
  etcetera, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Haiti, like all of that?
• 47:57
  4 direct slots to playoff slots so.
• 48:01
  Lots of qualifiers to come. Most of this should wrap up by
• 48:06
  the end of the year and we'll have that World Cup picture kind
• 48:09
  of painted for us. But like we talked about with
• 48:12
  like the Euro European Federation, like any chance to
• 48:16
  early qualify? Yeah, you wanted 100%.
• 48:20
  All right, let's move it on WNBA pre season.
• 48:24
  I think we've got some teams to watch here.
• 48:27
  Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, go, let's go for
• 48:29
  it. We do just I mean there's a lot
• 48:34
  still to kind of like shake out in pre season.
• 48:37
  So team sign extra players, they kind of run them through
• 48:41
  training camp. They got there's a lot of pre
• 48:43
  season games. I was looking at the schedule
• 48:45
  today. I was like, jeez, I.
• 48:47
  Was like it starts in April, like training camp starts in
• 48:50
  April, May start for the the beginning of the season.
• 48:53
  It's like so many games to try and fit into that.
• 48:56
  I don't even know how they have a training camp.
• 48:58
  Right, Yeah, it's essentially become scrimmages starting on
• 49:01
  Saturday. So suffice to say it's hard to
• 49:05
  know. But I I did want to, now that
• 49:08
  we've sort of buckled down draft in the free agency thing and
• 49:11
  that sort of stuff, I picked some what I called scary
• 49:17
  contenders like I do. I would not want to play these
• 49:19
  teams. So Las Vegas Aces, I mentioned
• 49:22
  before reigning champions, they resigned Jackie Young, Chelsea
• 49:28
  Gray, Asia Wilson, Jewel Lloyd. They have AI was looking at
• 49:32
  their roster. They have a couple of rookies,
• 49:34
  right, a couple of folks from from this last college season,
• 49:38
  but a lot of vets. So that tells me they've got
• 49:40
  experience coming off the bench. I just, and, and then they've
• 49:44
  got Becky Hammond, who's a Hall of Fame head coach.
• 49:47
  Like she knows what she's doing. For any converts, she assistant
• 49:51
  coach, most previously for the Spurs.
• 49:54
  Yes. Yeah.
• 49:57
  And so I just that team is always, you got to watch that
• 50:00
  team. They're they're going to be so
• 50:02
  good. New York, they resigned Brianna
• 50:06
  Stewart, Sabrina Nescu and John Cole Jones.
• 50:10
  So they're like core 3. They are 70 and 16 when those
• 50:14
  three play in a game. Yeah, that's crazy.
• 50:17
  They also signed Satu Sabali from the Phoenix Mercury and
• 50:20
  free agency and they resigned Leonie Febich, who was a core
• 50:24
  part of their kind of playoff run championship two years ago.
• 50:30
  What I wonder about them is I question their depth.
• 50:33
  They're also going to have a new head coach.
• 50:34
  So Sandy Brondello was sort of dismissed after they didn't make
• 50:38
  it as far in the playoffs as after winning the.
• 50:41
  Champion after winning the 2. Yeah, but now she's with Toronto
• 50:43
  Tempo, so weren't me watching them, but I I wonder about the
• 50:48
  depth of their roster. The stat that I had written down
• 50:50
  was those three have 234 minutes over 15 games in 2025 due to
• 50:57
  injury. Yeah, that.
• 50:59
  And so that's why. High record, but.
• 51:01
  Yeah, that's why I question the depth is like, can they those
• 51:05
  three stay healthy enough? Yeah.
• 51:07
  And then if they get hurt or just if they need a rest, right.
• 51:12
  Like do you have what do you have coming off the bench?
• 51:14
  Yeah, exactly. And then?
• 51:16
  My third team here, we've talked about this, Dallas, like their
• 51:20
  roster looks, their roster looks really good.
• 51:24
  Does the roster convert into play on the court?
• 51:27
  I don't know yet, but you've got Page Becker's Eureka Gumbwale,
• 51:32
  You've got Alana Shepard, You've got sorry, Alana Smith, Jessica
• 51:37
  Shepard. Yeah, two of them mixed together
• 51:40
  formed one. Player on my sheet it says LAN
• 51:42
  and Shep, so I just like merged them.
• 51:45
  They just signed Alicia Clark, who's like a super vet.
• 51:47
  She's won multiple championships, 13th year in the
• 51:50
  league I think. And then I was looking at their
• 51:53
  roster too. I wrote this down as like
• 51:56
  Unrivaled Impacts, but they've got a bunch of players that like
• 52:00
  played in Unrivaled, have maybe some of that like chemistry from
• 52:04
  that. But Maddie Seagrist, I remember
• 52:07
  her looking really good in Unrivaled.
• 52:09
  And then Isaiah James, she was like a huge disruptor in
• 52:13
  Unrivaled. Now 3V35V5, different game,
• 52:17
  whatever I can, I can take that argument.
• 52:19
  And then obviously AZ. It's going to be the, it's going
• 52:21
  to be like really fun watching those first 5 or so games to see
• 52:24
  what's going on there. Yes, I think their first game
• 52:28
  like regular season against Caitlin Clark sure is Indiana
• 52:31
  fever so. Got that on my, got that on our
• 52:33
  list down here. So those are the three teams
• 52:36
  that I would say we got to be watching for, see how they
• 52:39
  actually perform. Yep.
• 52:42
  Honorable mention for me the the sparks look solid.
• 52:46
  They've got Kelsey Plum, NECA Gumake, Cameron Brink and a
• 52:51
  couple. Other last year, yeah, I think
• 52:53
  so. She's coming back from that.
• 52:55
  And then Minnesota. Yeah, I I trust in Cheryl.
• 52:58
  I put the sound as like biggest question highest ceiling if when
• 53:02
  he. Returns.
• 53:02
  Yeah, she's been really leaning into the international talent.
• 53:05
  You're telling me about one of those their signees who's like a
• 53:09
  superstar over in Germany or wherever she's from.
• 53:12
  And so that'll be we'll, I mean, obviously we'll be watching.
• 53:17
  We'll be watching them, yeah. And then I just to like, kind
• 53:21
  of, I don't really know how these are going to land.
• 53:24
  Yeah. But there is potential.
• 53:26
  Yeah. That something could happen.
• 53:28
  So Washington's Spirit, NWSL, Washington Mystics.
• 53:33
  They're a young team, but they are stacked with talent.
• 53:38
  Their draft class, you guys is crazy.
• 53:40
  They got Lauren Beck. That's right, they had like 5.
• 53:42
  They had picks. Angela and Juggle juggle HI can
• 53:46
  never say her name. They had they took Rory Harmon
• 53:49
  from Texas, who's an incredible point guard.
• 53:52
  And then there were a couple others that I are I'm losing my
• 53:55
  brain power right now, but that will be I'm curious.
• 54:00
  We have Atlanta, Angel Reese went to Atlanta, lots of star
• 54:04
  power. You've got Alicia Gray, you've
• 54:06
  got Ryan Howard. Can they click?
• 54:09
  Yeah, my note is, you know, can Intrice kind of actually find
• 54:13
  her groove in a new team? Yes, in a in an environment.
• 54:16
  Better environment, yeah. She feels supportive.
• 54:18
  Exactly. We have the fever, obviously.
• 54:22
  What's interesting about the fever, you've got Kelsey
• 54:25
  Mitchell, who's incredible, right?
• 54:27
  You got a Leah Boston who's a force.
• 54:31
  And then we haven't, we haven't like really seen Caitlin play in
• 54:35
  over. A year?
• 54:36
  Yeah, she was hurt for a while. She got hurt kind of mid season,
• 54:39
  but it was also like I feel like it was on and off before that.
• 54:43
  And so I'm really curious to see her play.
• 54:46
  Yeah, like it's been it'll be interesting.
• 54:48
  Feels like it's been a while. Toronto we mentioned I think for
• 54:52
  them, they they signed a bunch of more veteran players.
