Latest / Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More / Episode 8: Olympic Glory, She Believes Cup, & The WNBA CBA Standoff Continues

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Episode 8: Olympic Glory, She Believes Cup, & The WNBA CBA Standoff Continues · Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

0:00
My favorite thing this week is women's sports.
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Yeah, it's female athletes. It's amazing performances.
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You I I know most of you are just listening to this, but if
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you're watching, my call sheet this week is like 12 pages long
0:15
because there's so much that we have to cover.
0:25
Hi, I'm I'm Caitlin. Hi, I'm Alex.
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And you're listening to Raising the Game, a podcast covering the
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rise and opportunity, visibility and accessibility of women's
0:34
sports globally. We're a wife, husband team who
0:37
are avid sports fans raising two young girls and find the
0:40
exposure and investment in women's sports a gateway for
0:43
them and other young girls like them to see their passions for
0:46
play, performance and leadership.
0:48
Not as extracurriculars to be added to a resume or a
0:51
discipline with an expiration date after high school or
0:54
college, but as a real opportunity to build a career as
0:58
an athlete, a coach, an analyst, an athletic trainer, a director
1:03
of sports operations or maybe even a podcaster.
1:08
Each week we're bringing you the top stories in women's
1:10
professional and sometimes collegiate sports.
1:12
We'll highlight prime time performers, key business
1:15
decisions, economic impacts, and the growing opportunities for
1:18
women's athletics. You'll hear our perspectives on
1:20
these stories as fans, but perhaps more importantly, as
1:24
parents who value what these stories mean for our kids.
1:27
If there's a storyline or topic you'd like to hear us talk
1:29
about, reach out via e-mail at raisingthegamepod@gmail.com or
1:33
on social media at RTG Under SCORE Pod.
1:36
We're back. Yeah, we.
1:37
Are back. Another week with you here.
1:40
Yeah. How are you?
1:41
I'm doing all right. Doing all right?
1:42
Yeah, All right. Good deal.
1:45
We'll start out the episode here just with another reminder.
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We'll have links, continue to have links in our bio for ways
1:53
to support the community here in Minnesota.
1:56
I'm sure there's other, there are other communities that are
1:58
impacted as well. But obviously with us living
2:00
here, it's near and dear to our heart.
2:04
So if you want to check those out, typically we're we're
2:09
anchoring into local businesses that we're trying to support or
2:12
local Community Action funds. So you can take a look at those
2:18
in the show notes. All right, I before we get into
2:23
favorite thing today, I just have to say thank you to the
2:29
people who listen to this. Podcast.
2:34
It's been really fun these first, this is our 8th episode,
2:39
7th that we've published and just the feedback, the random
2:44
texts, people asking for us to cover different topics and dig
2:48
in on different things. The inspiration that it's
2:51
providing for folks to go check out collegiate and professional
2:56
women's sports. It means the world to.
2:59
Us I think it's it started out as almost weird to hear you say
3:03
oh so and so is listening to the podcast and now it's super fun
3:09
when they're like oh we're going to this woman's sporting event
3:13
this week because of your podcast and it's like This is
3:15
why we do it so. Yeah.
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So just thank you. We're kind of learning as we go,
3:21
figuring it out, but we really appreciate people coming back in
3:26
100% week over week. So with that.
3:29
What's your thing? What's your favorite thing?
3:33
That hockey game just absolutely insane.
3:38
We, I mean, we were both working and I was, I was on a call
3:44
towards the end of this call. I'm not on mute and I'm like
3:47
peeking my head out of the office to watch the game, to see
3:50
them go up, to tie it, to go into overtime.
3:53
And I'm like running around the house scream, whispering, yes,
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yes. And I was just.
4:00
It was not scream whispering folks because I was also on a
4:03
call and I just hear Alex yelling yes.
4:06
Yes. And I'm like, Oh my God, we must
4:08
have scored. Yeah, it was amazing.
4:12
So I I agree, if I had to pick one, I don't even I I can't even
4:19
do it. My favorite thing this week is
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women's sports. Yeah, it's female athletes.
4:24
It's amazing performances. You, I, I know most of you are
4:28
just listening to this, but if you're watching my call sheet
4:31
this week is like 12 pages long because there's so much that we
4:36
have to cover as. Far as credible performances an
4:40
hour and. 1/2 and and it's like Olympics.
4:43
There's huge news in the WNBA right now.
4:45
We've got she believes cup coming up.
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There are just so many things that we could be talking about.
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And so I just, I think it's just a huge props to the women who
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are performing now, but also the women who came before them,
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right, who really paved the way and created the demand for the
5:07
exposure that we now all get to appreciate these these
5:13
performances and and the dedication of these athletes.
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So my favorite thing is just women's sports, maybe cliche for
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a women's sports podcast, but here we are.
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I'll be a cliche all. That's our.
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Favorite thing? All.
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Right, you want to move into headlines.
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Yeah, let's go through them. All right, in major broadcast
5:34
programming, shake up ESPN to replace Sunday Night Baseball
5:38
with women's sports Sundays. OK, I wish we had more time in
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the programming this week to talk about this.
5:46
Because this is, this is massive.
5:47
Huge. First of all, I want to say I I
5:51
have a quote here actually from the ESPN executive vice
5:56
president of programming and acquisitions, Rosalind Durant,
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She said Women's sports Sundays, which is what the show is going
6:02
to be called, isn't an experiment.
6:04
It's a flag in the ground in a continuing commitment.
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And I love that because I think the immediate reaction a lot of
6:13
times is like, oh, they're testing this, right?
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And and she's coming out and saying, like, this isn't a test.
6:20
Like we've already done the test.
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They passed with flying colors. And we're going to now take what
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was probably, frankly, a tired broadcast on on ESPN.
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Now, Sunday Night Baseball, just as a sidebar, is moving.
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NBC is going to kind of own that going into the 2026 MLB season.
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So it's not like that's going away.
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If you still want to watch your baseball, you go over to NBC.
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But ESPN now is saying we want to spotlight specifically WNBA
6:50
if they have a season and NWSL games and of the week.
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So I think that's awesome. Yeah, women's college basketball
7:02
programs in LSU, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Iowa are outselling
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their men's programs on the secondary market.
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Also huge and these are not small margins y'all, LSU right
7:16
now. So all four of those women's
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teams are ranked in the top 25. They're actually in the top 15
7:21
right now. But LSU right now, they're
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women's program secondary market average ticket sale value $77 a
7:29
ticket, the men's program $16.00.
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Now, I don't think the men's programs ranked, so we could say
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like not apples to apples, but I do think Oklahoma's men's
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program is ranked and that is going women's side 50 bucks,
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men's side 35. So amazing to see.
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Obviously these are stellar, well known programs in the West
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on the women's side for NCAA. Excuse me, but you'll love to
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see. It you do love to see it.
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Speaking of which, that LSU South Carolina game we
8:00
spotlighted last weekend in the prime time slot?
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It drew record views of 2.2 million peak viewers and 1.7
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million average viewers while competing with the Olympics
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prime time broadcast and the NBA All Star game.
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Yeah, so also a big deal. This became the most viewed
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women's college basketball game so far this season, and it's the
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fourth most watched women's college basketball game on ESPN
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of all time. Wow, that's massive.
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Yeah, Jordan Chiles lands her fifth perfect ten in a row on
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the floor. She's unstoppable.
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Girl can't be stopped. Denver Summit FC have sold
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45,000 tickets to their home opener in their inaugural season
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and have opened up 500 level seating at Mile High Stadium.
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That was 45,000 y'all and they're playing where the
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Broncos play that is and likely to to get close to that 50,000
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mark is is my guess. That's wild.
9:01
US Women's national team announces she believes Cup
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roster for matches upcoming between March 1 and March 7th.
9:08
Well, you're going to talk about this a little bit later, Will
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rehash Caitlin's score prediction predictions for the
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roster. Jessica Pugula defeats Elena
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Svidolina in Dubai to win her 10th title.
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Yep. I actually went through and
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tried to look for names and I totally missed that line.
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Well, good luck with the next one.
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We're going to try on this one. World number one Gino Thedico.
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Thedico wins home tournament LPGA Thailand.
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Yes. CVS signs partnership with NWSL
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and US Soccer Federation. I didn't get to look into this
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one in a lot more detail, but I think it's something we'll come
9:50
back to the implications for that.
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CVS essentially wants to be the main virtual sponsor listed on
10:00
games, which is that's like a big signal.
10:02
They want they see that as good exposure for them.
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And Lindsey Vonn shares that she'd like likely have to have
10:09
amputated her leg had the surgeon in Italy not
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successfully performed her surgery.
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Yeah. So this was, she had AI don't
10:16
know, 3 or 4 surgeries I think in Italy and there were more
10:20
when she got back stateside. Y'all have probably, if you've
10:23
been on social media, you've probably seen like the X-ray
10:26
like she shattered her too. Yeah.
10:31
And so she she just shared recently that had, had they not
10:35
been able to act as quickly as they could, she'd have lost her
10:40
leg. And how many knuckleheads have
10:42
come out of the woodwork? She told you?
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Too many. Too many knuckleheads.
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You know what she would have done?
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She would have come back. She would have competed in the
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Paralympics. You would have cut it off there,
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beat those guys up in the media and then went to the
10:56
Paralympics. Which are coming up, by the way.
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We're going to do a quick mention of that, but we'll start
11:01
covering a little bit of that in the next couple weeks here.
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Sure. All right, Olympics wrap up.
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Let's do this. Man, it's been really funny
11:11
these last couple days. Our girls have been like, are
11:13
the Olympics on? And we're like, sorry, they're
11:17
not. I feel like the timing to with
11:20
Milano Cortina was perfect because it's kind of like the
11:23
moment you woke up in the morning, you kind of just have
11:25
an. Eye.
11:25
Yeah, yeah, you have some on. But anyways, I digress.
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So we're going to go through just a couple of maybe like
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headline pieces, some stats coming out around medal counts
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and viewership and things like that.
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And then I am because I get to decide what we talk about here
11:44
with Alex's health. We are going to go through all
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of the incredible performances, not all of the female athletes,
11:52
because if we did that, we'd be here all night, but some of the
11:55
spotlight ones, some you've heard from us before, some are
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going to be a little bit new. We do hope you enjoy that.
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We'll do a brief recap on medal count and then we're going to
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talk a little bit about the Paralympics coming up.
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So, and we'll get a chance to to do some reflection if we don't
12:15
incorporate the discussion over the next couple minutes here.
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So let's just start by saying that these 2026 Winter Games
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were for the girls. Yeah, 100%.
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Women were in the spotlight. We've talked about here before
12:32
that, you know, NBC made very intentional marketing decisions
12:36
to feature female athletes in their promotional content for
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the Games. That continued throughout the
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games and even when you watched the advertising.
12:47
I mean, we talked about the like, Visa commercial with
12:51
Michaela Schifrin, but there's that one.
12:55
What was what is the one where the the family sitting on the
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couch and next to the little boy and he's in his jammies, but
13:01
they're watching women's hockey. Yeah, they are.
13:03
Right. And that's it.
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And then he's got a poster of like a women's hockey player.
13:07
Like those are very intentional choices because everybody
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watches women's sports trademark together.
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So couple of statistics for you just to to have a few things in
13:22
your back pocket when you want to get into it with your Co
13:24
workers. About this 47% of the athletes
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in the Winter Games are were women.
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This was a high record for the Winter Games, the most gender
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balanced Winter Games in history.
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This is also from an American performance perspective.
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It is the first time that the US finished solo second, so second
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place in both gold and total medals.
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So they've tied for those before, but this time they
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finish as a clear 2nd. 67% of gold medals were won by women
13:59
and that includes combined team. So we think of like the corey's
14:02
right for mixed curling and there was a mixed aerials
14:07
competition where we won a gold medal and things like that.
14:10
And then 61% of all medals won by Team USA were won by women.
14:16
Now, well, go ahead. I was.
14:18
Going to say, I think it was interesting because I didn't, we
14:20
have a stat that NBC was going to do 60% coverage of women over
14:26
men and it was exactly almost 60% winnings by by women.
14:32
Yeah. So they, so I don't think it was
14:34
coverage, they, they do more coverage of women's sports.
14:38
I don't think it was quite 60%, but they, they tend to lean
14:42
towards prime time viewing around women's sports and they
14:46
have had for the last couple of games including summer.
14:50
So what is interesting and kind of ties into that is that this
14:54
is the 6th consecutive Olympic Games, so summer and winter
14:58
included, where women have outperformed men on on Team USA
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in gold and total medals. Amazing.
15:06
So they are bringing home more glory than our men's athletes.
15:11
Now you may argue, OK, well the men's side, the competition is
15:17
tougher. It's more, there's more
15:19
opportunity in other countries for men versus women, which is
15:22
all very fair. What I do want to say is that we
15:25
posted a little infographic at the end of last week and if you
15:29
looked across the 10 at the time, top metal earning
15:32
countries, eight of those were majority won by women.
15:38
So it's not just a USA thing, this is a a as opportunity is an
15:45
investment comes around women perform.
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Couple media highlights for us here, one right off the top.
15:52
Speaking of that gold medal hockey game, 7.7 million people
15:57
tuned into the USA, Canada gold medal game at its peak, making
16:01
it the most watched women's hockey game in history.
16:05
And then the AP, so Associated Press wrote an article on women,
16:09
the women's sports ecosystem that is flourishing around the
16:13
market. And this is actually something
16:14
Alex and I want to do an episode on it's at some point.
16:19
But to talk about this entire including us making this
16:22
podcast, right. But like this entire ecosystem
16:25
of journalism, reporting, interviews, all of those kinds
16:31
of things that have come up around women's sports as they're
16:35
chronicling that rise. And actually we get a lot of our
16:38
material from these places. So we mentioned together, that's
16:43
like a whole, it's a conglomerate of top athletes who
16:49
have essentially pooled funding and resources.
16:53
They back certain initiatives. They do the media side.
16:58
They're the ones responsible for the everyone watches women's
17:01
sports gear that you now see. I've worn it here on the pod and
17:06
that is a really cool group there.
17:10
There's the gist. Just women's sports, the 9
17:13
sports goals, all caps, Good Game with Sarah Spain A Touch
17:18
More, which is a podcast done by Megan Rapinoe of US Women's
17:23
National Team Soccer Glory and her wife Sue Bird.
17:28
Yep. Who is of WNBA?
17:31
UConn Husky. She's like one of the best to
17:34
ever do it. And then not going to lie, with
17:37
Kylie Kelsey, I had to throw this in there because the
17:39
Kelsey's were at the Olympics and they got to do sit down
17:44
interviews with like Michaela Shiffrin, Layla Edwards, Breezy
17:47
Johnson, like just so cool. And I think Kylie does an
17:51
incredible job of like just highlighting these women.
17:55
So, and then fun fact and a shout out for the home team
18:00
here, The Twin Cities were found to be tuning in more than any
18:05
other major US metro there. There were 37 athletes at these
18:10
Winter Games from or associated with Minnesota.
18:16
Does anybody want to guess which state in the in the United
18:21
States brought home the most medals?
18:23
Minnesota. It was Minnesota, all right.
18:25
A long shot so. My notes here literally just say
18:28
it makes sense. We're a winter people.
18:30
We winter things. Pride and glory.
18:32
I mean, I think you do see it. Too.
18:33
We're a winter people. We turn out, I mean, we turn out
18:36
for Lynx games. We turn out for Oh yeah, games
18:39
like it. They're, they're no slouches.
18:41
Didn't train up out of those games.
18:42
I mean, y'all, this was on the on the men's side of things, but
18:46
like, you want to talk about a winter people and turning out
18:48
for sports. Yeah, they play outdoor hockey
18:51
professional games every once in a while and they, like, go to
18:54
different cities just like a couple years ago, and they're
18:57
playing and it was like -20° and people still go watch that
19:01
hockey. Game I watched a Gopher game at
19:03
TCF or whatever it is now hunting and bake stadium many
19:06
years ago and my beer was freezing.
19:09
It was turning into. Slush.
19:09
It was so cold. Yeah, we do it.
19:11
We are a winter people. We are winter.
19:13
We show up all right, so shifting gears, I think you kind
19:18
of get the gist get the idea of like how incredible just this
19:23
the data would support these these performances were we're
19:28
going to start to go through some of them in case you missed
19:30
them in case you want to follow these athletes further, I just
19:36
have to gush for the next couple of minutes and feel free to
19:39
chime in as I gush. I'd love, I'd love your
19:42
thoughts. So like I said, a couple of
19:44
these we've highlighted. So at starting off the top from
19:48
the host nation, Italy, Federica Brignone, she was 10 months post
19:53
crash where she sustained multiple broken bones and a torn
19:56
ACL. She won not one but 2 gold
20:01
medals on her home soil and Alpine skiing.
20:05
And she's the oldest gold medalist in the in the
20:08
discipline. I mean, as a 38 year old, this
20:11
is my favorite type of story because it tells me I might
20:14
still have a chance. You might.
20:15
Still have a chance? No, I don't.
20:17
And you know what, coming up next are just a couple of 40
20:20
year old working moms. So probably one of my favorite
20:24
moments of the games was when Alana Myers Taylor found out
20:28
that she won the mono Bob gold. Yep, if you can go back and like
20:33
look at the video of that, she has two non hearing sons.
20:37
One of them has some developmental the abilities as
20:40
well. And so she's learned she's a
20:43
hearing person and so she's learned to sign to them.
20:45
Nice. And so she's on the little like
20:48
waiting area where you sit if you're like in little
20:51
contention. She finds out she's one.
20:54
Her nanny is right there and they're two boys and she like
20:58
bends over and is just like crying.
21:01
And then she pops up and she signs like mommy one to these
21:04
boys. Oh my gosh.
21:05
And then they like give her a big hug.
21:06
Just got the flag draped over her.
21:08
And I was like a win for the moms everywhere, right?
21:12
And then, of course, she shouted out her nannies, her husband,
21:15
like her support crew. We can't do these things alone.
21:19
And I just love that. Also, just like real quick, most
21:24
decorated black athlete in Winter Games history.
21:27
She's the oldest woman to win an individual medal.
21:30
So again, we're set, you know? Yeah, there you go for the for
21:33
the more mature. Yes, so different, like a more
21:35
mature audience. And then, alongside her Callie
21:38
Humphries, she pilots the two woman bobsled to a bronze only
21:42
18 months postpartum. Y'all women are superheroes and
21:46
her break woman Jasmine Jones, who we highlighted here, who is
21:50
one of our team, US as black athletes, also a mom.
21:53
There you go. So win for the moms.
21:57
All right, now we're going to talk a little bit about USA
21:59
Women's Hockey. So this is their first gold
22:02
since 2018. I think it's something like 7
22:06
gold medal. Well, now 8 gold medal games
22:09
have been played in the Olympics all time.
22:12
Seven of those have featured USA and Canada.
22:16
Canada has had the better of it up until, well, they've had.
22:20
They have the better record. They won five golds.
22:22
US now has three. But what you could not have
22:27
scripted this better. Like this is going to become
22:30
like what Miracle was to film, like the Lake Placid 1980s
22:35
Miracle on Ice. This will become that thing.
22:40
And I think. It was cool because they were,
22:42
they were talking about that. They're talking about at the end
22:45
of the men's game, They were saying the the miracle thing
22:49
that happened in 19 in the 1980s was kind of this inflection
22:53
point or whatever for young men in the United States to actually
22:57
start picking up hockey and be more interested in hockey.
22:59
And that's why we're where we are skill wise in hockey.
23:03
And they're saying that this might be exactly what you just
23:06
said for the women's side. Like this might be the point
23:09
where young women girl are starting to look at these hockey
23:12
players and going, I can do that.
23:13
I can be a professional and go play for my country, play for a
23:17
professional team. And this could be like kind of
23:19
the upswing that we're going to. Start to see, yeah, I think, I
23:22
think I agree with that 100%. I think the one thing that I'll
23:27
say is like a slight tweak on it a little bit, is that it used to
23:32
be that you'd watch women's professional hockey at the
23:37
Olympics and then you'd say we'll see them again in four
23:41
years. And the PWHL has completely
23:44
changed the landscape. And so I actually, I just want
23:47
to make sure we give credit to that league for creating a space
23:54
in between. Like I've seen a lot of things
23:55
online since the game of like, where can I watch more women's
23:58
hockey? It was so fun.
23:59
And it's like PWHL y'all. It starts again on Thursday.
24:04
We'll get into it. All right, so a couple
24:07
highlights from the USA women's hockey team.
24:09
So first Caroline Harvey. We, we, we talked about her last
24:13
week, but tournament MVP, most points of all players, most
24:17
assists of all players, Olympic All Star, best plus minus, like
24:21
every award, every accolade, everything, every achievement.
24:24
Like give it to her. This is extra impressive coming
24:28
off of what happened in the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
24:33
I think she ended up playing like very minimal minutes.
24:36
She was 19 at the time. You know, like, let's cut her
24:38
some slack. I think got benched in the final
24:41
game. Like it she didn't have a great
24:43
showing, but she they talked a lot about how she used that to
24:46
fuel her training since then. And she's really benefited from
24:52
Mark Johnson's tutelage at University of Wisconsin and then
24:55
John Rubleski of of Team USA. Of course, we have to highlight
25:02
Captain America Hillary night again.
25:06
Storybook scores the game tying goal within an empty net
25:10
situation in the final two set the all time US scoring record
25:17
in the Olympics, both for goals and points.
25:20
She also got engaged while she was there to fellow Olympian
25:24
Brittany Bowe. Speed skater.
25:26
Speed skater. Yep, and they had met at the
25:29
2022 Olympics. And then turn around and like,
25:32
now we're engaged. Super cute.
25:35
Layla Edwards, we talked about her quite a bit.
25:37
So first black woman to suit up for Team USA, plus the first to
25:41
win a medal, plus the first to win gold.
25:44
I mean, she's just like all the first the.
25:46
Assist on the the game tying goal.
25:48
Assist on the game tying goal. She had a great tournament, too.
25:51
Yeah, she did. If you want to watch her or
25:53
Caroline Harvey or Kirsten Sims, like just go watch the Badgers
25:57
play. Talk about that later too.
26:01
Erin Frankel. So she is Team USA is #1
26:05
goaltender. She's the first goaltender to
26:07
record 3 shutouts in a single tournament.
26:09
The first American goaltender to shut out the Canadians in
26:12
Olympic play. So that 50 win in round Robin
26:15
play made history. And then she made 30 saves in
26:20
the gold medal match. This was something you had
26:22
pointed out, like she hadn't faced a ton of shots.
26:27
She was amazing. Yeah, she did great.
26:29
And frankly, Canada's only goal came the.
26:32
Beginning of this. Right at the beginning of the
26:34
second, it was short handed. It's kind of like one of those
26:36
moments where you're coming out of the locker room, you think
26:39
you're locked in on the power play, like you just got caught
26:42
off guard. But then she right of the ship
26:45
and. Yeah, to, I mean, to stand how
26:47
many more shots after that that and keep it together for the
26:50
rest of the game is very impressive.
26:52
Yeah. And then just a couple of
26:55
additional things, like not necessarily player performance
26:59
specific, like these little moments, right?
27:03
John Wrobleski, the head coaches reaction when they won, like
27:08
brought me to tears. He just started to cry on the
27:12
bench. His staff like came around and
27:14
like was hugging him and they're all like hyped and excited and
27:16
the players are going nuts on the ice.
27:18
But he was just, like, in tears. Yeah, in tears and just soaking
27:22
it in like. Soaking it in and just like
27:24
seems like such a great leader for that group.
27:28
Really committed to those women and like making sure that they
27:33
are able to perform at their best.
27:36
Another tear jerker. If you haven't seen the video
27:40
that Haley wins brothers. So Haley wins brothers.
27:44
You probably saw if you go on any kind of social media,
27:47
there's three brothers who were dressed up crazy at like every
27:50
single game, famously all wearing like eagle masks at the
27:56
one at one game. And then but they're always
27:58
matching right? And they're goofy, but they
28:02
posted this adorable video right before the OR sent something to
28:08
her, like a voice memo or something.
28:10
And they talk about how much work she's put in and how much
28:14
they've seen her. Like Strive.
28:16
I'm gonna cry. And it ends with I don't
28:21
actually know if I can make it through this.
28:22
You guys. Do I need to say it?
28:24
No, no, you got it. It ends with you have three
28:27
older brothers who now look up to you and that just like, yeah,
28:33
it's these moments. Yes, it is.
28:35
I love the Olympics or any sports really.
28:38
And then finally, I just this is like probably a little bit going
28:42
under the radar, but I, I got to mention Ellen Hughes.
28:45
You might be like, who is Ellen Hughes?
28:47
I didn't see a Hughes on that team.
28:49
I saw a Hughes on the men's team.
