there's an artificial ceiling on the collective talent an nwsl team can possess, that's just a thing salary caps do. the nwsl's current problem is that the cap is also too low for the current landscape. bumping it to $5-7m + HIP would help, but keeping it at $3.7m + HIP is a significant handcuffing.

I had so much fun interviewing Survivor 50 winner Aubry Bracco (aka one of my high school field hockey coaches!!) about preparing for her fourth season of the reality show, her mental game, and her incredible Simmotion win! Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

Producer @byalexazzi.bsky.social jumps into the interviewer chair to talk w/ Survivor winner Aubry Bracco, who happens to be one of her old field hockey coaches! They discuss how Aubry’s sports experience helped her outwit, outplay & outlast her fellow castaways. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

Big Citrus asks: What would women’s soccer look like today if the men’s and women’s World Cups were held at the same time? We examine the sports where side-by-side competitions ARE the norm & remind folks of the ways women’s soccer has purposefully been held back. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

The Athletic’s @sabreenajm.bsky.social on the Aces’ Chennedy Carter briefly changing her Insta bio to “free agent” & the last time her status was “out with illness.” Full ep: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g... Watch the full interview on the iHeart Women’s Sports YouTube later today.

Absolutely insane that international soccer has moved to being played in quarters before men's NCAA basketball has managed to get there.

Ketra Armstrong, Dir. of the Center for Race & Ethnicity in Sport at Michigan, joins me ahead of Juneteenth to discuss pro sports teams celebrating the federal holiday with themed games. Listen: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g... Watch the full interview on iHeart Women’s Sports YouTube.

Ketra Armstrong, Dir of the Center for Race & Ethnicity in Sport at Michigan, joins me ahead of Juneteenth to discuss how sport can inspire conversations about race, gender & equity, and whether men have screwed things up so much we might finally get a matriarchy. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

Slices! Have you filled out our "Good Game" survey yet?! We want to hear from you! What do you like about the pod? What would you change? In addition to providing us with valuable feedback, you'll also be entered to win a prize! forms.gle/gdo21zC7j97J...

Fwiw, Fox’s score bug also fails to meet the baseline ratio for color contrast (3:1). Pro tip: when the world feed graphics are accessible, don’t tweak them to make them inaccessible?!

“Let’s ditch the easy-to-see team color swatches and use a 1-pixel-wide outline around the country name instead.” - Fox World Cup execs, probably

Happy Pride, y’all! Big Citrus discusses how we’re celebrating this month, how Pride & women’s sports can feel one & the same, and just how quickly things have changed in both spaces. I also talk about attending one of Gloria Steinem’s famous Talking Circles. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

Portland Fire coach Alex Sarama on how his constraints-led approach results in tweaks like practicing in socks or with strobe goggles. Listen to the full episode: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g... Watch the full interview later today on the iHeart Women’s Sports YouTube.

Polymarket offered me enough money to pay my rent for ten months for one post in my newsletter and I turned it down because I enjoy being able to sleep at night.

Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil died after being trapped in a building hit by Israeli airstrikes. A Post reconstruction of Khalil’s final hours found that Israel denied rescuers access to her during a key period when she was still alive. https://wapo.st/43omgty

Big Citrus talks early storylines of the WNBA season & the PWHLPA publicly disclosing player salaries, introduces you to a pair of pole vaultin’ twins & stumbles upon a reminder that people are still having sex. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g... @biancahillier.bsky.social @byalexazzi.bsky.social

I just want to be clear that if MSU matched the highest operating budget in D1 women's hockey (Wisconsin, at $4.3 million per a quick google) and we subtracted that from this men's budget, they'd still have the 6th highest men's budget (just behind the Wisconsin men).

THINGS WE LOVE TO SEE. ❤️ I believe this makes the PWHL/PA the first women's pro sports league to publicly disclose player salaries to the public. *WNBA salaries are public, but only because they are leaked to the @herhoopstats.com team.

NEWS: In an effort to promote transparency, the PWHL Players Association is disclosing salaries to the public for the first time in the league’s three-season history. A “Player Salary Guide” quietly went live on the PA’s website on Tuesday morning. www.nytimes.com/athletic/730...

Genuinely messed up that for like 75% of all WNBA topics you search on Google, it prompts you to ask the follow-up question “Who is the transwoman in the WNBA?” (if you click on it the answer given is “Layshia Clarendon,” who is non-binary and retired)

ABC News has now taken all FiveThirtyEight articles completely offline. They now redirect to abcnews dot com.politics. A needless erasure of thousands of pages of knowledge.

WER literally just copy-and-pasted the NFL media credential waiver 😅 It’s not like there’s any difference between a women’s rugby league that doesn’t yet pay its players and the NFL. From the Philadelphia Eagles site:

This was a top-three moment in women’s sports nonsense, and it ain’t third.

If you ever hear people speak positively about conditions in the NWHL and argue things were better than they are with the PWHL just know they are wearing the thickest rose coloured nostalgia glasses imaginable and have never once thought about the lived experiences of these players from then to now.