• 54:55
  You've got Sandy Brondello, as we mentioned, championship
• 54:58
  winning head coach, but I think you've seen this like with the
• 55:01
  PWHL, just like the momentum and the environment that that might
• 55:07
  kind of like Golden State did last year.
• 55:09
  Just like people love it, they want to be there, they're
• 55:11
  supporting it. I'll be I'll be paying attention
• 55:15
  to that for sure. And then Golden State.
• 55:18
  I think they're sneaky. They're they kind of flew under
• 55:22
  the radar. But when I look at their.
• 55:24
  Their roster looks strong. They obviously have all of that
• 55:27
  support out there. I love Natalie Nicose, their
• 55:30
  head coach. Head coach of the year last
• 55:33
  year. So.
• 55:34
  Or coach of the year. So yeah, I'm looking at.
• 55:37
  My, what I was kind of looking at here is I don't wanna, I
• 55:40
  don't wanna bring up like CBA discussion again here.
• 55:45
  I think we're gonna maybe get into it a little bit though.
• 55:48
  This is the 30th season for this league, which is huge milestone.
• 55:53
  There's a really cool video out there about goats, Goats, so
• 55:56
  check that out. 15 teams now got 15 teams.
• 56:01
  Pretty amazing. Expanded.
• 56:05
  You have five ways to watch. We have NBCUSA, Prime, CBS and
• 56:09
  ESPN. My note is you have to try to
• 56:12
  not watch the WNBA at this point.
• 56:15
  Yeah. I think that's.
• 56:16
  Right. And I think it's hilarious that
• 56:18
  we still get jokers in the comments of our videos saying
• 56:23
  the same line from the NBA of the WNBA is floated by the NBA.
• 56:29
  And for some reason, that line said by the organization that
• 56:34
  doesn't open its books is just taken as gospel.
• 56:37
  And I'm like, we're we're in the 30th season.
• 56:41
  You think they would keep them around if they just kept losing
• 56:44
  money all the time? There's benefit.
• 56:46
  There's some benefits to the. Lead and so I don't think people
• 56:51
  are putting it together. They just hear they don't make
• 56:53
  any money. So why are they still around?
• 56:57
  It's like, well yeah, why are they still around?
• 56:58
  Do you think maybe right they are making money.
• 57:01
  Why would it be around for 30 years?
• 57:02
  Here we are. Right.
• 57:04
  Yeah. And I think we had one comment
• 57:07
  that was more thoughtful, I would say around expansion and
• 57:11
  things like that. And, and, and we agree with
• 57:14
  expanding responsibly. Yes, Yeah, right.
• 57:17
  We understand the economics of like you grow too fast.
• 57:21
  Yeah. You run the risk of having to.
• 57:24
  Get rid of franchises. Which has happened in the WME
• 57:28
  and the NBA. Yeah, right.
• 57:31
  And so we we understand that. But I think where we come from
• 57:35
  is like, to Alex's point, we don't really trust the source
• 57:42
  material. Yes, exactly.
• 57:43
  Because it's not, it's never been shared in full.
• 57:48
  And I think you ask a great question of like, well, why are
• 57:50
  they still here then? Yeah.
• 57:53
  And, and, and then, you know, you've got Kathy saying like,
• 57:57
  oh, we always wanted to be able to like pay the players the way
• 58:00
  we're going to be paying them, which tells me like you always,
• 58:03
  you could have. Yeah, exactly.
• 58:05
  Exactly. Oh man, let's not go down the.
• 58:08
  Rabbit. Hole of her her weird press
• 58:10
  conferences. I mostly wanted to bring this up
• 58:13
  to get a really cool clip for for Instagram to get some of the
• 58:16
  jokers wound up in the comments. Yeah.
• 58:19
  The other thing is too is like clearly you're engaging with it
• 58:25
  somehow because it's coming across your feed.
• 58:27
  Yeah, exactly. So we don't come across your
• 58:29
  feed unless you're talking about women's sports.
• 58:31
  Or you're thinking about it. So somehow, somehow, so we and
• 58:35
  we appreciate all of you. Yeah, we do.
• 58:38
  All right, getting into the regular season.
