Latest / Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More / Episode 10 | She Believes Cup Wrap, NWSL League History & Season Preview

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Episode 10 | She Believes Cup Wrap, NWSL League History & Season Preview · Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

• 0:00
  Like, what did the European club landscape look like over there?
• 0:04
  Well, the answer is not great. So there were no professional
• 0:10
  clubs over in Europe for women at this time.
• 0:20
  Hi, I'm Caitlin. Hi, I'm Alex.
• 0:23
  And this is Raising the Game, a woman's sports podcast covering
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  primetime performers, the business behind the leagues, and
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  what the growth of women's sports means for the next
• 0:32
  generation of women's athletes. All right, we're back.
• 0:36
  We are back. We're.
• 0:37
  Back and I feel like we say this every week, but we have a lot to
• 0:42
  talk about. We have a lot to talk about and
• 0:46
  honestly one of my favorite things.
• 0:47
  I'm getting ahead of ourselves, but we get to talk about soccer
• 0:50
  almost this entire. The whole time.
• 0:53
  Yeah, so my favorite sports. Yeah, Yeah.
• 0:56
  I mean, I think recently in the past, I think 10 years has
• 0:59
  become one of my favorites as well.
• 1:01
  So I'm excited. I converted you.
• 1:03
  I am a convert. I will take credit for that.
• 1:06
  Let's do it. I think first we got some
• 1:08
  announcements here. Yeah, so couple cool things.
• 1:12
  First of all, yay us. This is our number 10 episode.
• 1:16
  We did it. Way to go.
• 1:18
  I was just telling Caitlin if we make it to 11, we have
• 1:21
  apparently made more episodes than 80% of podcasts.
• 1:24
  So hey. Look at that.
• 1:26
  Look at that one episode at a time, churning them out.
• 1:31
  So to celebrate, we actually are going to be bringing something
• 1:34
  cool and new to our audience. And that is a website, official
• 1:41
  website, where as of right now it'll have a little bit more
• 1:45
  about each of us in our BIOS as well as written like summary.
• 1:53
  Like episode recaps. Recaps Yes, that was the word I
• 1:55
  was looking so. If you're more into text, it's
• 1:57
  going to be a little bit easier to.
• 1:59
  Yeah. So you can do a little bit of a
• 2:00
  review or if you want to go back and check something, but maybe
• 2:04
  you don't have the space or time to re listen, you can go check
• 2:08
  that out. And then that's going to be a
• 2:10
  platform where on an ongoing basis, as we kind of continue to
• 2:14
  to grow this thing out, we might have blog posts one day.
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  I hope we have merch. Just kidding, but that'll be
• 2:24
  really cool. So we'll be launching that this
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  week. Watch our socials for.
• 2:28
  When it goes live around the time this this goes because
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  we'll have to. We'll have to.
• 2:34
  And then the other cool thing. Well, hold on.
• 2:36
  And I want to say it's RTG pod.com is going to be the
• 2:40
  website address, OK? You'll need that.
• 2:42
  Just to be clear, RTG podyes.com similar to our Instagram handle,
• 2:48
  just no. Under score.
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  So one other announcement we have, we alluded to this a
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  little bit last week as we kicked off Women's History
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  Month, Women's Empowerment Month.
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  Whatever it is that you choose to celebrate, you just celebrate
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  or you're celebrating women. We are going to do our first
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  kind of Evergreen content episode that we'll release at
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  the end of the month, and it is going to be all about a few
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  because there were many women's sports pioneers.
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  So looking back over the history of women's sports and who were
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  some of those women that played a really key role in getting us
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  to where we are today and all the things that we get to talk
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  about here on the podcast. Yeah.
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  So and if I remember from the outline, it's kind of a just
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  through time quick hits on all these people and then I think
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  eventually we'll kind of dig into more of those those folks
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  as we go. Yeah, absolutely.
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  So we are looking forward to that.
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  Would love feedback when we get that episode out.
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  And then also, if there are coaches, players, leagues that
• 3:58
  you would want to hear more of, like a, you know, Evergreen type
• 4:04
  of deep dive on, not something that's topical in the here and
• 4:07
  now in women's Sports News. Let us know.
• 4:10
  Let us know, all right? Should we jump into top
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  headlines? Well, we have to do our favorite
• 4:14
  thing, honey. Why do we always forget that one
• 4:17
  of us always does? I don't know.
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  Oh, let's see man, I got to think about this.
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  I'm ready. You.
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  I'm ready to go. I have like 3.
• 4:27
  So my one of my favorite things has been that every morning it
• 4:33
  feels like our kids wake up and they ask if the parallel
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  Olympics are on and we we've corrected the Paralympics.
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  But what I love is that they're so like interested in the
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  variety of sport that they saw in the Olympics in February,
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  that they're really engaged in wanting to watch the
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  Paralympics. On the downside of that, it's
• 5:00
  been harder to to watch those like I don't think they're
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  broadcasting on like just regular TV the same way it's
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  probably all. Over Peacock, yeah.
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  But it's been cool that that was stuck with them.
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  My other favorite thing I already said the soccer thing
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  about this episode, but I right now and am absolutely obsessed
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  with Taylor Heisey on the Minnesota Frost and she had an
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  incredible game for. The frost on Sunday.
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  One goal to assist game time goal game assist on the
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  game-winning goal in overtime. It was a huge win for the.
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  Fast like they needed the point really bad.
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  And I'm just loving how she's playing.
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  I think she really like came into her own at the Olympics.
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  And I'm excited to see how she kind of steps into the void
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  created by Kendall Coyne Schofield's injury.
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  So I just had to say shout out to Taylor Heidi.
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  Yeah, well, I'm, I mean, same vein.
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  I think my favorite thing was that overtime period of that
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  game was so tense and just to watch it go in and it was an
• 6:01
  exciting moment and I think the girls were there watching and
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  yeah, they were. It was a fun time so.
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  For sure shout out to Kelly Panic too for scoring the actual
• 6:09
  game on Angle. And absolutely laying somebody
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  out at the at the goalie a little bit before that, I think
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  that was great. She does it all, folks.
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  Yeah, she does. All right, All right, now we can
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  get those. Two top headlines StubHub
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  launched her Sports Hub, a specific platform dedicated to
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  ticket sales for women's sports across the various leagues.
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  This is so cool. So we just had the headline a
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  couple weeks ago about how ESPN was pivoting their Sunday night
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  broadcast from baseball to women's sports Game of the week,
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  StubHub. Now, we shared some data last
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  week from StubHub about the Olympics kind of surge in
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  women's ice hockey. And they did a deeper analysis
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  that was released last week and launched as they were launching
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  this platform. But what they found was that on
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  average, there has been a 215% increase in ticket purchases.
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  So not just searches, purchases across all women's sports after
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  an Olympics competition, summer or winter.
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  So the other thing that's really interesting from their data is
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  that women's sports fans, and this will come as no surprise to
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  women's sports fans, but women's sports fans tend to be more
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  broadly engaged across all sports.
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  So men's sports fans tend to be more siloed.
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  Like if you're really into baseball, you kind of like stay
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  within baseball. As an example.
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  You may be fans of multiple teams in multiple leagues, but
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  you typically aren't seen attention attracted across
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  sports. And so I thought that was really
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  cool, speaks to the inclusivity, speaks to kind of, I think
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  people wanting to just support women regardless of what they're
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  playing. And I think we feel that all the
• 8:00
  time. Yeah, all the time.
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  So unrivaled second season wraps as missed BC outlasts Phantom BC
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  in the final. Features All Star performances
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  from missed captain Brianna Stewart, which gave her the
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  Championship MVP and a record setting points for Phantom
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  captain Kelsey Plum. Yeah, it we're not going to talk
• 8:23
  too much about the game. I could talk a lot about the
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  game. But I think what was really cool
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  was I think the play offs in general were insane for Arrival.
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  They were super fun. They had record attendance at
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  the semifinals in New York, which were happening last week
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  when we were taping our our episode 9.
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  I do want to call attention though, to a couple data points
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  coming out of unrivaled now that the season has wrapped.
• 8:50
  So first of all, really cool, the winning teams, the miss Miss
• 8:53
  BC takes almost 600 K purse to be split amongst the players.
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  There's six players in the team. They each get 100K for winning
• 9:00
  the championship. In addition to to be clear, in
• 9:04
  addition to the salaries they're paid by unrivaled.
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  It's like a it's a bonus right? But this second season y'all set
• 9:12
  records so Rd. games, which they had well 4 total games but they
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  went on the road twice. They averaged 20,000 fans at
• 9:22
  those games. Obviously bigger venues than
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  what they play in, in Miami when they're there at Sephora Arena,
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  but still really monumental. 100% increase in merchandise
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  sales for a total of $4 million in merch sales.
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  We were proud purchasers of merch from from the unrivaled
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  league. 5 million in ticket sales and 45,000,000 as of kind
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  of middle of the week in total revenue.
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  This is up 77 or 66%, excuse me, year over year.
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  And then the league valuation at this point is $340 million.
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  That's crazy. We're two years in.
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  Which is 7 1/2 earning on earnings.
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  Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's pretty
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  fantastic. When we're two years in, yeah.
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  And so there was an interview there with the unrivaled
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  Commissioner Mickey Lawler, and she said, quote, and I got to
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  admit this sounds a little like some shade being.
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  Thrown into a league. Leadership.
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  But she says, quote, it's a byproduct of putting the players
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  and the fans first, and it's sort of proving out now.
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  Yeah, we're realists here. We're like, we'll see how this
• 10:37
  yeah, pans out over. I don't want to rain on any but
• 10:40
  parades. He's gonna rain on my parade.
• 10:42
  The. Thing they gotta do is figure
• 10:43
  out the TV thing cuz TV viewership was down
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  unfortunately. That is, that is true.
• 10:47
  And I think I know, I tried to push a couple of friends and
• 10:52
  family to it and they're like, I, I don't get TNT.
• 10:55
  Or true TV. Like it's so yes, if they could
• 10:58
  sign some kind of broadcast deal with.
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  Even like Fox Sports, CBS Sports something.