28:51
Couple of Hughes, couple of Hughes that came in clutch for
28:53
them. Ellen Hughes, believe it or not,
28:56
is those Hughes boys mother and she is also on the coaching
29:03
staff for the women's team. So she came on in 2023 as a
29:08
player development coach. She's worked with a lot of the
29:12
players on their mental side on their training, worked very
29:16
closely with Hillary Knight, Megan Keller, who scored the
29:19
game-winning goal. But she's actually a former
29:22
member of USA Hockey. She played before they had
29:26
women's hockey at the Olympics. She won a silver medal at the
29:30
IIHF Women's World Championships in 1992.
29:34
But what a what a just like a legacy for her.
29:38
She actually has three boys who play in the NHL.
29:41
Luke is the middle one who didn't make the the national
29:44
team for the Olympics. But just so cool to see like the
29:49
influence of one person when they are determined enough to
29:53
like share what they love with with others.
29:58
So wanted to shout that out. Do you have anything else about
30:02
the hockey hockey game that you want to talk about?
30:04
I know you, I saw, I kind of saw an interesting stat and I don't
30:06
want to dig too much into the men's team, but this is the
30:09
first I think year that I saw that the men but won the Olympic
30:13
and the IHF and the women won the Olympic and the IHF.
30:16
So they we have all four golds right now.
30:18
All four golds target on your back.
30:22
Yeah, we won't dig too much into the men's team.
30:25
We're purposely avoiding that topic right now.
30:28
And I'm sure if you know, you know, yeah, let's move on to
30:32
better stories. Figure skating.
30:34
So my personal, like, side fave, right, Alyssa, Lou and then
30:38
Amber, Glenn, Isabel, Lavito put in some amazing performances.
30:42
But I think like the spotlights were really on Glenn and Lou.
30:46
To see Alyssa Lou Wingold on her own terms.
30:51
I mean, what this is just not an example of achievement in that
30:58
sport that I think we've ever seen before.
31:01
Typically, you had to kind of be like the Ice Princess and like,
31:06
there's a lot of stories about eating disorders and all sorts
31:10
of things. And like, she was concerned
31:12
about that at 16. Yeah.
31:14
And decided to retire. We talked about that and then
31:19
come back and win a gold medal. Yeah, win a gold medal just like
31:22
that. And like, I know you said this a
31:24
lot, but like watching her skate, there was just a
31:27
different aura around her of freedom and joy and and like
31:36
lightness. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was so
31:39
wild. Like I've never seen somebody
31:41
perform in a way that just like inevitable, like automatic just
31:49
it's almost like nothing could affect her at all.
31:51
She didn't seem like she was under pressure at all.
31:54
Yeah, like she was just out there.
31:57
I have a couple quotes from her, she said.
32:02
I just add skating into my life, but skating isn't my life like
32:06
it was before. And I think that is like such a
32:09
lesson for all of us in a lot of things, a lot of ways.
32:13
And then she also was quoted as saying, I don't know if I'm
32:16
changing the game, but I'm changing the game for myself.
32:20
Yeah, and I, I mean, it's very powerful.
32:23
We, we know. We saw, I think, Simone Biles
32:24
step away. Yeah, the one of the last
32:27
Olympic Games 20. 20. Yeah, I.
32:30
Have to like do the weird summer.
32:31
Winter, right yeah, for for some mental health issues and the way
32:36
that Alyssa Lu did this and was able to get a medal put her
32:42
mental health first. Like, it's very powerful to show
32:47
that to women and men, to be honest, but also to say, like,
32:54
there could be a new template for young athletes.
32:58
You don't have to live, eat, breathe your sport.
33:04
Yeah, 24/7. You could still have a life and
33:07
you can still perform at a high level.
33:09
Yeah. And frankly, I think as I, as we
33:12
like start to get to the age with our girls where like they
33:15
are starting to venture into youth sports, that world is
33:18
crazy. And we will talk about that at
33:22
some point. But like, this is so refreshing
33:25
to see that like, again, understanding at her age that
33:33
she was at risk of losing her childhood basically, or like
33:36
youth and then having the support system around to make
33:41
those decisions and people who believe in you.
33:45
It's just like such a great story.
33:48
One last thing on on Lou. I, I just I had to mention like
33:51
the whole vibe on the medal podium with Kyori Sakamoto, who
33:55
is a legend in the sport in her own right.
33:59
She's leaving these Olympics as the most decorated individual
34:01
female skater of all time with four medals.
34:05
And AMI Nakai, she's 17 years old, and she's the only woman
34:11
besides Amber Glenn to even attempt a triple Axel, let alone
34:15
land one in competition. So they had just like, such a
34:19
moment of like, sisterhood and like, just lifting each other
34:22
up. And I don't, you just, like,
34:24
love to see it. You love to see people like
34:27
enjoy the moment, right? Speaking of Amber Glenn, I was
34:33
so inspired by her resilience. We watched her short program
34:40
performance. It was disappointing for her.
34:43
It was a little bit as like not a super in depth figure skating
34:48
fan, hard to understand like why she lost points.
34:51
Then you understand, like she missed an entire jump that she
34:54
was supposed to do, but and she was devastated.
34:59
Like it, it was hard to watch and like you feel for these
35:03
athletes who do put in so much time and and and commitment to
35:09
their craft. But to see her come back and
35:13
nail her free skate, she had the highest technical score.
35:17
She had the third highest overall score on the free skate
35:20
and she went from 13th to 5th like almost on the podium right
35:27
from totally bombing on her short program.
35:30
Just that, that resilience. I think her and Lou sort of, I
35:35
think Amber Glenn's quote was like, like they're like 2 woke
35:38
bitches or something like that. Like they're just like not the
35:42
normal image that you think of with, with Figure skaters.
35:47
And I think it's it's good to see that, like it's good to see
35:51
different body types and personalities and like whatever,
35:57
like being up there and and having success.
36:00
And then also y'all, if you have not watched her gala skate, go.
36:03
To the gala skate and watch her. She does this like lean.
36:06
Oh my God, Skate and I. Was like, that's impossible like
36:10
that. No one can do that.
36:11
Is impossible. Another thing that's just like a
36:14
funny sidebar is I was talking to Alex about, this was a couple
36:18
days ago about how like they are on a skate and then they lift
36:21
their foot up behind their head and then they somehow straighten
36:25
their leg out. I'm like, I would break, I would
36:28
break. So we really enjoyed the figure
36:30
skating. It was it was a really fun kind
36:34
of dive back into that for me for sure.
36:39
All right, moving on, we've got Michaela Schifrin.
36:42
This was huge last week. So after we aired our episode,
36:45
she was we had talked about how she had her final opportunity
36:49
and medal really needed to get that 2022 Beijing bugaboo off
36:54
her back and she did it golden. That was it, that slalom run
36:58
that we were watching that was intense.
37:00
That was awesome. Yeah, so third gold for her and
37:04
her career coming eight years after her last medals, she is
37:08
the first US skier to earn 3 Olympic golds.
37:12
So real testament to her resilience as well.
37:15
So you mentioned she had a really bad crash a couple maybe
37:18
18 months ago and is back competing.
37:22
Jesse Diggins, the home home state girl girly here.
37:25
She did just announce officially her retirement from competition
37:29
after the March World Cup, I guess.
37:31
There's a World Cup. For cross country skiing, but
37:34
she gutted out a bronze medal in the 10 kilometer freestyle race
37:38
after like serious bruising to her ribs in a previous race.
37:42
Also, if you haven't seen her finish, it's like just striving
37:46
and then collapse at the finish line.
37:50
And then Eileen Goo, I got to give some props to the Chinese
37:56
national. She has become the most
37:59
decorated freestyle skier of all time and that is not an error.
38:04
She is now the most decorated man or woman to do freestyle
38:10
skiing with six Olympic medals and the first free skier to
38:14
back-to-back medal in three disciplines.
38:16
So let me say this a different way.
38:20
She competes in all three free ski disciplines.
38:23
So that's slopestyle, big air, halfpipe.
38:26
Most of the people she competes again against in these races do
38:30
one of those. In the 2022 Beijing Olympics,
38:34
she meddled in all three. In the 2026 Milano Cortina
38:38
Olympics, she meddled in all three.
38:40
She also, just as a sidebar, scored a 1580 on her SAT.
38:45
That is a perfect score, folks. And she's got a whole other
38:49
bunch of business ventures. She actually there's some
38:51
reporting out there that she is the highest paid woman at the
38:55
Olympic Games, $12.3 million or something last year point
39:02
1,000,000 of that came from actually her sport.
39:06
The rest of his endorsements. But if you haven't seen her
39:12
viral press conference yet, we are going to introduce you and
39:15
you can go find it if you want to because this is gold and this
39:19
Eileen Goo energy is like the type of energy that I wish I
39:23
could bring to work. Asinine conversations.
39:30
She was asked by a reporter after earning silver in the
39:35
slopestyle and big era events with the halfpipe to go if it
39:40
felt like 2 silvers, one or two golds lost.
39:45
And the best part of her response if you go watch the
39:48
video, if you watch the video is how she laughs at him to start.
39:52
Because what an absurd question Sir, why?
39:58
Why would you ask that? We talked about it too.
40:01
It's like you could have asked a very similar question and not
40:06
asked it that way like you could have asked.
40:09
Yeah. There's a million different ways
40:10
to ask that question without kind of making a dig at her.
40:14
And also, we talked in the last episode about, like, it is
40:18
already a huge accomplishment to just be at the Olympics
40:22
competing. To get on the podium at all is
40:27
amazing. And so, like, I don't think
40:31
these athletes think about. I mean, they do, but like, you
40:36
win a medal, you're probably not sitting there being like, if
40:40
you're really close, maybe. But like, I don't know, but her
40:43
let's go back because her response was just like so golden
40:47
and I aspire to be her one day. So we asked the question.
40:52
She laugh. She laughs very kind of like,
40:57
are you serious right now? And she says I'm the most
41:01
decorated female free skier in history.
41:04
I think that's answer in and of itself.
41:06
And she goes on to talk about how the expectations on her keep
41:11
getting higher and higher. Yeah, but it's just as hard for
41:15
her to go out and win a medal. Yeah.
41:17
And it's even harder because she competes in all three
41:20
disciplines. Yeah, a lot of her competition,
41:22
they specialize in one. Right.
41:25
So what a master class and how to respond to silly questions?
41:30
Like if I do that at work, I'm going to get fired but.
41:33
Yeah, maybe I'll try it. Couple more here.
41:36
We'll we'll rapid fire through these.
41:38
So Marie Philippe Poulan, top women's hockey scorer of all
41:42
time. So all teams with 20 goals, five
41:45
time Olympic gold medalist, only player to score in four
41:49
different gold medal games. We don't know if this will be
41:51
her last games. This was her fifth, along with
41:54
Hillary Knight. She didn't.
41:57
Get a hurt knee. Or leg, I think, yeah, played
41:59
through an injury. See how?
42:00
That goes. Kayla Kuhn, She was on that gold
42:04
medal mixed aerials team. Corey Teesy First American woman
42:08
to win a medal in curling silver with the mixed double S and she
42:12
set a record for most ends played in in the Olympics by a
42:15
single competitor. 193 ends of curling.
42:21
I mean, in that, that last team game, that that's a long game.
42:24
Those are long games to go tennis.
42:26
Yeah, they are long. I think I did see a really funny
42:29
meme I told you about where somebody was like, I think I've
42:32
had it with the curling. I think I've seen enough.
42:34
It might answer my question. One of my questions was why
42:37
can't we watch more curling and I think we figured it out as by
42:40
the end of the Olympics. Everyone's like we're good.
42:42
For a little bit now. Femke KOK set an Olympic record
42:48
for the 500 meter speed skate. She won a medal in both the 500
42:52
meters and the 1000 meters for the Netherlands.
42:57
Marion Fatton won the first ever Olympic gold in ski
43:01
mountaineering which if you saw videos.
43:04
Of this was Snoop Dogg commentating on it.
43:07
Which y'all should go find? Absolutely.
43:09
I was blown away there climbing stairs or skiing.
43:11
Out. I don't even know what's
43:12
happening. Didn't get a chance to watch
43:14
them enough of that. And then we'll round this out
43:16
with Chloe Kim. We've talked about her.
43:18
She got a silver. She was not able to get her
43:21
three peat gold in the women's halfpipe for snowboarding, but
43:24
she got a silver. She conceded her gold or however
43:29
you want to look at it to her mentor mentee Troy Guyon, who
43:38
Chloe actually helped bring over to the States to help her train
43:41
and things like that. Just a really beautiful moment
43:44
between those two after Chloe's run on the half pipe, her final
43:48
run. So all right, wrapping up our
43:53
Olympics segment here. Just a real quick we went to the
43:59
trouble to try and find out where you can watch these these
44:04
lovely athletes between now and the next Winter Games.
44:09
And so as we mentioned, hockey PWHL season resumes on Thursday,
44:15
2/27. Regular season ends end of April
44:19
and then we head into the playoffs.
44:22
The NCAA kind of ecosystem. There's five different kind of
44:27
conferences within that for hockey conference tournaments
44:31
begin this weekend and championships are scheduled
44:34
across the five conferences around March 7th.
44:39
So we'll and then we'll get into the total overall Frozen 4 or
44:43
whatever that they do. I was.
44:45
Going to say it's. It'll be interesting to see how
44:47
the PWHL like what kind of happens with either.
44:51
Are they able to market it as, hey, you watch the Olympics,
44:54
come watch this, or are they just going to organically kind
44:57
of pick up some more steam from from the Olympics?
45:00
And I think you mentioned this last week too.
45:02
It's going to be really interesting to see how these
45:04
players come back. Like, do they have a hangover
45:07
from the Olympic kind of run? Keep in mind that there were 61
45:12
PWHL players playing in the Olympics and 30 well, and but 39
45:21
of those 61 played in that gold medal game.
45:26
Canada was like all of Team Canada was there and then I
45:28
think the US had the college player.
45:31
So but they're actually were the other teams.
45:34
The the remaining players actually were playing like
45:37
scrimmages and things. They were.
45:39
I was reading about how they were getting some competitive,
45:42
you know, stuff going on. Ski season continues until the
45:46
end of March. So there's Alpine skiing,
45:49
there's all the jumping and cross country and different
45:53
World Cup tournaments. Those are not broadcast as
45:57
frequently, but you can follow along with those if you're
46:00
interested. World Cups tend to happen right
46:02
at the end of March there. All right, figure skating, they
46:06
have the regional championships in early March with US Figure
46:09
Skating Championships in early April, snowboard free ski.
46:14
Also in March, there's the I Heart US Revolution Tour and
46:18
Aspen Snowmass for two competitions.
46:22
And then bobsled, similar to these other winter sports,
46:25
skiing and figure skating whatnot, the competitive season
46:28
kind of runs from November to about February or March.
46:32
So bobsled's actually done now. So they were kind of their
46:36
season was centered around the Olympics, but come November,
46:40
y'all, you can go watch them again.
46:41
Amazing. All right, And then just a real
46:45
quick reminder, we do have the Para Olympics starting up next
46:49
week, so March 6th through the 15th.
46:52
There are 6 events, Para Alpine skiing, Para biathlon, Para
46:58
cross country skiing, ice hockey, a pair of ice hockey,
47:04
snowboard and a pair of snowboard excuse me, and
47:08
wheelchair curling. So we will take a look at some
47:12
of that and share some of the highlights here.
47:14
There are 70 medals on the line in.
47:17
The USA on the ice hockey. Field that would be that.
47:21
Would be amazing. I can't wait.
47:22
All right, moving on to she believes Cup roster preview and
47:25
predictions. Caitlin had a prediction last
47:29
week for every spot on the roster, and she went 17 for 26.
47:34
That is not a bad hit rate all that's 2/3.
47:38
I caught to the fact that I did not know what the injuries
47:41
status and health protocols were that players were in.
47:44
I think had I done my research, I may have been better, but here
47:48
we are. Till next time.
47:51
Yeah, we've got a lot of rosters we're going to predict in the
47:53
next 18 months before the World Cup.
47:57
All right, so notable, notable is about the roster selection
48:02
from Emma Hayes. So 19 NWSL players and seven
48:05
European based players were called up to the roster.
48:09
As we learned last week, you get 26 roster slots and she believes
48:14
versus the typical kind of 23 for international competition.
48:18
And Gotham FC from the NWSL had the most call UPS.
48:22
Big omissions due to injury protocol, return to play
48:27
protocol. Katarina Macario, we talked
48:30
about her last week, Sophia Wilson still coming back from
48:33
pregnancy. She hasn't been.
48:35
Most of these players, the way it works is they have they have
48:37
to be cleared by their club to play and then they hit the
48:41
selection pool for Hayes. They don't get to decide like as
48:45
a national team, like, well, you can't play for your club, but
48:48
you can play for the nation. Avery Patterson, Emily Sam's,
48:53
Croy Bethune and Michelle Cooper are all out with injury, and of
48:57
that group only Cooper was the only one I did not list on the
49:01
roster. So that was a bummer.
49:05
Different from the last time we saw this team, right?
49:09
We talked a lot about uncapped players first, caps, things like
49:12
that. This time, there are no uncapped
49:14
players on Hayes's roster. You have an average of 30 caps
49:20
per player. The last time that Emma Hayes
49:24
had no uncapped players was in the 2025 She Believes Cup.
49:29
So she really used last year to test the waters and see how
49:33
people showed up and it actually is paying off as there's players
49:36
here that got their opportunity last year who now are getting
49:40
called into this fold. Of the players called up, there
49:44
are three with 100 plus caps, so that's Lindsay Heaps, Rose
49:47
Lavelle and Emily Sonnet. And I just pulled a little quote
49:51
here from Hayes. You know, she said about this
49:54
tournament, 3 quality games in quick succession allow us to
49:57
replicate conditions that will prepare us for the World Cup
50:00
qualifying campaign this fall. So this is a really good kind of
50:05
testing ground. They have to do some travel,
50:07
like how do you kind of get into your pregame game, game day,
50:12
post game protocols and stuff like that?
50:14
It kind of feels like we're out of the uncapped players lab and
50:19
now we're gonna get into the experience in depth lab like
50:21
let's. 100% and within the system now, we keep the players
50:29
relatively the same. Can we build the chemistry and
50:32
whatnot? So the slate coming up here for
50:35
the team, we'll talk about the game this weekend, but they play
50:38
on Sunday, March 1st against Argentina, the world #30 team.
50:43
Then a couple days later they play on March 4th against
50:47
Canada, the world #10, USA versus Canada, yeah.
50:51
And then on March 7th, they play against Colombia world #20 So
50:57
not the highest, highest level of competition, But these are,
51:02
no, we've talked before on the part about Colombia, like it can
51:06
be a real menace if they come out right.
51:09
They're feisty, they come out hard.
51:12
Canada is tough. Canada is tough any day of the
51:15
week. So that will be a great test.
51:18
I am excited. In particular, I just picked two
51:20
players. There's plenty I could have
51:22
chosen from. But Jamice Joseph, I think she
51:25
just had her first call up like in the late part of last year.
51:30
She was part of the squad in January, she scored a goal.
51:35
The US right now really it it's missing triple espresso, right?
51:41
You've got Trinity Rodman back from injury, but Sophia Wilson,
51:44
Mal Swanson are still coming back from post pregnancy
51:48
protocols and things like that. They both had babies last fall,
51:52
so we're not rushing them, to be clear, but they're really trying
51:56
to figure out like, who is that consistent scoring threat?
52:00
And I think Jamice Joseph might actually have the package, the
52:06
speed, the creativity, the finishing that that could work
52:10
well in an Emma Hayes system. One of my one of my questions
52:13
for this this section was who? Who's going to be that X Factor?
52:19
Not that you don't have X factors already, but who's the
52:22
new X Factor? Who's going to step up and
52:24
become that next big thing? Yeah, and I think, I think it
52:28
could be Jamies. I also I, I, I put Giselle
52:32
Thompson down. So this is Alyssa Thompson,
52:34
Thompson's younger sister. Alyssa plays up top.
52:37
She could be one of those kind of scoring contributors.
52:41
She transferred to Chelsea kind of famously last year from the
52:45
NWSL, but I real I really liked how Giselle played in the
52:50
friendlies in January. She was really creative out of
52:53
the back. She was playing right back.
52:57
One of the questions I have as we watch this team is who's
53:01
going to play that left back position.
53:03
So Crystal Dunn retired, Crystal Dunn's a long time national team
53:08
player, a stalwart and NWSL, she's played all over the field,
53:11
but she really became like the left back for the national team.
53:17
And so they kind of have a holder.
53:18
That's actually one of my questions that I'll want answers
53:21
to as I watch left back. It's a really, really critical
53:26
position on a soccer field. For those of you who who maybe
53:29
follow the game a little closer, they have some really good
53:33
veteran leadership and Naomi Germa and Emily Sonnet in the
53:36
center back position. And then you've got Emily Fox.
53:42
Emily, Sam's like a bunch of players who typically play right
53:46
back. Now Fox has some versatility and
53:48
I could see them shifting her into the left side, but that'll
53:53
be something I'm watching for. The other one I've kind of
53:56
already alluded to, but who's gonna play the 9 for the
53:58
national team? So to back us up a second and
54:01
get out of like soccer speak, the 9 in soccer on a formation
54:06
is like your center forward, like your main goal scorer.
54:11
The target you're trying to get the ball into usually can score
54:14
with their head or with their feet.
54:16
This was, you know, typically Sophia Wilson when when she was
54:21
playing before she went through pregnancy and and birth of her
54:25
baby, This was Alex Morgan very famously, this was Abby Wambach.
54:31
Like this is a premier position. And I feel like the national
54:35
team has sort of struggled to figure out like Wilson even is
54:39
in a true 9. She's more of a wing that can
54:43
kind of play in the middle of the field.
54:45
So I'm curious who can fill that space.
54:48
And then my third question is, will we see them settle in
54:52
earlier we when we watched the January friendlies, it took them
54:56
an entire half to feel like they were kind of settled into their
55:01
rhythm. I do think the experience of the
55:04
team relative to the last few rosters probably helped them get
55:07
into the groove. But will they be tight, right?
55:10
And then you've also got this weird timing of European players
55:15
who are in season right now and kind of getting towards the end
55:18
of it, right? And then the NWSL players,
55:21
majority of the roster just ramping up.
55:24
So like fitness, like that's, I think we're going to see minutes
55:28
managed and things like that by Hayes.
55:30
So it'll be interesting. I don't think we're looking at
55:33
this as like a true test of what we're going to see in qualifying
55:37
later this year. They've got those friendlies in
55:40
I think April against Japan. Remember she had leaked that
55:43
out. So I think we're going to keep
55:45
seeing refinement of that. But I will be glued to the
55:49
television for these. All right, all right, Guaranteed
55:55
we will talk about that. Yes, we'll probably touch on it
55:58
next week. And then the week after we'll do
56:00
like a full debrief on on the performances.
56:04
So shifting gears from the pitch to the court, we have some major
56:11
updates from the WNBA side and we are going to keep today to
56:18
really just the headlines. And then next week, we expect
56:22
we're going to have more time. We had to kind of wrap up the
56:25
Olympics this week, but more time to dive in to some of these
56:28
developments and there May. There may be more bigger
56:31
development. Then kid you not, y'all there
56:33
was like breaking news like in a couple hours before we recorded
56:38
this that I had to sneak in here.
56:40
So I don't know what's happened, but just an update on the
56:44
situation with the collective bargaining agreement between the
56:47
WNBA and the players union number Players Association.
56:51
So the WNBA has officially come out and issued essentially a
56:56
deadline for reaching an agreement in order to not delay
57:00
season start. And we've talked about on this
57:04
podcast many times of the all the activities that have to
57:08
happen before the season starts. That deadline they say is March
57:14
10th. Yeah, like. 2 1/2 weeks. 2 1/2
57:17
weeks, we predicted this. If you want to go back and
57:21
listen to like I think it's episode 5.
57:23
I think you asked me and I said it's got to be by like maybe
57:26
late March or excuse me, mid March, yes, early March.
57:31
So I have a lot of thoughts on this.
57:34
I think it's a little bit of a, it's a leverage tactic, a
57:39
pressure tactic by the league. The players would tell you that
57:43
they have been responsive and negotiating in good faith.
57:46
And so they're like, I don't understand why you're saying
57:49
it's on us. On the other side, also
57:54
announced today, there's a huge milestone reached in the 2025
57:58
season that for the first time ever under the old CBA, which
58:03
they're kind of in like a weird like status quo period with the
58:08
revenue sharing mechanism was unlocked.
58:11
Yeah, which if you remember it was like this weird.
58:15
So complicated. Complicated math that we tried
58:17
to explain. And what this will mean is that
58:20
essentially, after all that math is done, it leaves $8,000,000 to
58:26
be distributed across the 13 teams.
58:29
Yeah, 8. So not even a million per team.