• 58:42
  So the regular season will start on May 8th, 9th, May 9th.
• 58:48
  Thank you. Like Alex said, that first game
• 58:51
  is gonna be a battle of the rookies.
• 58:54
  Last two rookies of the year? Yep, actually three.
• 58:57
  Cuz Aaliyah. Boston's on the fever.
• 58:59
  Too. Yeah, that's right.
• 59:00
  She's. Just sneaky.
• 59:01
  Last I'll say. Oh wait, was she a number one
• 59:03
  draft pick? I think they're just.
• 59:05
  All they're just all there. She just signed one of those
• 59:10
  epic rookie contracts, by the way, like one of the six point.
• 59:13
  Gonna go back and like, yes, up a bit, yeah.
• 59:16
  So that's going to be on May 9th between the Dallas Wings and the
• 59:20
  Indiana fever definitely be tuning in for that game.
• 59:24
  And then I just put down a couple more just to sort of test
• 59:28
  my theories, right, that I had of the teams to watch just in
• 59:32
  May right, obviously the. Season.
• 59:34
  Goes until September. So we have a rematch of of the
• 59:38
  Western Conference finals between Minnesota and Phoenix on
• 59:43
  May 12th. Now, I think the big lingering
• 59:45
  question for the Lynx is will Phoebe playing, you know, right
• 59:48
  out the gate. And I gotta say.
• 59:51
  Sounds like she probably. All the training videos I've
• 59:53
  seen from preseason camp, she is not in them.
• 59:55
  So we've got Chicago versus Golden State now.
• 1:00:00
  I penned this in because Golden State's like, just like that
• 1:00:03
  scrappy whatever. They're doing their thing
• 1:00:06
  Chicago has. I just need to see them on the
• 1:00:10
  court. They've got a lot of talent, a
• 1:00:14
  lot of personality. And the free agency, yeah, the
• 1:00:18
  free agency felt like a hot mess, like what is happening
• 1:00:20
  right now. So this is on May 13th.
• 1:00:24
  Then on May 17th, I listed two games.
• 1:00:26
  We have the Toronto Tempo against the Los Angeles Sparks,
• 1:00:29
  so a little bit more established franchise against that new one,
• 1:00:32
  but both teams that I think are worthy of our eyeballs right off
• 1:00:37
  the bat. And then also on the 17th, we've
• 1:00:39
  got the Las Vegas Aces tipping off against the Atlanta Dream.
• 1:00:43
  So you know, Angel Asia going at it down there.
• 1:00:50
  And then the next day, May 18th, again, we're getting out a
• 1:00:54
  little bit here, but testing out that Washington spirit youth
• 1:00:59
  against whatever the Dallas Wings are putting forth.
• 1:01:03
  And then rounding out my list here is a game on the 21st
• 1:01:06
  between the Liberty and Golden State.
• 1:01:10
  So. These ball be good games.
• 1:01:11
  Right. And like Alex said, like no
• 1:01:13
  excuse to not be tuning in watching.
• 1:01:17
  Everywhere. The different it's like.
• 1:01:20
  Five channels. It was 5 channels.
• 1:01:23
  So we are really looking forward to that.
• 1:01:26
  I will be watching the preseason games to sort of see how they're
• 1:01:31
  going to be doing. A lot of lab work, a lot of.
• 1:01:33
  Yeah, yeah, for. Sure, recipe testing the next
• 1:01:36
  couple. Of weeks we'll talk about it
• 1:01:37
  here too we're going to we're going to jump into what to watch
• 1:01:41
  we're going to talk that PWHL 4 spot Oh my gosh for the last.
• 1:01:45
  Last time. Last time until, well, we'll
• 1:01:47
  talk about who wins it next week.
• 1:01:49
  It might be won by tomorrow, but we'll see.
• 1:01:51
  So we have two games for each of these three teams left.
• 1:01:56
  Ottawa's at 39 points, Toronto at 37 and New York is at 34.
• 1:02:03
  So the math here is that Ottawa can just win out.