• 11:05
  ESPN. Yeah, they'd be calling ESPN,
• 11:08
  Yeah, but agree. All right.
• 11:11
  We do not have a good update yet or the WNBACBA.
• 11:18
  We had some news last night that a new offer was sent over, but
• 11:23
  we have not heard anything as of Monday night.
• 11:25
  Well, they've really just this last week has been busy.
• 11:28
  A lot of stuff in the news, a lot of swirl.
• 11:31
  I saw some ladies on a podcast describe it as a lot of chefs in
• 11:36
  the kitchen, and when you have that many chefs in the kitchen,
• 11:40
  you ain't making a meal. So a lot of back and forth
• 11:43
  between the league and the union with offers, adjustments.
• 11:48
  None of that is actually being reported as to what those
• 11:51
  changes are at this point. I've read like a million AP
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  articles by the same guy who writes about basketball and
• 11:58
  probably has for 20 years. So that deadline's tomorrow,
• 12:03
  folks. Hopefully we got something.
• 12:05
  Maybe by the time you are hearing this.
• 12:07
  We will have. There will be news be Chelsea.
• 12:10
  Team USA women's basketball team tips off this week in Puerto
• 12:13
  Rico for World Cup qualifying, led by Caitlin Clark, unrivaled
• 12:17
  MVP Chelsea Gray, Angel Reese and Page Becker's.
• 12:20
  I got to figure out where I can watch this.
• 12:22
  Yeah, this is going to be amazing.
• 12:25
  I. Didn't I was on their site today
• 12:26
  and I didn't even. Check.
• 12:26
  We got to figure that out. We'll figure it out.
• 12:29
  We'll post. It actually I might have grabbed
• 12:30
  it and not to watch so. We may find out soon.
• 12:34
  All right, NCAA women's basketball conference
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  tournaments have buzzer beaters and blowouts.
• 12:39
  UCLA dominates Iowa for Big 10 title.
• 12:42
  Texas stomp South Carolina. UConn looks likely to breeze
• 12:45
  their way into Big Eastern E title.
• 12:47
  Duke survives Louisville and OT for ACC title.
• 12:50
  Big 12 title game sees West Virginia upset top ranked TCU.
• 12:55
  There was a lot going on this last weekend, Where where?
• 12:59
  We'll leave you with this one for now.
• 13:01
  Selection Sunday is next week, next Sunday, March 15th, with
• 13:05
  tournament play tipping off on Wednesday, March 18th.
• 13:09
  So we've promised we'll have some brackets.
• 13:11
  Yeah, we'll do a bracket. We'll get it out there.
• 13:13
  Next week we'll post it and whatnot.
• 13:16
  Lots of kind of surprising outcomes.
• 13:19
  South Carolina losing. Just the.
• 13:21
  Blowout. Yeah, that was huge.
• 13:23
  Like I think that was like 70. Not it was.
• 13:25
  It was 17 points. UCLA won by a lot, and then
• 13:29
  Uconn's playing right now. We expect them to win by at
• 13:32
  least 30. Yeah, we'll see.
• 13:35
  Boston Fleet retakes top spot over Montreal Minnesota remains
• 13:38
  in striking distance with a cluster of three teams separated
• 13:41
  by two points total currently buying for that coveted 4th
• 13:44
  playoff spot. Yep.
• 13:47
  We'll see how it shakes. We'll see how this shakes out.
• 13:49
  The Boston Fleet and New York Sirens report sells for April
• 13:52
  games to be played at TD Garden and MSG, respectively.
• 13:55
  It's this. Huge.
• 13:56
  Big time. At the big arenas they're
• 13:58
  expecting high 17,018 thousand fans at both of those games, so
• 14:04
  looking for AUS attendance record another one another.
• 14:08
  One another one Ohio State took the stacked WCHA crown over the
• 14:13
  weekend. Claimed top seed in NCAA Women's
• 14:16
  Ice Hockey Championships, which begin on Thursday, March 12th.
• 14:20
  And I did see on the socials that Olympic gold medalist Layla
• 14:24
  Edwards of the Wisconsin Badgers was hanging out at the very own.
• 14:28
  Oh, look at that. Bar of their own here in
• 14:30
  Minneapolis, MN. That that was pretty cool.
• 14:35
  In the 2026 Milano Cortina Paralympics competition, Oksana
• 14:39
  Masters wins her 20th medal in the sitting biathlon, while US
• 14:43
  teammate Kendall Gresh takes silver.
• 14:46
  Yeah, to be clear, her 20th total just medal in general, not
• 14:49
  her 20th in the sitting biathlon it is also.
• 14:53
  Is she the greatest Olympian there is she?
• 14:57
  Might be she competes in both Summer and Winter Games, She
• 15:01
  does cycling and rowing in the summer and she's won. 20 medals
• 15:06
  Confederation of African Football announces postponement
• 15:09
  of Women's Africa Cup of Nations The World Cup qualifying stage
• 15:13
  for 16 African nations will now run late July to early August.
• 15:19
  Yeah, this is AI think a bummer. I think the delay here or the
• 15:23
  postponement, they were made aware of it two weeks before
• 15:27
  they were supposed to start. And what's impactful about this
• 15:30
  is that that tournament was going to be wrapped basically
• 15:34
  right at the beginning of the NWSL season for those players
• 15:37
  who play in the NWSL. And now it's going to disrupt
• 15:42
  the middle of that season. I don't know if maybe they tried
• 15:46
  to line it up with the men's World Cup when they have the
• 15:48
  break NWSL, but. Did they give a reason?
• 15:51
  Infrastructure. Nothing.
• 15:53
  No, but one could surmise that given like current world, that
• 16:00
  makes sense. There may be some safety
• 16:02
  concerns, but I did it. It was in the article.
• 16:05
  It was very specific that there was no reason directly given.
• 16:09
  All right, Sunshine Double in Indian Wells, CA features all
• 16:14
  WTA top ten players, including Americans Coco Goff, Jessica
• 16:18
  Pagula and Amanda Anna Simova. Yeah, Goff retired early in a a
• 16:25
  marquee matchup, hitting her against a rival of hers, citing
• 16:30
  an injury. I, I, I didn't really read into
• 16:33
  like, what exactly it was. Madison Keys is playing right
• 16:36
  now as we're taping. And then I saw that Pagula and
• 16:40
  Anissimova both advanced to the realm of 16.
• 16:43
  You still have Rybakina Svantec Osaka, Naomi Osaka and Ariana
• 16:50
  Sabalenka. Osaka and Sabalenka actually
• 16:52
  play each other in the round of 16, which will be interesting,
• 16:55
  are all still competing. So that'll go into this coming
• 16:58
  week at where we'll be able to watch the championships there at
• 17:02
  Indian Wells. Awesome.
• 17:04
  Yeah, All right, heading into she believes cup roundup.
• 17:08
  Talk about it. Yes, so.
• 17:10
  We wrapped up she believes cup. For those who are just
• 17:14
  listening, I am wearing my US women's national team hat.
• 17:17
  Today I had to explain the. Stars on it to the eldest
• 17:20
  tonight what that means so if you.
• 17:23
  Ever see people wearing U.S. National team hats with the
• 17:29
  Crest? If they have four stars across
• 17:32
  the top, that is a women's team. Women's team.
• 17:36
  If it has no. Stars across the top.
• 17:38
  That is the men's team hat and you know what the stars are for
• 17:42
  World Cup wins, World Cup championships, just to be clear.
• 17:47
  OK, so back to my favorite team in the world.
• 17:51
  So she believes cup round Robin tournament, it's a friendly
• 17:54
  tournament, doesn't really mean that much, but there is a trophy
• 17:57
  on the line, so that's always fun.
• 18:00
  Team USA took care of business, right?
• 18:03
  They beat Argentina last weekend 2 to 0.
• 18:08
  We talked about that a little bit on last week's episode.
• 18:10
  They beat Canada in the midweek 10 and they beat Colombia over
• 18:14
  the weekend 10. This very much mimics like the
• 18:18
  round Robin format of a qualifying tournament or the
• 18:22
  World Cup or the Olympics. There were some things that we
• 18:26
  really liked and there were some things that we were missing as
• 18:32
  we were watching. But what is cool, this is their
• 18:34
  seventh straight shut out. So they have not allowed a goal
• 18:37
  since last fall against Portugal.
• 18:40
  Excuse me. And it's it's good to see kind
• 18:45
  of that resolve, I think as well.
• 18:47
  And so we'll get into that a little bit here kind of.
• 18:49
  I mean, it kind of feels like to me that they're, besides the low
• 18:53
  scoring that they're getting a little bit more back to what we
• 18:56
  would expect them to be. Yes, yes.
• 18:58
  And I think I've read a lot of like kind of pundits and
• 19:01
  analysts commenting on the performance now, right?
• 19:04
  Because we've talked about this on the pod before.
• 19:07
  But last year was really like Emma Hayes, like in the lab,
• 19:11
  right? She's testing.
• 19:13
  She's testing players. And I saw a quote from her
• 19:15
  recently that she was saying, like, when you think back to the
• 19:19
  2024 Olympic gold medal team, you think of like, the
• 19:24
  resilience of that team. And you think, what do you think
• 19:27
  of what was the big tag line from the 2024 Olympics?
• 19:33
  Three players. Oh yeah, triple espresso.
• 19:35
  Triple espresso. Right.
• 19:36
  Everyone was talking about Trinity Rodman, Sophia Wilson
• 19:39
  and Al Swanson. She's and, and Hayes's astute.
• 19:43
  She's like that. Now we're talking about
• 19:46
  everybody else. Because.
• 19:48
  Obviously Wilson and Swanson have been out being pregnant and
• 19:52
  having babies and then Trin had kind of a a challenging year
• 19:55
  last year just in and out with the injury and whatnot.
• 19:58
  But she's still, you know, one of the greatest in the in the
• 20:00
  world right now. So it's cool to see.
• 20:05
  Now we're taking the lab results, so to speak, right, the
• 20:08
  testing, the experimentation and we're starting to like put it
• 20:12
  out into the field and really see what those combinations are
• 20:16
  going to look like. So.