58:34
Yeah. And I mean, if maybe you didn't
58:38
watch the WNBA last year, but like, it was rocking.
58:42
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was wild.
58:44
So to me, this is a little bit like it seems like the system's
58:49
a little messed. Up, yeah.
58:50
And I don't know, I don't mean we're kind of we're going away
58:54
from the call sheet a little bit here.
58:55
But I think something that we talked about was like today even
58:59
it feels like this is a money laundering scheme for like WNBA
59:02
or NBA execs. Like, yeah, just feels like
59:05
they're not opening their books. They're saying a lot of weird
59:08
things. Not responding to questions
59:10
about like how they come up with the figures on losses and things
59:14
like that. Yeah, the, the, I'll, I'll be
59:18
brief on this part. Essentially, the league and and
59:21
the union have gone back and forth trading some updates to
59:25
the proposed agreement. The league continues to hold the
59:30
position of the players union as being unrealistic.
59:34
That is the word that they use. I think that is incredibly
59:38
disrespectful. I think there's another way and
59:42
they have not come to the table at all on the revenue share.
59:46
Doesn't seem like they're serious at all.
59:49
Well, here's what I realized. Where they have made concessions
59:54
in this agreement are on expenses.
59:57
So they have conceded like, oh what we will pay for housing in
1:00:00
the 2026 season or we will get you all like a free pass to the
1:00:07
NBA League Pass or whatever so you can watch all the.
1:00:09
Games their expenses up and then they have to pay less.
1:00:12
Yes, on their, their plan. So this was my, my realization
1:00:15
was like they concede on that side.
1:00:18
So they're willing to do the five star hotels and the
1:00:21
chartered flights and like all of that stuff, which is all
1:00:24
expense, but they they have said nothing about revenue sharing
1:00:30
and the the union has even come down on the revenue sharing
1:00:33
slightly. And so it for the league to
1:00:36
continue to say like we're negotiating good faith, like it
1:00:38
is really starting to look. Yeah.
1:00:41
Even more squarely than it did. Yeah, a month and a half ago and
1:00:44
we started talking about this. So it's confusing too.
1:00:53
I think I, I listened to a little bit of a podcast
1:00:56
interview that Players Association president NECA
1:01:00
Gumuke did. And she was saying, like, how is
1:01:05
it that the league on the one hand is going to investors and
1:01:09
saying you got to buy in now for a gold mine for 1/4 of a billion
1:01:14
dollars, folks, it's a quarter of a billion dollars to get a
1:01:16
franchise in the league now you got to buy in now.
1:01:21
This is a goldmine. And yet at the same time, you're
1:01:25
telling your employees there's no money.
1:01:27
Pockets are empty. There's no money.
1:01:31
And just to put a little bit of a fine point and little data
1:01:34
behind it, I did look up the valuations.
1:01:37
Now, like valuations are a little speculative, like
1:01:40
whatever. But for 2025, when you're trying
1:01:43
to think through like, OK, what are these teams being valued at?
1:01:47
And then you think about the league as a whole, the Golden
1:01:51
State Valkyries expansion team last year, one year, half a
1:01:56
billion dollars, valued at half a billion dollars.
1:01:58
They they sold out season tickets immediately.
1:02:02
They sold out. I think almost all of their home
1:02:04
games were sold out. And I think that they have a
1:02:06
capacity seating there of like close to 40,000.
1:02:09
Like, it's a lot. New York Liberty, 400 to 420
1:02:14
million. Indiana Fever, 335 to 370
1:02:18
million. Seattle Storm, 330 million.
1:02:21
Las Vegas Aces, 290 to 310 million.
1:02:25
Wild. Like these are, they're not like
1:02:29
they're not not worth something, right?
1:02:32
And so I think the players are in that position of saying like
1:02:36
we're looking around, we're seeing all these numbers.
1:02:38
You won't tell us, you're telling us you're going to have
1:02:42
these losses, but like we have no visibility into how you're
1:02:45
getting to that number. Like if you wanted the players
1:02:49
to be reasonable with their ask, give them the numbers.
1:02:54
The other thing I thought was really interesting was I saw
1:02:57
somebody say you can't claim that these women are idiots or
1:03:03
that they don't understand it. Women's professional basketball
1:03:07
players, they don't get to leave college early for professional
1:03:12
ball. They stay and they all get
1:03:15
degrees and a lot of them have degrees in economics, but like
1:03:21
sports management, like things like that.
1:03:22
Like you can't sit back and say like they don't understand.
1:03:26
Well, and you can't say that like they it's.
1:03:28
Rude. Yeah.
1:03:29
You can't say that they don't understand or that they they're
1:03:32
not getting the whole picture when you won't give them the
1:03:34
whole picture. Like, right, right.
1:03:36
Tell them what the expenses are, tell them what the gross
1:03:39
revenues are. It would be that easy.
1:03:41
Sign them to an NDA. They can't talk about this but
1:03:44
like you're not telling them what the whole picture is but
1:03:48
yet you expect them to just agree with what you say it is.
1:03:51
Right. It's like when you were a kid
1:03:53
and your parents would just be like, because I said so.
1:03:55
Exactly. Exactly.
1:03:57
It's like what? Yeah, exactly.
1:03:59
So, so ridiculous. We're going to come back to
1:04:01
this. I expect there's going to be
1:04:04
some fireworks now after these two kind of big headlines this
1:04:07
week. Obviously, we're staying close
1:04:10
to it. And more to come.
1:04:13
Yeah. All right, let's let's try to
1:04:17
get through this. Let's wrap this up.
1:04:19
We've got what to watch. Like we said earlier, NCAA
1:04:24
collegiate hockey tournaments are starting this weekend for
1:04:28
the different conferences. I believe there's in women's
1:04:31
hockey, there are five I picked out and people are going to say
1:04:35
I'm biased, picked out the WCHA tournament because you're going
1:04:39
to be looking at, I don't know if these numbers have changed.
1:04:42
I know Minnesota State has changed, but #1 Wisconsin #3
1:04:46
Minnesota #2, Ohio State #10 Minnesota Duluth and #14 now
1:04:52
Minnesota State all playing in that tournament.
1:04:54
So it's one of the most high-powered conferences that we
1:04:59
have in in hockey. For sure and it'll be
1:05:02
interesting too. You had mentioned this with the
1:05:04
PWHL, but Will specifically the Badgers, I would say because
1:05:08
they had the most players at the Olympics get more audience.
1:05:13
Yeah, both in, I think they had relatively well in attended
1:05:17
games in person at Cole Center there in Madison.
1:05:21
But will we see more kind of broadcast audience?
1:05:24
And I think all of these are being broadcast if I remember
1:05:28
when I looked at it earlier. Yeah, yeah.
1:05:31
I mean you I think on all these Fox 9 or, or you'll get these on
1:05:34
on Big 10 plus. Yes, yeah, Yep.
1:05:39
So yeah, those are all this weekend, Fridays and Saturdays.
1:05:42
Kind of depends on what game you want to watch, but evenings and
1:05:45
afternoons for those. And I think they play a best of
1:05:48
three series in this. I I think I don't know if you
1:05:53
mentioned that. So it's not just like a one and
1:05:55
done. Yeah, Yeah, they kind of play
1:05:57
through the weekend and see who comes.
1:06:01
Out absolutely. Moving on to NCAA basketball.
1:06:05
I think we got 3 here 2. I mean, it's almost the time.
1:06:09
All of these, all of these are literally basically some peop,
1:06:13
some teams are fighting for seed, like where they want to
1:06:16
get seeded in these. We have #9 Duke at #22 N
1:06:19
Carolina kind of fighting for that ACC tournament position
1:06:23
positioning. They play Sunday at 11 AM on
1:06:28
ESPN. Next, we've got #10 Ohio State
1:06:33
and #18 Michigan State top 20 Big 10 collision.
1:06:39
Again, these are, these are just looking for how can we, how can
1:06:42
we push that seat up? How can we go into our, our
1:06:46
conference tournaments a little bit higher seat there?
1:06:48
Yeah, that one is Sunday at 11 as well.
1:06:51
I know where I'll be at 11:00 AM on Sunday.
1:06:54
Yeah, exactly. On my couch.
1:06:57
And then we have #3 S Carolina and #16 Kentucky I, I fully
1:07:03
expect South Carolina to win, but you never know this late in
1:07:06
the season against the top 20 team here.
1:07:08
So Kentucky will be looking to improve their ranking and shift
1:07:13
that power dynamic. So nice.
1:07:15
That's going to be 1:00 PM on SEC Network, which is also I
1:07:19
think an ESPN network type thing, so.
1:07:22
You all better believe we're going to be diving into the
1:07:24
tournament stuff coming. Up you might have to.
1:07:26
You might have to do a bracket. We have to do a bracket.
1:07:31
All right, like we said, PWHL is back on Thursday.
1:07:38
First few sets of games here. We have Montreal taking on New
1:07:44
York, so #3 versus #4 Thursday night at Six Central.
1:07:49
We have Toronto taking on Seattle at 10:00 PM Eastern or I
1:07:54
guess 9 Central on Friday, Boston taking on Ottawa at one O
1:07:59
clock central on Saturday and then Minnesota taking on
1:08:03
Montreal Sunday at noon. OK, I just like have to point
1:08:08
this out. If you wanted to just have a
1:08:12
women's sports festival on Sunday, you could watch those
1:08:18
two basketball games and then the third one, but also swap in
1:08:22
some hockey because you can watch Minnesota, Montreal, Marie
1:08:27
Marie, Philly Poulan, the Canadian captain leads that team
1:08:30
along with a couple other Canadian nationals.
1:08:31
Then you got Toronto and Vancouver, like a Battle of
1:08:35
Canada or whatever. And then you turn around and you
1:08:39
watch the US men's national team take on Argentina in the
1:08:42
afternoon. Like we should be going to a bar
1:08:45
of their own. We should.
1:08:47
We should we should be going to the women's sports bar here.
1:08:49
OK, All right. Sorry.
1:08:50
Just had the I hadn't I noticed. That yeah, it is.
1:08:52
It's the, I mean, I noticed that jam packed A and then we are
1:08:56
looking at Unrivaled. We have 4 games on Friday to
1:09:02
complete the regular season. We're going to be looking at one
1:09:06
at noon Central. These are a little bit
1:09:07
different. They have midday on Friday.
1:09:11
So noon Central, we have Rose versus Phantom, Ghost Gang,
1:09:14
Ghost Gang, we have 115 Central Mist versus Vinyl, 6:30 Central
1:09:20
Breeze versus Laces and 7:45 High versus Lunar Owls.
1:09:26
We still don't know the seating in the playoffs and before we
1:09:32
jumped into this recording session, there were some games
1:09:35
going on and the Lunar Owls were still in it.
1:09:39
Everyone's still alive, y'all? At least, at least as far as
1:09:43
when we we started recording. Yeah.
1:09:45
So Phantom have definitely locked up a one or two seat,
1:09:49
which means they'll automatically advance to the
1:09:51
semis on on Saturday, which are being played at Barclays Center
1:09:57
in Brooklyn, which is another taken unrivaled on the road.
1:10:01
Mist has clinched, Breeze have clinched, the laces have
1:10:06
clinched and the rows have clinched.
1:10:10
So those first two seeds though really important that means you
1:10:14
get that automatic by. So I think it's a battle between
1:10:18
the laces and the mist to get that, which means that that
1:10:22
those two games there miss versus Vinyl and Breeze versus
1:10:25
oh, Breeze versus laces. Breeze needs to win that, Yeah.
1:10:29
It'll be interesting. We will be watching that.
1:10:33
And then closely going into Saturday is the first round of
1:10:37
the playoffs. 2 games in the evening there and then like you
1:10:40
said, moving on to the semifinals on Monday in the
1:10:43
evening, 6:30 central and 7:45. And then the the chip.
1:10:47
We'll talk about it before next week, but next Wednesday, 8:30
1:10:51
Central will be the championship.
1:10:54
So exciting. I told Alex I was like, I'm
1:10:56
gonna be sad when that's done. Yeah.
1:10:58
Like, we've watched so much Unrivaled.
1:11:00
It's been so much fun. Especially if there's no WNBA
1:11:03
season, it's gonna be a real. Bummer.
1:11:04
Well, then they're just gonna keep going.
1:11:06
Yeah, Some. Some way.
1:11:07
Somehow. And don't forget that game on on
1:11:10
on Sunday, like you said, the US women's national team versus.
1:11:13
Do not forget, do not sleep on that.
1:11:15
Yeah, yes, that game is coming up.
1:11:18
The NWSL season starts. It's just around the corner.
1:11:22
We've got we've got content planned out for weeks, y'all we
1:11:25
have. Our work cut out for us.
1:11:27
Yeah, we're planning to bring to you some stuff on the LPGA, the
1:11:31
WTA. We got to dig into that a little
1:11:33
bit more. Got a few special segments we're
1:11:35
thinking through, starting to think through.
1:11:37
So, a little teaser. Yeah, yeah, for real.
1:11:39
If there's if, if any of you listening want to learn more
1:11:44
about like a specific league or team or coach or player or
1:11:50
system or whatever, like reach out to us.
1:11:54
We're planning to potentially start to add in little Evergreen
1:11:58
content, some true deep, deep dives, I think.
1:12:03
What's the story? What's the story?
1:12:05
The working title for those episodes so looking forward to.
1:12:09
That we have time for losers and winners.
1:12:12
We have time for losers. We always have time for.
1:12:14
Losers and winners, man. I'm trying to think through I, I
1:12:18
didn't really have a loser. I, I like, I have some losers,
1:12:23
but they're not within the realm of of women's sports kind.
1:12:27
Of pertaining to. Women's sports, it's, it's hard.
1:12:32
I think, I think the only thing that I came up with as a loser,
1:12:37
and it's not really a loser. Canada's hockey team, they did,
1:12:42
they just got bad puck luck. They lost the game.
1:12:46
Sometimes being good is what you need, but sometimes you just
1:12:49
need a little bit of luck and it just didn't go their way.
1:12:51
I. Think the men's team would say
1:12:53
the same thing. Yeah, Probably more so, yeah, I,
1:12:58
I think that's a good one. I have.
1:13:02
So I have two. One, I think some recent
1:13:06
reporting I read around the WNBA stuff has me like, my sensors
1:13:10
really up, like more than they've been.
1:13:12
And I've been pretty sceptical about that whole situation.
1:13:16
But my other one is that the Olympics are over.
1:13:21
Yeah, I realize you all might be happy that they're over, so I'm
1:13:24
not talk gushing about them every episode, but just, like,
1:13:29
so fun. Yeah, like I said a couple
1:13:31
episodes ago, I love them. So I am excited that we have
1:13:35
some new things to fill in coming up here with season
1:13:38
starting and stuff like that. But yeah, I'm gonna go with
1:13:42
being just a little sad. Yeah.
1:13:44
That that's over. Yeah, winter wise.
1:13:50
Women's Sports. I mean, I didn't want to be
1:13:53
generic, but I was going to say us like yeah, NWSL women's
1:13:57
national team, hopefully WNBA season, PWH LS back.
1:14:04
Yeah, we College final hockey finals.
1:14:07
Basketball tournaments coming up, We had.
1:14:10
We're way over our normal time today because there's so much to
1:14:14
talk about. My call sheet was 12 pieces of
1:14:16
paper long. Like what a moment.
1:14:19
Yeah, what a moment. And like all great stories, we
1:14:23
could talk about all of them for so long.
1:14:26
I will. I'll add to that, though, the
1:14:32
way that our girls get excited, yes, to watch these women, yes,
1:14:37
is really like the cherry on top.
1:14:39
Yeah. They're always asking, they're
1:14:41
always interested. Yeah, they're really into
1:14:44
Unrivaled. Our youngest is always I'm
1:14:47
cheering for the cats, you're cheering for this.
1:14:49
She they'll like look at the logos on the TV, which was
1:14:52
really funny. During the NFL season, they
1:14:55
called the Patriots the Cowboys. But then they're like, the
1:14:59
Cowboys are the stars. Yes, right.
1:15:01
But for Unrivaled they have like there's a team called the Hive,
1:15:05
but they just have bees and so they're called the bees.
1:15:07
There's a team called the mist, they called the snows the snows.
1:15:12
So it's a good time over here in the trip household and we're
1:15:16
just happy to be a part of it. It's a great time.
1:15:20
So all right, y'all, till next week.
1:15:23
Where can they find us? RTG Under Score POD on socials
1:15:28
and e-mail us at raisingthegamepod@gmail.com.
1:15:33
Yeah, just like we said at the top, appreciate y'all being.
1:15:35
Here. Thanks everyone.
1:15:38
Goodbye next time. See you later.
1:15:42
Bye.