• 1:02:09
  Seal it up. Toronto can win one if Ottawa
• 1:02:14
  loses 2. New York has to win 2 with
• 1:02:20
  Ottawa and Toronto losing out. OK, so they're like.
• 1:02:25
  Yeah. So tomorrow you'll you'll be
• 1:02:27
  listening to this. It'll be last night.
• 1:02:30
  Toronto will have played New York, so we'll know if New York
• 1:02:33
  is eliminated or not. Then we have Ottawa versus
• 1:02:36
  Boston on Wednesday at 6:00, Toronto versus Ottawa, Saturday
• 1:02:41
  the 25th at 1:00 PM central, and then New York.
• 1:02:45
  I put New versus versus Boston, Saturday the 25th at 11.
• 1:02:49
  AMI accidentally put New York versus Saturday.
• 1:02:52
  It might be New York versus Saturday at that point.
• 1:02:57
  So yeah, we'll we'll keep an eye on that.
• 1:02:59
  Could could end tomorrow for New York, but then still kind of a
• 1:03:03
  battle between Otto and Toronto the rest of the week.
• 1:03:06
  I kind of love this. I kind of love that.
• 1:03:09
  When it goes down to the wire. Yeah, like you, you, they're
• 1:03:13
  literally going to have to play at to the end, yes, to figure
• 1:03:17
  out who's going to get that last spot.
• 1:03:19
  And I think it speaks to like, obviously we had incredible, I
• 1:03:24
  mean, Montreal Victoire, like so freaking good.
• 1:03:28
  Frost are obviously good. The, the Boston fleet has been
• 1:03:32
  really impressive this season. But like, there's, there's some
• 1:03:37
  parody there, right? Like there's kind of like those
• 1:03:40
  3 competed all season long, kind of trading blows back and forth
• 1:03:45
  and then the the next three and then you had the expansion.
• 1:03:48
  Team and then just well then if you look at another expansion
• 1:03:52
  this year or next, you have one or two spots opening up probably
• 1:03:56
  for the playoffs, which is gonna make it even more fun, right?
• 1:03:59
  Probably into the end of the next season.
• 1:04:00
  I agree. I agree.
• 1:04:02
  So and then I mean keep in mind too, I know we don't see these
• 1:04:07
  games on the schedule, but even for Seattle and Vancouver,
• 1:04:10
  they're playing for that golden draft points or whatever that
• 1:04:14
  system is, so. All right, WNBA pre season fever
• 1:04:19
  versus Liberty on Saturday at 2:00 PM Central.
• 1:04:23
  Caitlin Clark versus that new look roster with the Liberty.
• 1:04:27
  I so part of me is like, I'm so conditioned by watching NFL
• 1:04:30
  football. I'm like, are they even going to
• 1:04:32
  have the? Stars.
• 1:04:33
  Oh yeah, they're going to have to.
• 1:04:36
  I don't know. Part of me is like if, yeah, I
• 1:04:41
  just don't know. Like, you'd think because all
• 1:04:44
  the teams feel very new, you're not like returning to exactly
• 1:04:50
  the same team. No one's returning to exactly
• 1:04:52
  the same team that they played on last year because free agency
• 1:04:55
  was such a hot mess. But I don't know.
• 1:04:59
  It's going to be. You might.
• 1:05:00
  Have to have out there just to get the chemistry going in a in
• 1:05:03
  a game. Situation and also like I would
• 1:05:05
  take I would want to be playing but I just I I'm again so
• 1:05:10
  conditionally NFL it's like the starters don't play these games
• 1:05:13
  so. Then we have 7:30 that night.
• 1:05:16
  We have Seattle Storm versus the Golden State Valkyrie, Seattle
• 1:05:21
  Storm with the Beauje. She's over there.
• 1:05:26
  She's like been releasing tracks.
• 1:05:29
  Oh yeah, rap track. I think she might be having an
• 1:05:31
  album come out I. Saw a thread the other day,
• 1:05:32
  she's like, I have not taken off this hat since draft night.
• 1:05:35
  Oh my God. And it's like, well, to be fair,
• 1:05:36
  you put it on a little bit later than your normal pick was.
• 1:05:40
  But yes, that's awesome. That's right.