• 20:18
  What I did like just to start off our section on what I liked,
• 20:22
  I like winning. Yeah, he's the most important.
• 20:25
  Winning is the most important thing.
• 20:27
  This was their eighth She Believes Cup title.
• 20:29
  There have been 11 total tournaments.
• 20:31
  Shout out to Emily Sonnet, who has played in all 11 and is an
• 20:34
  eighth time She Believes Cup champion.
• 20:38
  But they are coming off a loss in this tournament.
• 20:40
  So last year they lost to Japan. It was Japan's first she
• 20:44
  Believes Cup championship. And then last year they dropped
• 20:47
  a couple other games. I know most notably was a game
• 20:50
  against Brazil, and that was actually in pretty quick
• 20:52
  succession. It was like they lost to Japan
• 20:54
  and then they lost to Brazil and everybody's like, Oh my God,
• 20:56
  what's? Happening.
• 20:58
  And it, it's, it's kind of funny because this team is one of
• 21:01
  those teams where when they lose 1 game, you're like, what's
• 21:07
  wrong? Right?
• 21:08
  Like they're not almost like they're not allowed to lose.
• 21:10
  And that's because of the dynasty that they have created
• 21:14
  and the kind of the standard that they've set globally for
• 21:17
  women's football. So anyways, I thought it was
• 21:22
  good to see them be really resilient in this tournament.
• 21:27
  I think, you know, my next point here was the shutouts are nice.
• 21:31
  I mentioned those already, but the composure you're playing.
• 21:35
  So typically our our Latin American teams tend to be a
• 21:39
  little bit more physical, a little bit more chippy.
• 21:42
  So both Argentina and Colombia both kind of had that that if
• 21:49
  you go back in. Time with social media from last
• 21:51
  week, you'll see a lot of videos about how it's gotten chippy
• 21:54
  over the years. Yeah, and.
• 21:56
  So, so for them to not rise to the bait, yeah, right.
• 22:00
  Play their game, maintain their shape, maintain their tactics as
• 22:04
  best they could despite the disruption, despite kind of the
• 22:09
  the, the physical play that and, and Hayes pointed this out too
• 22:14
  and, and some post game press conferences like that is growth
• 22:18
  that she's been looking to see. So couple other things that I'll
• 22:23
  just call out that I liked and then I'd love to hear from you.
• 22:27
  I said Naomi Germa and Emily Fox, I haven't seen either one
• 22:31
  of them play for a while 'cause they play overseas in the WSL
• 22:36
  and we it's harder to watch that here.
• 22:38
  We don't get as many of the games and they've also been out
• 22:43
  with various injury or club duty or things like that in the last
• 22:47
  couple international windows. I almost like forgot how good
• 22:51
  both of them are. Yeah, if you put if you.
• 22:52
  Put two of the if you put a game where she isn't in Germa
• 22:56
  specifically. Specifically and.
• 22:57
  Then you watch a game. Where you're in, you kind of
• 22:59
  walk by and go, oh, she's in. Great.
• 23:00
  This is. Yeah.
• 23:02
  You don't even know it's her. You're just like, I can tell how
• 23:04
  they're playing that it's her. Yeah.
• 23:06
  She. Just brings a poise.
• 23:08
  She is a player that like if she's in, I feel like the only
• 23:14
  way that you're going to be able to score on us is like a super
• 23:17
  broken scramble type thing in the like off of a corner or
• 23:21
  something, right? Like, run of play, she's too
• 23:24
  smart, she's too good. So anyways, Naomi Garma, Emily
• 23:28
  Fox. Two other players I really liked
• 23:31
  how they showed up were Ali Sentinor and Alyssa Thompson.
• 23:36
  Yep. So when we were teeing this up a
• 23:39
  couple weeks ago, I had two major questions.
• 23:42
  Right. Yeah.
• 23:43
  One was left back. I still think that's an open
• 23:47
  question. I think you're going to run.
• 23:49
  Right into my question. So this is great and 2 is.
• 23:51
  Who's the 9 right? Who is our striker up top and do
• 23:56
  you need to ask my my? Question is literally is as
• 23:59
  someone who I, I like soccer, I watch soccer.
• 24:02
  I don't know, like the the lingo, the lingo, the tactics,
• 24:04
  all that stuff. I was going to say, are these
• 24:06
  two contenders for that number 9 position or is that like Sophia
• 24:09
  Wilson's for sure? Are they the backup nines?
• 24:12
  What's going on here? Good question.
• 24:14
  OK, so I think it's sophs to lose probably Kat Macario also
• 24:20
  kind of plays a nine, but she yes, she's got a heel injury.
• 24:25
  She's kind of in like a weird spot with Chelsea and things
• 24:27
  like that. They're different nines, so
• 24:31
  there's. Different styles of.
• 24:32
  Play you can have in a nine, you can have a false 9, you can have
• 24:37
  a true 9. There's different ways they're
• 24:40
  going to play where they're more of like a back to the goal, turn
• 24:45
  and hit back to the goal, hold up play and playoff.
• 24:49
  There's like running and staying high, stretching the field.
• 24:52
  So the interesting thing about that question is that they are
• 24:56
  all different styles of nine. Alyssa Thompson is not a nine,
• 25:00
  she's a wing. So she will not be playing at
• 25:03
  the top in that point position. But she was very good on the
• 25:07
  wing, very active. I was so happy to see her get
• 25:10
  the goal against Columbia. I thought she played really well
• 25:13
  when she came or excuse me, in the game against Canada and then
• 25:18
  also in in the game against Colombia.
• 25:21
  But Ali Sentnor, she's not big. She's she's not tall.
• 25:29
  So she's not like you think back over the years like an Abby
• 25:32
  Wambach or an Alex Morgan, right?
• 25:35
  Which those two even are two different nines, right.
• 25:38
  But she was doing a lot of the right, I don't want to say all
• 25:42
  the right things, but a lot of the right things that Hayes
• 25:45
  would want to see from somebody in that position.
• 25:48
  And what I loved about her performance is she looks hungry.
• 25:52
  Yeah. Right.
• 25:53
  She wants it. She wants it so.
• 25:55
  Emma Sears, I think, could also kind of play that role.
• 26:00
  She's somebody that Hayes is really high on right now.
• 26:02
  But I think Ali Centnor is the player to watch as Wilson and
• 26:07
  Macario get back into the side. OK, what I didn't like, I didn't
• 26:14
  love that Trinity didn't seem able to find the game.
• 26:19
  And and it's hard to say if maybe that was because of the
• 26:22
  injuries suffered in the first game against Argentina.
• 26:26
  She got knocked pretty hard and then was back in training.
• 26:29
  But you just like, don't know. That was my whole.
• 26:30
  Question here is, was she, was she fully fit?
• 26:32
  What you know? Yeah.
• 26:34
  And. So I, I do wonder, I also just
• 26:36
  kind of wonder like that disruptive play, some some of
• 26:40
  the tactics that they had against Canada and Colombia may
• 26:44
  not have gotten her the ball necessarily Wasn't that she was
• 26:48
  bad. It's just that I didn't see her
• 26:51
  take up space the same way that I she can.
• 26:53
  I know she can. You think Maybe almost.
• 26:54
  Like a decoy too sometimes if Oh yeah, she.
• 26:57
  Drops so much attention 100%. Excuse me what?
• 27:05
  I didn't like inexperienced back back lines, so in that first
• 27:09
  game against Argentina we talked about this.
• 27:11
  But you've got four players who have not played together.
• 27:14
  Yeah, I cannot handle it, I hope.
• 27:19
  That we never. Do that again.
• 27:21
  The goal. The goalie.
• 27:21
  In here is like going crazy. The goalie in me.
• 27:25
  And then when we played without a six, so we've talked about a
• 27:30
  nine right is like a striker up top.
• 27:33
  The six is that holding central midfielder.
• 27:36
  They are like the traffic director in the.
• 27:38
  Is that like the? The Lindsay Heaps type No No.
• 27:42
  Different. That is Sam.
• 27:43
  Coffee Sam Coffee and Sam Coffee is probably one of the best at
• 27:47
  the sixth position. Like true 6, it's Julie Ertz
• 27:51
  used to play the 6th and so when we played without somebody in
• 27:56
  that position, it didn't look great, it didn't look
• 28:01
  controlled. Now Lynn Heaps can play in that
• 28:04
  space. She's not naturally inclined to
• 28:06
  stay in that space. She tends to attack more.
• 28:10
  And so the six is like a defensive central midfielder if
• 28:13
  you want to compare. So when we played without, that
• 28:16
  did not go well for us. And then not a lot of goals,
• 28:20
  right? You want to see and I think I
• 28:22
  saw a little bit of again, Hayes's post post tournament
• 28:26
  press conference where she's like, we just like now, you
• 28:30
  know, we showed a lot of composure, a lot of growth.
• 28:32
  We won, we got took care of business.
• 28:34
  We've got to continue to work on the connections, right.
• 28:36
  So at least they held it together.
• 28:38
  Defensively like yes, which is? Very important, yes.
• 28:41
  If they don't score, they can't win.
• 28:44
  So what's next? They US Women's national team
• 28:47
  has a trifecta of friendlies against Japan starting April
• 28:51
  11th. So that is like coming up here.
• 28:53
  Months from now one. Of 6 remaining international
• 28:57
  windows ahead of naming the World Cup roster y'all.
• 29:00
  So ahead of naming that roster, which will happen in June of
• 29:06
  next year 2027. They only have 6 international
• 29:11
  when I know right so you think they have a lot of time they do
• 29:15
  not have a lot of time so I what I anticipate is we're going to
• 29:19
  continue to see that roster refinement.
• 29:22
  I have a feeling that Emma has like probably of a 23 woman
• 29:27
  roster, she probably has 20 of them solidly picked barring any
• 29:32
  kind of injury, right? There's maybe some questions and
• 29:35
  yeah, three spots right now. Yep.
• 29:38
  So predictions we doing a. Podcast prediction here.
• 29:44
  Well, I just. Thought I'd throw it.
• 29:45
  I thought I was beat you to the punch.
• 29:47
  Instead of asking me that, I they'd note it down.