Some of you aren’t old enough to remember when the NWHL played in Lake Placid at the height of the COVID pandemic — all while players weren’t receiving health insurance — and dozens of players tested positive, but the league persevered until local health officials shut it all down. … and it shows.

Alex had asked me about if this topic (before doing the math) last week and I have to say, the numbers have me rethinking things. I was pretty adamant things would be fine but damn, that's kind of crazy.

One way to help the talent pipeline? The state of Michigan could add its first ever NCAA D1 women's hockey team to accompany the state's new pro team. 🙃

On today's Good Game episode, I gave my (potentially controversial!) take on why the PWHL's expansion plans aren't necessarily backed up by a robust talent pipeline. Here are the current pro:NCAA player ratios comparing the PWHL with the WNBA and NWSL.

It is very different in WBB media spaces/availabilities from any other sport I’ve covered — including lots of women’s Olympic sports. It needs to be more professional, full stop. I also think coaches/execs/athletes could use a Journalism 101 session bc I don’t think everyone understands our jobs.

Happy WNBA Season 30 Opening Day! Part 2 of Good Game’s WNBA season preview features the Western Conference teams. From the Aces’ dynasty to the Storm’s new-look roster, I get you caught up on the stories, stakes, stats, stars & sounds you need to know. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

If Sue Bird is now one of Connecticut's official birds, Wingspan also better include her in the game's next expansion pack.

With the NWSL, WNBA and PWHL all overlapping this weekend, this is your 52-hour warning to acquire a few extra screens ahead of Friday night. (All times eastern.) 6:30pm: LOU-POR ⚽ 7:00pm: BOS-OTT 🏒 7:30pm: CON-NYL 🏀 7:30pm: WAS-TOR 🏀 8:00pm: ORL-NC ⚽ 8:30pm ET: MTL-MIN 🏒 10:00pm: GSV-SEA 🏀

“Reminded that she had called Engelbert ’the worst leadership in the world,’ Collier stepped back slightly. ’Thinking about the state of the world right now, I think that's a little dramatic,’ Collier said.” 💀 💀💀

Really we all should root for a Knicks-Sixers playoff series every year because it’s one of the few matchups where the teams commute back and forth via chartered Amtrak trains instead of chartered flights. Tons of C02 emissions saved (Sixers boarding train pics from 2024)

While negotiating the retired player recognition payments for the new CBA, Tina Charles brought up the idea that, if a retired player is deceased, their beneficiary should receive the payment. That made it into the final agreement. Just one aspect of the rich legacy she left off the court

Seattle Storm guard & one half of the StudBudz, Natisha Hiedeman, shares the origins of the streaming duo & the moments that make her realize it’s more than just a side hustle. Full ep: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g... Watch the full interview later today on the iHeart Women’s Sports YouTube.

BREAKING: The Sky are signing guard Natasha Cloud to a one year deal at $555,000, sources tell @theathletic.com.

Montréal Victoire forward Abby Roque on a suspension affording her the chance to get a different perspective on Victoire games. Full episode: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g... Watch the full interview on the iHeart Women’s Sports YouTube later today!

Good Game celebrates 450! @byalexazzi.bsky.social, @biancahillier.bsky.social & I talk how the women’s sports landscape has changed since the show’s launch, the highs & lows of growth, and why we’re worried about Cathy Engelbert’s comments about “fragility.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

Mary Cain helped publicly expose the toxicity of famed coach Alberto Salazar & the Nike Oregon Project. She shares how she decided to write about the lies she was told then versus what she knows to be true now. Full ep podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g... Watch on the iHeart Women’s Sports YouTube

Boston Fleet captain and U.S. Olympic hero Megan Keller on her post-gold appearance on SNL and that deafening cheer from the audience when she and Hilary Knight walked out. Full episode: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g... Watch the full interview on the iHeart Women’s Sports YouTube.

Boston Fleet captain and U.S. Olympic hero Megan Keller talks PWHL playoffs, taking on the role of captain for the Fleet this year, and her favorite memories from the gold medal game and ensuing celebrations (like going on SNL & meeting Connor Storrie!). podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

Can’t wait for like, 500 articles that are like “as I dived under a table to hide from the shooter I realized I had to be even more sycophantic to the White House”

Good insight from Annie. Imho, what has fueled questions isn’t Cloud’s (general concept) “activism.” It’s the fact that — amid a sea of very politically active WNBA players — shockingly few of them have spoken out about Gaza, specifically.

Also, you know I had to have a Good Game sign out there. (It’s ending the day a bit worse for wear, but it did its job!)

The Athletic’s @chanteljennings.bsky.social talks the biggest WNBA storylines as training camps get underway, new CBA provisions like EPIC contracts & development players, which draft picks seem best set up for success & which might not stick. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

(national media columnist writing their first WNBA story ever voice) We shouldn't be asking WNBA players whether they're dating .......... we should be asking them why they aren't dating Caitlin Clark, after all she has done for women's sports

Last month in The Onion: