Latest / Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More / Episode 5: WNBA Collective Bargaining Breakdown, NCCA Roundup & Winter Olympics Preview

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Episode 5: WNBA Collective Bargaining Breakdown, NCCA Roundup & Winter Olympics Preview · Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

0:00
We're going to try to explain some numbers.
0:02
At some point you're going to have to maybe get a pad of paper
0:06
and a pen. It's a lot.
0:16
Hi, I'm Caitlin. Hi, I'm Alex.
0:18
And you're listening to Raising the Game, a podcast covering the
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rise and opportunity, visibility and accessibility of women's
0:25
sports globally. Or a wife, husband, team who are
0:28
avid sports fans raising two young girls and find the
0:31
exposure and investment in women's sports a gateway for
0:34
them and other young girls like them to see their passions for
0:37
play, performance and leadership.
0:39
Not as extracurriculars to be added to a resume or a
0:42
discipline with an expiration date after high school or
0:45
college, but as a real opportunity to build a career as
0:49
an athlete, a coach, an analyst, an athletic trainer, director of
0:53
sports operations, maybe even a podcaster.
0:58
Each week, we're bringing you the top stories in women's
1:00
professional and sometimes collegiate sports.
1:02
We'll highlight prime time for performers, key business
1:05
decisions, economic impacts, and the growing opportunities for
1:08
women's athletics. You'll hear our perspective on
1:10
the perspectives on these stories as fans, but perhaps
1:13
more importantly, as parents who value these stories, what these
1:16
stories mean for our kids. If there's a storyline or topic
1:19
you'd like to hear us talk about, reach out via e-mail at
1:21
raisingthegamepod@gmail.com and on social media at RTG under
1:26
score Pod. All right, we're here again.
1:29
We're back another week. We're back another week, another
1:32
week, another quick shout we're going to make for just ongoing
1:37
community support here in the Twin Cities area doesn't go away
1:43
in the current current situation.
1:46
So we've been continuing to find ways to to donate and support
1:50
communities that are affected by the various things going on in
1:56
our city. We'll continue to post links in
1:59
the bio and our podcast notes and things like that for you to
2:03
get involved. As we've mentioned before, we
2:06
have a list of restaurants there that we really enjoy that are
2:10
looking for support. Either they're not open.
2:14
A lot of restaurants I think are really actually struggling in
2:16
the Twin Cities area right now just with kind of the
2:20
uncertainty with moving around and then some other ways that
2:24
we've gotten involved or through donating to a specific kind of
2:30
community, Yep, support network, so.
2:32
Yeah, I think Stand with Minnesota is 1.
2:35
Yeah, stand with Minnesota. We did a little.
2:38
We bought some cool merch from Soda Clothing.
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Shout out to Soda Clothing, who was giving their proceeds to
2:46
community fundraiser in Saint Louis Park, which is where we
2:49
used to live. We used to live really close to
2:51
the city, so however you feel moved to to get involved and
2:54
support your community, we are here for that, absolutely and we
3:00
have some options for you to check out if if you're looking
3:02
for a way to get involved. Yeah, those will be in the show
3:05
notes and the YouTube description, so check them out.
3:09
All right, favorite thing sports wise of the week.
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I think it's gonna be the same. OK, I knew you were gonna pick
3:18
the one that's gonna be the same.
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And we will. We'll we'll say what it is in
3:22
just a second, but I have some backups.
3:24
Oh, OK, you got a. Couple backups, but I will.
3:27
I'll let you kind of go into the favorite thing, but it was
3:31
probably this past weekend was the weekend we got to go to the
3:35
Gopher women's gymnastics meet against Iowa.
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Iowa, we could start a chant, right?
3:41
Yeah, we could start a chant. We won't do.
3:43
That we're trying to attract. Listeners not push them away,
3:46
yeah. And that was really, really fun.
3:49
So I don't you want to say more about that.
3:51
I think the girls were really into it.
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I think our oldest, she, she was all about it.
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She was watching. I think she liked the floor
3:58
routine a lot. I think it was awesome just to
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see all of that up close. Like I've never really seen any
4:05
of that that close. So yeah, I think it was just, it
4:10
was a really cool and it was also for someone with ADHD like
4:13
me, it's just like, boom, this thing and then this thing and
4:16
then they go and then they go. And so it was really easy to
4:19
just like, keep going back and forth and watching different
4:21
things happen. Yeah, there's no downtime.
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Gymnastics meets, you are literally they have like little
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breaks in between. I think they're called turns
4:30
when they're transitioning between different events.
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But but at that point, they're warming up, so they're starting
4:35
to like, flip. And spray and do all this stuff.
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Other things I have a lot of thoughts on it I but I'm going
4:43
to keep it brief right now watching our girls light up at
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not just the the athletes in the event itself, but like the
4:52
environment was so positive, so like welcoming and supportive.
4:59
It was awesome. I have a real soft spot for
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athletics where there's this combo of just like, grace and
5:11
strength, or I've talked about it before.
5:13
We talked about figure skating, like athleticism and artistry.
5:18
Like, I just feel like it's so, yeah, beautiful to watch.
5:21
And it's like so impressive. I think for the girls too, to
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see there are so many different body types in gymnastics, so
5:30
many and like, you can be short and small or you can be tall and
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really strong and it, it works like for almost anything, like
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it's really. Cool, that's a great yeah,
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that's a great point. So huge shout out to my Co
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worker who who shared those tickets with us.
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It was certainly a memorable moment.
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Both of our girls said that was their favorite thing from the
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weekend. But I've got a couple more.
5:56
I've got a couple more I've got to share.
5:57
So I, as we've, as we've, I've started to pick up like a little
6:02
bit of momentum with the, with the podcast and some listeners.
6:05
I've started getting texts from a few folks who are like I've
6:09
worked this into my routine like this is now a part.
6:12
Of. My routine like I've colleague
6:14
who's like I, I now try to listen to it on my way home from
6:18
work on Wednesday after you guys release another friend of mine
6:23
who's like text me she's like thank you.
6:26
This is part of my routine. It was such a great way to start
6:28
my day. And so that is so fun to hear.
6:33
Like just that people are engaged, they're learning
6:36
something, they're really interested in the subject
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matter, and that just really helps us kind of keep it going
6:42
too. We find this stuff awesome, and
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we're glad to be sharing it with all.
6:46
Of you, yeah, That's wild to think that someone listening to
6:49
me as part of their routine besides you.
6:53
Besides me, I have to listen to it all the time.
6:56
OK. And then my last one will be
6:58
really short. We'll talk about this a little
7:00
bit in our top headlines. But we were watching Philly as
7:05
unrivaled on Friday night. So unrivaled.
7:08
The Basketball League took to Philadelphia for an off site
7:12
visit and Marina Mabry, the queen of crash outs herself,
7:17
scored 27 points in 1/4 and just was draining threes like I was
7:23
hopping up off the couch. Like the ball came out of her
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hand, it was going in and from all over, from all over the
7:28
place. From all over, she was shooting
7:29
logo. She was shooting it was so
7:31
insane. One of the most impressive like
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yeah, individual performances on a basketball court I've seen.
7:37
And she also is just like seems like a gem.
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Like she doesn't take herself too seriously.
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She's a fierce competitor as her I would suggest, but she
7:48
actually she mentioned that. So the crash out jar, for those
7:52
who are unfamiliar, she's got like literally just a jar that
7:55
she puts money in when she she. Gets a little rough on the court
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so. Maybe like says something
7:59
inappropriate on the court or like is a little physical and
8:02
realizes maybe that wasn't the right thing.
8:05
Let's her emotions get the best of her maybe, but she said that
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all the money she put in the crash out jar, which I don't I
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think it was an insignificant amount in in January she was
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going to be donating to a fund here in Minnesota.
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So I thought that was really cool.
8:23
Favorite thing Marina Mayberry over the weekend.
8:27
We'll keep watching her for sure, all right.
8:30
Top headlines? Yeah, let's do it.
8:31
All right. W, MB, PA and league leadership
8:36
meet amid growing stalemate for CBA agreement.
8:38
I had a 2026 season. This just happened today.
8:43
They met for three hours. I'm sure we'll get into it or
8:47
try to fit it into our deep dive somewhere.
8:48
We will talk about it, all right.
8:52
Rabakina defeats of world #1 Sabalenka to take the Australian
8:55
Open title and I believe second Grand Slam is what I read.
8:59
Yes, the Australian Open did not end how anybody thought it was
9:04
going to. We had like sat here and been
9:06
like, you could have three Americans and the semis and none
9:09
of them made it. Oh, actually, I shouldn't say
9:12
that. Jessica Puola did play
9:14
Sabalenka, but she got beat pretty handily.
9:19
But that was at the expense of Amanda on a Samoa, another
9:23
American. So anyways, good start to the to
9:27
the year for the pro tennis tour.
9:29
Lindsey Vonn crashes in final prep run before Olympics is
9:32
airlifted off of the mountain. Yeah.
9:35
And so far, like the reports have been, her status is kind of
9:40
unknown, but there I would assume at this rate you're
9:43
playing that close to the best. I would also assume that this is
9:47
supposed to be her final run. Actual final run.
9:50
Unless she, like, can't ski, she's going to try.
9:53
She's going to try. Yeah, yeah.
9:55
Like anything can happen. Anything can happen and you
9:58
know, steroid shots are. Yeah, amazing.
10:01
US women's national team routes Chile 50, with goals from
10:05
Bethune Joseph, Sam's Rodman and Sears.
10:09
Yeah, we aren't going to talk too much about this game that
10:12
they looked in good form. I think they had a a quicker
10:15
start than than the Paraguay game the weekend before.
10:19
You got more caps from new players and first time goals for
10:23
Jamice Joseph, Emily Sam's for the for the US women's national
10:29
team. Obviously great to see Trey on
10:31
the score. Shoot, shoot again, too.
10:33
Yeah. Philadelphia Unrivaled Roadshow
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sets all time women's professional basketball
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attendance record with 21,480 people showing up.
10:42
Y'all, this looked lit. Yeah, like I know I sound silly
10:46
saying that, but it looks like so much fun.
10:48
So the the 20 almost 21 1/2 thousand people showing up
10:53
actually set an all time attendance record for any sport
10:57
being played in that arena. The next closest game, y'all was
11:01
Michael Jordan's last game, the Chicago Bowl against Allen
11:06
Iverson, like of this Philadelphia 76ers heydays.
11:10
So that's really cool. You also had a ton of
11:13
celebrities show up, a lot of NBA players, but like Wanda
11:17
Sykes, Leslie Jones. You had the Kelsey, Yeah, Don
11:21
Staley, the Kelsey's, Kylie and and Jason, among many, many
11:25
others. It just, it looked like a ton of
11:27
fun and we actually left watching it being like, we need
11:30
to go try to watch Unrap. Yeah, we're kind of like
11:33
planning a family trip, like let's go do this next.
11:35
Year. Let's go to Miami at least and
11:37
and watch it. Let's see here.
11:40
Yeah, New York sirens hold on to top spot in PWHL standings
11:45
heading into the Olympic break. Yeah, Minnesota Frost are two
11:49
points back in in second place there.
11:52
Boston. And Boston's in 3rd. 3rd now.
11:55
Wow, yeah. So.
11:58
All right, US Women's National Team legend Crystal Dunn
12:01
announces her retirement from professional play.
12:04
Donnie, this was I wasn't, this wasn't like quite on my radar.
12:07
It's not surprising, but it was. It's a little like, oh, she had
12:12
a baby last couple years. She's I've been seeing articles
12:16
since this was announced. Like is she the best like NWSL
12:20
player to ever play in the league?
12:22
Like she is seriously one of the most versatile, one of the best
12:25
ambassadors for the game. Hats off to you Crystal Dunn for
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your amazing, amazing career. Get some rest.
12:33
Get some rest. In first ever Women's Football
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Champions Cup, Arsenal takes home the prize while NWSL
12:39
champions Gotham FC take third place.
12:42
Yeah, so this was new this year, the FIFA Women's Champions Cup.
12:45
So this is essentially taking the Champions from each of the
12:48
major leagues and having them play against one another.
12:52
Gotham kind of crashed out a little bit.
12:54
They lost to Corinthians, the Brazilian champions.
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But then Corinthians actually went on.
12:59
They beat Gotham in a scrappy game and then went on to take
13:02
Arsenal to overtime. Arsenal had to win that game in
13:06
overtime, so. Caitlin Clark to join Sunday
13:11
night basketball broadcast team as special contributor.
13:15
Yeah. So she she joined the broadcast
13:18
this past Sunday. So, you know, over this past
13:21
weekend, ahead of these really critical conversations between
13:27
the league and the players association, and she was
13:30
expressing like all kinds of confidence that something was
13:33
going to happen. Kind of interesting.
13:37
I mean, I get why she's there. To me, I was like a little sort
13:42
of like what's? What's the?
13:44
Deal here and are we, you know, I don't know.
13:47
It was not on my radar at all. Yeah, yeah.
13:51
US Women's National team and Chelsea star Alyssa Thompson
13:55
releases personalized pre game playlist in conjunction with a
13:58
Spotify and Gen. slash EA Sports collaboration alongside Travis
14:03
Hunter of the NF LS Jacksonville Jaguars, Brazilian footballer
14:06
Andrick and F1 driver Bianca. You got to do this with the
14:11
names Bustamante. Bustamante.
14:13
Bustamante, yeah. This is just cool, right?
14:16
I think you're seeing like some women's athletes, including
14:20
Bustamante, right, get into collaboration with some other
14:23
high profile men's players. You see different brands wanting
14:27
to pull these players in and just attract potentially a new
14:31
generation or a new new customer base.
14:35
And I think it's a really clever marketing approach, right?
14:38
Yeah. LPGA kicks off season in Florida
14:43
at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions with
14:47
Nelly Corda declared the winner after final round was cut short
14:50
due to cold weather and I heard the players were saying the
14:53
course was playable. Yes.
14:55
So this was controversial. They cut the the the tournament
14:59
short after 54 holes and and it was cold.
15:06
It's hard for us Minnesotans to sit here and like, be.
15:09
Florida too cold? Yeah, be genuine about Florida
15:14
being too cold. I can understand for the sport
15:17
itself and, and just like it doesn't it, the impact of the
15:21
quality of play, the course potentially not being playable,
15:24
But a lot of players who were maybe not quite in the lead at
15:30
the time were like, hey, I could have used the last eighteen
15:34
holes or whatever, nine holes to win and they didn't get that
15:39
opportunity. I will add there was a $2.1
15:42
million purse of like for this tournament.
15:46
And so when you think about, you know, funding and accessibility,
15:50
LPGA is is doing well in that regard.
15:53
It's nowhere near comparable to the PGA Tour, but the winner
15:57
takes home about $325,000 and then it just gets distributed
16:01
down the line from there. Overtime Sports announces
16:05
partnership with MBA and WNBA to gear content clips towards
16:09
younger audience. Yes, I think this goes in line
16:11
with that Spotify and EA Sports one, right?
16:14
They're just you're seeing these plays to try to connect with
16:18
with the Gen. Z audience at this point in
16:21
time, which is going to probably require TikTok and content clubs
16:26
and that sort of. Thing doing funny dances and
16:27
stuff like that. Exactly.
16:29
And our final headline, Ted Lasso to return to Apple TV this
16:33
summer, coaching a women's football club with Cass
16:36
favorites back in action. Believe yeah, so you'll have all
16:41
the all the regulars back in in action, but we're flipping to
16:47
coach some like second tier women's.
16:50
Yeah, that'll be interesting to see how that goes.
16:52
Yeah, I'm really excited. I love that.
16:54
Show. All right, deep dive time back
16:58
to the WNBACBA negotiations. For the people listening to the
17:03
audio, we're going to try to explain some numbers.
17:07
At some point, you're going to have to maybe get a pad of paper
17:11
and a pen. It's a lot.
17:14
Yeah, I. You spent a lot of time
17:17
yesterday, like, yeah, mathing. I just would look over and you'd
17:21
be looking up like, huh. Alex can attest that I had my
17:26
like I had just scrap paper, like old call sheets out, like
17:30
trying to math out how we could explain this in a way that makes
17:35
sense. Yeah.
17:35
So I think I went deep into what is the sticking point as far as
17:43
where their their agreements are at, things like that.
17:46
We're going to get into it. I am going to start just I want
17:49
to reground our listeners in some of the acronyms, right?
17:53
We're going to throw a couple of them around.
17:55
There's also some like kind of euphemisms for those acronyms.
17:58
So I just want to start there. So WNBA, Women's National
18:03
Basketball Association, so that's the main league here in
18:06
the United States that women's basketball players will play in.
18:11
We will also refer to them as the league and then the WNBPA is
18:19
the Women's National Basketball Players Association.
18:22
PA for short maybe? PA for short or the union,
18:25
right, We might call them the union.
18:28
You also hear us refer to the CBA that is meant to refer to
18:33
collective bargaining agreement, not the Continental Basketball
18:37
Association, which was pointed out to us by one of our older
18:42
listeners. It was like.
18:44
I still remember, and that was the thing and that predates the
18:47
NBA. So we just wanted to put that
18:50
all on the table, make sure we're all speaking the same
18:53
language. But essentially what my goal is
18:55
here in this segment, and Alex has, you know, got some
18:58
commentary and questions he's going to interject as well, is
19:01
just to really set the table. Like what's the back story here?
19:05
Why did they have this meeting this Yes, you know, at the time
19:10
of this recording, basically they had this big meeting
19:12
between the players association in the in the league.
19:15
You may see about like read about it in the news or hear
19:19
some things about it. So we're going to ground in
19:21
that. We're going to ground in the
19:22
sticking points. We're going to talk a little bit
19:24
about like the shots fired across the bow between the two
19:26
sides. And then we're going to talk
19:28
about like, how do we think this will end?
19:30
Like where do we think this is going to end up?
19:32
Right. So without further ado, I do
19:36
actually recommend if you're a nerdy numbers person like I am,
19:40
like grab a piece of paper, pencil.
19:43
It's very hard to kind of visualize and compare some of
19:46
these things if you're not looking at it.
19:49
So the back story, the Players association opted out of the
19:54
then current CBA in October of 2024.
19:58
So that's, you know, a little over a year and a half ago now,
20:03
right? We could kind of call it that.
20:06
This CBA was put into effect in January of 2020 and it was
20:11
supposed to run until 2027. There was an opt out clause.
20:15
So it wasn't like this was they chose it randomly.
20:18
It was kind of they decided like this is what we want to do.
20:23
Basically the players are looking to capitalize on the
20:27
explosive growth of the league has seen over the last, frankly
20:31
really the last three years. But prior to that as I was doing
20:35
my researches in 2019, the league generated top line
20:40
revenues of as best we can tell of around 100 million.
20:45
And there was an expectation that this was going to continue
20:47
to explode. Now, COVID got completely in the
20:51
way of that like it did for everything else.
20:53
So they kind of had to start back over.
20:55
The 2020 season was played in a bubble, like all that kind of
20:59
stuff, right? But then we saw Caitlin Clark
21:02
coming up through the college game, right?
21:04
And then we sort of saw this resurgence, right?
21:07
Like the West was gaining momentum on its own.
21:09
But really, we we can't deny the Caitlin.
21:12
Clark Effect. And what we saw was as the the
21:18
league has sort of absorbed some of that momentum, right, we are
21:25
seeing expansion of the league. So expansion by adding teams.
21:29
So in 2025 we added the Golden State Valkyries and 2026 we're
21:35
due to add the Toronto Tempo and the Portland Fire.
21:39
And by 20-30, we're supposed to be seeing teams in Cleveland,
21:44
Detroit and Philadelphia. So it's a great test run there
21:49
for unrivaled to to show. So we're we're looking at going
21:52
from 12 teams to 18 teams in five years.
21:57
That's a lot. In addition to this, we're also
22:00
seeing expansion fees. So the fees that those folks who
22:04
want to kind of create that franchise have to pay into the
22:06
league go from 50 million to 250 million.
22:12
So the teams that you're seeing right now come into the league
22:14
are having to those, the owners are having to pay 250 million to
22:19
the league in order to join the league.
22:21
And that was just 50 million two years ago.
22:24
That's not money that the players would ever see.
22:27
No. So we'll get we'll talk about
22:30
that. And that's actually a major
22:31
point of sticking like like stickiness in their calculations
22:35
for the valuation. We also see that franchise
22:38
valuations are averaging around 180% increases over the last
22:42
three seasons. So if you take 12 teams or maybe
22:48
you add in the Golden State Valkyries, which actually they
22:50
have had a phenomenal story as a as a first year team last year,
22:55
but 180% increase in valuation you're, I mean, yeah, it's not
23:00
insignificant. And I have my notes here.
23:03
I don't want to give away numbers, but I think the salary
23:05
cap increases are like 3% a year.
23:07
And yeah, so you got these team owners making money on their
23:12
asset while they're not increasing, salaries aren't
23:17
increasing at even 10%. Like not even like, yeah, I
23:24
mean, you get what I'm saying here, right?
23:25
Like they they are making money on their asset while the liquid
23:30
money for the players is going almost nowhere.
23:33
Yeah. So in my attempts to like
23:36
understand this and graph this out, right, and even in the
23:40
model that they constructed under the old CBA, which they're
23:44
not operating under, they're kind of in the status quo
23:46
period. I'll talk about that in just a
23:47
second. League growth was compounded,
23:53
the targets were compounded. The expectation is that you're
23:56
compounding that growth, right? So you're adding 20% every year.
24:00
Well, that starts to look like an exponential curve.
24:03
It's not a flat line, right. League player salaries are fixed
24:08
at 3% increase year on year. So they're not seen remotely any
24:14
of of that growth. So the original just backing up
24:18
a little bit for that. Finishing out the back story
24:20
here, the original deadline for the new agreement was October of
24:23
2025. So they actually gave themselves
24:25
12 months to figure out a path forward October 2025 approach
24:31
they extended to the end of November, November 30th of 2025.
24:35
They got to the end of November 30th of 2025.
24:38
They pushed it out to the now kind of famous in the WNBA
24:42
circles. January 9th, 2020, sixth date
24:46
which has come and gone. They did not agree to an
24:49
extension at that time. So while the previous 2 was
24:54
like, hey, we're just going to extend, we're going to come back
24:58
and and negotiate it between these periods.
25:00
They've been sending proposals back and well, some proposals
25:05
have been sent back and forth, some haven't been responded to.
25:10
They now are operating under a state of status quo.
25:14
So this allows league business to continue under the current
25:17
CBA. But what I'm finding is that is
25:20
really kind of in like name only.
25:25
So a lot of league business right now is on hold.
25:29
The two sides agreed to a moratorium on free agency, which
25:32
was supposed to start mid January.
25:36
That is very problematic because right now you have all but 2
25:42
veteran players, so all but two players who are not on rookie
25:46
contracts basically who need to be resigned to teams.
25:51
That is a lot of players. I I in my brain, I think status
25:57
quo is generous. I think you could call it a soft
26:01
lockout, yeah. Like you can't construct teams,
26:05
you can't sign your players, you can't probably even talk to free
26:08
agents at all. Like, other teams may want to
26:11
sign these free agents if they're not like restricted or
26:13
whatever, but it's kind of a soft block out.
26:16
Yeah, there's a whole, I mean they're delaying the expansion
26:19
drafts right now for Toronto and Portland should have happened by
26:23
now. So when that happens, right
26:26
there are the teams are all have players who are available for
26:30
drafting from their current teams to be grabbed by these
26:34
expansion teams, right. And so the college draft also,
26:39
it typically is going to be held right after the NCAA tournament
26:43
finishes. So in early mid-april, that is
26:46
kind of fast approaching. We have about 100 days left
26:49
until the season is supposed to start.
26:52
And they've got to re sign all these free agents.
26:55
They've got to do these expansion drafts.
26:57
They've got to do the college draft.
27:00
And to your point, if I'm a general manager or a coach or
27:05
whatever, looking at this, I'm like, I cannot construct a
27:08
competitive team. Yeah, I don't know who I have on
27:10
my team. You kind of, it kind of needs to
27:13
be figured out before the college season is over so that
27:17
you can sign free agents, have an expansion draft and then have
27:20
your college draft is. Oh yeah, I mean.
27:23
It's not fair to like the expansion team is not be able to
27:25
be a part of the college draft if they're not able to, yeah,
27:28
sign and have other players. It needs to be figured out like
27:32
my guess again, we're now I'm starting to get into my
27:35
predictions, but my guess is that if we don't have something
27:38
going forward by mid March, right that we're going to have
27:46
delays to the start of the season.