• 29:50
  I think when we get to Japan in April, I think we're going to
• 29:54
  see Soph Wilson back in the side she played.
• 29:57
  In a preseason, she played in a preseason match over the.
• 30:00
  Weekend and I think we'll talk about it and what to watch.
• 30:03
  But the Thorns kick off the season against the Spirit this
• 30:06
  Friday. I maybe Cat Macario.
• 30:09
  I don't heal footsteps always weird.
• 30:12
  So you just don't know where that's at.
• 30:14
  I think we missed out on seeing defenders Jordan Bug and Kate
• 30:19
  Wisner. Both of them had to leave camp
• 30:21
  for they were called in and then had to leave camp for illness or
• 30:24
  injury. And then Lily Reel, she got hurt
• 30:28
  really badly at like bad ankle injury in the first game against
• 30:31
  Argentina. So I'm going to be curious if we
• 30:34
  see her come back. She might be that left back
• 30:37
  answer. I thought that Avery Patterson
• 30:41
  was OK out there. Gisele Thompson.
• 30:43
  I actually really like Gisele Thompson, but we didn't get to
• 30:48
  see enough of real. Yeah, it'll be interesting too
• 30:51
  'cause it'll be early days of NWSL and then the WSL in the
• 30:56
  European leagues are going to be kind of ramping up to playoffs.
• 31:01
  So the just the fitness and things like that are the
• 31:04
  difference there is. Going to be yeah, interesting
• 31:06
  are. Are a challenge for sure, so
• 31:08
  definitely looking forward to that.
• 31:10
  Thought it was good, definitely excited for that.
• 31:14
  Those Japan games are going to be real fun also.
• 31:17
  I love watching Japan play. They're so technical and so
• 31:21
  disciplined. It's like some people think it's
• 31:24
  boring, but I think that defense.
• 31:25
  Holds up Mastery I. Mean, yes, 'cause they'll just
• 31:28
  wear you down, Yeah, wear you down.
• 31:31
  All right, you. Want to jump into this deep deep
• 31:35
  pool we have here? Deep pool.
• 31:37
  OK, so we are going to take y'all through understanding of
• 31:46
  the NWSL. So the NWSL kicks off its 14th
• 31:49
  season on Friday, Friday night. This is the longest standing
• 31:54
  women's professional Soccer League in U.S. history as you're
• 31:59
  about to learn. And so the way that this is
• 32:02
  going to go over the next couple minutes here is we're going to
• 32:05
  do a little bit of history lesson behind how did we get to
• 32:09
  the NWSL and then what was really formative in its history
• 32:14
  to get us to where we are today. We'll talk a little bit through
• 32:19
  the financial picture, the growth, attendance, viewership,
• 32:23
  things like that. We'll note some players to watch
• 32:27
  people you need to keep an eye on.
• 32:30
  And then we'll have some predictions on who we think
• 32:33
  might win this season. OK.
• 32:35
  You ready? I don't know if I'm ready for
• 32:37
  predictions. I haven't seen a game played
• 32:40
  yet. I know you.
• 32:41
  But you just got to predict, all right?
• 32:43
  You just got to pick. I don't know if it was our
• 32:45
  girls, they'd pick by the logo. Oh yeah.
• 32:47
  We should actually do that on a on a out of social, we'll just
• 32:50
  have them pick the logos, they'll do a.
• 32:52
  Bracket. We'll have them do a college
• 32:54
  basketball bracket too, based on the logos.
• 32:57
  Jersey color. All right, let's dig.
• 32:59
  In all right. So digging into the National
• 33:03
  Women's Soccer League or the NWSL.
• 33:06
  So let's talk a little bit just about the stage about women's
• 33:09
  professional soccer in the US before the league that we
• 33:13
  currently have. So women's soccer culture really
• 33:17
  just like most women's sports how we know them today was
• 33:20
  really born out of the passing of Title 9, right?
• 33:23
  In 72, we actually are going to talk about Patty Mink and our
• 33:27
  Sports Pioneers episode, who spearheaded that legislation.
• 33:31
  But what that enabled was the college level, right?
• 33:36
  Because that's what Title 9 was. You had to have equal
• 33:38
  opportunity for men and women at the college level really took
• 33:42
  off and it really started to build.
• 33:45
  And if you think about the timing of that, it makes sense
• 33:50
  that the US women's national team really started to see a
• 33:55
  success in the 90s, right? So essentially that was the 18.
• 34:00
  Years right there, the women who were like.
• 34:03
  Little kids at the time that that was passed then were
• 34:08
  playing professionally or at the college level by the time that
• 34:12
  the the Women's World Cup started up in the in the 90s.
• 34:17
  So the US Women's national team became this global force.
• 34:21
  They won the 1st or inaugural Women's World Cup in 1991 and
• 34:25
  then they famously won again in 1999 in front of 90,000 plus
• 34:31
  fans, which is like. I feel like we should have a
• 34:34
  like like an inflation rate percentage for like how many
• 34:38
  fans that would mean in terms of today, because that is an insane
• 34:43
  amount of people at a women's sporting event.
• 34:45
  Yeah, I when. I saw that number.
• 34:47
  I was blown away because I didn't realize it was that much.
• 34:50
  Yeah. And you talk about like the
• 34:52
  defining moment of Title 9 being about 18 years earlier, that's
• 34:55
  almost like another defining moment where all these young
• 34:58
  girls got to see this team win it.
• 35:01
  And then it I mean, as you probably know, I am I.
• 35:05
  Am I am who I am because of that?
• 35:08
  They it was interesting they honored Tobin Heath at the
• 35:11
  women's national team game over the weekend and she actually
• 35:15
  said she had a signed ball from Brandy Chastain that just said
• 35:19
  believe or something on it. And that, like, was the thing
• 35:23
  that made her motive. You also hear Emma talk about
• 35:27
  how she has never coached a team of people who are more invested
• 35:34
  in the Crest. Like, she's like these girls, It
• 35:37
  seems like they were born wanting to play for this team.
• 35:40
  And that's the legacy of the 90 Niners and Title 9, frankly.
• 35:46
  So as we move ahead, that really the the 99 World Cup win really
• 35:53
  ignited this appetite for professional women's soccer.
• 35:56
  And so in 2001, the Women's United Soccer Association was
• 36:00
  founded. This was the first fully
• 36:03
  professional women's Soccer League in the world, launched
• 36:07
  with eight teams with 20 national team players as part of
• 36:11
  that league, including stars like Mia Hamm, Brandy Chastain,
• 36:15
  Christine Lilly, etc. Average attendance around this
• 36:19
  time reached about 6 to 8000, which that's not bad.
• 36:22
  That's not bad. Yeah, right.
• 36:24
  And it didn't last. Yeah.
• 36:27
  So they ceased operations in September of 2003 after just
• 36:32
  three seasons, citing unsustainable operating losses
• 36:36
  of what was estimated to be around $100 million. 100 million
• 36:41
  in 2001 dollar 2000. $1.00 to me.
• 36:44
  Yes, I know. That's a lot.
• 36:47
  And I think the main reasons that were cited for this was
• 36:50
  they launched too fast with outsized budgets and just like
• 36:54
  it wasn't well thought out. And so we go back to the drawing
• 37:00
  board. So after WOOSA.
• 37:05
  And that's the name, yes, a little, not quite there after
• 37:09
  the. Women's United Soccer
• 37:10
  Association or WOOSA folded. There was there was this period
• 37:15
  called the gap years, right? And the West League, which is a
• 37:19
  semi pro league where a lot of women played.
• 37:21
  They also may be we went overseas to play and this was
• 37:26
  from 2004 to 2008. And it got me wondering like you
• 37:29
  have semi pro options here domestically?
• 37:32
  Like what did the European club landscape look like over there?
• 37:37
  Well, the answer is not great. So there were no professional
• 37:43
  clubs over in Europe for women at this time, Not even like what
• 37:47
  you. See now with like the kind of
• 37:49
  sister clubs tall Nope it. Was all amateur.
• 37:52
  It was all like maybe you got some money to cover rent and
• 37:56
  food, but you were not getting paid a salary.
• 37:59
  There were other barriers like language barriers, visa
• 38:03
  situations were really difficult and you didn't have like the
• 38:07
  organization helping you with that.
• 38:09
  You just were showing up because you loved playing soccer, right?
• 38:14
  And so the fun fact is that the like, as an example, the French
• 38:20
  women's professional league that we know of today really only
• 38:23
  legitimized in 2009. And believe it or not, folks,
• 38:29
  the WSL, the Women's Super League in England that.
• 38:34
  Only. Legitimized to a fully formed
• 38:36
  professional league in guess what, year 2018. 20. 18 Oh, I
• 38:44
  got it. So.
• 38:45
  That's eight years ago, right? So I thought they had been.
• 38:49
  Around as long as a lot of the and you would think because.
• 38:53
  Soccer's such like a a deep tradition like West Ham.
• 38:57
  Has like their whole like Academy or whatever.
• 39:03
  I know it's a whole other. Episode And what's also
• 39:06
  interesting is that this actually points to this really
• 39:10
  interesting pivot we're starting to or we've been experiencing on
• 39:13
  the international stage with the national teams that now we're
• 39:17
  seeing more parity at the national team level because
• 39:21
  there are clubs that are funded in these other countries so that
• 39:25
  they're professional women can play year round right and they
• 39:29
  don't have to go live overseas necessarily.
• 39:32
  So it's a it was a really interesting full circle moment
• 39:35
  in my research to kind of like learn a little bit more about
• 39:38
  that. So going back, that was the gap
• 39:42
  years 2004 or 2008. We're now at 2009 and the
• 39:48
  Women's Professional Soccer League, I don't know what they
• 39:52
  call themselves, but WPS was founded.
• 39:58
  It was launched, like I said, in 2009, eight founding clubs again
• 40:03
  and it featured again international superstars like
• 40:07
  Marta from Brazil, arguably the best to ever play the game, Abby
• 40:11
  Wambach, Hope Solo. But it really struggled with
• 40:16
  franchise instability, so multiple clubs folded within the
• 40:19
  first two seasons. And the WPS suspended operations
• 40:24
  in January of 2012, officially disbanding in the spring.
