Latest / Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More / Episode 18 | PWHL Playoffs and Expansion, WNBA Season 30 Tips Off, Derby History, NWSL Schedule Debate

Transcript

Episode 18 | PWHL Playoffs and Expansion, WNBA Season 30 Tips Off, Derby History, NWSL Schedule Debate · Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

• 0:00
  I just want to say clock it because I said Ottawa needed to
• 0:05
  win a game in Boston if they wanted a chance of winning the
• 0:07
  series. And what did Ottawa do in Game
• 0:09
  2? They won it.
• 0:10
  They won a game in Boston. Hi, I'm Caitlin.
• 0:19
  Hi, I'm Alex. And this is Raising the Game, a
• 0:22
  women's sports podcast covering primetime performers, the
• 0:25
  business behind the athletes and leagues, and what the growth of
• 0:28
  women's sports means for the next generation of women's
• 0:31
  athletes. We're back for another week.
• 0:34
  We have actually a lot to talk about in this episode.
• 0:39
  Yeah, we have PWHL expansion. It's here, kind of.
• 0:45
  Kind of a little bit, kind of. We got some news.
• 0:47
  We have some news. Actually, by the time you listen
• 0:50
  to this episode, you probably you may know more than we did
• 0:54
  when you listen to this. For sure, but.
• 0:56
  We're going to talk through what we do know, Yes.
• 0:59
  We also have really interesting storyline around the NWSL that
• 1:05
  we're going to dive into around how their season calendar is
• 1:10
  constructed. So we'll get into that after we
• 1:13
  do a recap of the results from Match Week 6 for that season.
• 1:18
  And then I think we're talking WNBA regular season is upon us.
• 1:23
  Tips off on Friday. We've got a big marquee matchup
• 1:26
  that we'll highlight among many other games as the season gets
• 1:31
  rolling the 30th. 30th season. Of the West, so really excited
• 1:35
  about that. But before we get into it,
• 1:38
  obviously headlines and before we get into that.
• 1:42
  Favorite thing? I couldn't pick just one.
• 1:45
  OK, I have a couple. I can you want me to go?
• 1:47
  First. Yeah, you go first 'cause you
• 1:49
  might do one of mine. I know, I think we probably did
• 1:52
  this last week, but again, our eldest playing soccer, she had
• 1:58
  this really awesome goal that someone caught on camera, just
• 2:01
  kind of whizzed it past the goalies head.
• 2:03
  It was. They were head hunting.
• 2:05
  They were all over the place with.
• 2:07
  They were head hunting and. Everywhere in the net.
• 2:09
  But the other thing about it was like, we're so used to watching
• 2:12
  college and elite athletes and they score a goal and they like
• 2:16
  run around the pitch so excited. And these girls are, like,
• 2:20
  smiling but like, get back to the center and let's do what
• 2:24
  we're supposed to be doing next. I think it's because they score
• 2:26
  a lot of goals. Yeah, that's true.
• 2:27
  So I think they just like the the excitement wears off after a
• 2:31
  little while. I will I will commend the other
• 2:34
  team's goalies. Best move was to hang from the
• 2:38
  crossbar. Yes.
• 2:40
  And then jump down and try and make a save.
• 2:43
  It actually didn't work out. Very no, no it didn't.
• 2:46
  Well, that was really cute. That was not mine.
• 2:48
  So I'm glad that you went first and we get some different ones.
• 2:52
  I'll do quick bits and then we can.
• 2:54
  I won't do deep dive in these because we probably touch on
• 2:56
  some of them, but the Triple Espresso babies had their first
• 3:01
  meet cute this weekend and it was so adorable.
• 3:05
  My favorite video was so Triple espresso babies are Mallory
• 3:09
  Swanson of the Chicago Stars and Sophia Wilson of the Portland
• 3:14
  Thorns. 2/3 of the triple espresso from the 2024 Paris
• 3:19
  Olympics. They their babies.
• 3:22
  They had babies within two months.
• 3:24
  One or another, they got together for their game against
• 3:28
  one another against the two clubs.
• 3:30
  Mel Swanson's not back yet from post Pardon Protocol.
• 3:34
  But they were so cute and they were like doing the baby thing
• 3:41
  where they're kind of like, I don't really understand what's
• 3:43
  happening, but everybody's really excited about this, so
• 3:46
  yay, I guess. And then my personal favorite
• 3:49
  video was Alyssa Nair, who plays goalkeeper.
• 3:52
  For the Chicago. Stars holding both of them and
• 3:56
  her nickname is Uncle so it was just so cute.
• 3:58
  It was like Uncle. Love it.
• 4:00
  Uncle and the babies my other one, we'll talk about this in
• 4:04
  headlines, but I'm going to spoil it.
• 4:07
  Shari Devoe, the video of Shari Devoe realizing that Golden
• 4:12
  Tempo is going to win the Derby. And like the video made me cry
• 4:18
  today because like the outpouring of you, just like
• 4:20
  that emotional release of like realizing this dream she's had
• 4:25
  for so, so, so long. That was so cool.
• 4:30
  And that my third one, y'all us in the women's sports fandom
• 4:37
  have arrived because the phrase MNBA made an SNL skit over the
• 4:44
  weekend that was hilarious. And if you haven't seen it, you
• 4:49
  can go look up the Weekend Update segment and they had
• 4:55
  somebody come on and just make fun of they always.
• 5:01
  Like Klay Thompson, they're like, you know who he is 0.
• 5:03
  Yes, yes, because. He's a famous basketball player.
• 5:06
  His whole thing with Megan the stallion and stuff like that
• 5:09
  right now. So but that was funny because we
• 5:12
  do like to refer to it as the MNBA because why are why do they
• 5:17
  not get a letter? So here we are.
• 5:21
  We've arrived, we have, we've arrived at top headlines all.
• 5:24
  Right, let's do it. PWHL playoffs bring the drama
• 5:28
  with three seed Minnesota taking game one against top seeded
• 5:31
  Montreal and four seeded Ottawa battling for a win in Boston to
• 5:35
  even their series AT11 with second seeded Boston.
• 5:39
  This has not disappointed. So far the games.
• 5:42
  Have been so good. We're going to talk about them
• 5:45
  in a little bit. I Alex already mentioned, but
• 5:48
  the league released some plans for expansion.
• 5:51
  We're going to dig into that. Well, no teams or markets I
• 5:56
  should say have been officially announced.
• 5:58
  There's been like some dribs and drabs that there is press
• 6:02
  conference scheduled in Detroit on Wednesday.
• 6:06
  So potentially you may be listening to this or have just
• 6:09
  listened to us with the Ilitch Sports Group and the city of
• 6:15
  Detroit. And the theorizing is they're
• 6:17
  either announcing an expansion team or and potentially that
• 6:23
  they're going to host the incoming draft for this year.
• 6:27
  So we will definitely be watching for that. 100% in the
• 6:32
  NWSL, Portland rolls the wave drop two in a row and Boston
• 6:36
  gets their first ever win in a wild weekend of action to wrap
• 6:39
  up match Week 6. Honestly, wild is the right word
• 6:43
  for it. There were a couple of, like,
• 6:45
  big milestone moments. So the Washington Spirit beat
• 6:50
  Orlando four to two over the weekend.
• 6:52
  Sofia Cantore scored the fastest brace, which in soccer
• 6:55
  terminology is a 2. Two goals in 5 minutes and 27
• 7:00
  seconds. Keep in mind that in the soccer
• 7:03
  match, the clock does not stop. Yeah.
• 7:05
  So it's not 5 minutes and 27 seconds.
• 7:07
  It's literally 5 minutes and 27 seconds.
• 7:10
  That's fast for hockey, Yes, Yes.
• 7:13
  So she just set a record. And then also Barbara Banda of
• 7:16
  the Orlando Pride scored her second brace of the week.
• 7:20
  So she had scored two goals in their Wednesday mid week week
• 7:24
  match. And she is front runner for
• 7:27
  Golden Boot by far. So at this point in the season,
• 7:30
  I should say, and then we'll talk a little bit about it,
• 7:34
  about this game. But Olivia Moultrie of the
• 7:37
  Portland Thorns, She played her 100th cap against the Chicago
• 7:41
  Stars, got a goal and an assist. She's the only the second player
• 7:45
  ever to do that in the century milestone game, The only other
• 7:49
  person who's done it. Sync.
• 7:51
  Christine Sinclair, Canadian international, All time ever.
• 7:56
  Leading goal scorer, male, female.
• 7:59
  Doesn't matter who it is. So Olivia Moultrie is in great
• 8:03
  company. Yeah, and like I, I showed you a
• 8:05
  video tonight. I think Olivia's got that dog in
• 8:07
  her. So she got that.
• 8:07
  She could do it. She could do it.
• 8:09
  She got that swag. WNBA tips off its 30th season on
• 8:13
  Friday with a showdown between #1 picks and Rookies of the Year
• 8:16
  as Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever take on Paige Becker's and
• 8:20
  the Dallas Wings. I also like have to point out
• 8:24
  that not only does it have the, you know, last two if you don't
• 8:29
  count this year's draft, but they have Arizona Fudd on the
• 8:32
  wing. So this year's number one pick
• 8:34
  and the year before Caitlin Clark in 2023, Aaliyah Boston is
• 8:37
  on the Fever. So you actually have the last
• 8:40
  four number one picks in one game.
• 8:44
  Looking forward to that game. I also just have to give a quick
• 8:47
  shout out. This could have been a favorite
• 8:50
  thing of mine too. But Tosh Cloud got signed by the
• 8:53
  Chicago Sky and like breaking news today, so excited to see
• 8:57
  her sign to a team, bring some veteran leadership to what could
• 9:02
  potentially be a really interesting locker room.
• 9:04
  We've talked a little bit about that, but so happy to see her
• 9:07
  land on a team, send a one year about half, $1,000,000 deal with
• 9:11
  the with this guy. It was really fun watching her
• 9:12
  playing Unrivaled so. It'll be good there.
• 9:14
  She's fun. Jerry Devoe becomes the first
• 9:18
  female trainer behind a Kentucky Derby winning horse.
• 9:21
  So this is the first The Kentucky Derby's been going on
• 9:24
  for 152 years. First female trainer to win.
• 9:28
  There have been 18 other female trainers in Derby history.
• 9:34
  This is Sherry Devoe's first time qualifying horse and she
• 9:38
  won. And she did it.
• 9:39
  Yeah, and what's funny, I was reading a little bit about this
• 9:43
  and Golden Tempo is the horse's name.
• 9:46
  They they qualified last like they were the last one in the
• 9:50
  door and so the horses it starts in like the least advantageous
• 9:56
  position, which was clear if you saw the race.
• 9:59
  Like a dead last, right? Yes, and came all the way back
• 10:02
  like through the outside. So like she did something right
• 10:05
  with that horse and again, just like shout out to her.
• 10:09
  I loved how she talked about like that representation, you
• 10:13
  know, showing everyone that like when you set your mind to
• 10:16
  something you can accomplish, right?
• 10:19
  Brighton Hove Albion of the WSL announces plans to build first
• 10:23
  purpose built women's stadium, the 1st in England.
• 10:26
  So, following in the footsteps of Kansas City.
• 10:29
  Currents. Here in the States, this is
• 10:32
  interesting. This may play a little bit into
• 10:35
  our conversation later about the schedule, but for the most part,
• 10:39
  the WSL teams essentially right now have the option of playing
• 10:44
  in these very small venues, like 6 to 8000, like, you know, lower
• 10:51
  tier men's league venues. Or like Chelsea and Arsenal, the
• 10:57
  women's teams, they've now announced they're going to play
• 10:59
  all home games in their men's stadiums.
• 11:02
  Like Chelsea will play in Stamford Bridge, which is
• 11:06
  really, really cool. But again, I think there's
• 11:08
  something to like that purpose built for women.
• 11:12
  We heard last week about the Columbus expansion team and how
• 11:16
  they're actually going to be building a women's specific or
• 11:21
  dedicated locker room as a part of Scott's Miracle Grove Field
• 11:25
  in that complex there. Just like nice to have your own
• 11:28
  space, not be like secondary tenant, tertiary tenant or
• 11:31
  whatever. In other European League news,
• 11:35
  OL Leone roars back against Arsenal to claim a spot in the
• 11:40
  UW FC final. Will face Barcelona end of May.