27:47
I just, I just don't think you can feasibly do all of those
27:50
things well or even half well that time.
27:57
So another kind of piece to consider.
28:00
So you might be wondering right, like back up, we're talking
28:03
about like there's tension and like, what's the, And so like
28:05
what, why, why are they not coming to an agreement?
28:11
The league, sorry, the union last sent a proposal over to the
28:15
league in mid-december. They had sent one over at the
28:19
end of November before that extension deadline and the
28:23
league responded to that that proposal and said that the
28:28
players were off base, right. And then the players put forward
28:32
another proposal in mid-december and the league has not responded
28:36
to that proposal. I think I saw they didn't think
28:39
it was worthy of responding to essentially was the rumor I
28:43
think. Yes, league sources who are have
28:48
like, well, aren't named but have said that it's too similar
28:52
to the proposal they submitted in November.
28:55
Yeah, and it is not I'm what was the exact word?
29:01
They're not being reasonable with their asks, which the
29:06
players association has taken a shade and don't really
29:10
appreciate that. The main sticking point when the
29:17
league did respond to their November proposal was if we
29:20
actually went forward with what you're proposing, we would end
29:24
up operating over the time span of this agreement at a $700
29:29
million loss. And I remember reading that I'm
29:32
like, what the heck. And so essentially this, we
29:37
talked, we mentioned this a little bit before, but that is
29:40
because the players association is looking at these expansion
29:44
fees that we mentioned the 250K per team coming in and they are
29:49
considering that revenue to the league.
29:53
I read that other leagues also don't consider that revenue to
29:57
the league. What ends up happening with that
29:59
money is that that money gets distributed to the existing
30:04
clubs to compensate them for their decreased share of revenue
30:09
because you have more teams but. Is it really decreased?
30:14
Well, that's what we don't know, right?
30:16
Because if you have this many teams joining in this short of
30:20
span and you're also claiming that the league isn't generating
30:26
revenue anyway, like it just feels, it feels a little weird.
30:32
So the players also just to kind of add one more thing to this,
30:36
the players did authorize a strike.
30:39
This was a historic vote. They had 98 or 93% participation
30:44
from the players in this vote, which is insane.
30:49
And then 98% of those 93 of that 93% said, yes, we authorized the
30:54
union to use a strike as a form of leverage.
30:58
Now obviously, the league could also do a lockout.
31:01
That is we've discussed it kind of offline doesn't that doesn't
31:06
seem to make a lot of sense for the league as you just said,
31:09
like we're kind of in a soft blackout anyway.
31:11
Like they can't really do a ton of their business.
31:13
They're doing what they can like releasing the schedule.
31:17
But I think that's important to note because I do think based on
31:23
initial reporting from the conversation today, it is
31:27
looking more and more. Likely that the players might
31:30
strike. So are we ready for some numbers
31:37
you. Gave them to me already, but I
31:38
might rewrite them just so that I can kind.
31:40
Of you're going to like. Figure out what's going on here.
31:42
We could actually play this as like a quiz if you wanted to
31:46
play a lot along online or on the on the in your in your
31:49
earbuds. So right now, the major sticking
31:54
point between the two sides is revenue sharing.
31:57
Alex alluded to a little bit of this before, right, the kind of
31:59
the proportionality of salary cap to the revenue that the
32:03
league may or may not be generating.
32:06
But I wanted to make sure that we had some of the basic
32:09
statistics so we could understand.
32:11
So the current CBA, which is now they're in status quo, they're
32:16
not technically operating under that CBA.
32:19
The the old one or the one that we're kind of basing our
32:23
baseline off of for this conversation.
32:25
The minimum salary, guess what, the minimum salary and you keep
32:30
I'm cheating. OK.
32:31
Yeah, he's got the numbers. So the minimum salary right now
32:37
in the WNBA is anywhere between 66 and 79 K and this is based
32:42
off of your years in the league. So zero to two years, it's about
32:46
66 to 68 K and then three to five or whatever it goes up from
32:51
there. The average salary, So minimum,
32:55
right, we're in like the mid 60s to high seventies.
32:59
The average salary. You may be wondering what would
33:02
that be? Well, it's about 110 to
33:05
$120,000, not like that far away from the the minimum, but like
33:12
these and, and you look at these and you're like, oh, that's,
33:15
that sounds nice like. Six figures.
33:17
Whatever. Living in New York on 6 figures,
33:19
yeah. And and then you also do like
33:22
they're comparing rightly or wrongly to their male
33:26
counterparts where the minimum salary, y'all, in the NBA is
33:30
like $3.5 million. That's the minimum.
33:33
Yeah, Yikes. Yeah, Yikes.
33:36
Now you can throw all the arguments you want at me about
33:39
how the the NBA generates revenue.
33:41
I got it. I get it.
33:43
OK, We can talk about that at a different time.
33:47
Maximum salary, current CBA. Any guesses?
33:51
NO250K. Just barely above what Unrivaled
33:55
pays on average. Just barely above what Unrivaled
33:59
pays on average. As we mentioned before, there's
34:03
a fixed 3% salary cap increase year over year.
34:07
So every year all the teams get another 3% added on to that
34:11
budget. Well, what that does, we've
34:14
talked about this with Trinity, Rodman and the NWSL.
34:17
Like it's very hard with a 3% increase to satisfy your player
34:24
combination. Like how do you even keep the
34:26
same slate of players right and pay them appropriately?
34:30
I mean, if anyone's worked in management at a normal job, you,
34:33
you get that 3% pool and you're like, what do I do with this?
34:35
How do I keep my How do I keep my players?
34:38
Right, leading from experience. Yes, maybe a little bit.
34:41
So, and then the other thing to note with that is within that
34:45
agreement, the revenue share, the revenue sharing rules, which
34:50
is what gets very complicated is based off of an expected 20%
34:56
target growth year on year. So if you do the math, because I
35:02
did on what the the percentage of salary cap to the expected
35:08
revenue generated, this is just top line, this is before
35:11
expenses. Just to be clear, the percentage
35:13
of salary relative to revenue goes down by about a percentage
35:19
point every single year. Even if they meet, if they meet
35:23
those revenue growth goals and then that salary is staying
35:27
fixed at 3%. It also starts out at 9% of
35:32
revenues, so it's going down from 9% of revenues.
35:37
I think if you extrapolate this out five years or something like
35:39
that, it ends up being about 5.6% of revenue for salary.
35:45
So you can see why they upset. OK, so let's talk about the
35:50
league's proposal. So the the league last provided
35:53
a proposal I believe around the November extension deadline.
35:59
They are proposing a minimum salary of $220,000.
36:05
And you'll if you recall from what we just read, that is.
36:09
Almost the Max. Almost the Max on the current
36:11
CBA. You're like, OK.
36:12
We're moving in a redirection. Average salary $530,000 with
36:17
progressive increase year over year.
36:20
Max salary $1 million, maybe up to 1.3 depending on like your
36:25
marketability and things like that, but progressive increase
36:28
to 2 million over the six year term that they're offering with
36:32
a salary cap of 5 million. Everything's kind of like times
36:36
5 almost. Basically, yeah, they're also
36:40
offering anywhere from 50 to 70% of revenue after expenses.
36:46
So they are talking about revenue sharing after expenses.
36:50
It took me so long to figure out how I could equate this to what
36:55
the players association is asking for.
36:58
So the way that I'm going to say this right now is that this is
37:01
essentially 15% of gross revenue according to Front Office
37:05
Sports, an article that I read there.
37:08
So keep that in mind. We're going to say 15%.
37:14
There's also a whole slew of things that have to go right in
37:19
order for this revenue share to even kick in, kick in.
37:21
So, and I'm not going to go into that level of detail today.
37:25
Players association proposal moving forward, they are asking
37:30
for an average salary, so average from the league was 530.
37:34
Progressively increasing they're at the players union is asking
37:38
for an average salary of $800,000.
37:41
Oh wow. OK, so we went from current CBA
37:45
of like 120 K to 800 to 800, and the league is at 5:30.
37:51
Yeah. OK.
37:52
So now you're like, OK, players, players union, what are we
37:56
talking? About.
37:57
Yeah, that's a little. They're also asking for a salary
38:00
cap of $10.5 million. This is actually down from 12.5
38:05
of their original yes, double the proposed and the they are
38:11
asking for the salary cap to be determined based on the revenues
38:18
generated. So this is also done in the NBA.