• 40:30
  And the key. Lesson from WPS was the MLS
• 40:36
  affiliation, so going to your comment about the in the English
• 40:40
  leagues, did we need affiliation between women's clubs and men's
• 40:45
  clubs at the professional level and federation subsidies?
• 40:51
  So we're about to talk about federation subsidies, but they
• 40:54
  were seen as critical missing components.
• 40:57
  It does. Feel wild to watch two weeks
• 40:59
  kind of fold and go. I can do it again, but better.
• 41:04
  But you know what they say, third time's a.
• 41:06
  Charm. Third time's a charm.
• 41:07
  Baby. So in 2012, the NWSL was
• 41:15
  founded, but we got to back up a little bit.
• 41:17
  It was founded in 2012. But we're going to back up to US
• 41:20
  Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulani Gulati.
• 41:24
  Excuse me? He decided to spearhead a new
• 41:27
  model, right? So we just talked about
• 41:29
  federation subsidies and his critical differentiator was that
• 41:34
  the US Soccer Federation, Canada, Canadian Soccer
• 41:37
  Federation and initially the Mexican Football Federation
• 41:41
  agreed to subsidize the salaries of their national team players
• 41:46
  and at the cost of those then did not count against salary
• 41:49
  caps. So what you were able to do was
• 41:52
  keep top tier talent in the league while also not penalizing
• 41:57
  or making teams use that that funding for those star players.
• 42:02
  You could build more competitive rosters, right?
• 42:05
  So then the NWSL officially founded again 8 charter clubs, 8
• 42:11
  seems to be the magic number for us to be starting with and the
• 42:15
  inaugural season began. So in these early years, 2013 to
• 42:20
  2015, we saw obviously a lot of firsts.
• 42:23
  The first NWSL match was played in April 3rd.
• 42:27
  On April 13th of 2013, 2013 season average attendance was
• 42:34
  4200 people, so less than the WOOSA.
• 42:38
  Yep. Is that are you?
• 42:40
  Saving other numbers for later in this or do we know what the
• 42:44
  current yes, OK. Yes.
• 42:46
  Do you wanna? Do you wanna compare?
• 42:47
  Right now or compare later, we're gonna do a little.
• 42:49
  Quiz OK so be listen yeah listen we'll.
• 42:52
  OK, we'll bring it back. It's it's a fair question in the
• 42:56
  Portland Thorns, who are still a part of the league now, won the
• 42:59
  inaugural NWS All Championship. They also in these early days
• 43:04
  signed a cute little first broadcast deal and that
• 43:08
  broadcast deal was a one year agreement with Fox Sports to
• 43:11
  televise 6 games. The semi.
• 43:14
  Final and the Championship, so I suppose maybe it was nine whole
• 43:19
  games and we also started to see expansion in this time.
• 43:23
  So Houston, they had a men's side and MLS, the Dynamo, they
• 43:28
  added the Dash on the women's side.
• 43:30
  So this was the first time that we were able to move past eight
• 43:33
  teams in this period. So now we move into 2016 to
• 43:37
  2020. So in this era, this was really
• 43:40
  couple milestones, league maturation that we were seeing.
• 43:44
  The NWSL became the first women's professional Soccer
• 43:47
  League in U.S. history to surpass Four Seasons in 2016,
• 43:52
  right, Because all the other ones folded after three.
• 43:55
  They signed a three-year broadcast deal in 2017 with A&E
• 43:59
  Networks, otherwise known as Lifetime Playtime Movies, and
• 44:04
  they aired 22 regular season games week on a weekly basis,
• 44:09
  not 22 games weekly. That's a lot of them for now.
• 44:13
  And then you had the first major relocation, so team that was
• 44:19
  called the Western New York Flash relocated and rebranded to
• 44:22
  the North Carolina Courage, which is part of the current
• 44:26
  site of teams today during this time period as well right before
• 44:32
  this period started. And then in this period you had
• 44:35
  back-to-back World Cup wins. Remember there are four stars on
• 44:38
  the half we've talked about two of them, 2015 and 2019 US
• 44:43
  women's national team won back-to-back World
• 44:45
  Championships. And so that both of those really
• 44:49
  spurred interest, attendance, etcetera, I think that is.
• 44:53
  NWSL, that's right where my interest kind of started.
• 44:56
  I know we had started watching more soccer around that time,
• 44:59
  but we were together in 2015, but not close enough that we
• 45:03
  were watching soccer together yet.
• 45:05
  I hadn't converted him. So, so 2019.
• 45:07
  Was really, I think that first time where we really watched the
• 45:10
  Women's World Cup, yes, and that was.
• 45:12
  Epic. That was in France, I believe,
• 45:14
  and it was just like you had Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan.
• 45:18
  And like all the. Things going on.
• 45:22
  So then that brings us to the end of this era, 2020.
• 45:25
  The COVID-19 pandemic really forced innovation out of a lot
• 45:29
  of these leagues. A lot of bubbles popped up for
• 45:32
  teams to continue to compete but stay kind of quarantined.
• 45:35
  And so this was where the Challenge Cup was born, which is
• 45:39
  now still played in the NWSL. But that was sort of their solve
• 45:43
  for the COVID situation in 2020 and then.
• 45:49
  We get. To some not so good times, 2021
• 45:55
  and 2022 were really considered these like reckoning years for
• 46:00
  women's professional soccer. So, as is unfortunately typical
• 46:09
  with women in general, there was a huge exposure around basically
• 46:18
  systemic abuse of players. So The Athletic published an
• 46:23
  investigation exposing systemic abuse and misconduct by coaches
• 46:28
  across the league in October of 2021.
• 46:32
  And in 2022. The Yates Report put together by
• 46:36
  Sally Yates, former US Attorney General, documented a quote,
• 46:41
  systemic failure and quote to protect players from verbal and
• 46:45
  sexual abuse across multiple clubs and coaching Staffs.
• 46:51
  Multiple coaches, executives, the commissioner of the league.
• 46:56
  All were fired or resigned. What's really harrowing about
• 47:01
  this is that in the Yates report, it details players
• 47:05
  reporting on these behaviors as far back as 20150.
• 47:12
  Jeez. Yep.
• 47:13
  And what the Yates report really came out and showed was not only
• 47:20
  were these players being abused, but there was active cover ups
• 47:26
  happening by teams, by the league itself.
• 47:31
  One of the most disgusting things that I saw was the fact
• 47:36
  that teams were quietly ushering these coaches on to their next
• 47:42
  job and writing positive letters of recommendation so they would
• 47:47
  go get picked up because they needed to get them out of their
• 47:49
  organization. And so horrible experience.
• 47:54
  There are a lot of really brave women who were willing to come
• 47:57
  forward and put their name on the record, most notably Sinead
• 48:01
  Farrelly and a few others. So just a kudos to them because
• 48:07
  otherwise we might still be, they might still be dealing with
• 48:11
  that. As with most kind of challenges,
• 48:15
  right, There's usually a there's something positive that's born
• 48:19
  out of that negativity. And as a result, the league
• 48:22
  really overhauled its leadership in 2022.
• 48:25
  So they hired Jessica Berman as the new commissioner.
• 48:28
  And believe it or not, what is this?
• 48:31
  Nine years after the league began, the players secured the
• 48:35
  first ever collective bargaining agreement.
• 48:38
  So part of the other reason why a lot of that systemic abuse was
• 48:42
  allowed to go on was that there was nothing protecting the
• 48:45
  players. Yeah.
• 48:47
  And I. I did not even know how to
• 48:49
  phrase this, but it's like, like you said, at least there was
• 48:53
  this that came out of it. Like that should have never
• 48:56
  happened. But they did get the
• 48:59
  protections. But honestly, they should have
• 49:01
  had them. Oh yeah.
• 49:04
  Well, I mean. Be a human people.
• 49:06
  But they should have had this a long time ago, yeah.
• 49:10
  It's unfortunately not a surprising oversight that no one
• 49:15
  decided to like, look out for these players.
• 49:18
  So at the same time, and we don't talk much about it in in
• 49:21
  this particular episode, but there was also this huge push
• 49:25
  for equal pay in the US Soccer Federation.
• 49:27
  So this was really LED strongly by Megan Rapinoe and Alex
• 49:33
  Morgan. We'll talk about Pinot and the
• 49:36
  Soccer Pioneer or the sorry, the sports pioneers episode.
• 49:40
  But back to the history here. So this really launched the
• 49:44
  league into the hyper growth era that we're accustomed to today.
• 49:48
  So like you said, you know, never should have happened, but
• 49:53
  they were really able to make like champagne out of frankly
• 49:57
  shit. And we are we get to benefit
• 50:02
  from that as fans. So in 2022, you had the addition
• 50:07
  of Angel City FC and the San Diego Wave.
• 50:09
  Angel City is continually the highest valued team in the
• 50:15
  league. The San Diego Wave made a charge
• 50:17
  for the Shield that in their inaugural season.
• 50:20
  This was when we really got into them.
• 50:23
  They had Alex Morgan kind of as their their figurehead.
• 50:27
  In 2023, the league signed a landmark $240 million broadcast
• 50:33
  deal, a four year broadcast deal, excuse me, with CBS
• 50:36
  Sports, ESPN, ABC, Amazon Prime Video and Script Sports.
• 50:41
  So in 2024 we added two more teams, Bay FC and the Utah
• 50:45
  Royals. This was also the first season
• 50:48
  that we surpassed 2,000,000 total match attendees.
• 50:51
  So across all competitions. And then a couple other
• 50:54
  milestones, one of the coolest ones for me, the Kansas City
• 50:57
  Current opened. It's the first ever in the
• 51:02
  world, basically Sports Complex, but stadium, training
• 51:07
  facilities, etcetera, designed specifically for women.
• 51:11
  And I want to get into this really quick because I read an
• 51:13
  article and I thought it was really fascinating.
• 51:16
  It's not just that it was designed for a women's sports
• 51:19
  team, it was literally designed with women in mind.