• 1:05:42
  And then on Thursday next, next week, we have the Indiana Fever
• 1:05:46
  versus Dallas Wings. That's kind of funny.
• 1:05:49
  They're gonna play a preseason game and then turn around and
• 1:05:51
  play a regular season game. Game.
• 1:05:53
  So like a week later. That'll be fun to watch AZ and
• 1:05:56
  Paige kind of see how that works out.
• 1:05:58
  Yeah, I did going back to flash a really quick just random for
• 1:06:02
  our audience. I saw a video of her.
• 1:06:04
  She went into the Seattle Torrent locker room.
• 1:06:07
  Oh, I got out there and they went and met the hockey players.
• 1:06:10
  She traded jerseys with Hillary Night.
• 1:06:13
  That's awesome. Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  So she's going to be one of those like bigger than the
• 1:06:17
  franchise personalities, which was partially why we talked last
• 1:06:21
  week about why Chicago might have traded her because they
• 1:06:25
  don't seem to like that. They just were like let's get 4
• 1:06:28
  personalities. One mega personality.
• 1:06:33
  We'll talk about that at some point.
• 1:06:34
  I'm sure they will provide content.
• 1:06:37
  Less entertainments and then we have NWS LS back.
• 1:06:41
  I only called out one game here but we have two games Friday
• 1:06:44
  evening, 4 on Saturday and 2:00 on Sunday.
• 1:06:48
  The one I got called out here is Gotham versus Bay Saturday at
• 1:06:51
  noon, CBS nationally televised. So easy, easy to watch, everyone
• 1:06:55
  can watch it and. Catch Rose, Lavelle, Emily.
• 1:06:59
  Yes, homework. Homework for everybody.
• 1:07:00
  To watch the game, everyone watched that game.
• 1:07:02
  Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnet, Jaden Shaw, Both crew on the.
• 1:07:08
  Gotham and then good old 20 year old Captain Claire Hutton.
• 1:07:13
  Yeah, right there. On Bay FC.
• 1:07:15
  All right, that's all I got for what to watch.
• 1:07:19
  Feels solid. Yeah, it's a good weekend.
• 1:07:20
  WNBA is. And it's back finally.
• 1:07:23
  We didn't play. We didn't know if we were going
• 1:07:25
  to have a season when we started this podcast still.
• 1:07:28
  Happened. 16 weeks ago. Emailed Kate back.
• 1:07:31
  So sorry. We'll get there.
• 1:07:32
  I I promise. I will e-mail you.
• 1:07:36
  Getting into games with kids is not an easy, easy task if you
• 1:07:39
  have season tickets. All right, winners and losers.
• 1:07:45
  Losers we got. I'm going to be I'll just be
• 1:07:53
  really honest. I losers are the Internet,
• 1:08:00
  social media. Yeah, so we, I don't know,
• 1:08:04
  people pay attention to our social media, but we started
• 1:08:08
  posting more claps and so inevitably you get more comments
• 1:08:12
  and we had some really unfortunate.
• 1:08:17
  Yeah, disgusting comments. Comments and that really kind of
• 1:08:22
  hit me hard and I know it comes with the territory, but it
• 1:08:27
  doesn't change the fact that it like.
• 1:08:29
  It's a shock to the system. Yeah, it that's really like the
• 1:08:32
  best way to put it. Like it shocked me and it's
• 1:08:37
  weird 'cause like I see it all the time, but it's never
• 1:08:40
  directed at me. And now it's been directed at us
• 1:08:43
  and it was, it hurt, but we are new to this and kind of getting
• 1:08:52
  our bearings on like how do we navigate through that?
• 1:08:56
  But I think I go back to like when we talked about the US
• 1:09:01
  men's hockey team and the women's hockey team and the
• 1:09:03
  locker room. Jokes and.
• 1:09:05
  Things like that, right? And when we were talking about
• 1:09:09
  that, we just kind of generally were like, we need to just treat
• 1:09:14
  people with more respect, everyone, whether it is in
• 1:09:19
  person, which usually that tends to happen more, or online, like
• 1:09:25
  people are impacted by your words.
• 1:09:29
  Yeah. And I just think that we all
• 1:09:36
  find kind of like, comfort in hiding behind a screen to say
• 1:09:40
  things that you would never say to somebody's face.
• 1:09:42
  So that's my loser all. Right the.
• 1:09:46
  Event. Mine is the links and hold on
• 1:09:50
  for a second, mostly as a victim of their own success.
• 1:09:54
  Oh, this is. A good right because like yes,
• 1:09:57
  we had such a good team. We have developed so many good
• 1:10:01
  players and then the CVA that we all wanted comes and it's like
• 1:10:05
  OK, you guys will have to leave now because we can't pay you
• 1:10:08
  what you deserve. So it's good to see them get
• 1:10:11
  those, get their bags, but just kind of a bummer of the losses
• 1:10:16
  that we had from free agency. Yeah, I think the somebody had
• 1:10:19
  mathed out like if they kept all those players and paid them what
• 1:10:24
  they're getting paid. Double the salary cap or
• 1:10:26
  something ridiculous. I think it was like 80% of it or
• 1:10:29
  something it for one year, right.
• 1:10:31
  And and so it's like you can't pay like now you don't have.
• 1:10:37
  It's that's 80% over like 5 players.
• 1:10:40
  Yes. To be clear, you don't have a
• 1:10:42
  team, no. Yeah.
• 1:10:44
  So that that is understandable and good for those players to go
• 1:10:49
  get you know what they can where they can.
• 1:10:53
  But yes, it will be interesting to see how the season plays out.
• 1:10:57
  Winners. I I'm I'm trying really hard to
• 1:11:02
  think of another one other than. What we can just say ours
• 1:11:05
  together at the. Same time this is like.
• 1:11:08
  Ellen Hayes. I I just like she brings so much
• 1:11:15
  just like joy again, I use that word and but like deep, deep
• 1:11:23
  expertise, not just on the game she coaches, but on people like
• 1:11:29
  she is a relational master. If you haven't listened, she has
• 1:11:34
  a book out there. She changed the title used to be
• 1:11:37
  something about unicorns, but it's incredible to listen to how
• 1:11:43
  she talks. She thinks about She does not
• 1:11:46
  just think about constructing A-Team, she thinks about
• 1:11:49
  constructing a program she understands that every person
• 1:11:53
  involved from. The coaching staff to the
• 1:11:56
  training staff to the. You know, support staff for the
• 1:12:01
  stadium, like things like that, like all of that goes into
• 1:12:04
  success in in in football, in any sport probably and.
• 1:12:11
  I I just. I'm like, I want to be you when
• 1:12:12
  I grow. Up.
• 1:12:13
  Yeah, I just have that. It's a master class in coaching
• 1:12:16
  this year so far. Like, she took that loss, but
• 1:12:22
  now she knows what she has. Like, yeah, she has she she has
• 1:12:27
  so many just such a wide view of what she has right now and where
• 1:12:33
  to plug people in. And she'll I mean, she'll keep
• 1:12:35
  she'll keep doing some things, but I just she knows exactly
• 1:12:40
  what she has now and where to plug them in.
• 1:12:42
  It's gonna be so cool to watch them right succeed over the next
• 1:12:45
  hopefully year and a half. At least.
• 1:12:48
  At least. At least, yeah, so, OK, good.
• 1:12:51
  Same page on that. One same page on that one.
• 1:12:53
  Emma Hay's Stan account. We'll change this forever.
• 1:12:56
  Emma Hay's Power Hour. My dream would be to interview
• 1:13:01
  her. Yeah, I'll just.
• 1:13:03
  I'll manifest it today in this episode.
• 1:13:07
  All right. I think that's it for today.
• 1:13:09
  That's it. Where can they find us?
• 1:13:10
  Yeah, RTG under Score Pod on Instagram and threads, YouTube,
• 1:13:15
  RTG pod.com and raising the game on sub stack.
• 1:13:20
  All right, till next week. Till next week.
• 1:13:22
  Thanks for being here. Bye.
• 1:13:24
  Bye.