38:23
They call it basketball related earnings.
38:26
This is done in the NFL. This is done in the NHL, in all
38:30
of those sports. I don't have exact figures for
38:33
all of the different leagues, but I know the NBA is roughly a
38:36
5050 split split. Yeah, with the players, right.
38:42
The players union is asking for 30%.
38:45
So they're they're not they're not jumping all the way to what
38:48
the NBA is doing and I want to be doing that, but they're
38:50
asking for 30%. So if you remember, we, we tried
38:55
to get as best we could. The apples to apples league is
38:57
offering 15. The players are asking for 30%.
39:03
What I realized in reading a lot about this is that the sticking
39:12
point is about the revenue sharing, but the real sticking
39:16
point is that no one actually knows what revenue the WNBA is
39:22
generating. So every source I went and
39:25
looked at, it was like our best estimates based on like XYZ
39:31
sources like not the league. The league does not publicly
39:34
publish that information. Are, you know, is this 100
39:40
million in 2019, 200 million in 2023, things like that.
39:46
Where I think this is really falling down is the players are
39:49
asking for that 30%, but they're also asking for salary caps to
39:54
be tied to revenues. And I think that that is
39:58
actually where the league is saying we can't.
40:01
Do that. And it begs the question, like,
40:05
why so that then you start to think through and you're like,
40:08
OK, the WNBA is subsidized by the MBA.
40:12
It has been widely believed that the WNBA has never been
40:18
profitable, right? It generates revenue, but its
40:21
expenses are greater than its revenue.
40:25
All of this makes you wonder as the growth has literally
40:31
exploded. We just talked about some of
40:32
those numbers there. Is this a little bit protective
40:37
of the league to say hey? We'll give you more than you're
40:42
asking for. But but we don't want to open
40:45
our books. We're.
40:45
Not opening the books, Yeah, right.
40:48
Yeah. And that's that makes me feel
40:52
like like. It does.
40:55
It does, right? It feels like there's something
40:57
shady going on there. It feels like they're trying to
41:00
pull one over, or maybe because the NBA subsidizes it, that the
41:04
NBA has some sort of weird mechanism where some of their
41:10
expenses are subsidized by the WNBA somehow.
41:14
Or I don't know like. Well, I think it's not even that
41:16
it's like the NBA could cover the cost of the W like it's like
41:20
pennies in their pocket, right? The couch cushion, couch.
41:23
It's like the NBA is multiple billions of dollars that it's
41:27
it's generating. So it's, it's unfortunate, but
41:31
it it does to me like the aha moment really was, Oh, you're
41:36
going to concede and you're actually going to kind of, I
41:39
mean, frankly, we were looking at the minimums and averages and
41:41
things like that and we were like players like, what are you?
41:43
Doing like there seems like a. Big deal for you.
41:47
But what you realize that sticking point is, is it's not
41:50
really about those numbers. It's about the fact that they
41:53
want to take advantage of proportional compensation for
41:58
the growth that they are directly generating.
42:02
Like, let's be clear, the league has a lot of resources marketing
42:07
the broadcast deals, facilities, things like that.
42:11
But people aren't showing up because of the West on the
42:15
court. They're showing up because they
42:17
want to watch Paige Becker's and Nafisa Collier and Asia Wilson,
42:23
right? Like that's what people are,
42:26
that those are the jerseys they're wearing.
42:28
I think when we were talking about this the other night, the
42:30
thing that made it kind of click for me is this idea of net
42:34
versus gross. Like they talk about in
42:36
Hollywood, if you take your percentage of your salary based
42:40
on the net, there's some fancy book work that they can do to
42:45
show that the the movie never made any money net wise.
42:48
Like whereas if you take it on the gross, no matter what the
42:52
expenses were, you get a piece of it based on the overall money
42:55
that it made. Right, Yeah.
42:57
And so that's the other piece that's like not clear too with
43:01
the books being opaque. Essentially, not only do we not
43:06
know how much revenue the league is actually generating, we have
43:09
no idea on expenses, right? So let's just move really quick
43:14
to just some leverage tactics that we've seen on both sides.
43:18
The league we mentioned this did release the 2026 season
43:23
schedule. We have both had links season
43:27
ticket reps call both of us like ad nauseam.
43:30
And I'm kind of like, you can't tell me that you well, and you
43:33
can't tell me there's going to be a season.
43:34
So like, I don't I'm like unsure what's going on here right now,
43:39
but they released this schedule. There are some who speculate
43:44
that the league did this to try and force the union's hands.
43:49
I think the assumption is that they can come, The league can
43:52
come back and say, well, there was a schedule and now that
43:56
you're the reason that we're not playing it.
43:58
And I don't think anybody's actually buying that.
44:02
We have had players like Natasha Cloud of the New York Liberty.
44:05
She's playing on the the Phantom right now, the ghost gang from
44:09
Unrivaled saying in press conferences and on podcasts like
44:14
we don't we don't need the league.
44:15
Like we'll just keep playing. Like we'll find ways to play.
44:18
And I've actually read at first when we talked about this a
44:22
couple episodes ago and we were kind of like girl, like tone it
44:26
down a little bit. But come to find out that
44:30
actually there's a lot of players who share that
44:33
sentiment. And I was reading about this
44:35
concept of player hubs that are now getting established.
44:40
So there are different universities, the Bay Club in
44:43
the Bay Area, which is like a fitness center.
44:46
There's other kind of sports science fitness labs or whatever
44:50
on the East Coast that are opening their doors to players
44:53
say, hey, come in, work out. And what I, the article I was
44:57
reading was saying like a strike is it's it's lovely when the
45:01
players agree to a strike in principle.
45:05
It's a very different thing to do it in practice.
45:08
And these player hubs popping up now show that the players
45:13
actually are capable of executing it in reality.
45:16
I think it's interesting with unrivaled for some of the bigger
45:20
name players that are playing there.
45:23
They could potentially if they if they keep finding a way to
45:25
play via unrivaled, it's like a little bit of a strike fun.
45:28
And it's like, I'm not worried about getting paid from the West
45:32
if I can keep doing this year round or yeah, 3/4 of the year,
45:36
whatever it is. And it's like highly
45:38
competitive. I mean, you're playing again,
45:39
we've talked about this, but if you're playing against the best
45:42
competition there is to offer, it's not like you're playing in
45:47
some, you know, summer league thing right, where you can't
45:51
find good competition to, to, to play alongside.
45:55
So I just want to wrap this segment up.
45:58
We've, we've mentioned today that the players union and the
46:02
league met in New York City. They met in person for the first
46:05
time since October. I believe the meeting lasted 3
46:11
hours. The league didn't even bring a
46:15
proposal the. League The league didn't bring a
46:18
proposal, and when Players Association president NECA
46:23
Gumaki was leaving, she was asked for comment.
46:27
She declined to comment. We have no other reporting
46:31
outside of that right now, but I have to assume there was no deal
46:35
made. Maybe it's like we've got to go
46:37
back and think about it, but I think the league showing up with
46:41
no proposal reinforces to the union like they're not taking us
46:44
seriously and I just, I kind of wonder if we're going to hear
46:49
about the strike. Yeah, Yeah.
46:50
I mean, I think the league does kind of have the leverage
46:53
currently. I think they are by not showing
46:57
up with a proposal, they kind of said this is what it is.
47:00
So you guys figure out what you need to do and like that can
47:03
swing very quickly if they do decide to strike, but.
47:07
Yeah, I I see that, but I also think the player, So what
47:14
happens if a strike occurs, right?
47:17
The league right now had to release that schedule because
47:20
they have to start working out venue timing and things like
47:24
that. And their broadcast partners,
47:26
they just signed like a $2.2 billion broadcast deal that's
47:31
supposed to last like a number of years.
47:34
Yeah. But Can you imagine if the first
47:36
year that you're doing that you're having to like pull back
47:39
on, Yeah, that doesn't look good.
47:41
Yeah, so and that's a lot of money.
47:43
So I think I actually think they are from a business perspective
47:51
are in a a bit of a tricky position.
47:54
And the more that the play, what's interesting now what
47:57
really like I really think is going to be fascinating is how
48:00
do the players message what's happening?