• 51:24
  So when you go into a typical sports arena, everything from
• 51:30
  the layout to sight lines are designed off the average size of
• 51:34
  a man. And what they?
• 51:37
  Did was they went and they looked at things like sight
• 51:39
  lines and all the other amenities you might need like
• 51:43
  family rooms, nursing spaces, breastfeeding spaces, things
• 51:47
  like that. And they included those and they
• 51:49
  did it all from the perspective of of a woman.
• 51:52
  Yeah, that's awesome. Right, so.
• 51:53
  Pretty cool. I really want to road trip down
• 51:56
  to a Yeah, I mean, it's a beautiful.
• 51:57
  Stadium too. Like right on the river.
• 51:59
  So nice. And that team is amazing.
• 52:02
  Yeah. And we're gonna talk about them
• 52:03
  in just a second. So now here we are.
• 52:05
  In 2026, the league has expanded to 16 teams.
• 52:09
  We add two more this year with Boston Legacy in the Denver
• 52:12
  Summit, and then an Atlanta expansion team is expected in
• 52:16
  2028. Yep, and I have heard rumblings
• 52:20
  that Columbus is also trying to make a bid.
• 52:23
  Columbus, you're shaking your head no.
• 52:25
  Columbus feels like a like a foregone conclusion, like the
• 52:28
  women's national team plays there.
• 52:29
  It's almost every time. Filled to the brim.
• 52:32
  Like, yeah, they have an MLS. Team, it feels like they play
• 52:34
  there. Like every other time they play,
• 52:36
  oh, they might there or Harrison, NJ, like that's where
• 52:39
  they go. I thought maybe you were just
• 52:40
  shaking your head because you really want one here.
• 52:43
  Yeah, well, eventually. Yeah, obviously.
• 52:46
  All right, so that is a little bit about the league history.
• 52:50
  I think we're going to move into the structure and financial
• 52:54
  situation. So as we just mentioned, 16
• 52:58
  teams as of 2026, it's a single division format for the league.
• 53:02
  So 30 game, regular season, 18 playoff bracket, culminating in
• 53:07
  the NWSL Championship this year that'll be played on November
• 53:11
  21st. And we also have all those
• 53:15
  broadcast partners which actually have expanded.
• 53:18
  So we mentioned before CBS Sports, ESPN, ABC, Amazon Prime
• 53:23
  Video. This year they added Ion and
• 53:27
  there's free streaming on Victory Plus, which is a newer.
• 53:33
  Yeah, yeah, I actually noticed when.
• 53:35
  I was looking at the schedule today that they had Ion and
• 53:37
  Victory Plus, and Victory Plus is where LOVP plays as well.
• 53:41
  And then they think a few other things that I've seen.
• 53:42
  Yeah, so. There's no shortage of ways to
• 53:45
  watch. And then as we mentioned earlier
• 53:47
  in the in the show, ESPN will be featuring like a game of the
• 53:52
  week on Sunday nights bouncing back and forth, excuse me,
• 53:56
  between the NWSL and the WNBA. So when we think about financial
• 54:01
  picture currently, you know, just for some base
• 54:05
  understanding, the salary cap in the NWSL is $3.3 million.
• 54:11
  That will rise to a little over 5,000,000 by 2030, which is when
• 54:15
  their current CBA is set to expire and then minimum player
• 54:21
  salaries are right around 50K in the current season and that is
• 54:27
  set to rise to about $82,000 by 20-30.
• 54:32
  I thought what? Was really interesting when I
• 54:33
  would looked it up is I think the MLS is salary cap is
• 54:37
  currently 5 million. So they're not that far off,
• 54:40
  that far off. I mean, obviously there's still
• 54:41
  a gap, but they're kind of closing that gap already, yeah.
• 54:46
  A couple other just like interesting tidbits, we've
• 54:48
  talked here on the on the pod about the high impact player
• 54:51
  rule, which allows you to sign a player that meets certain
• 54:54
  criteria that you get an additional $1,000,000 kind of
• 54:59
  outside of your salary cap. So that's going to hopefully
• 55:02
  draw some some talent OR allows to retain talent like we did
• 55:06
  with Trinity Rodman. We talked about the broadcast
• 55:10
  deal already and there was just some information released last
• 55:14
  week around the average NWSL franchise value.
• 55:17
  And I think overall that average came out to be about
• 55:20
  $184,000,000 per club, which is up 77% year over year.
• 55:28
  Notable of those franchises we mentioned, Angel City FC
• 55:32
  already, they are valued at 335,000,000.
• 55:36
  Holy smokes. Kansas City.
• 55:38
  Current 315 million in Bay FC at 208,000,000 The total league is
• 55:44
  valued at about 2 1/2 billion dollars is that the.
• 55:48
  Team's valuations added together?
• 55:50
  Or is there some other valuation formula there?
• 55:54
  Because I was, I was just wondering because a $60 million
• 55:56
  per year broadcast deal to get 2.6 million billion dollar
• 56:01
  valuation is a massive like that's a huge multiple in
• 56:05
  earnings. Yeah.
• 56:06
  So I think. I don't know exactly how the
• 56:08
  valuations work, but it'd be like the team valuation, it
• 56:11
  might be the broad like some of that is also considered revenue
• 56:15
  sometimes, right. So it's there's probably some
• 56:18
  externals to the teams there. But if you if you were to do
• 56:23
  some quick math here, you've got 16 teams averaging 184,000,000.
• 56:29
  So and then the other thing that's interesting to note and
• 56:32
  always kind of an indicator of that value is expansion fees.
• 56:37
  So if we go back to 2021 when San Diego, they made the bid to
• 56:41
  add the team in San Diego for the 2022 season, it cost them
• 56:45
  $2,000,000 to join the league. Then you had, you know, Denver,
• 56:52
  who's going to start this year, It cost $110 million, just two,
• 56:58
  or excuse me, I can't do math, four years later, right, to join
• 57:02
  the league. And then we've talked about the
• 57:04
  Atlanta team, right, who just signed that big sponsorship deal
• 57:07
  with Aflac, $165 million for them to get in 82.
• 57:14
  X increase in yeah, 4:00-ish years.
• 57:17
  Yeah, not too shabby. All right, we told you to hold
• 57:24
  on to your thinking Caps around league attendance, so maybe you
• 57:28
  remember what that average attendance was in 2013.
• 57:34
  Anybody Anybody £4200 per game. Approximately 375,000 total fans
• 57:45
  across that entire season. Fast forward to 2025, the
• 57:50
  average exceeded 10,000 fans per match and for the third
• 57:55
  consecutive season, which is the longest streak in league
• 57:58
  history. And as we mentioned, in 2024, we
• 58:01
  had a ton of historic milestones. 2 million fans
• 58:05
  average attendance of 11,250, a 165% growth in average
• 58:12
  attendance since 2013. We also saw in 2025 the single
• 58:19
  game attendance record between Bay FC and the Washington Spirit
• 58:23
  of just over 40,000 fields. Now we are all anxiously
• 58:27
  awaiting the game in Denver. On March I.
• 58:30
  Think it's the 23rd or 28th? Yep.
• 58:32
  But they are already slated to blast that number out of the
• 58:36
  water. Yeah, I think over 45,000.
• 58:38
  I think they're opening. Up like the 500 level in the
• 58:41
  Mile High or whatever it's called like it's going to be
• 58:43
  insane yes so. That's really cool to see, just
• 58:48
  like this explosion in interest in growth and accessibility, I
• 58:51
  think to these these women. And then I, I found this fun
• 58:56
  fact, but 48 of the 50 most attended professional women's
• 59:03
  soccer matches are NWSL games. And I was like, I saw that.
• 59:08
  And I was like, well, that's not that interesting because like
• 59:10
  they've been way longer than the other leagues were there, right?
• 59:13
  And so I did a little bit of a comparison and it is by far and
• 59:19
  away soccer stadiums typically hold more people than other
• 59:23
  sports, right? So soccer rules the roost in the
• 59:26
  States when it comes to women's sports attendance by almost
• 59:30
  double. But it's not necessarily how we
• 59:34
  should be comparing across because it really should be
• 59:37
  about maybe the growth or the average attendance relative to
• 59:40
  capacity. Yeah, cuz basketball as an
• 59:43
  example, plays in a much smaller venue regular basis.
• 59:46
  So I do believe that that Women's World Cup win in 1999
• 59:52
  still is tops of the table. Yeah, That's that's wild.
• 59:57
  There might have been like a college volleyball game or
• 1:00:00
  something. Yeah, there was.
• 1:00:01
  I'm. Remembering that out, out.
• 1:00:03
  Stroked that, I think 91,000 or something.
• 1:00:06
  So go Huskers volleyball I guess.
• 1:00:10
  All right, so we are going to shift gears here and move into
• 1:00:16
  some players to, all right? Let's do it so as.
• 1:00:22
  A primer for your NWSL viewing season.
• 1:00:27
  We wanted to give you a couple players for you to keep tabs on
• 1:00:30
  throughout the NWSL season as well as some teams.
• 1:00:34
  We'll get to the predictions here in a minute.
• 1:00:36
  So we have our established stars like Trinity Rodman.
• 1:00:39
  We've talked about her plenty on the pod.
• 1:00:42
  We've talked about Temwa Shawinga.
• 1:00:44
  So she plays for the Kansas City Currents.
• 1:00:47
  She's Golden Boot winner, I think the last two seasons in a
• 1:00:50
  row. She is incredible.
• 1:00:55
  Yep, Super fast, really strong forward up top and she is going
• 1:01:01
  to be really interesting as I look at the offseason additions
• 1:01:06
  to the Kansas City current. So they actually added Ali
• 1:01:10
  Centenor. And.
• 1:01:13
  Roy Bethune who leaves the Washington spirit to go play
• 1:01:17
  with Casey current. So I am going to be very
• 1:01:20
  interested to see how Temwa does with some of the play making
• 1:01:25
  that Bethune brings to the to the field and then also having a
• 1:01:29
  real real scoring threat, maybe opposite her in Centenor is is.
• 1:01:36
  So let's talk. Can quick tell people what the
• 1:01:38
  the Golden Boot is 'cause I'm wondering, she's back-to-back,
• 1:01:42
  she's with Kansas City. Is she one of the best players?