• 11:44
  Yeah, this is just fun. Couple national, US women's
• 11:49
  national team players on Leonese.
• 11:51
  Lindsay Heaps. She might close out her career
• 11:54
  over there with a little bit of a bang.
• 11:56
  That'd be fun. And Lily Johannes.
• 11:58
  So we'll be keeping our eyes on that, yeah.
• 12:02
  NWSL announces it will not change its playing schedule,
• 12:05
  electing to maintain the Spring to Fall calendar until the 2030
• 12:08
  season. I'll hold on all of my
• 12:10
  commentary for just a little later.
• 12:12
  We'll talk all about that. In women's golf, the British
• 12:15
  Open announced the prize pool will increase to $10 million.
• 12:19
  So I learned that this is the British Open, sixth straight
• 12:23
  year of increasing that prize pool, which is pretty impressive
• 12:27
  and sort of shows their commitment right to the the
• 12:31
  players and the quality of play that they're seeing.
• 12:34
  They Join Now two other major tournaments of the US Open and I
• 12:39
  can't think of the other one off the top of my head to have 8
• 12:43
  figure prize pools. So it's so 3 tournaments on the
• 12:46
  women's side that factor in the 8 figure mark.
• 12:48
  Very nice. In 2027, FIFA Women's
• 12:52
  Championship Cup will be played in Miami, FL Yeah, this.
• 12:56
  Will be cool. It will kind of come.
• 13:00
  Let's see when will the timing of this be?
• 13:03
  It'll be in the early part of the year, so pre World Cup,
• 13:05
  almost like a little bit of a primer before everybody heads to
• 13:10
  Brazil, right? And so the US or Miami area will
• 13:14
  play host. They don't know the venues yet,
• 13:16
  but it's 6 leagues right? Gotham represented the NWSL last
• 13:21
  year. the Champions of those leagues.
• 13:23
  Miami will host the semifinals. 3rd place game in championship.
• 13:28
  Perfect. Sportico publishes 3rd Annual
• 13:31
  WNBA Team Valuation Report Golden State Valkyries topped
• 13:34
  the list at 850 million, taking a record $78,000,000 in revenue
• 13:40
  in the franchise's first season last year.
• 13:43
  Yeah. So just point of emphasis, the
• 13:45
  Valkyries, we're an expansion team last year.
• 13:48
  They are valued far and away the highest in the league.
• 13:53
  The next closest is the New York Liberty at 600 million.
• 13:56
  So whatever there is in the water over there and the golden
• 14:00
  the the Bay Area that we all should get on board with that
• 14:04
  silicon. Chips over there, probably.
• 14:08
  And then on average, we'll talk, I'll talk a little bit about
• 14:10
  this, but team valuations overall increased by an average
• 14:14
  of 59%. We're going to talk about why.
• 14:17
  Yeah, in a little bit. Awesome.
• 14:19
  New Atlanta based NWSL club breaks ground on a new training
• 14:23
  facility just outside Atlanta in Marietta, GA.
• 14:26
  Fun fact, for our audience, this is very close to where I go.
• 14:32
  Residents protest the plans for a training facility that will
• 14:35
  demolish a community park in Columbus, OH, where another
• 14:38
  expansion NWSL club is set to start play in 2028.
• 14:42
  Yeah. Funny, I haven't heard drama
• 14:44
  coming out of Marietta, but I haven't looked that.
• 14:47
  Yeah, we talked a little bit about this last week.
• 14:51
  I actually have a Co worker who was in the office last week from
• 14:55
  the Columbus area and she was like, people are upset.
• 14:59
  Yeah. I I haven't looked into enough,
• 15:02
  but I think they they got to do some work over there, yeah.
• 15:04
  Yeah, I would agree. Nelly Corda wins again in
• 15:08
  Riviera Maya Open. Yeah, so if you recognize the
• 15:13
  name, it's because she just won the tournament, like right
• 15:16
  before this, right? The Chevron Classic.
• 15:18
  So she made history on 2 accounts.
• 15:21
  She became the youngest American to reach 18 career LPGA
• 15:24
  victories in 46 years. This was last done by Nancy
• 15:28
  Lopez in 1980. And then she became one of two
• 15:32
  players since 1980 to start a season with six consecutive Top
• 15:36
  2 finishes. So every tournament she's been
• 15:39
  in this year, she's finished one or two.
• 15:42
  The only other player to do that?
• 15:44
  Annika Sorenstam. Not bad company to be in for for
• 15:49
  for golf legends in general. So good on, good on Korda.
• 15:54
  She's now 4 points short of Hall of Fame induction status.
• 15:59
  I read this and I was like what is this?
• 16:01
  For I need to learn more. About this, but apparently you
• 16:03
  accumulate points via wins. That would be.
• 16:06
  Nice to be in a sport and be like, oh I just need to do this
• 16:08
  more. Things than I get to be in the
• 16:09
  Hall of Fame. It's not subjective.
• 16:11
  It's completely in my control. Awesome.
• 16:14
  Yeah, 30th ranked Hailey Baptiste came back from six
• 16:18
  match points to beat world number one Ariana Sabalinka in
• 16:21
  the Madrid Open quarterfinals. Yeah.
• 16:24
  She she made some history with this performance as well.
• 16:27
  I think I don't remember the exact, but I think Serena
• 16:31
  Williams was the last player to do American player to to do this
• 16:35
  to defeat the world number one or come back from six match
• 16:38
  points or all of the above. Baptiste ended up not advancing
• 16:43
  past the next round, the semi final.
• 16:46
  Marta Kashuk, Ukrainian international, ended up beating
• 16:53
  Mila Andrejeva for the Madrid Open Championship.
• 16:58
  So but still really, really impressive.
• 17:01
  It was kind of all over my socials over the weekend, fun to
• 17:05
  see and, you know, very much an underdog.
• 17:09
  Yeah, for sure. And I got every name right that
• 17:12
  time I had. I definitely had to reference my
• 17:16
  my crazy like pronunciation notes over here.
• 17:19
  Alright. Let's let's dig into this.
• 17:23
  We're going to talk PWHL playoffs and then we're going to
• 17:25
  dig into what we know about the expansion coming up here.
• 17:29
  Yeah. So, so far we've played three
• 17:33
  total playoff games. There's been two played in the
• 17:35
  Boston Ottawa series and one played in the Minnesota Montreal
• 17:38
  series. By the time you listen to this,
• 17:40
  Minnesota and Montreal will have played a second.
• 17:42
  They played. Tuesday night, yes.
• 17:45
  So we won't, we don't know that right now, but you will.
• 17:49
  Boston and Ottawa, I just want to say clock it because I said
• 17:55
  Ottawa needed to win a game in Boston if they wanted a chance
• 17:58
  of winning the series. And what did Ottawa do in Game
• 18:00
  2? They won.
• 18:01
  It they won. A game in Boston.
• 18:03
  Very nice. So they leave Boston with the
• 18:07
  series tied 11. They are headed to Canadian Tire
• 18:12
  center not TD place. So a 17,000 person venue.
• 18:16
  Where y'all? We just saw the video, they
• 18:19
  repainted. We recalled it they.
• 18:22
  Repainted the logo under the ice.
• 18:25
  They took out the the Ottawa Senators logo cause the men got
• 18:29
  eliminated from the NHL playoffs and they put in the charge logo
• 18:34
  and I think they are going to be hyped to play there.
• 18:40
  They they played a late regular season game there and it sold
• 18:44
  out. Like I just think that the
• 18:46
  Canadians are the auto ones. I don't know if that's what you
• 18:50
  say are like ready to go And I think Boston is in a little bit
• 18:56
  of trouble now. I can't count Boston out.
• 18:58
  They have the best goaltender in the PWHL and Aaron Frankel.
• 19:03
  They have Megyn Kelly who's an absolute beast.
• 19:06
  They've got Jesse Gardner, they've got Haley win.
• 19:09
  They've got tons and tons of talent up and down that roster.
• 19:13
  I think this series comes down to can you stay disciplined?
• 19:18
  Can you stay locked in, stick to your game plan in a hostile
• 19:22
  environment both ways, right? Because if Ottawa drops a game
• 19:26
  at home, they have to go back to Boston.
• 19:28
  So I. Think I think this game goes
• 19:31
  probably to 5 I I. Agree.
• 19:34
  I agree. I just.
• 19:35
  I don't see it going any other way.
• 19:36
  Well, and. We talked about that.
• 19:37
  We kind of anticipated like Ottawa was going to scrap and
• 19:41
  like if if I'm Montreal, right, like we thought, I don't know,
• 19:46
  maybe it could have been an easier series.
• 19:48
  I think the PWHL generally speaking, like it's tough games
• 19:51
  no matter who you're playing, but we'll see how that goes on
• 19:56
  the other side of the bracket. We.
• 20:00
  Just got to watch the Frost win game one.
• 20:03
  Yeah, it was. And it was such a an insane.
• 20:06
  Game every. Time Montreal scored, Minnesota
• 20:09
  was like, I can do that too, Yeah.
• 20:11
  I mean, we were kind of. I mean, Minnesota sports fans,
• 20:13
  we're kind of standing there just yelling, you picked this
• 20:16
  Montreal, you picked this every time we scored and it was so
• 20:19
  much fun. I just hope.
• 20:20
  That we we end up winning the series.
• 20:23
  I do. Big shout out to Laura Stacey.
• 20:26
  She scored the 1st ever PWHL playoff hat trick.
• 20:30
  She was like unstoppable. She's been unstoppable.
• 20:35
  I feel like every time I had watched the Victoire, like late
• 20:37
  in the season, especially with MPP Marie Felipoulan out at the,
• 20:42
  you know, with injury, like she really, she's the assistant
• 20:45
  assistant captain, associate captain, whatever they call that
• 20:48
  in hockey. And she like really stepped up.
• 20:50
  She leaves that team for sure. Like sets the tone there's.
• 20:56
  They don't like each other though.
• 20:57
  No, not. At all.
• 20:59
  And I actually really expect that there is going to be now
• 21:03
  Montreal's down. They got a kind of come back and
• 21:07
  and like set the tone. To be honest.
• 21:12
  I was going to go on one train, I thought no and go on another
• 21:14
  one. The frost didn't look great.
• 21:17
  I remember we were watching and we were like, if they somehow
• 21:22
  come out of this with a win, they did not play their best
• 21:24
  hockey. They were off.
• 21:27
  They just like it just wasn't very good.
• 21:32
  You also didn't see names like Taylor, Heisey, Kelly Panic,
• 21:37
  like really factoring into the offense in a big way.
• 21:40
  Kelly had a great game defensively.
• 21:43
  She had some really essential defensive plays, which is what
• 21:46
  she's more was more known for prior to the season.
• 21:49
  But discipline. Wasn't there?
• 21:53
  Yeah, I. Left with some some questions
• 21:55
  and I'm hopeful that coming out in Game 2 it'd be really nice if
• 21:59
  they could come home with A2 game lead and you get 2 chances
• 22:03
  to win it at home but we shall see yeah we'll see how it.
• 22:07
  Goes. So let's see.
• 22:14
  Yeah, we have it. In our in our what to watch.
• 22:17
  So we'll we'll talk about that, I think.
• 22:20
  One other thing that I will say about the Ottawa, Ottawa thing,
• 22:24
  I sent this to Alex earlier, but somebody's already made T-shirts
• 22:28
  for the charge. And this is a very like, I think
• 22:32
  more niche Canadian thing than anything.
• 22:34
  So I'm probably like, maybe you won't get it, but it's like it
• 22:38
  just says it's in charge colors on a black T-shirt.
• 22:41
  It just says don't worry, we'll take it from here boys.
• 22:45
  And I didn't do a Canadian accent, but I could.
• 22:47
  It would be bad. Any of our Canadian fans, I
• 22:50
  think. One, I think another thing to
• 22:52
  say about the schedule is that they have decided because I
• 22:55
  think of the the wild in the post.