48:04
Because if they can win popular support fans are fans will I
48:10
mean we just saw unrivaled like fans will travel with them.
48:13
They want to see these players play, but it'll be interesting
48:18
to see like how that shakes out. I I I don't know.
48:21
I think the league is, I think they're.
48:24
Awesome. I I swing back and forth day,
48:27
day-to-day. Yeah, it's it's a lot.
48:31
So that's all we're going to get into for tonight.
48:35
If you want to talk to me ever about cumulative growth targets
48:40
and cumulative revenue and how that turns into overages and
48:43
underages and things like that, I'm happy to entertain you.
48:48
I was just like glazing over. I know more than I need to know
48:51
about how the revenue sharing works in the WNBA, but with
48:55
that, I think we're going to move into our next segment.
48:59
Yeah, we got a little bit of a NCAA roundup we're going to try
49:02
and do here, and we'll try to swing through these pretty
49:04
quickly. First up basketball, we have our
49:08
standings. I'm going to throw these
49:09
standings out there. Yukon is #1 UCLA #2 S Carolina
49:15
3, Texas 4, Vanderbilt 5. LSU 6.
49:19
Louisville 7, Iowa 8, Michigan 9, and Oklahoma 10.
49:25
I think these might have shifted a tiny bit.
49:27
These were taken the other day. So if I got those a little bit
49:31
off, that's from when you're listening.
49:33
It's listening to this. So storyline number one that I
49:36
wanted to bring up. I mean, this is the storyline
49:39
every year. Yukon seems unbeatable once
49:42
again. They like truly look.
49:44
So there's been years where Yukon is going undefeated or
49:47
like they have an undefeated record.
49:49
But they, they show some like chinks in the armor.
49:53
They played a really big game against #15 Tennessee, like they
49:57
were #15 when they played on Sunday.
49:59
And I I didn't get to watch it, but I heard it was.
50:02
Close and then it. And then it was.
50:04
Not. They look untouchable.
50:08
Yeah, it was funny. I had a note here that there was
50:10
a game last week against Xavier where Ozzie Fudd had a off game
50:13
and Geno sounded a little bit worried about her.
50:15
I don't know if it was like sickness, mental issues,
50:18
whatever it was. And but Even so, she had an off
50:22
night, 6 points and they were on a short bench with some
50:25
injuries. They still beat Xavier by 58
50:27
points. So even their benches stacked.
50:30
I mean, always is. It was whenever you watch them,
50:33
like in the tournament at the end of the year, like pull
50:36
someone off the bench and you're like, oh, the quality is going
50:38
to no, no, it's not. What happens like Gino's
50:42
recruiting machine is unreal. Yeah, ridiculous.
50:46
The second storyline up here is that the SEC in the Big 10 are
50:50
dominating the standings. So 10 of the top 25 teams
50:54
earlier, the SEC or the Big 10, sorry, 10 of the top 25 are SEC,
51:01
seven of the top 25 are Big 10. We have the Yukon is Big East,
51:07
obviously, but then you've got UCLA, Big 10, four SEC teams,
51:13
Louisville's ACC, and then back to two Big 10 teams in Iowa and
51:16
Michigan. And then SEC is round up the top
51:19
10. So it's essentially all SEC,
51:21
it's all Big 10. Those are where the big
51:24
powerhouse players are this year.
51:26
Yeah. And I feel like that's probably
51:27
been the case for a while if, you know, outside of UConn, I
51:33
think it's hard for teams outside of those two conferences
51:37
to break in. Maybe you see the ACC creep in
51:40
there every once in a while. I know Florida State went on a
51:41
really good run last year in the tournament, but it's it's not
51:47
surprising. I think the the tournament is
51:51
going to be. Yeah, fire.
51:53
Yeah, it's going to be awesome. Yeah.
51:55
All right, moving on to hockey, we'll quick go through the
51:59
standings here we have #1 Wisconsin.
52:03
Go Badgers. Ohio State #2 Minnesota at 3,
52:07
Penn State at 4, Northwestern at 5, UConn at six, Quinnipiac at
52:15
7, Princeton at 8, Yale at 9, and Minnesota Duluth at 10:00.
52:21
Nice storyline. One here is the Olympic shadow
52:28
is upon us. It's coming.
52:31
Wisconsin and Minnesota are missing some of their key
52:34
players. So I think the big thing is
52:36
that's gonna test the depth of these teams or give some teams
52:41
that are gonna play them the ability to maybe steal some
52:44
ranking from having some, you know, some of your players out.
52:47
Yeah, oddly enough, I think we saw a little bit of that play
52:50
out actually this past weekend, right?
52:54
The Gophers played the Badgers. It was in our What to watch in
52:56
last episode. The Badgers were here in
52:59
Minnesota and the Gophers beat them in overtime on Friday
53:02
night. And we were, as we were watching
53:05
it, we were talking about how like, oh, I wonder if the
53:07
Badgers, the Badgers have six players on Team USA that are
53:11
gone. So you can imagine what that
53:13
happens with line shuffling in college.
53:15
It's not like you have reserve players.
53:17
You can go. Grab.
53:18
You know, grab from and so that'll be interesting to to to
53:23
watch. The Badgers did turn around and
53:25
yeah, yeah, the next day, but. So one of the examples I have
53:29
here is that I believe it's this weekend, Wisconsin plays #2 Ohio
53:34
State, so big game there. And so you could kind of see a
53:37
swapping of rankings if Ohio State's able to take both of
53:40
those games. Yeah, for sure.
53:42
Or you see something like Wisconsin playing Minnesota
53:45
State, which I would still expect Wisconsin to win, but
53:48
anything could happen. And you could see someone like
53:50
Minnesota State kind of jumping up the rankings by totally by
53:53
pulling that out. Yeah, yeah, anything could
53:55
happen. Storyline #2 I have here, This
53:59
is a little bit under the radar. For the past few years, they've
54:02
been good, but they seem to kind of escape like the celebrity or
54:07
whatever you want to call it. National spotlight.
54:09
The Penn State Newtonians have found themselves in fourth place
54:12
in the rankings. I think they would tell you it's
54:16
where they belong. They've been here for the past
54:19
few years. Before that, it really was not
54:22
their spot to be this high up in the rankings.
54:24
And I was just actually surprised when I saw that they
54:26
were the number 14. We talked about Minnesota,
54:29
Wisconsin, Ohio State, and that's where we kind of always
54:32
stop. Yeah, well, it's weird because
54:35
too, I think our teams play in the WCHA.
54:38
Yep. And Penn State's not in that.
54:42
I don't think they are. Now.
54:44
I'm like trying to think. Through the graphic, they're.
54:45
Not so like we, we like lose track of them.
54:47
I'm sure they they might play with like the Ivs or something
54:50
like that. So that is really interesting
54:53
because I would have never like, yeah, never would have crossed
54:57
my mind. They have a, they know they had
54:59
a hockey team. They have a well, they have
55:00
apparently a really good defense led by alternate captain Kendall
55:04
Butts. She has 21 assists and 38 block
55:07
shots. Holy, holy.
55:08
And then they have the main goaltender Katie Desaw with a 22
55:12
and O record goals against average of 1.2 and a save
55:17
percentage of .934. Wow.
55:20
Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah.
55:22
So they are they are stacked defensive wise.
55:25
All right, cool. All right.
55:28
We are going to move on to gymnastics.
55:30
This is going to be a little bit of a a learning situation I have
55:32
here for both of us. Since we I need to.
55:34
Learn yes, we need to learn more about gymnastics.
55:36
We have the standings Oklahoma, LSU, Alabama, Florida, UCLA,
55:42
Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia, Stanford and Michigan.
55:48
I mean we can talk a little bit about what we saw this past this
55:52
past weekend. We we've really covered it a lot
55:54
in our kind of opening segment there, but made me want to get a
55:59
little bit more into trying to search out some more of these
56:02
games or these meats. And I'm just going to say a
56:05
little bit more attached to this.
56:07
Yeah. I mean, I think as I was looking
56:09
at this kind of prepping for this segment, I was like, OK,
56:12
now I want to go watch some of these.
56:15
No shade to the Gophers, but they're not on this top 10.
56:18
List right? I think they're 17th right now.
56:20
Yeah, and Iowa wasn't either. So now I'm kind of like, I want
56:24
to go. Like, can I find an Oklahoma
56:26
meet to watch? They have six titles in the last
56:29
11 seasons. They're just reading an article
56:31
about how they're like an undisputed dynasty in women's
56:35
college gymnastics. LSU, Alabama, like you
56:38
mentioned, Florida was like a dark horse runner in some
56:41
preseason conviction thing or not dark horse runner, but like
56:44
somebody who is going to contend for the top.
56:48
Yeah, I think it's really it's it's cool to start to like delve
56:53
into a new sport and get more acclimated with it, a little bit
56:56
more understand the scoring. I think you're going to talk a
56:58
little bit about that here in a second.
57:00
I do know next weekend the Gophers are hosting UCLA where
57:06
The Olympian Jordan Chiles competes for and we highlighted
57:12
her last week. She scored a perfect 10 on a BM
57:15
routine and she is very close y'all to getting her bronze
57:19
medal reinstated. From Oh is it?
57:21
Yeah. Paris Olympics, Yeah.
57:24
Yeah. So she's it's like in an appeals
57:25
court right now. She should probably win that.
57:28
She deserves it, yeah. She does, so this is a new thing
57:32
to me. The 198 club scoring a 198 in
57:36
team competition is like this, this benchmark.
57:40
Okay, so it's very hard getting hard.
57:42
Well I think the Gophers just last week got like 197 and 8th
57:47
or something like that. Right.
57:48
So hard. Yeah, it's hard.
57:50
There's only currently four teams that have hit that this
57:53
year. So you have Oklahoma and LSU
57:56
were the only ones until this past weekend and then we had the
57:59
Florida Gators and UCLA join. OK.
58:01
All right. So I'll watch for that.
58:04
The interesting thing here is that they are changing how they
58:07
score the teams this year and so let me make sure I got my
58:11
numbers right here. So you go from a six meet
58:14
average to a nine meet average, it requires a Max of five home
58:20
and a minimum of five away scores, dropping the top and
58:23
bottom scores from that set. And So what they're trying to do
58:28
here, and I don't know if I said that all exactly right, but what
58:31
they're trying to do is encourage consistency over the
58:34
whole season, whereas before it was encouraging more of a later
58:38
season peak. And So what they're trying to do
58:40
is get teams to stay at a high level for the entire season
58:45
instead of kind of using it as a ramp up.
58:47
Interesting. And I wonder if that also
58:49
effects like what we saw in the meet.
58:52
Right. You have your 6 top competitors
58:55
in that event go, but you've got, you know you've got other
58:58
people who can do those events. We even saw alternates go in the
59:01
kind of whatever slush time after the the counted scores
59:06
went. Yeah.
59:07
And so you had this ability to kind of throw away some of your
59:10
really bad, more of your bad scores and now you have less of
59:13
that ability. You need to hold on to all of
59:16
that performance for as long as you possibly can.
59:19
Interesting. And then I think the individual
59:23
scoring will stay the same. This is just for the teams.
59:26
OK, you kind of wonder. I'm sorry, y'all, I'm yawning.
59:32
You kind of wonder, too. It'd be interesting to look
59:35
into, like, is the NCAA trying to push this more from a
59:40
broadcast perspective? Because to me, that also sounds
59:42
like they're trying to make it. More exciting to watch.
59:46
All year, all season long, right?
59:48
I think we see a lot of momentum pick up in these NCAA sports
59:51
seasons as you reach tournament time.
59:54
The basketball, basketball is a perfect example, right?
59:58
And volleyball, etcetera. But I wonder if they're trying
1:00:01
to push that out to make it kind of a more more interesting.
1:00:06
Watch earlier throughout the season.
1:00:08
A weird throwback, but it feels kind of like how we used to do
1:00:12
CrossFit a lot and the guy who did the Games there was kind of
1:00:16
saying you want it to be exciting.
1:00:17
No matter whether you're watching a regional or the
1:00:21
championship, you want it to always be exciting.
1:00:23
So yeah, I think that kind of is what they're going for.
1:00:25
Here totally. I think that was all of our NCAA
1:00:29
roundup. We are moving on to what to
1:00:31
watch. Yeah, and we have a massive,
1:00:36
massive amount of things to watch here.
1:00:39
Well, here's the deal y'all, the Olympics start this week, so
1:00:42
they actually kick off the day that this podcast gets released.
1:00:47
There's some events that start on Wednesday, February 4th yes.
1:00:53
So we wanted to bring to you, when do the athletes we've
1:00:56
talked about here compete over the next two weeks?
1:00:59
Because I I know I'm for I for 1:00 AM, like, OK, like we do
1:01:04
this event this time and then like now we do figure skating,
1:01:07
but that's like a week away. Like I don't really understand.
1:01:10
So I'm going to you might, I can run us through the Olympics here
1:01:14
quick. So we're just we're going to go
1:01:17
through this real fast. We're actually going to post
1:01:19
this, we'll post this to our social media this week too.
1:01:22
So if you need a refresher, you can you can go check it out
1:01:25
there. So starting at the top Madison
1:01:27
Chalk and Evan Bates. They are a ice dance duo, five
1:01:33
time defending US champions won the last three world champions,
1:01:36
but they have yet to win Olympic gold.
1:01:40
Ice dance competition starts on February 9th, so mark your
1:01:44
calendars if you are into ice dance.
1:01:48
Jesse Diggins, Minnesota native, cross country skier, 4th and
1:01:54
final Olympic. She won the silver and bronze in
1:01:56
Beijing. I think she's well known as one
1:01:59
of the best cross country skaters in the world.
1:02:01
Those races start Saturday, February 7th.
1:02:04
So that is coming up here. So something to watch out for.
1:02:08
Team USA drops the puck for the first time for these Olympic
1:02:12
Games against Chechea on Thursday, February 5th.
1:02:17
So tomorrow, if you're listening to that, to us today, looking to
1:02:22
get back to gold. So they lost to Team Canada in
1:02:25
2022. Top PWHL draft prospects on
1:02:29
display from some of the teams that we just talked about.
1:02:33
Caroline Harvey, Abby Murphy, Layla Edwards and Tessa Janicki
1:02:38
are all expected to go actually 1234 in the PWHL draft playing
1:02:43
for Team USA. Siobhan, Chelsea Forgan and
1:02:48
Sophia Kirby are in the double S luge.
1:02:52
So that is starting on February 11th, we've got figure skating
1:02:57
Amber Glenn and Alyssa Lew. February 17th is when the figure
1:03:04
skating, the singles figure skating competition begins.
1:03:07
For the women, we've got Kaylee Humphries and Elena Myers Taylor
1:03:13
on the bobsled. They not together separately,
1:03:16
separately. That's on February 15th, just a
1:03:20
couple of 40 year old working moms.
1:03:22
The note literally says just a couple of 40 year old working
1:03:25
moms. Just a couple of 40 year old
1:03:27
working moms who are out there just.
1:03:30
Bobsledding. Aaron Jackson, 500 meter speed
1:03:36
skating. She's the defending gold
1:03:37
medalist. She's the first black American
1:03:40
woman to win speed skating gold. She will race to defend her
1:03:45
title on February 15th, SO22 February 15th right there
1:03:49
bobsled speed skating Chloe Kim snowboarding looking to win her
1:03:54
third consecutive gold on the half pipe.
1:04:00
Yes, she she did did something aggressive to her shoulder
1:04:05
recently and and is supposed to be competing.
1:04:07
So we'll see how that goes. February 11th and 12th for the
1:04:11
half pipe competition. There are other snowboard
1:04:13
events. We're just highlighting that one
1:04:15
here, Mystique Row skeleton. So just a reminder, bobsleds
1:04:21
like the big bulletty one that you like sit down in luge is
1:04:24
like you're laying back on your back.
1:04:26
The skeleton like skeleton like, but you're facing forward.
1:04:29
And you're laying on your stomach.
1:04:31
Frightening. Yeah, so if you want to watch
1:04:33
that, you can watch it on February 13th.
1:04:36
Great. Pre Valentine's Day viewing.
1:04:39
Mystique earned the silver medal at the 2025 World Championships
1:04:43
and looks to be in really good form to potentially take gold.
1:04:47
And then Michaela Schifrin, Lindsey Vonn, we've talked ad
1:04:50
nauseam about these two Alpine skiing greats.
1:04:54
This competition does start over the weekend on February 8th.