• 1:01:46
  Is she the best player in the world or Rodman's?
• 1:01:49
  No. I I think, I mean, it's, it
• 1:01:50
  depends on how you define the best, right?
• 1:01:52
  So Golden Boot is the top scorer in the league.
• 1:01:55
  So Temwa has won that the last two years.
• 1:01:58
  She was also league MVP the last two years.
• 1:02:03
  She is, she's definitely probably considered the best
• 1:02:08
  forward in the league. I think Rodman gets the accolade
• 1:02:11
  a little bit more liberally, probably because of her
• 1:02:16
  marketability. Temwa is from Malawi and so I
• 1:02:21
  there's she's she's not on that U.S.
• 1:02:23
  National team, right? Like you just get different
• 1:02:25
  coverage, different marketing. Yeah, that makes.
• 1:02:28
  Sense playing for. An African nation versus the
• 1:02:33
  highly cash infused probably US or the national US Soccer
• 1:02:38
  Federation. So we would love to see that
• 1:02:41
  differently, which is why we are talking about Temois here on the
• 1:02:43
  podcast. All right, another name that
• 1:02:46
  you'll recognize, Rose Lavelle, always somebody to watch the
• 1:02:52
  former Wisconsin Badger go Badgers.
• 1:02:56
  And she really is in form right now.
• 1:02:58
  So she was the championship MVP last year.
• 1:03:02
  I think she's been scoring a lot of goals she creates out of that
• 1:03:05
  midfield. She seems to really be kind of
• 1:03:07
  stepping into her prime, so to speak, from a consistency
• 1:03:11
  perspective, leadership, all of that kind of stuff.
• 1:03:15
  Marta also arguably one of the best players in the world, right
• 1:03:20
  playing for Orlando Pride. She retired from international
• 1:03:25
  play recently, but she's the six time FIFA world player of the
• 1:03:29
  year. She's always got something up
• 1:03:32
  her sleeve in her bag. The.
• 1:03:34
  Question. The question I had, and I teased
• 1:03:36
  this at dinner tonight for the male listeners.
• 1:03:41
  Is. Marta for women's soccer,
• 1:03:45
  potentially what like a messy is for men's soccer when it comes
• 1:03:48
  to career arc and like cultural, global cultural impact, no.
• 1:03:55
  No, unfortunately, because you just don't get the same level of
• 1:04:02
  exposure and coverage right like from a player.
• 1:04:06
  If you just were to look at the play on the field perspective,
• 1:04:10
  which maybe that's what you're getting at with your question.
• 1:04:14
  Yeah, I think you could make that argument.
• 1:04:16
  Different styles of play a little bit between the two of
• 1:04:19
  them, but from a from a, you know, leadership on the field,
• 1:04:25
  amazing achievements, consistently recognized as the
• 1:04:28
  best in the world over a very long career.
• 1:04:31
  Also both the longevity on both of them is insane.
• 1:04:35
  But unfortunately, right, again, I think potentially if Marta had
• 1:04:42
  been an American, that might have been different.
• 1:04:47
  And I don't say that to throw shade at any other federation.
• 1:04:52
  But as we've discussed already, the US Soccer Federation and
• 1:04:56
  frankly, the women's national team has had outside outsized
• 1:05:00
  success relative to other national counterparts.
• 1:05:05
  And so Marta is Brazilian. They, I mean, we could go into
• 1:05:10
  the history of that, but like they probably weren't getting
• 1:05:13
  the funding and the backing from their federation until very
• 1:05:16
  recently, right? And so the the difference in the
• 1:05:19
  trajectories between a Messi and a Marta is that Marta probably
• 1:05:23
  had to fight for every Oz. Of.
• 1:05:29
  Access and exposure that she could get to the game and she
• 1:05:33
  has inspired a generation of young girls wanting to place
• 1:05:38
  play football and it it and and really has moved the needle
• 1:05:42
  forward for Brazilian soccer federation, probably other, you
• 1:05:47
  know, Latin American countries, South American countries.
• 1:05:50
  But to compare them is really tough.
• 1:05:55
  And it's not for lack of talent, it's for lack of support access.
• 1:05:59
  And support, yeah, OK. Really good question.
• 1:06:03
  And then just rounding up our crew here, Gift Monday, that is
• 1:06:08
  a name, amazing name. To be clear.
• 1:06:11
  She plays for the Washington Spirit.
• 1:06:13
  We got to see her a little bit in action in the playoffs last
• 1:06:17
  year. She's a very dynamic player.
• 1:06:20
  She's from Nigeria, but she scored the fastest hat trick in
• 1:06:23
  NWSL history in 2025. She scored three goals in under
• 1:06:28
  36 minutes. I thought you were, I thought.
• 1:06:30
  You were gonna say 36 seconds and I was gonna lose my mind.
• 1:06:33
  Not in soccer. That's like, not.
• 1:06:35
  Possible, but. Three goal that's that's three
• 1:06:38
  goals in 1/2 from one player less than 1/2, right.
• 1:06:41
  And so I think she is going to be somebody to certainly keep on
• 1:06:46
  your list of folks to watch. When we look on the other side
• 1:06:50
  to Rising Stars, we've talked a little bit about my first one on
• 1:06:54
  the list here, Kroy Bethune. She just joined, left the
• 1:06:58
  Washington Spirit to join the Kansas City Current.
• 1:07:01
  I think her in combination with Tamwa and Ali Sentinor and
• 1:07:05
  Michelle Cooper over there, etcetera is going to be really
• 1:07:08
  interesting to watch. So we want to keep an eye on
• 1:07:11
  her. Claire Hutton, also a national
• 1:07:14
  team player, she moved from Kansas City current to Bay FC.
• 1:07:19
  She part of that move is I think she was like the second highest
• 1:07:23
  transfer ever. Kroy was third right to move in,
• 1:07:28
  but over $1,000,000 to move out there to Bay FC.
• 1:07:32
  And then earlier this year, she became the youngest to ever wear
• 1:07:36
  the captain's armband for US Women's National team.
• 1:07:39
  Emma Hayes calls her a future captain at the making.
• 1:07:43
  Maybe she needs to. Revise that to current captain
• 1:07:45
  and making and then we've talked about her kind of ad nauseam.
• 1:07:50
  But Aly Sentinor just been like really impressed with how she's
• 1:07:53
  come on. I remember last year's she
• 1:07:56
  believes cup was her national team debut and she scored a goal
• 1:08:00
  and I remember being like, whoa, who's this right?
• 1:08:03
  And her she's continued to be productive.
• 1:08:05
  I think she's really kind of had a little bit of a breakthrough
• 1:08:08
  here and this year she believes, so it's going to be interesting
• 1:08:11
  to see how she does in the club side I think this past.
• 1:08:13
  Week was the first time I've really paid attention.
• 1:08:16
  Obviously she just made her debut last year, but I I like
• 1:08:20
  what I saw out of like everything I saw for like she's
• 1:08:24
  definitely. The future and then we are going
• 1:08:28
  to just wrap up here with our NWSL title contenders and they
• 1:08:38
  are all teams that I have mentioned folks because if it
• 1:08:41
  isn't obvious, they kind of have some of the best players,
• 1:08:43
  players we definitely should be watching.
• 1:08:45
  So Gotham FC, they won last year.
• 1:08:49
  They were eighth seed going into the playoffs last year, but I
• 1:08:54
  think that depth that they have really held them together.
• 1:08:58
  They had a some key offseason signings brought in Savannah
• 1:09:02
  McCaskill from San Diego. I think they're when they need
• 1:09:07
  to win. They know how to win, right.
• 1:09:10
  And so I could definitely see them making another run at the
• 1:09:15
  league championship. Kansas City current they won the
• 1:09:20
  shield in like resounding fashion last season, which is
• 1:09:23
  the regular season championship, you know, best record in the
• 1:09:26
  season. They won with 65 points and a +
• 1:09:32
  36 goal difference these last year, so.
• 1:09:36
  And they've just added firepower.
• 1:09:38
  Yeah. Like they haven't really lost
• 1:09:39
  anybody. They also are bringing in a new
• 1:09:42
  coach, so Vladko Andonovsky is moving to a sporting director
• 1:09:46
  role. They brought in Chris Armas,
• 1:09:47
  who's AUS men's national team, former player, former.
• 1:09:51
  He is a Hall of Famer for the men's national team.
• 1:09:54
  So I'll be watching that to see how they do, how he sticks.
• 1:09:58
  Can they kind of lean into his philosophy, his system and, and
• 1:10:02
  is he willing to kind of shape a little bit around the talent
• 1:10:05
  that he has and the thing? Here for the people at home, is
• 1:10:09
  they lost in the quarterfinals? Yes to the Gotham team, right?
• 1:10:14
  Yes, you lost to Gotham. The highest seed.
• 1:10:17
  Lost against the lowest seed, yes, which it was.
• 1:10:20
  Widely seen as a flu. Yes, it was.
• 1:10:23
  Or an upset. Maybe we.
• 1:10:25
  It's gonna. It's gonna.
• 1:10:25
  Haunt some people there, but that's why we.
• 1:10:27
  Play the game, that's exactly what.
• 1:10:29
  We taught our daughter. Last year, exactly.
• 1:10:31
  And then? Finally, the Washington spirit,
• 1:10:34
  right? You resigned.
• 1:10:34
  Trinity Rodman, you've got, you know, a lot of other folks
• 1:10:41
  supporting over their gift Monday.
• 1:10:43
  We just talked about Laci Santos, Kate Wisner, Tara Rudd,
• 1:10:47
  Aubrey Kingsbury and and that like just some experience in
• 1:10:52
  that back line. So I think their ceiling is
• 1:10:56
  highest, right? But this is all.
• 1:11:01
  There's also going to be pressure now, right?
• 1:11:03
  They keep talking about, you know, Michelle Kang's investment
• 1:11:06
  there and things like that. It's kind of like, what can
• 1:11:08
  money buy you? Yeah, I was just saying back.
• 1:11:12
  To back runner up to like is have they have they gotten the
• 1:11:15
  missing piece? Have have they put the missing
• 1:11:17
  piece there to make this a a true championship?
• 1:11:20
  Agree. Agree.
• 1:11:21
  So those are the three that are probably going to be analysts
• 1:11:26
  favorites, most likely to win. I've got a couple dark horses
• 1:11:31
  and then we will move on to what to watch.
• 1:11:33
  All right. So my dark.
• 1:11:35
  Horses, Portland Thorns, Sofs back, y'all?
• 1:11:39
  Yeah, Sofs back Yeah, don't counter out.
• 1:11:42
  And they got a new coach. So last year they were working
• 1:11:45
  with like a couple interim. They had a firing in the middle
• 1:11:48
  of the season and then like a couple, I think they had two
• 1:11:50
  different interim head coaches. So like, that's just hard to
• 1:11:53
  play in, right? So new head coach, Sofs back.
• 1:11:57
  Let's see what they do Racing Louisville FC 2025 led by 2025
• 1:12:03
  Coach of the year Bev Yanez. You've got Emma Sears on that
• 1:12:06
  team. SAB D'mello.
• 1:12:08
  They had a really strong playoff run last year.
• 1:12:10
  I could see them building on that, especially behind the
• 1:12:13
  leadership of Yanez. OK, hear me out on this one.
• 1:12:18
  I think they finished like way bottom of the table last year.
• 1:12:22
  But the Chicago Red Stars, OK, they're making investment over
• 1:12:27
  there. We've highlighted this on the
• 1:12:28
  pod. They're building out a training
• 1:12:30
  facility for those women. You've got Alyssa Nair.
• 1:12:33
  Yep, veteran leadership and goal.
• 1:12:36
  Never, ever discount the value of veteran leadership and goal.
• 1:12:40
  You've got a huge they traded a Brazilian midfielder, Ludmila
• 1:12:46
  over to San Diego Wave, which actually brings a huge transfer
• 1:12:49
  fee to the club so they could go out shopping, right.
• 1:12:53
  And then you got Mel Swanson coming back.
• 1:12:55
  You've got Jamice Joseph who's starting to break onto the
• 1:12:58
  scene. So you might have some scoring
• 1:12:59
  options there. I'm just saying, I'm just saying
• 1:13:02
  it's possible. And then the Denver Summit, I
• 1:13:05
  had to put them in here. This is maybe my new it's my
• 1:13:08
  favorite new team for sure already.
• 1:13:10
  And I haven't even seen them play.
• 1:13:12
  I was just going to. Say based off if I was going to
• 1:13:15
  take one from each of these categories, Denver is my dark
• 1:13:20
  horse favorite on vibes alone on vibes they.
• 1:13:23
  Are on vibes? They are on vibes I think.
• 1:13:25
  Washington spirit just cuz they've been knocking on the
• 1:13:27
  door they also have. Really cool jerseys here.
• 1:13:31
  Cherry Blossom jersey. Absolutely.
• 1:13:33
  That's awesome. All right, all right.
• 1:13:36
  We hope you learned something about the NWSL.
• 1:13:41
  If you want to hear more, go deeper on any topic, let us
• 1:13:44
  know. We.
• 1:13:44
  Yeah, absolutely. But.
• 1:13:46
  We will be watching a lot of soccer in these next couple.
• 1:13:48
  Months, I think we're gonna change now to what to watch and
• 1:13:51
  actually stick right back into soccer.
• 1:13:53
  So don't leave yet. Season kicks off.
• 1:13:56
  All right, so starting off Friday night, 7:00 PM Central on
• 1:14:00
  Prime Video, we have Washington Spirit and Portland Thorns FC
• 1:14:04
  season opening game. That's a big.
• 1:14:07
  One and we have. Games the rest of the weekend,
• 1:14:10
  Saturday and Sunday. Which one are you thinking
• 1:14:14
  about? Well.
• 1:14:15
  Besides the one you just highlighted cuz self's back yeah
• 1:14:18
  if I haven't mentioned that I really am excited to see her
• 1:14:22
  back on the field, but I got I have circled down here right the
• 1:14:27
  Bay FC Denver summit yeah we just.
• 1:14:30
  Watch it, you just said like. Denver Summit on vibes alone.
• 1:14:33
  We got to see if the vibes, the marketing campaign.
• 1:14:36
  Yeah, that's. Exactly the success on the.
• 1:14:38
  Field. So.
• 1:14:40
  I'll be looking out for that one.
• 1:14:42
  We'll probably have this on all weekend.
• 1:14:45
  Moving on to PWHL, just two quick games here.
• 1:14:48
  Seattle Torrent at Minnesota Frost, Friday, March 17th at
• 1:14:51
  7:00 PM. They're back in mini.
• 1:14:53
  They're in 3rd. They're looking to kind of move
• 1:14:55
  themselves up and stay in the playoffs.
• 1:14:58
  Boston Fleet at Montreal Victoire Sunday, March 15th at
• 1:15:02
  noon Central Yeah, like we I think we outlined this game
• 1:15:07
  earlier in the in the podcast, so it's a huge game in the PWHL.
• 1:15:12
  We also outlined this earlier Selection Sunday for NCAA
• 1:15:15
  basketball 7:00 PM on Sunday and we will see the full 68 team
• 1:15:22
  bracket and we will start working on some sort of bracket.
• 1:15:25
  You have it ready by. Episode Sunday next week.
• 1:15:30
  NCAA hockey, I didn't want to go deep into any of the games here.
• 1:15:32
  It is regional semifinals and championships this week.
• 1:15:35
  Next week is the semifinals and then the championship.
• 1:15:39
  So we'll go more in depth next week and then FIBA World Cup
• 1:15:43
  qualifying. We have three games this week,
• 1:15:45
  Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. So Tuesday at 4:00 PM, Wednesday
• 1:15:52
  at 7:00 PM and Saturday at 4:00 PM.
• 1:15:54
  And all these are on TNTTBS, true TV.
• 1:15:58
  It seems like if you want to watch women's basketball, you
• 1:16:01
  need to get those one of those three stations, guys.
• 1:16:05
  And then yeah, Paralympic Games, like we said, Oliver Peacock.
• 1:16:09
  They end on Sunday, though. So I think the hockey medal game
• 1:16:14
  is like on Sunday, kind of like with the regular Olympics.
• 1:16:17
  And then just there's medal games, medal matches all week.
• 1:16:20
  I was looking. At the schedule earlier today
• 1:16:23
  and it's it's like any Olympics, like any time you turn it on,
• 1:16:27
  you could be watching the medal round.
• 1:16:28
  Yeah, So all right. We made it through no shortage
• 1:16:32
  of. Things to watch Yes, this
• 1:16:34
  weekend, as usual, losers and. Winners.
• 1:16:38
  Quickly, losers. Let's see, I have AI.
• 1:16:46
  Have AI, have AI, have a loser. OK, what's your?
• 1:16:48
  Loser. It's not.
• 1:16:49
  It's not a. Big loser, A championship
• 1:16:54
  unrivaled basketball game should not be able to end on a free
• 1:16:58
  throw. Figure that.
• 1:17:00
  Rule out and you're you're good, Yeah.
• 1:17:02
  IA 100% agree. That was, yeah.
• 1:17:06
  Not not a fun way to end that. Great.
• 1:17:09
  My my loser is I hate this. It feels like a cop out at this
• 1:17:16
  point, but we didn't we didn't go into detail.
• 1:17:19
  The WNBACBA stuff is was so we frankly didn't go into detail
• 1:17:24
  because it was so weird. The reporting that was coming
• 1:17:27
  out about it. And my loser is that we're at
• 1:17:30
  this point where there seems to be a little like she said, she
• 1:17:34
  said, like they're they're either manufacturing drama and
• 1:17:38
  trying to like sell that, which would very well be the case, or
• 1:17:43
  they are there is actually drama and there's a rift between the
• 1:17:46
  players. And like now, now I'm kind of
• 1:17:49
  like every. Doing every.
• 1:17:51
  Week, we're coming. Up with new conspiracies for the
• 1:17:53
  WBA now you just said that they've had this locked in for
• 1:17:56
  months and they're just manufacturing drama to get more
• 1:18:00
  viewers. No, no.
• 1:18:02
  That's not quite what I meant, but at the same time, I just it
• 1:18:06
  wish they could just figure it out, I think.
• 1:18:08
  I mean, I think the players have felt that way too, right?
• 1:18:11
  You feel like Caitlin. Clark said today she was like,
• 1:18:13
  they just need to get a room, handshake it out and let's go
• 1:18:15
  right figure. It out.
• 1:18:17
  So that might be my loser. Winners.
• 1:18:22
  The US women's national team, Yeah, they won.
• 1:18:25
  They won. They literally.
• 1:18:27
  Won. Yeah, I mean, I think.
• 1:18:29
  Soccer fans and. Everywhere should be excited,
• 1:18:33
  maybe trying to think if I have any others.
• 1:18:38
  I think what's cool is that we had this great momentum from
• 1:18:41
  going back to basketball. From the unrivalled perspective,
• 1:18:46
  you only had to wait a week to turn around and watch these.
• 1:18:48
  Women. Play again.
• 1:18:49
  So that'll be nice. Maybe it will tide us over.
• 1:18:53
  Has Pagebacker. 'S been home.
• 1:18:56
  No where does she. She's living in Miami.
• 1:18:58
  She's in Miami now. She's in.
• 1:18:59
  Puerto Rico, Yeah, she ain't. Coming.
• 1:19:02
  Yeah, yeah, she's. Coming.
• 1:19:03
  She's lost, so I know. Yeah.
• 1:19:05
  All right. I think that's it for today
• 1:19:08
  that. That is it, that's all we have,
• 1:19:11
  believe it or not. I hope you didn't want more.
• 1:19:12
  Because we got to go to bed. We got to go to bed.
• 1:19:15
  All right, hit us up on socialsrtg_podraisingthegamepod@gmail.com
• 1:19:22
  and now RTG pod.com we'll. Be back.
• 1:19:26
  Next week, hope to see you there.
• 1:19:28
  Alright, bye. Bye.