• 22:58
  I think it's I think it's the wild and Montreal cause
• 23:01
  Montreal, they didn't set that game until Montreal beat Tampa
• 23:06
  Bay last night. So so.
• 23:07
  What they did is they put Game 3 in Minnesota on Thursday night,
• 23:12
  Game 4 on Friday night, a little bit later, which is.
• 23:16
  Insane. That's an.
• 23:16
  Insane turn around for a playoff game that is.
• 23:18
  Crazy for hockey, that's not OK. And of yeah, of course, the
• 23:23
  men's teams get priority. Now, what's interesting is the I
• 23:29
  don't think on the women's side that they're playing, they don't
• 23:32
  play in the same venue as the Canadians do, but I still think
• 23:36
  for scheduling purposes or whatever, they, they squeezed
• 23:41
  that in there for sure. The Wilder part of the Yeah, not
• 23:45
  the problem. We love you, Yeah.
• 23:47
  We want. You to win too, although you got
• 23:49
  the ice wiped with your faces last night.
• 23:51
  It's just really nice. When they hadn't been in the
• 23:53
  playoffs so we didn't have to worry about any of them so.
• 23:56
  Shush. All right.
• 23:59
  Should we talk this expansion? Yes.
• 24:02
  OK, so here's what happened. We have been telling all of you
• 24:08
  for weeks and weeks. Maybe and.
• 24:11
  Weeks that they are going to announce these expansion teams.
• 24:15
  They have not done that, no. But what they have done is A5
• 24:20
  page document was sent over to the Players Association on
• 24:24
  Sunday and the five page document outlines what the
• 24:29
  expansion roster building process will look like.
• 24:33
  And essentially the TLDR of this section is there will be no
• 24:36
  expansion draft. So last year they did an
• 24:38
  expansion draft for Seattle and Vancouver.
• 24:42
  They're foregoing that this year.
• 24:43
  What I hear, there's two primary drivers behind that one.
• 24:48
  We're in the third year of the PWHL.
• 24:50
  There are a lot of players who are going to be going to free
• 24:53
  agency. So they're just their contracts
• 24:55
  are up, right? So you have a lot of people have
• 24:57
  to re sign anyways. 2 they really wanted to and, and I, I
• 25:03
  think this what I'm going to review here and what we're going
• 25:06
  to talk about lives up to this. In theory, they really wanted to
• 25:11
  protect player choice as much as possible.
• 25:14
  So you can imagine with an expansion draft, essentially
• 25:17
  teams get to protect three players in the PWHL and then
• 25:21
  you're just like all up for grabs and the player doesn't get
• 25:24
  any say in whether or not they have to like pick their life up
• 25:28
  and move right. And that's part of being an
• 25:31
  athlete. Like, we get that, but it's
• 25:33
  really important. We've seen this with the NWSL
• 25:36
  has rules around this. Now the WNBA has some different
• 25:39
  guardrails around this as well. Like we're talking about
• 25:42
  people's, yeah. And I would, I think the we'll
• 25:45
  get into it. I think the interesting part is
• 25:46
  not just like what I understand, not just choice of whether to go
• 25:50
  or not, but where to go and for how much.
• 25:53
  It's not. Just the single year choice of
• 25:55
  I'm staying here or I'm not staying here, Yeah.
• 25:57
  That's a great point. So let's get into it.
• 25:59
  So in this document, it is clear that this approach is intended
• 26:07
  for a four team expansion. So that would take the league
• 26:11
  from 6 to 10 teams. Wait 8 to 12/8.
• 26:14
  I can't do math 8 to 12 teams, so I'm sorry.
• 26:20
  It's like, wait. And it was also clear that this,
• 26:27
  the number of expansion teams is still very much up in the air
• 26:31
  and that this whole process that we're about to outline to you
• 26:34
  could change. If they can't get all four teams
• 26:37
  done, it's like cut. It in half or I don't know I.
• 26:39
  Don't know, it feels like it should hold up, like you just
• 26:42
  change the numbers maybe. So there are 5 phases.
• 26:46
  There are 5 phases. You might want a pen and paper.
• 26:49
  If you have a favorite team, you kind of can start to like Bucket
• 26:52
  in some names and stuff. So Phase 1 is just player
• 26:56
  protection. This is pretty standard in the
• 26:59
  PWHL. Just like in the last expansion
• 27:01
  draft, you get to protect three players.
• 27:04
  So I was thinking about this for the Frost.
• 27:06
  I'm like, who would the Frost protect?
• 27:08
  They'd protect Taylor Heisey, they'd probably protect Kelly
• 27:11
  Panic, and they'd probably protect Kendall Coyne, Schofield
• 27:14
  or no offense, KCS. You are a little bit further
• 27:19
  along in your career. Yeah, Lee's deckline is also a
• 27:23
  little bit more veteran. It's sort of like, do you have
• 27:25
  AD person Jensy Rose, maybe new player, but like solid
• 27:29
  contributor Grayson Winkle? Yeah, I'm not sure.
• 27:32
  Yet there's so many. There's a lot of good.
• 27:34
  Yeah, there's too many good players.
• 27:36
  Grayson Winkle maybe? Yeah.
• 27:38
  OK, so anyways, three players per team, that's Phase 1.
• 27:42
  So you have 8 teams who will all protect three players.
• 27:46
  Each team right now, just to ground us has a 23 woman roster.
• 27:51
  So they're protecting 3 of the 23/20/23.
• 27:54
  So there's 20 that are available, right?
• 27:57
  OK, phase two incoming teams. So new teams submit a what's
• 28:03
  called an exclusive negotiation target list of up to 20 players.
• 28:09
  So they're going to list 20 players that are not those
• 28:13
  protected players that they have to submit to the league to say,
• 28:19
  hey, we are intending to seriously negotiate with these
• 28:23
  players. Here's our list.
• 28:28
  And then the league turns around and they notify the players on
• 28:31
  this exclusive negotiating target list.
• 28:35
  Then those players can be offered one of two contracts.
• 28:40
  OK, you're following me. I'm.
• 28:43
  Trying to follow along here. I'm very much trying OK.
• 28:47
  OK, so I'm going to come. I'll come back to something in a
• 28:52
  second. The two contract types are one
• 28:56
  expansion franchise offer. Each expansion team gets to do
• 29:00
  one of these. There's only one player they can
• 29:03
  offer this to and this contract, this player, if they are offered
• 29:09
  it, are required to sign unless they are offered it from
• 29:15
  multiple teams, then they get to pick which team they go to.
• 29:19
  So essentially what they're trying to do is they're trying
• 29:22
  to say the top talent remaining after the protected players.
• 29:28
  Get protected we. Need those players to go to
• 29:33
  these expansion teams is how I read that right and so we're
• 29:37
  we're we're now this is where it's kind of feels counter to
• 29:40
  the player choice OK, but minimum minimum contract value
• 29:44
  is 100K. If you could go back back, back
• 29:49
  in the raising the game and you will recall that the average
• 29:53
  salary in the PWHL right now is in the 50s, fifties, OK, and
• 29:58
  that there are very, very few players making 60 years.
• 30:01
  So, so they do get a good financial deal.
• 30:05
  This is your. This is like your franchise
• 30:07
  players, correct? And they can sign that contract
• 30:10
  for one to four years and it is fully guaranteed.
• 30:15
  Now the other wrinkle here that's really interesting is
• 30:18
  that the PWHL has never offered four year contracts.
• 30:22
  So the PWHL they expect to like still be like, they expect this
• 30:30
  to keep going, right? They also, I think, want to lock
• 30:35
  down these players for a longer time period at these new teams
• 30:39
  because that's how you build a fan base, right?
• 30:40
  Exactly is that can they come back with a higher offer if
• 30:44
  they're not accepted or is it just like a one time you submit
• 30:47
  the sheet and that's I? Didn't they didn't go to that
• 30:50
  level of detail. OK, OK.
• 30:51
  That'll be. Interesting to see they.
• 30:53
  Do get a 20K signing bonus. So essentially like you're given
• 30:57
  your offer, you kind of have to sign it and you get $20,000 like
• 31:00
  on the spot. So that's kind of nice.
• 31:04
  The other offer you can get in this Phase 2 is what's known as
• 31:08
  a foundational player offer FPO. These players that are offered
• 31:13
  or made this offer are not required to sign.
• 31:17
  But if you get selected in this or you get made this offer, you
• 31:22
  then do have to sign by the end of phase three.
• 31:26
  And it'll make more sense once I get to explaining phase three
• 31:29
  like. Can you sign it at by phase
• 31:33
  three or no No. No, it's a separate thing that's
• 31:35
  if you decline this offer, then you have to say it'll make sense
• 31:38
  in a sense. So these FPO offers are a
• 31:42
  minimum of two years. So the, if you recall, the
• 31:46
  expansion franchise offer is 1 to 4.
• 31:49
  This is a minimum of two. And you start out at 80K, which
• 31:53
  right now is like one of the higher ends of the salary band.
• 31:57
  And then you have a progressive increase over those two years
• 32:02
  for your for your salary. OK, so in this round, expansion
• 32:10
  teams will sign no more than five players in this phase.
• 32:15
  So essentially, if you if you reverse, and I explain this a
• 32:19
  little bit in a different way, again, expansion teams can only
• 32:23
  extend one EFO offer, right? That means they can extend up to
• 32:31
  4 foundational player offers. They do not have to, but they
• 32:35
  can. OK, Existing teams will lose no
• 32:40
  more than three players in this round.
• 32:44
  OK, so you protected your three. You have 20 remaining.
• 32:50
  By the end of phase two, you may still have 17 players that are
• 32:55
  unaccounted for on your existing team, right?
• 32:59
  And the expansion team by this time has five players.
• 33:03
  OK, phase three, you with me. I'm still.
• 33:07
  With you. Existing teams.
• 33:11
  So now we're talking about the teams.
• 33:12
  The eight teams that we all know right now are allowed to protect
• 33:17
  or sign three more players. So now they get to like kind of
• 33:22
  start to build their roster so players on expiring contracts
• 33:29
  can sign with any team in this phase.
• 33:32
  So they don't have to re sign with their current team.
• 33:35
  Just if their contract is expiring, they basically are do
• 33:38
  the free kind of free agency thing right?
• 33:44
  Then expansion teams can sign up to three more players on
• 33:51
  expiring contracts. So the existing teams get to go
• 33:53
  first, they get to kind of sign their three, and expansion teams
• 33:57
  get to do a three. OK.
• 34:01
  At this point, the players who rejected the FP OS the
• 34:05
  foundational player offers in phase two must sign.
• 34:09
  So they have to be a part of the three for the existing or the
• 34:12
  three for the expansion. But they will receive no less
• 34:17
  than 90% of the FPO offer, that's what.
• 34:19
  I was wondering because it's like you get offered that decent
• 34:22
  money, but it's not anywhere you want to go.
• 34:25
  At least you're still going to get decent money here.
• 34:28
  You're not like, you're not like, oh man, do I take this or
• 34:31
  not like so they're still. Rewarding you for being a player
• 34:34
  that teams want to have, but it might not be in a market you
• 34:38
  want to be in, right? OK.
• 34:41
  All right. We're so close, guys.
• 34:43
  Phase four expansion teams now sign players needed to get to 10
• 34:50
  roster spots after the first 3 phases.
• 34:53
  So at a maximum right now, they could have signed 8.
• 34:57
  Yep. So they would need to sign two
• 34:58
  more. At a minimum they could have 5,
• 35:03
  so they could need to sign five. OK, OK.
• 35:07
  They may not sign players in this phase now from their
• 35:13
  original exclusive negotiation target list.
• 35:16
  OK, so now you're into like they're forcing.
• 35:19
  Them into the rest of the pool, correct?
• 35:21
  Yes. So now they can't go sign like
• 35:24
  all the top talent that's still remaining, although a lot of
• 35:26
  those players will have signed by then.
• 35:29
  So then by the end of phase four, existing teams will have
• 35:32
  lost no more than four players. OK.
• 35:36
  And you know that the expansion teams are now up to 10 players.
• 35:40
  Yep. OK, now we get to phase five.
• 35:44
  Pending free agents can re sign with current teams or wait for
• 35:49
  the league wide signing window to open on June 19th.
• 35:53
  So then you just it's just free agency basically.
• 35:56
  The entry draft is slated to be on June 17th.
• 36:00
  So that also gives time for all this roster construction or kind
• 36:06
  of your core roster construction to happen that can help inform
• 36:10
  your draft picks. And then you move into free
• 36:13
  agency, right? And it's just as a reminder,
• 36:17
  Vancouver has the top pick. They won a golden draft plan,
• 36:20
  the remainder of the draft order the league determines after the
• 36:24
  playoffs. And Caroline Harvey obviously is
• 36:27
  expected to go #1 to Vancouver. But you have a very stacked,
• 36:31
  very stacked draft class. Yeah.
• 36:35
  I so I think when I was reading through this earlier it all it
• 36:38
  mostly makes sense. It's a lot to I don't.
• 36:41
  Envy any GM right now for any of these teams that has to figure
• 36:45
  this out. I think it's sound in theory.
• 36:49
  It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
• 36:53
  I think specifically on the money front, like how are you
• 36:56
  staying within the right salary cap with all these signings both
• 37:00
  from current teams and the expansion teams?
• 37:05
  How does your draft strategy play into this?
• 37:08
  I just think it's a lot to handle.
• 37:11
  I do think that it may, if it works out like I think it will
• 37:14
  work out. I think back to when Vegas came
• 37:17
  into the NHL, they kind of got stacked right away and they they
• 37:23
  went straight to the first season Cup appearance, right?
• 37:27
  And so I hopefully this is going to allow teams to a expansion
• 37:32
  teams to thrive, but not necessarily be overly
• 37:35
  competitive, which still isn't a bad thing if they are really
• 37:38
  competitive, but also not completely decimate the teams
• 37:42
  that we all know are good right now.
• 37:44
  Yeah. It it feels like again, on
• 37:47
  paper, in theory, like they kind of struck the right balance.
• 37:52
  It sounds really complicated. Like I give you that you're kind
• 37:55
  of like, why not just do an expansion draft?
• 37:58
  But I do think that this gives some optionality right now too.
• 38:03
  Like they released this, well, no one knows where the where
• 38:07
  they would end up playing, right?
• 38:08
  Like we've thrown a few, you know, guesses out there.
• 38:11
  Obviously, we think Detroit is, you know, pretty high on the on
• 38:15
  the list. But, you know, when people are
• 38:18
  thinking about like where they want to be located and stuff
• 38:22
  like that. And then I do think your point
• 38:24
  around the salary cap is really interesting because as we've
• 38:27
  discussed here, the PWHL is as the lowest salaries of any
• 38:32
  professional women's league here, excuse me, in the States.
• 38:35
  And I don't it's not coming to me at the top of my head when
• 38:41
  their CBA expires. But going back to our
• 38:48
  conversation last week, we talked about the challenge of
• 38:53
  finding homes for these expansion teams.
• 38:55
  And it's one of the challenges being like the NHL teams wanting
• 38:58
  to own and the PWHL not being prepared or not being at a point
• 39:02
  where they feel like that league can be stewarded the way that
• 39:07
  they want it to be by disparate owners.
• 39:10
  And so I, I think it will be interesting to watch how they
• 39:15
  navigate that because they are the sole owners of like, how do
• 39:19
  we manage? And, and I, I talked in a
• 39:21
  different episode about the little interview panel that Stan
• 39:25
  Caston and Billie Jean King did. And Stan was talking about how
• 39:29
  like one of the first priorities as we look to expand, expand the
• 39:34
  season and get a broadcast deal is to pay the players.
• 39:37
  And this to me sort of starts to speak to that.
• 39:42
  There are players who have some 6 figure salaries.
• 39:46
  When the league started, they had a couple players they knew
• 39:49
  they needed to sign. They brought them in at higher
• 39:51
  salaries. Some of the players that went to
• 39:54
  Seattle and Vancouver last year in that expansion draft got some
• 39:58
  bigger contracts. So they do make it work.
• 40:01
  But the at the end of the day, I think you were kind of alluding
• 40:05
  to this, the product on the ice. Is what matters the most.
• 40:10
  And so if we can't construct teams that are competitive, and
• 40:14
  frankly, the last two expansion teams struggled with this, I'm
• 40:18
  hopeful that this approach, to your point, like helps those
• 40:21
  teams be a little bit more competitive off the bat.
• 40:24
  And they're not like stacking with some top tier talent 'cause
• 40:27
  they need to do the market draw and then like kind of the rest
• 40:30
  of the team isn't really, yeah. That great.
• 40:33
  And the other. I think the last two things I
• 40:35
  want to say on this is that someone on their inner comments
• 40:38
  had a good point about the PWHL taking notes.
• 40:42
  Or maybe. But either way the WNBA should
• 40:45
  be taking notes from the PWHL and NWSL.
• 40:47
  Or maybe that these leagues are taking notes from what not to do
• 40:51
  over in the WNBA. But I think they're I think
• 40:57
  they're doing it right. I think they're trying to do
• 40:59
  right by as many things as they can.
• 41:01
  I also think that this five phase thing, sports is all about
• 41:06
  entertainment and it's a it's a little bit extra entertainment
• 41:08
  for us to dissect this to watch the whole thing play out.
• 41:12
  Feels like it might be a little bit of a circus, but in like a
• 41:14
  good way. So like it's the it's it's.
• 41:17
  Definitely going to hold like maybe more hardcore fans
• 41:21
  interests. Like once the season is over,
• 41:23
  you're going to still have a couple months of like where are
• 41:27
  these players landing? And like how is this going to
• 41:29
  shake out? And what do I think my team's
• 41:31
  going to be like? It's like with.
• 41:32
  The NFL, it's a, it's a year round sport now, right?
• 41:34
  Yeah. Exactly, exactly make it like
• 41:36
  that. OK, so that's PWHL, maybe next
• 41:40
  week we. Might have teams.
• 41:43
  Hold on, I have. I have my list.
• 41:45
  We're going to quick do a prediction.
• 41:46
  I've got Detroit, Denver, Vegas in DC, Vegas, Vegas, could swap
• 41:53
  out with Edmonton. That's my only thought.
• 41:55
  OK. OK, that's pretty This is
• 41:57
  Monday. Night Monday night prediction.
• 42:00
  OK. I have Detroit.
• 42:03
  I also think, I do think Vegas is has some potential even
• 42:07
  though we've literally not talked about it.
• 42:09
  I'm going to go Denver and then I am going to go, is Hamilton
• 42:19
  the one that's in the West, in Canada and Edmonton is?
• 42:24
  I think it's both of those 'cause I think I don't, I need
• 42:27
  to learn, I need to brush up on my Canadian geography.
• 42:31
  But yes, I think that they will add at least one Canadian team.
• 42:34
  But I do think it's going to be, I don't think it's going to be a
• 42:37
  balance. I think they have to grow the US
• 42:39
  market to get the broadcast deal.
• 42:42
  I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it went four teams to the US
• 42:46
  too. Yeah, I can see.
• 42:47
  It. Because I think this broadcast
• 42:49
  deal is really what they need. So we'll say that.
• 42:53
  I said Hamilton. Hamilton.
• 42:57
  If it's Canada, yeah. If it's the USI, go DC to.
• 43:02
  Yeah, OK, OK. Let's.
• 43:04
  Move it on here. NWSL all.
• 43:08
  Right. Match Week 6, I got to be
• 43:10
  honest, I got to make a confession.
• 43:12
  I got really confused because I was like match Week 6, but
• 43:15
  they've played more than six games and I was like, oh, wait,
• 43:18
  they play more than one game. Yeah.
• 43:21
  So top moments from the week. Alex already alluded to these in
• 43:24
  headlines, but the Boston legacy?
• 43:27
  Who we sort? Of mocked on the show last week
• 43:31
  won their first game. It was in dramatic fashion over
• 43:35
  the other expansion team, our Denver if losing.
• 43:38
  Teams want any mockings, they can pay us in sponsorships and
• 43:41
  you'll mock you to a better record.
• 43:43
  It's like. The we were talking about like
• 43:45
  hexes that you can buy on. Etsy.
• 43:47
  Yeah, exactly. We'll start doing that.
• 43:49
  We can do that. That's how we're going to make
• 43:50
  our money, guys. We're going.
• 43:51
  To sell, we'll set up a we'll set up a Venmo at RTG POD.
• 43:56
  Sofia Cantore mentioned her fastest brace in NWSL history, 5
• 44:01
  minutes, 27 seconds. Barbara Banda, double brace.
• 44:05
  She is well ahead for that Golden Boot.
• 44:08
  And we already talked about Olivia Moultrie.
• 44:10
  Just an incredible performance from a young player who's really
• 44:13
  becoming a star on that Portland dorms team.
• 44:16
  So we have a lot of games here. I'm not going to go into the
• 44:20
  detail of all of these. I think I'm going to kind of
• 44:23
  call out a couple things that I noticed in the games we sort of
• 44:27
  took in over the weekend. So one, a few weeks back, there
• 44:32
  was some concern around some of the projected top contenders.
• 44:36
  You had Kansas City, you had Washington Spirit, you had
• 44:38
  Gotham FC, right, the defending champions and then two playoff
• 44:42
  teams, the SHIELD winners. And the current Spirit and
• 44:47
  Gotham seem to have turned the ship around since the
• 44:50
  international break. Kansas City, I'm not quite sure
• 44:54
  yet, but they did win. They did win on the weekend.
• 44:56
  They had lost in the midweek. Had some things about, so we
• 44:59
  did. You're welcome.
• 45:00
  So you're welcome. They managed to beat North
• 45:03
  Carolina Courage in a narrow 21V.
• 45:06
  They had two first half goals. Courage kept trying to mount the
• 45:09
  attack or just like couldn't get the second one to stick.
• 45:13
  So we'll be watching that. What I really want to point to
• 45:18
  though, with the other two teams, I think you're starting
• 45:21
  to see some of those like US women's national team senior
• 45:25
  side players show up, right? So Jaden Shaw scored over the
• 45:29
  weekend. They have a fantastic rookie
• 45:31
  over there. And Jordan Dudley, she got an
• 45:33
  assist on her goal. They've been pairing well on the
• 45:37
  left side of the field. And then Trinity Rodman, I also
• 45:42
  get points for the Curse because I was like, somebody needs to
• 45:45
  talk to her. And now, ever since I said that
• 45:48
  she has, she's scored a goal in every single game she's played
• 45:52
  since she's been back. She's had assists.
• 45:55
  I think she's got three goals and three assists.
• 45:57
  Since coming back and then. She had the 2 assists in the
• 45:59
  international games so we're just taking credit for
• 46:02
  everything. Obviously it's from our couch
• 46:04
  here so that is fun to see. The other thing I want to call
• 46:07
  out is last week we talked a lot about the San Diego Wave.
• 46:12
  The San Diego Wave lost two games in a row, didn't score a
• 46:15
  single goal. They now are going to be without
• 46:18
  their head coach who got sent off on a red.
• 46:20
  So now he's he's suspended from their next match and they are
• 46:25
  playing their Interstate rival in Angel City FC in LA.
• 46:30
  We are the Madden like. We're like the Madden curse.
• 46:33
  If you're doing bad, we we will help you.
• 46:35
  If you are doing well, we will hurt.
• 46:38
  You So everybody should be scared of what's coming out of
• 46:41
  my mouth next, Portland. I.
• 46:46
  Just bought 2 hats. Oh no.
• 46:51
  They are the top of the table by 4 points, not.
• 46:54
  Anymore. Well, they managed to take care
• 46:57
  of business against the Chicago Stars, which is a good thing
• 47:00
  'cause if they had lost that game, that would have been very
• 47:03
  much 'cause for concern, the other, the other team, I would
• 47:08
  call out too. Just before I pass it to you, I
• 47:10
  want to hear your thoughts is the Utah Royals.
• 47:13
  They were not great last year and they have kind of stuck it
• 47:17
  out. I think they have results in
• 47:21
  their last five games. I think they've won four of
• 47:23
  their last five. They've got 3 shutouts in a row
• 47:26
  like they are clicking right now.
• 47:30
  They played the most interestingly refereed game I
• 47:35
  have seen in a long time. Against Angel City.
• 47:39
  And it wasn't the referee's fault, to be clear.
• 47:41
  It was just like there was weird VAR.
• 47:44
  There was a lot of time spent. I think I.
• 47:46
  Think she was at some weird angles looking at things like
• 47:50
  and then. You had some some personalities,
• 47:53
  particularly Ari Borgios on Angel City FC.
• 47:57
  Somebody got sent off with a red card for smacking somebody in
• 48:00
  the back she seemed to like be throwing.
• 48:04
  Herself around in the bar videos like it?
• 48:07
  Yeah, it it. Was a very strange and it they
• 48:10
  had 11 minutes of stoppage time at one point which didn't.
• 48:15
  I feel like you're doing y'all. We went.
• 48:16
  To We went to bar and then about 30 seconds of gameplay went by
• 48:21
  and we went to bar again and like.
• 48:23
  Long reviews, not quick they were.
• 48:25
  Not quick as Tim. Tripp would say yeah, like if
• 48:29
  you can't figure it out. It's not a not a penalty, Yeah,
• 48:32
  just. Gotta leave it.
• 48:34
  What were your what's your thing?
• 48:36
  What? What did you notice?
• 48:38
  I I. Mean honestly, I wanted to go
• 48:39
  back to what I was talking to you about before we started the
• 48:42
  podcast tonight going back to Olivia Moultrie.
• 48:46
  I as the I've been watching the national team for a while now,
• 48:52
  but I haven't really, I guess I haven't really paid too much
• 48:54
  attention. And so I mean, just her
• 48:59
  performance this this weekend in her hundredth game was really
• 49:02
  cool. I showed Caitlin a video
• 49:04
  tonight. She was on Abby Wambach's
• 49:06
  podcast. Welcome to the party, yeah?
• 49:10
  Julie Foudy, and they asked her about how she started when she
• 49:15
  was 15 in that system. Like, how do you play?
• 49:18
  How do you have that confidence being 15 year old, years old,
• 49:22
  playing with 25 years old? Probably not.
• 49:25
  You're probably not the best, probably not the biggest,
• 49:27
  whatever. And she is just like, I think
• 49:31
  I'm just one of those people who just has the IT factor or
• 49:34
  whatever she said, right? And it's like, Oh my God, This
• 49:37
  is why she is a great player. She just she had she does have
• 49:41
  it. Like if you think you have it,
• 49:43
  you probably haven't. So I'm just really impressed
• 49:44
  with her all around. I I'm going to, I want to
• 49:51
  comment on that from the lens of like a parent, right, or a coach
• 49:56
  too. But I think like you don't
• 49:59
  develop that sense of self assuredness without like
• 50:05
  somebody really being in your corner.
• 50:08
  And I think it's like a, a lesson too of like I have, I
• 50:12
  don't know, Olivia Moultrie. I have no idea what her family
• 50:15
  situation is like, But like, it screams to me of like somebody
• 50:20
  who was allowed to make mistakes, right?
• 50:24
  Who knew that no matter how she performed on the field, that
• 50:28
  that was not going to have any kind of detriment on how she was
• 50:32
  loved and supported as a person, right?
• 50:36
  But she was able to forge her own kind of like she referred to
• 50:40
  it in the little clip you showed me of like type a like hunger
• 50:45
  for being the best, right? And so there's, there's like a
• 50:50
  blend of the supportiveness with the like that hunger and and,
• 50:57
  and probably being shown like what hard work looks like,
• 51:00
  right? Like how you, if you really want
• 51:03
  something, you have to go get it and, and put in the time.
• 51:07
  So she either either her parents are fantastic or she has some
• 51:11
  kind of mentor, mentors, multiple coaches or whatever who
• 51:16
  helped to like forge that in her.
• 51:19
  And frankly too, she's, she's a product of like this era of that
• 51:24
  starting really, really young if you want it.
• 51:27
  And you know, kudos to her for like the passion and sticking
• 51:30
  with it. Cause when you're getting into
• 51:33
  professional level systems at 15 a lot, that's a lot, right?
• 51:38
  Like you're, you're kind of like maturing into adulthood around a
• 51:44
  bunch of adults, not around peers necessarily.
• 51:48
  I. Also, I think to add on to it
• 51:50
  all, I think knowing that that is likely, whatever background
• 51:54
  it is, is probably similar to what you said with.
• 51:57
  Maybe we'll look into it, but I think with Emma Hayes at the
• 52:01
  helm, she is going to skyrocket to the top.
• 52:05
  Like, I think she will be very, very good for us, yeah.
• 52:08
  Yeah, she's just such a smart player too.
• 52:11
  We talked, we've dissected a couple of her goals before, but
• 52:14
  just like the spacing, the angles, like it's like so it
• 52:18
  soccer nerd for a second, but like it's these little things
• 52:23
  that distinguish like the excellent players from the
• 52:26
  really good players. And like you're seeing that even
• 52:30
  across the board in the NWSL, right?
• 52:33
  You've got the national team players, you've got, you know,
• 52:36
  fits and spurts of them on all the teams, unless you're Gotham
• 52:38
  and half your rosters national team.
• 52:41
  But like they, they produce results because they have that
• 52:46
  little, right? And so she's, she will, she will
• 52:49
  continue to separate, I think. All right.
• 52:52
  Should we? Do we want to talk about the
• 52:54
  schedule flip? Let's do it man all.
• 52:58
  Right, so. Another one I'm settling in.
• 53:02
  Why did this even become a thing suddenly?
• 53:06
  OK. So mid-april, there was a report
• 53:11
  that came out, I think in The Athletic, so the New York Times
• 53:16
  sports, you know, desk or whatever, saying that the Board
• 53:20
  of Governors was due to meet at the end of April and that they
• 53:23
  were going to be voting on this. And I think everybody was like,
• 53:26
  hold the phone. What?
• 53:29
  And it kind of like, it's not like a complete shock.
• 53:33
  So the MLS, the men's professional league here just
• 53:38
  did this. They voted to do it.
• 53:40
  They are going to be doing it. I will probably allude to like
• 53:43
  how that's going to work as over the course of this discussion
• 53:47
  and this has been a subject of conversation within the NWSL on
• 53:53
  and off, but never to the extent of super seriousness.
• 53:59
  This is a kind of decision that like you make with the players
• 54:02
  association and then you like everyone has to be involved,
• 54:08
  right? So this was kind of like what?
• 54:12
  And then we get to last week and initially I think it was
• 54:16
  Tuesday, it was reported that they had pulled the vote.
• 54:20
  They were not going to be voting on this all of a sudden.
• 54:23
  And then they confirmed on Wednesday that they are in fact
• 54:27
  going to maintain their current schedule, which is considered a
• 54:30
  spring to fall season schedule until at least at the earliest,
• 54:36
  I should say latest, whatever, until 2030, yeah.
• 54:40
  Right. So their season schedule right
• 54:42
  now, all of their kind of venue planning and things like that,
• 54:46
  the calendar is set through this 2029 season.
• 54:50
  And so this basically Jessica Berman, the commissioner was
• 54:53
  like, we'll continue to discuss this, but like we're not going
• 54:56
  to be making any changes. So we know the outcome, but I
• 55:03
  think what's really interesting is to explore like, why would
• 55:07
  they, why would they do this? And especially for some of our
• 55:11
  listeners who may not like really understand the nuance to
• 55:15
  this, it is it does bring up some really interesting
• 55:18
  components to think about as we have discussed, like the growth
• 55:22
  of the global game and how important that is when we talk
• 55:26
  about player protection and player safety.
• 55:28
  And how important that is when we talk about broadcast deals,
• 55:32
  when we talk about viewership and attendance.
• 55:34
  Like all of the business side that we have discussed comes
• 55:38
  into play when you talk about when the season gets played.
• 55:41
  And that's true for all sports, right?
• 55:43
  So I'm gonna kind of walk us through like, what are the,
• 55:49
  what's some of the rationale that's come out for the switch
• 55:52
  to what would be called a fall to spring schedule, although I'm
• 55:56
  going to call bullshit on that call the winter.
• 55:58
  Schedule well. It's really late summer to late
• 56:02
  spring because they have to navigate winter, which we'll
• 56:06
  talk about. And then we'll talk about, you
• 56:09
  know, they maintain the status quo.
• 56:10
  What's that going to mean for us?
• 56:12
  So fall to spring, the primary reason that this would be done
• 56:17
  is to align better to international club schedules and
• 56:22
  international tournament windows.
• 56:25
  So right now in the US is the only league that plays on this
• 56:30
  spring to fall schedule. That can become disruptive when
• 56:35
  you have things like the World Cup or the Olympics, which are
• 56:37
  always in the summer. So then you take a break or you
• 56:40
  decide to play through it and then the quality of play goes
• 56:43
  down because you lose your top players.
• 56:46
  It also is disruptive as we continue to see expansion into
• 56:51
  these international club competitions.
• 56:53
  So we just talked a little bit ago in headlines about the FIFA
• 56:57
  Champions Cup, right? So that's taking the top six top
• 57:01
  teams from the six clubs around the world, having them play
• 57:04
  well. Gotham, I remember early this
• 57:07
  year in the first iteration of this sort of complained about
• 57:10
  how, like, they were supposed to be in their offseason and they
• 57:15
  essentially won the Cup here in November, I think is when the
• 57:22
  final was. And then they had a break or
• 57:25
  maybe not. But like then they had to turn
• 57:27
  around and like train and go to do this tournament in London in
• 57:31
  January and then come back and then like there's international
• 57:35
  duty and then like you're in the season.
• 57:36
  And so these players essentially didn't get an offseason right
• 57:40
  and they're not in form, whereas like some of these other clubs,
• 57:45
  they're literally mid season. Right.
• 57:48
  So there's some argument that alignment with those windows
• 57:55
  would be beneficial for the players.
• 57:59
  If you lined up with some of the other leagues, you would take
• 58:02
  advantage of transfer windows being aligned, things like that.
• 58:07
  The Lindsay Heaps, Denver until Midsummer.
• 58:09
  Yep. The other argument that has been
• 58:14
  made here is like is it a friendlier broadcast window?
• 58:17
  So right now the NWSL playoffs and championship compete
• 58:23
  directly with NFL and NCAA Football.
• 58:29
  Football is and will forever be the biggest sport here in
• 58:33
  America. So like, is that wise?
• 58:37
  Well, if you I'm gonna get a get to my counterpoint right away,
• 58:41
  but like if you moved it, you're now competing with the NBA
• 58:43
  Finals, the NHL final or Stanley Cup playoffs.
• 58:47
  Excuse me, the PWHL, the West starting, the West starting.
• 58:51
  But like that's I think they're more worried about like
• 58:53
  tournament. So to me, there's no good time
• 58:57
  necessarily for you to like have your playoffs.
• 59:00
  I'm gonna come back to that in just a second.
• 59:04
  So those are the main, those are literally the main reasons why
• 59:12
  I'm sure you've learned, you've figured out by now that we live
• 59:16
  in Minnesota, if it isn't completely obvious.
• 59:20
  And as Minnesota sports fans, we are very attuned to the weather.
• 59:27
  Our football team has an indoor stadium because the weather here
• 59:30
  can be nuts. We don't currently have a
• 59:34
  professional women's soccer team.
• 59:36
  It makes us very sad, yes. We have a.
• 59:38
  Professional men's soccer team and I have no idea how they are
• 59:42
  planning to play in the MLS in this new schedule.
• 59:46
  Now, one of the ways that they are navigating that is they take
• 59:49
  a break in the middle of the season.
• 59:52
  So essentially they play like I said, the MLS is kind of going
• 59:57
  to align to this like late summer into December.
• 1:00:02
  Yep. And then they break for like.
• 1:00:05
  Four to six weeks and like in there you might have some like
• 1:00:08
  tournament play or things going on, but the season just like
• 1:00:12
  pauses and then they come back in February.
• 1:00:16
  Which and then. They play February to May for
• 1:00:19
  those. Of you who don't live in
• 1:00:20
  Minnesota, February is generally still winter.
• 1:00:23
  The. Coldest part of winter in
• 1:00:26
  Minnesota. So imagine if you had a team
• 1:00:29
  here. I mean, even for the MLS team,
• 1:00:32
  it's going to be in Yeah, I. Mean I've been to a season
• 1:00:35
  opener for the Loons on March mid March and we were like
• 1:00:42
  bundled to the nines. It was snowing.
• 1:00:45
  It was cold. I slid down an exit ramp on my
• 1:00:49
  way home because it was so icy on the road.
• 1:00:50
  The other. Thing on top of the cold weather
• 1:00:53
  for the NWSL stadiums or wherever they play if you're in
• 1:00:59
  cold weather is you have to heat the field and if you don't have
• 1:01:03
  that built in already it's not going to be cheap to get that
• 1:01:07
  installed. No, no.
• 1:01:10
  And then there, so there's the the heating of the fields,
• 1:01:15
  right? And this comes into player
• 1:01:16
  safety. So a big reason why the US
• 1:01:21
  women's national team when they re upped their CBA, they made it
• 1:01:26
  so that they can only play on grass fields, is because turf is
• 1:01:29
  actually shown to be like increase the prevalence of ACL
• 1:01:34
  tears. Well, a frozen grass field turns
• 1:01:37
  into essentially A turf. It's worse actually because
• 1:01:41
  there's no give. And so that causes problems.
• 1:01:46
  The other thing that could happen if they were, and I think
• 1:01:49
  the MLS will do this, is that the cold weather markets will
• 1:01:54
  have to play. So like Minnesota, for example,
• 1:01:57
  will probably have to play a stretch of games, like almost
• 1:02:00
  all their games in February once the MLS flips will get played
• 1:02:04
  away. So the cold weather markets end
• 1:02:07
  up at a disadvantage because they're going to have to play a
• 1:02:09
  longer stretch of games away from home in order to
• 1:02:13
  accommodate for the weather. All in all, the weather would be
• 1:02:20
  a huge problem here in the States.
• 1:02:22
  We, I think, talked about this in the last episode, but like
• 1:02:25
  you do not have the wide variability in weather that we
• 1:02:31
  have here. Now, I can also take the
• 1:02:34
  argument that you end up with extreme heat and things like
• 1:02:37
  that in the summer. But it it just it feels like
• 1:02:42
  that feels like you can still play with like managing water
• 1:02:46
  breaks, playing in the cold. You are not in playing in too
• 1:02:51
  hot too. But like, yeah, it just it's it
• 1:02:55
  feels like a bigger barrier to me.
• 1:02:59
  OK, so just checking my notes here.
• 1:03:05
  I go ahead as I say. We talk about two it's it's much
• 1:03:09
  more any of these, any of the women's games are really a more
• 1:03:12
  family friendly event. And you're not?
• 1:03:14
  Going to bring your 6 year old or 7 year old to a 22 degrees
• 1:03:20
  above 0 game or yeah, whatever. Like, it's just, it's not what
• 1:03:26
  you're going to do and. I and I don't I don't think I
• 1:03:31
  don't even think the adults will do it.
• 1:03:32
  No, I and so I think what will be interesting, I was going to I
• 1:03:36
  you took it in the direction I was thinking it was like, what
• 1:03:38
  are the fans think about this? And right now the sentiment is
• 1:03:42
  do not move season. This fan says I want to watch
• 1:03:47
  soccer in summer. Yeah.
• 1:03:49
  I and I think I was, that's kind of what I was going to say
• 1:03:51
  before is like, I think here in the States we're more used to it
• 1:03:56
  being played in the hotter weather.
• 1:03:58
  I mean like are. High school sports aligned to
• 1:04:02
  that type of thing 'cause it happened to.
• 1:04:04
  Club, I mean the majority of club like before club got became
• 1:04:08
  a full time job. Like I played soccer in spring
• 1:04:12
  through fall. Yeah, that was.
• 1:04:13
  And then winter sports, basketball.
• 1:04:15
  Or winter, yeah. So I just think that it's, it's
• 1:04:20
  a mistake. I think that especially where
• 1:04:23
  the league is at right now with their attendance, with the
• 1:04:30
  growth, with this just feels, it feels like a would be a really
• 1:04:36
  stupid time to change, to be honest.
• 1:04:39
  And really what you're doing is you're accommodating things that
• 1:04:43
  we already have accommodation for, like we already know how to
• 1:04:47
  navigate the international competition.
• 1:04:49
  We've this league is not new. It's been around for 13 years.
• 1:04:52
  Like we've played plenty of Olympics and World Cups in that
• 1:04:55
  time. Is it a bummer?
• 1:04:57
  Sure. I would rather there be like a
• 1:05:00
  two week or three-week break in the middle of that season or
• 1:05:05
  potentially what you do is you like you sort of play some games
• 1:05:09
  in there, but not like all the games or something like that or
• 1:05:12
  you do the I don't know what it is that end up yourself, the
• 1:05:15
  little like cup challenge during that with the players who are
• 1:05:18
  still here. But like I just, I don't know
• 1:05:23
  that I don't know that you're going to maintain the momentum.
• 1:05:28
  Yeah. I think they have right now.
• 1:05:30
  I think they are infrastructure wise, investment wise, fan wise,
• 1:05:35
  I think they're 10 years out from being able to actually
• 1:05:37
  truly do something like this effectively.
• 1:05:40
  Now that's. Interesting because we've talked
• 1:05:43
  about long duration timeline before too.
• 1:05:45
  So next year you have the Women's World Cup in Brazil, you
• 1:05:49
  have the LA Olympics in 2028, right?
• 1:05:52
  The women's national team will likely they haven't qualified
• 1:05:55
  for the World Cup yet. Not going to jinx that.
• 1:05:57
  Yeah, we're not saying. Anything about that?
• 1:06:00
  They will play in both of those. And then as we've discussed
• 1:06:04
  before on the pod, the US is has bid to host the 2031 World Cup.
• 1:06:10
  The only realm of reality where I could see this change making
• 1:06:14
  sense from a business perspective is to have it line
• 1:06:18
  up with the end of the 2031 World Cup.
• 1:06:21
  If the US were to host. You get to see all of these
• 1:06:24
  international players here and then you turn around a couple
• 1:06:29
  months later and you're starting club play.
• 1:06:34
  I still find myself resistant in my body to this.
• 1:06:38
  What I do think is beneficial is we have time to watch what
• 1:06:41
  happens with the MLS. The.
• 1:06:44
  Other thing that I really want to point out when it comes to
• 1:06:48
  comparing the two leagues, MLS and NWSL, is we really
• 1:06:55
  shouldn't. And the reason why I say that is
• 1:06:59
  the MLS is not even in the top five.
• 1:07:03
  I'm going to say it in men's professional club soccer in the
• 1:07:09
  world, they had an incentive to go align to the rest of the
• 1:07:14
  world because the rest of the world is so big and so ingrained
• 1:07:18
  that there was they had to. Right and.
• 1:07:22
  That makes sense for. Them, yes.
• 1:07:26
  The NWSL women's soccer here in the United States has literally
• 1:07:32
  paved the way for women's soccer globally.
• 1:07:36
  And so part of me is like, as this grows, is it an opportunity
• 1:07:41
  for an American League to influence the rest?
• 1:07:44
  Of the world. To have them flip their
• 1:07:47
  schedules so that they are now using space and broadcast time
• 1:07:52
  and things like that, that is not monopolized by those huge
• 1:07:56
  leagues. EP LS not.
• 1:07:58
  Playing middle of the summer, right?
• 1:08:00
  And so like, I, I see it as like, go talk with those
• 1:08:05
  counterparts over there and if we really want to see women's
• 1:08:10
  sports be successful and like, tell me if I'm wrong, like maybe
• 1:08:13
  I'm missing something. But like, I just feel like if
• 1:08:16
  you took the WSL, we just talked about how, like, Chelsea's going
• 1:08:20
  to, you know, be sharing Stamford Bridge where there's
• 1:08:22
  still secondary tenant, right. But like, if you flip that
• 1:08:26
  schedule, maybe now they become primary during their season.
• 1:08:29
  Yeah, exactly. And so you if the game's going
• 1:08:32
  to continue to grow, it's a lever that maybe they want to
• 1:08:36
  look at. Yeah, I think so.
• 1:08:38
  OK. All right, that was fun.
• 1:08:42
  Should we move it on to the WNB as 30th season the.
• 1:08:49
  Goat. There's a lot of commercials
• 1:08:51
  about with goats. Not a goat, that's AW so.
• 1:08:54
  If you see a goat, that's why Cheryl Swoops is in them, and
• 1:08:58
  she is definitely, yeah. Absolutely.
• 1:09:01
  We will at some point do like some kind of like History of the
• 1:09:05
  West episode. Oh, that goes my pen.
• 1:09:08
  It's OK. I don't think I need it.
• 1:09:10
  I would think so, but we're going to start you off today,
• 1:09:14
  just like as you head into this 30th season, what do you need to
• 1:09:18
  know? So the WNBA right now is
• 1:09:22
  comprised of 15 teams. There are 7 in the Eastern
• 1:09:25
  Conference and eight in the Western Conference.
• 1:09:28
  They will play 44 games each or 330 total games, which is a
• 1:09:33
  record for the league. The Eastern Conference, like I
• 1:09:37
  said, seven teams. This is comprised of the Atlanta
• 1:09:41
  Dream, the Chicago Sky. I'm like, how did they sneak in
• 1:09:44
  there? The Connecticut Sun sad last.
• 1:09:48
  Season. Indiana fever, New York,
• 1:09:51
  Liberty, Washington Spirit and the Washington.
• 1:09:54
  Mystics, I'm sorry, not in WSL anymore, but soccer, you guys.
• 1:09:59
  Thank you. The Washington Mystics and the
• 1:10:03
  newly minted expansion team Toronto Tempo Welcome Canada to
• 1:10:08
  the West. In the Western Conference, we
• 1:10:10
  have 8 teams. We have the Dallas Wings, the
• 1:10:12
  Minnesota Lynx, Las Vegas Aces, Phoenix Mercury, Los Angeles
• 1:10:16
  Sparks, the Golden State Valkyries who were the expansion
• 1:10:19
  team last year, Seattle Storm and the newly minted Portland
• 1:10:25
  Fire. Yes.
• 1:10:26
  Not Thorns. I I was.
• 1:10:28
  Close. You're going there.
• 1:10:29
  You're almost there. You were.
• 1:10:31
  Like watching me really closely. So when it comes to schedule
• 1:10:36
  perspective, we tip things off on Friday.
• 1:10:40
  Talk a little bit about that here in a minute.
• 1:10:43
  But coming up really quickly in the season, starting in June,
• 1:10:47
  they have what's called the Commissioners Cup.
• 1:10:49
  So for about two weeks the teams will play games essentially
• 1:10:52
  within conference. So they each play each other one
• 1:10:55
  time. Whoever has the best record
• 1:10:57
  coming out of there goes to the championship and then East plays
• 1:11:01
  West. They only play each other.
• 1:11:04
  Like I said, once we went to the Commissioner Cup championship
• 1:11:08
  game last year, it was between the Lynx and the Indian Fever.
• 1:11:12
  The Lynx unfortunately lost that game.
• 1:11:16
  But what's really interesting is these games do not count towards
• 1:11:19
  the regular season. So they're like bonus games that
• 1:11:22
  you get. Yeah, free games.
• 1:11:23
  Well, not free. But free games?
• 1:11:25
  Yeah, you can't go for free. Free to enjoy.
• 1:11:30
  OK, so they've got that. Then we have the All Star game,
• 1:11:33
  July 25th. This is going to be held in
• 1:11:35
  Chicago at United Center. This year we have the yes, All
• 1:11:41
  Star game. Then sorry, I got tripped up
• 1:11:44
  because I'm like, Then it's the FIBA World Cup.
• 1:11:47
  It's like FIFA, there's too many crossovers.
• 1:11:51
  Today. So this year they have the
• 1:11:55
  International Basketball World Cup.
• 1:11:57
  It's going to be held in Germany.
• 1:11:59
  It's from September 4th to September 13th.
• 1:12:02
  We kind of knew about this. the US has qualified.
• 1:12:05
  We talked about their their pool play, things like that.
• 1:12:09
  What I didn't know is that. They.
• 1:12:13
  Come back from this. So a ton of international
• 1:12:16
  players and and frankly the number of international players
• 1:12:18
  in the West has increased significantly this year, last
• 1:12:22
  couple years, but this year in particular, they come back, they
• 1:12:25
  have one more week of regular season.
• 1:12:27
  Like one or two games? Like what?
• 1:12:29
  Is that playoffs you are hoping? So like what coaches are looking
• 1:12:35
  at is like, can we lock up our spot before that break?
• 1:12:38
  Yes, we don't. Have to send like exactly.
• 1:12:40
  Yeah, well, the players will still go play, but then you can
• 1:12:43
  come back and you can kind of rest those players going into
• 1:12:46
  the playoffs. So that is a wrinkle.
• 1:12:49
  And then like I said, playoffs begin in late September.
• 1:12:51
  Top eight teams qualify regardless of conference.
• 1:12:55
  So if you were thinking how on earth does this work because one
• 1:12:59
  conference has eight teams and one conference has seven, it
• 1:13:02
  doesn't actually matter for the playoffs, which is kind of
• 1:13:06
  weird, but also cool. I don't know.
• 1:13:09
  I think as they continue to expand with the teams that they
• 1:13:13
  have slated, I imagine that this is going to balance.
• 1:13:16
  They'll be at 18 teams by 20 292028 and they could go 9:00
• 1:13:23
  and 9:00 right? I I.
• 1:13:24
  Kind of like it this way though 'cause I think you get the best
• 1:13:26
  teams. It's true.
• 1:13:27
  It's true. All right, So quick primer,
• 1:13:31
  right. We and we've talked here a lot
• 1:13:33
  about different players and things like that.
• 1:13:36
  Alex and I each have sort of two areas that we are really looking
• 1:13:40
  forward to seeing play out and you want to go first.
• 1:13:47
  Yeah, I can go first. Let me put mine out of here.
• 1:13:51
  Yeah. So I think on my side, I think
• 1:13:56
  the 1st 5 to 10 games or so for all of these teams is going to
• 1:14:01
  be really interesting. Not not only was the CBA this
• 1:14:06
  like giant breakthrough for the league, but it also created
• 1:14:13
  just, it scattered so many players around because players
• 1:14:17
  couldn't hold on. Like the links are a huge
• 1:14:18
  example. They couldn't hold on to all of
• 1:14:20
  that talent. And so players went to a lot of
• 1:14:23
  different places. We saw entire line UPS get
• 1:14:26
  changed. I think that we really don't
• 1:14:30
  know what team is actually going to be good until we're 5 or 10
• 1:14:35
  games in. And so I just think it's going
• 1:14:38
  to be really interesting to see how the standings kind of shake
• 1:14:41
  out by the 10th game or so. Yeah, and I think I, I think
• 1:14:45
  that's a great point. It also will be really
• 1:14:48
  interesting to see like 10 games in like now you're kind of
• 1:14:54
  coming up to that weird Commissioner Cup window.
• 1:14:58
  And I think like, I don't know, with like the amount of shake up
• 1:15:03
  that you saw in some teams, the Chicago Sky is another one.
• 1:15:06
  You're bringing in a ton of players that were not with that.
• 1:15:09
  Team and. Like how long does it take to
• 1:15:15
  gel? Like how long does it take for
• 1:15:18
  you to really start to click with the team you have?
• 1:15:22
  Yep, I just, I think it's going to be fascinating and.
• 1:15:27
  Building. So building off of that, the the
• 1:15:29
  three kind of threads that I pulled out of this was Angel
• 1:15:32
  Reese going to Atlanta. Yeah.
• 1:15:34
  How does you know? I think Alicia Gray, Ryan.
• 1:15:37
  Howard, how does? How does that affect?
• 1:15:39
  I think they were 30 born to they had a really good record
• 1:15:44
  last year. I believe they were contenders.
• 1:15:46
  And so are they championship contenders this year?
• 1:15:49
  Like are they going to get there?
• 1:15:51
  And then on the flip side, Chicago without Angel Reese, but
• 1:15:54
  with a lot of new veterans, I'm going to pull up my list here.
• 1:16:00
  Skyler, Diggins, Stevens, Dejanay, Tosh now is there.
• 1:16:05
  So like how does that? How does that?
• 1:16:07
  Yeah, Ricky Jackson. How does that kind of shake out
• 1:16:10
  there? I think I read a stat that this
• 1:16:13
  is their third essential rebuild in three years.
• 1:16:16
  And so they're saying it's going to be different this time.
• 1:16:18
  But we all know how when people say that it's never really
• 1:16:22
  different. So kind of see how that goes.
• 1:16:25
  And I know obviously we talk about Minnesota a lot, but what
• 1:16:29
  it what are those first? She's slated to come back in
• 1:16:32
  June. So what are those first 10 or so
• 1:16:33
  games look like? Can they can they win without
• 1:16:37
  her? Is Olivia Miles going to prove
• 1:16:40
  her draft spot in those first 10 games?
• 1:16:42
  It's going to take longer than that.
• 1:16:44
  I I kind of think if they can stay over 500 in those first 10
• 1:16:48
  to 15 games without fee and then she comes back, I think we could
• 1:16:53
  still be contenders. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:55
  Yeah, I think it a lot is going to happen to kind of settle.
• 1:17:00
  I think coming two out of pre season, like it's hard, it's so
• 1:17:06
  hard to tell 'cause you're just not.
• 1:17:09
  And you're. Not like playing the full
• 1:17:10
  minutes like you're trying to kind of coaches are assessing
• 1:17:13
  their players they've brought in to then, you know, either keep
• 1:17:16
  them or wave them. You know, that's why we got to
• 1:17:21
  play the game. We got to play the season.
• 1:17:22
  So I think that's a great, you know, kind of especially for
• 1:17:29
  maybe people who are early or in their W fandom career, just like
• 1:17:37
  TuneIn, pay attention, kind of see how things are shaking out
• 1:17:40
  in those first 10 or so games, like Alex said.
• 1:17:44
  And then like once we get to that Commissioner Cup time
• 1:17:47
  frame, just like check in at that point, right?
• 1:17:50
  And let's see where we're at. So my, my what to watch is sort
• 1:17:57
  of it's along a similar vein. So I keep thinking about how
• 1:18:04
  this season for the West feels incredibly monumental.
• 1:18:11
  We had the CBA we had, we have planned expansion the next three
• 1:18:16
  seasons. Like we know those teams are
• 1:18:19
  coming in. We have this record $2.2 billion
• 1:18:22
  broadcast deal that's starting this year where you can watch, I
• 1:18:26
  mean 65% or something like that of the regular season games are
• 1:18:30
  going to be nationally televised across the different networks.
• 1:18:35
  And then we have this Sportico report that just came out where
• 1:18:38
  you have huge valuations for these teams.
• 1:18:44
  Average value increase I mentioned in headlines was 59%
• 1:18:47
  across all franchises, the highest being Golden State.
• 1:18:52
  Like we said, they went from 500 million their first season,
• 1:18:57
  which is crazy, to 850 million. OK, I was like looking at this
• 1:19:06
  being like, OK, the New York Liberty is next.
• 1:19:09
  They went from 4:20 to 600. This is just from last season to
• 1:19:12
  this season. To be clear, Sportico has been
• 1:19:14
  doing this report for three years.
• 1:19:17
  The Fever went from 335 to 500 or 560, Excuse me, the Seattle
• 1:19:23
  Storm from 285 to 425. I got to be honest, I had to go
• 1:19:29
  look up like how do they do valuation?
• 1:19:31
  Because I was like, what is this?
• 1:19:33
  So they use a multiplier on revenue and then they also
• 1:19:38
  factor in things like sponsorships and broad media
• 1:19:41
  rights and things like that, right?
• 1:19:43
  Well, I went and I looked and it's the West is using about a
• 1:19:48
  13.6 factor average revenue to value.
• 1:19:53
  Factor value to revenue I think is the way it goes.
• 1:19:55
  I was like, oh, that feels high. Usually you say like 5 to 10.
• 1:19:59
  It is kind of like the range. But guess who else does a 13.5
• 1:20:08
  average value to revenue? The MNBA.
• 1:20:10
  The. MNBA, so they are right on par
• 1:20:14
  with their brother league, right and how those franchises get
• 1:20:18
  valued based on revenue attainment, I think it's.
• 1:20:20
  I think it's interesting that they, they, they must, I don't
• 1:20:24
  know exactly how they how they do that, but they must see that
• 1:20:27
  there is, there is something there to the infrastructure or
• 1:20:32
  how the league set up or, or where it's going that they can
• 1:20:35
  say the valuation is, is this multiplier.
• 1:20:39
  Yeah. And that's what I think that's
• 1:20:42
  where I was going to go was like, I think there's growth.
• 1:20:46
  It's like part of it is like the growth potential.
• 1:20:49
  Now, what's interesting about that with them being comparable
• 1:20:53
  in that multiplier to the MNBA, is that the MNBA has been kind
• 1:21:00
  of reporting some challenges as of late from what little fringe
• 1:21:05
  knowledge I have. So like, take that with a gram
• 1:21:07
  of salt, but I know that there's been some issues or certain
• 1:21:11
  franchises that aren't doing as well as others.
• 1:21:15
  It's fine. The other thing that I find
• 1:21:17
  really, really funny whenever these comments come up is that
• 1:21:21
  people always like to be like, well, the W loses money like
• 1:21:24
  their NBA floats them and it's like they actually don't.
• 1:21:28
  First of all, they didn't. They did revenue share last
• 1:21:31
  year. So we know that they made some
• 1:21:33
  money and we have no idea how much they made before because of
• 1:21:37
  how that was set up. Do you know that most sports
• 1:21:42
  teams lose money? Most sports teams are in the
• 1:21:46
  red. The only teams that, while the
• 1:21:49
  only teams that consistently are in the black are in the NFL.
• 1:21:52
  That's literally the only league where every team is in the black
• 1:21:57
  and I. Mean and I think some people
• 1:22:00
  don't have an understanding of how like accounting works.
• 1:22:05
  We've talked about it before in Hollywood, a lot of movies lose
• 1:22:10
  money because of how they do the accounting where in they in fact
• 1:22:13
  they made hundreds of millions of dollars, right?
• 1:22:16
  You have one final expense that pulls all of that and says, oh,
• 1:22:20
  we lost money on this. We get to write it off.
• 1:22:22
  Whatever. Right.
• 1:22:22
  So to say that the WNBA loses money when we don't even know
• 1:22:27
  what the books look like, we. It's hard to say.
• 1:22:29
  Yeah. I think more 'cause we, we've
• 1:22:32
  talked a little bit about that before, but I think where I
• 1:22:36
  think we would get pushed back on the position or maybe
• 1:22:40
  Sportico would get pushed back on their article, right?
• 1:22:44
  Is that like, you know, they lose money period.
• 1:22:48
  Well, if you go look at like some of the top men's teams in
• 1:22:51
  the world, you think of Chelsea FC, go look up how much money
• 1:22:57
  they lost last season, it is over $300 million.
• 1:23:03
  So like, but but they're not going to go anywhere, right?
• 1:23:06
  Like they're Chelsea FC, like they can't go anywhere.
• 1:23:10
  So here's what I want to watch for after all of that, all of my
• 1:23:15
  soapboxing. Will we see the attendance and
• 1:23:21
  the viewership in the engagement that has been on this rise?
• 1:23:26
  We it, it feels like there was so much momentum to get here.
• 1:23:32
  And I don't think that it's going away, but like I will be
• 1:23:36
  watching with bated breath sellouts and venue moves and
• 1:23:40
  things like that because they need this season to continue on
• 1:23:46
  that path, right? And I'm, I don't doubt that it
• 1:23:50
  will happen. It's just going to be something
• 1:23:52
  that like I will celebrate every single time I see it because
• 1:23:57
  again, they play great basketball.
• 1:24:02
  And I think that like I, it's just going to be exciting to see
• 1:24:05
  the fans now get to get back and engage with the players in a
• 1:24:09
  meaningful way, right? So I wrote down too, like, how
• 1:24:13
  are teams going to lean into fan experience?
• 1:24:15
  You've got the 30th year, you've got a season, you've got a ton
• 1:24:19
  to be celebrating. And so I think that there's a
• 1:24:21
  lot of opportunity for teams to think a little differently about
• 1:24:24
  how they engage with fans. Got to.
• 1:24:26
  Lean on the players I think they've got.
• 1:24:28
  To lean on the players for sure and getting into that like you
• 1:24:33
  need your stars to shine. I've said this so many times,
• 1:24:36
  but like, this is such a individual brand driven league.
• 1:24:41
  You need Caitlin Clark to stay healthy.
• 1:24:44
  You need Pagebeckers to ball out.
• 1:24:47
  You need Angel Reese to have a fantastic season in Atlanta.
• 1:24:52
  You need Asia Wilson to be Asia Wilson, right?
• 1:24:57
  Like, I don't care if she wins MVP for the 50th time in a row
• 1:25:00
  or however many times it's been like, you need that because fans
• 1:25:04
  love those players, right? And so the more that they are
• 1:25:08
  successful, the more like, you know, rising tide floats all
• 1:25:12
  boats, right? So, like, I am rooting for
• 1:25:15
  Caitlin Clark to like break some scoring records or shoot some
• 1:25:18
  crazy threes or whatever. We just, we have to kind of have
• 1:25:25
  I, I, I watched a really interesting interview.
• 1:25:29
  I forget who was interviewing him, but it was Draymond.
• 1:25:33
  They were interviewing Draymond Green from the Golden State
• 1:25:35
  Warriors, and he was talking about how, like the quality of
• 1:25:39
  basketball in the WNBA is better than the MNBA.
• 1:25:44
  This is the guy who plays in the MNBA and has played for a long,
• 1:25:48
  long time with some of the top teammates and team, the Golden
• 1:25:53
  State Warriors, you know? And he was like, it's really
• 1:25:58
  interesting because if you're a basketball head, it's easy to
• 1:26:01
  see, right? The footwork, the way that you
• 1:26:04
  guys move the ball, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:26:05
  It's like, but you don't have the flash, right?
• 1:26:09
  You don't have the dunks or as many 'cause I think there are
• 1:26:13
  dunks, right? And so when Caitlin Clark comes
• 1:26:17
  onto the scene and she can shoot the three the way she can shoot
• 1:26:20
  3 ball is like that really. Or the dunk is like this really
• 1:26:24
  tangible element of entertainment in basketball.
• 1:26:27
  It's not the like nitty gritty pick and roll.
• 1:26:29
  Did you like set your screen? Did you, did you, you know,
• 1:26:33
  flare appropriately and like make this cut, right?
• 1:26:36
  And so he's like, y'all need like you needed a Caitlin Clark
• 1:26:41
  and like we continue to need the Flair and the Flash to kind of
• 1:26:45
  go with the quality of of balls being played.
• 1:26:48
  On the court so. That's what I'm watching.
• 1:26:52
  Oh, all of it. I think, I think the one other
• 1:26:54
  thing about the fan engagement side of thing is I've been so
• 1:26:57
  it's been so fun to watch the teams give their social media
• 1:27:01
  admins personalities. Yes, on on social media.
• 1:27:05
  Did you watch the? Connect 4I.
• 1:27:06
  Watched the Connect four with Courtney Williams and they're
• 1:27:09
  doing it all over the league. I don't know if it was like a
• 1:27:11
  like a mandate, but like it's, it's really fun to watch so.
• 1:27:14
  Smart they've had like media, they've had their media days.
• 1:27:17
  So we've been seeing that over socials and like the other thing
• 1:27:20
  too, like so cool. This like fee brings in her
• 1:27:23
  daughter Mila. And like immediately all the
• 1:27:27
  moms are like, Oh my gosh. Right.
• 1:27:29
  Like they just. They play on a different level
• 1:27:34
  and layer of fandom then I've seen in men's sports.
• 1:27:38
  Yeah, he's for sure losing my. Voice.
• 1:27:41
  I'm also glad that the lowest team is at 280 million.
• 1:27:43
  I think we could still have a chance to buy in.
• 1:27:49
  It's getting slowly, steadily out of our price range, honey at
• 1:27:53
  280 million. All right, let's finish this up.
• 1:27:57
  Let's go over a few what to watch going right into the WNBA
• 1:28:02
  first day on Friday, May 8th. We've got Toronto tempo versus
• 1:28:06
  the Washington Mystics 6:30 PM on Ion.
• 1:28:10
  Also at 6:30 PM they set on Ion So I don't know if it's like
• 1:28:13
  they're they do have like a. Ion plus or whatever we have
• 1:28:17
  the. Connecticut Sun and New York
• 1:28:19
  Liberty at the same time and then Gold State Valkyries versus
• 1:28:23
  Seattle Storm at 9:00 PM Central on Ion.
• 1:28:27
  We also have games like literally all day Saturday and
• 1:28:31
  Sunday, noon to like 8:00 PM starts.
• 1:28:33
  So I think that. Fever Wings game is on Saturday
• 1:28:36
  at. Some point and and they're all
• 1:28:38
  over like we said, ABC, Disney Plus, Victory Plus or local
• 1:28:42
  channels for that Lynx game, NBATV and the WNBA League Pass,
• 1:28:49
  which we've not heard great things about and USA so.
• 1:28:52
  There's no excuse to not see WNBA match you're.
• 1:28:56
  Going to see it this weekend. Then let's move on to the NWSL.
• 1:29:01
  We have a game Wednesday night. Utah Royals versus Houston Dash
• 1:29:05
  at 9:00 PM on CBS Sports. That's a good one.
• 1:29:08
  That's like a top of the table to kind of lower half of the.
• 1:29:15
  I don't know what I'm saying. The middle, the second quartile
• 1:29:19
  of the table. It'll be a good game.
• 1:29:23
  And then we have three-game, three games each on Saturday and
• 1:29:26
  Sunday. We picked out Angel City versus
• 1:29:28
  San Diego on Saturday, 7:45 PM on ION.
• 1:29:33
  Yeah, looking to see if San Diego can fall back some points
• 1:29:36
  on this, both of. These teams are a little
• 1:29:38
  desperate for a win. Right now, yeah.
• 1:29:40
  And then on Speaking of teams. Desperate.
• 1:29:43
  For a win, one of them has to Well, I guess they could draw in
• 1:29:46
  soccer. So Kansas City current versus
• 1:29:49
  Chicago Red Stars 11:30 AM Central on ESPN.
• 1:29:55
  I'm not going to say anything out loud.
• 1:29:56
  You're. You're thinking they're going to
• 1:29:59
  draw, No. I'm like, this will be Chicago's
• 1:30:01
  time. They they beat Kansas City
• 1:30:03
  Current earlier this season. That was like their only win was
• 1:30:07
  a 20 or something victory over KC.
• 1:30:11
  Yeah. So I'm just, I said that, yeah.
• 1:30:14
  And then back to PWHL. Like we said, Montreal and
• 1:30:17
  Minnesota play both. They will have played the night
• 1:30:20
  before this podcast comes out and then Thursday and Friday
• 1:30:24
  night. Thursday's at 6:00 PM central.
• 1:30:28
  Friday's at 7:30 Central. Nice.
• 1:30:31
  And then we've got Boston versus Ottawa, game three Friday at
• 1:30:34
  6:00 PM central and game four Sunday at 2:00 PM.
• 1:30:38
  Why did? They get such a long break it's
• 1:30:40
  like 6. Days they got 6 days and
• 1:30:42
  Minnesota's like you turn around and play right away.
• 1:30:46
  That's. Weird SO.
• 1:30:48
  OK. And then we're going to
• 1:30:50
  highlight again Women's league rugby Friday night, New York
• 1:30:54
  Exiles versus Bay Breakers at 4:00 PM on Women's Sports
• 1:30:57
  Network. And then Saturday, Denver Onyx
• 1:31:00
  versus Twin Cities Gemini at 3:00 PM also these are all on
• 1:31:04
  the Women's Sports Network. And then Chicago Tempest versus
• 1:31:07
  Boston Banshees, 5:00 PM Central on Saturday.
• 1:31:10
  Dang, we got to check that out. Yeah, we do.
• 1:31:13
  We got to we got to try and get to one of those games here.
• 1:31:15
  I know. All right, We're going to wrap
• 1:31:18
  it up here. Winners and losers.
• 1:31:22
  Losers go first. Who do you got?
• 1:31:26
  You're going to say mine. I know it.
• 1:31:30
  I don't. Know the couple, the couple that
• 1:31:36
  are coming into my head. I'm trying to decide if I should
• 1:31:42
  say something controversial or not Personally I think that
• 1:31:51
  Britta curl Salemi should have gotten A2 game suspension
• 1:31:54
  that's. Exactly what I was going to say.
• 1:31:56
  That was the one I picked out. I.
• 1:31:57
  Promise, yes, while we are avid Frost fans, we do not condone
• 1:32:06
  any intentional head contact in hockey.
• 1:32:10
  And if the PWHL wants that to get eliminated from the game to
• 1:32:14
  protect players, they need to more seriously 100.
• 1:32:19
  Percent agree. Penalize players who do it, and
• 1:32:22
  frankly, she does it more than most players.
• 1:32:26
  So she got a one game suspension and a $250 fine, which we've
• 1:32:34
  talked about. The WHL salaries, they don't
• 1:32:36
  make that much money. I think she should have gotten
• 1:32:39
  two games, yeah. I mean all that agree don't
• 1:32:44
  don't like to see it like we saw you got hit.
• 1:32:47
  You're pissed that you got. Hit and.
• 1:32:48
  Then you put us into a 5 minute major where they scored and.
• 1:32:52
  Got to keep more people on the ice.
• 1:32:54
  So just don't do it. Don't do it.
• 1:32:57
  All right. Glad we shared that I didn't
• 1:32:59
  have. A second one.
• 1:33:00
  For a backup there OK winners man, honestly.
• 1:33:08
  I The first thing that popped in my head was like us, because we
• 1:33:12
  got to talk about like such cool stuff this week, all different
• 1:33:15
  leagues. And there's again, we just like
• 1:33:19
  amaze every amaze, amaze, amaze every week just with the
• 1:33:24
  different things that we get to discuss and doing this and like
• 1:33:27
  having people who seem to enjoy listening to what we have to
• 1:33:32
  say. I mean, I'm really excited for
• 1:33:38
  the West season to start. I am really nervous for the VWH.
• 1:33:47
  I do not know what state I will be in next time we talk to you.
• 1:33:51
  We'll see what's yours, I thought.
• 1:33:54
  Montreal Stacy with the first ever hat trick in the playoffs.
• 1:33:58
  It's weird that I'm so good. My loser was a Minnesota Frost.
• 1:34:01
  My winner was who they're playing against right now.
• 1:34:03
  But it was it was really good, honest assessment.
• 1:34:06
  Maybe my other winner if. We were like doing performance.
• 1:34:09
  Is Gwyneth Phillips the attendee from Ottawa?
• 1:34:13
  I said that she was going to be a problem and she's a problem in
• 1:34:17
  the playoffs and she was a problem for Boston in that game
• 1:34:21
  too. So shout out to to Gwenny as I
• 1:34:25
  heard her called by her coach Cliff.
• 1:34:30
  It's fun to see, fun to see when players have stand up
• 1:34:33
  performances like that. So all right, catch us RTG.
• 1:34:38
  Under score pod on Threads and Instagram.
• 1:34:41
  Raising the game on substackrtgpod.com YouTube,
• 1:34:46
  Spotify podcast app on Apple, iHeartRadio there's a lot of
• 1:34:54
  places we're we're on now so we. Are there?
• 1:34:57
  And we'll get that Venmo set up for the hexes, yes?
• 1:35:00
  We'll next time we'll let you know.
• 1:35:02
  All right. Bye.
• 1:35:04
  Bye.