1:04:58
And Schifrin is looking for redemption after crashing out
1:05:02
and missing the podium and all six of her events in Beijing
1:05:05
after having won gold medals in the World Championships all
1:05:08
before that and then Vaughn obviously back for one final
1:05:11
run, remains to be seen. I bet she was hoping for that
1:05:15
second week. What her?
1:05:16
Yeah, yeah, right. What her status will be.
1:05:20
But I know we'll be watching. It's pretty historic to see her
1:05:23
back up hill. And then just rounding us out,
1:05:26
Corinne Stoddard, short track speed skating.
1:05:29
So Aaron Jackson in the 500 meters is like a bigger loop.
1:05:34
Like think around like an entire ice hockey rink, if you will.
1:05:38
It's not quite the same. Short track is like like quick
1:05:43
like it's it's shorter laps, but they they race the same
1:05:47
distances. So it's different.
1:05:49
It's just like a different. Energy expenditure type.
1:05:51
Thing yeah, so that starts on February 7th so we had no rhyme
1:05:56
or reason for how we listed these out they're not like
1:06:00
chunked by a week so we didn't make that easy for you but.
1:06:03
I think we're going to try and maybe like a medal count too.
1:06:05
We will roll a medal count and we'll have an update next or in
1:06:09
our next episode of like where we're at, where you can watch
1:06:13
what we've enjoyed watching, all that good stuff.
1:06:15
So looking forward to the Olympics, honestly, athletic
1:06:19
greatness at its finest. And like we've talked about
1:06:22
before, just in sports that like don't usually get to other stage
1:06:26
too. So looking forward to.
1:06:28
That all right, I think we've gone through, we've actually
1:06:30
talked about a few of these, but we'll, we'll round this out with
1:06:32
some NCAA and unrivaled NCAA basketball this weekend.
1:06:37
The game to watch Game of the week #2 UCLA at #8 Michigan
1:06:42
Saturday February 8th at 2:00 PM on FOX.
1:06:46
Nice. I mean so UCLA is 11 O in the
1:06:48
conference, 21 O1 all around. Saw that Michigan is 10 and one
1:06:52
in the conference and 19 and three all around.
1:06:56
This is just a massive match up in the the big. 10 Big 10 match
1:06:59
up. So, yeah, tune in for that one.
1:07:02
That's that's going to be just, they're going to cut that one
1:07:05
out. Again, we talked about #2 Ohio
1:07:07
State at #1 University of Wisconsin for hockey.
1:07:10
Go Badger. So for some context, before
1:07:15
their earlier meeting, Wisconsin met the Buckeyes in the 2025
1:07:20
championship. OK, the Badgers brought home the
1:07:23
trophy in a four three overtime win.
1:07:27
They were trailing 3 two in the final period of regulations and
1:07:29
Kirsten Sims tied things up with a penalty shot with 18.9 seconds
1:07:34
to to go and then went on to score the game winner over time.
1:07:37
Yeah, I was reading about her. She's supposedly very good.
1:07:40
Yes. So Wisconsin won both games
1:07:42
earlier this season, 2 one and six one.
1:07:46
I mean, this is going to be a chance for Ohio State.
1:07:48
While Wisconsin's down, some players potentially swap
1:07:51
rankings with Wisconsin. So I would not love to see.
1:07:55
It but. Maybe.
1:07:58
All right. And we did talk about those
1:07:59
gymnastics, a little bit of our bias showing here.
1:08:02
Jordan Chiles is going to be in town with UCLA taking out the
1:08:05
Golden Gophers. Yeah, we might.
1:08:07
Have to gate crash that. Yeah, I know.
1:08:09
Too bad our tickets weren't for this.
1:08:11
Yeah, I'm getting sure that we wouldn't have.
1:08:12
Yeah, we wouldn't have gotten those tickets.
1:08:15
All right, we'll round it out with Unrivaled Saturday night.
1:08:19
So we have a grudge matches. The Rose take on the vinyl
1:08:21
rematch of last year's championship, so the rows come
1:08:24
out on top. They're both 5 and 6.
1:08:26
Rows is 5, vinyl is 6. So they're both wanting to claw
1:08:30
back up the rankings, so it's gonna be a good game.
1:08:33
Yeah, we're getting down to the wire and unrivaled.
1:08:35
I think they've got this weekend and then I think actually the
1:08:39
following weekend. Next Wednesday starts the
1:08:41
one-on-one. The one-on-one tournament
1:08:43
starts, which that is gonna be a whole other wrinkle to this
1:08:46
thing. More prize money on the line.
1:08:48
Yep, all that kind of stuff. So looking forward to.
1:08:51
That the second game that night is the number one mist taking on
1:08:53
the #3 Phantom. They're both playing great right
1:08:57
now. I think the phantom is 1/2 game
1:09:00
back because the mist played tonight I think.
1:09:03
Yeah, well, once we're done recording, we'll.
1:09:06
Go see. We'll go see what happened.
1:09:08
And that's all I got for what to watch this week.
1:09:10
All right? I think we're going to go on to
1:09:14
winners and losers, losers, losers first.
1:09:16
Close it out losers first so we end on a.
1:09:19
On a high note on. A high note, you know, I, I'm
1:09:28
trying not to just really harp on my frustration with what's
1:09:34
going on with the West, but I, so I, I'm going to I'm going to
1:09:37
pivot a little bit. I, I, I don't think it's a loser
1:09:42
necessarily, but I was, I was sad to hear about Von's crash.
1:09:49
Just like knowing her story, like if, if you have an
1:09:52
opportunity to go like check that out a little bit more,
1:09:57
seeing that she fought her way back from a really gruesome knee
1:10:02
injury to come back and compete and like be winning at this
1:10:06
stage in her career. And to like see that, like I
1:10:09
hope that it turns into a good news story, But I know that was
1:10:13
a that was, that was a bummer to hear, especially as we've kind
1:10:18
of like hyped. That up a bunch.
1:10:21
So that's going to be my loser for today.
1:10:24
So I don't rag on the WNBA too much.
1:10:26
My losers or the LGLPGA attorney organizers?
1:10:32
I missed it in your headlines when you sent it over.
1:10:35
And so when I was looking for something, I was like, oh, this
1:10:38
is insane. Like it seems that a lot of the
1:10:40
players were upset. Sounds like it might have been
1:10:43
playable. You don't want to see a weekend
1:10:46
like that cut short. No, and it seems it's also like
1:10:50
a bummer of a way to start their season.
1:10:52
That was their first tournament of the of the LPGA Tour, so it.
1:10:57
As the winner, you're like, yeah, but also you're kind of
1:11:00
like, Oh, no one likes me right now.
1:11:03
Yeah, I don't know. And I don't know enough about.
1:11:05
That's another one where like we've got to get to know the
1:11:07
athletes a little bit more to like know if Nelly Cord is kind
1:11:11
of one of those people that's like, oh, I didn't I don't think
1:11:14
this was really fair. Or if she's like.
1:11:16
Yeah, did I get the money I got. This.
1:11:18
I did it, yeah. So.
1:11:21
My winner was Rabakina for winning nine Open.
1:11:26
Yeah, in a second Grand Slam. Yeah, that's, that's huge.
1:11:30
And I think like an outcome no one.
1:11:33
Yeah, yeah. I think kind of felt like that.
1:11:35
So good for her. My winner is I like can't get
1:11:46
over that game, Marina Mayberry's and just like the
1:11:53
whole that whole vibe and atmosphere.
1:11:57
We saw the breeze played earlier in that night.
1:12:00
So that's Paige Becker's team, youngest team and unrivalled.
1:12:04
And I just feel like the vibes there were so good.
1:12:08
And it's really fun to see people just, like, embrace these
1:12:13
women. Yeah.
1:12:14
As icons. Yep.
1:12:16
Frankly, I love seeing that. Gets me every time.
1:12:22
Yeah. Gets me every time.
1:12:24
So. All right.
1:12:25
I think that's the end for today.
1:12:27
That's it, that's all we got. That's all we got, that's all we
1:12:30
got. So thanks.
1:12:30
Thanks for being with us. TuneIn next week for more.
1:12:34
Yeah, we'll have more next week. Socials RTG under Score Pod
1:12:39
raisingthegamepod@gmail.com Yeah and yeah.
1:12:43
Catch us on YouTube and Spotify. Bye bye.