Teaser

Caitlin: 61 PWHL players are due to go compete in the Olympics. That’s over a third of the total players in the league.

Welcome & Community Acknowledgment

Caitlin: Hi, I’m Caitlin.

Alex: Hi, I’m Alex.

Caitlin: And you’re listening to Raising the Game, a podcast covering the rise in opportunity, visibility, and accessibility of women’s sports globally. We’re a wife-husband team who are avid sports fans raising two young girls, and we find the exposure and investment in women’s sports a gateway for them and other young girls like them to see their passions for play, performance, and leadership — not as extracurriculars to be added to a resume or a discipline with an expiration date after high school or college, but as a real opportunity to build a career as an athlete, a coach, an analyst, an athletic trainer, a director of sports operations, or maybe even a podcaster.

Each week we’re bringing you the top stories in women’s professional — and sometimes collegiate — sports. We’ll highlight primetime performers, key business decisions, economic impacts, and the growing opportunities for women’s athletics. You’ll hear our perspectives as fans, but perhaps more importantly as parents who value what these stories mean for our kids. If there’s a story line or topic you’d like to hear us talk about, reach out via email or on social media at RTG_pod.

All right. So we will get into this week’s episode, but similar to last week, we just want to take a minute to acknowledge what has continued to happen in our community here in Minneapolis. It’s been a difficult couple of days here, and we want to acknowledge that it’s been difficult. We acknowledge that there’s a lot going on, and we are encouraging folks around us — including our audience members — to get involved however you feel is appropriate. For us, that’s come mostly in the form of donations. Last week we talked about eateries often run or owned by immigrants here in the Twin Cities area that we love, that we’ve donated to, but also food pantries. There are other resources, and we’re going to drop all of those links in the podcast info today. We just want to make sure that people feel like they have outlets for supporting a community that’s certainly in a hard spot right now. I just want to repeat that it’s an ongoing thing, and we appreciate y’all getting out in the community however you see fit. Yeah, 100 percent.

One other thing we’re going to do before we get into our typical favorite thing — we launched our first official episode last week. We actually ended up posting a bonus episode, so if you haven’t gone back to listen to Episode 2, it was maybe a little rougher on the audio, but it was our second ever recorded episode, so we posted that too. But we’ve had people reach out and be like, “Who are you guys? Like, why? What’s going on here?” So we just wanted to do a quick intro, sharing a little bit about what we do day to day and then a little bit about why we’re here.

Host Introductions

Caitlin: Alex, you want to kick us off?

Alex: Yeah. I am a technical product manager at a financial services company. Super exciting. I think we talked about my background, and I have nearly zero sports background at all. I got into computers in high school, and it has been essentially computers and technology ever since. But I’ve always enjoyed watching sports. I grew up watching a lot of football, like we talked about in one of our other episodes, and that’s just kind of slowly morphed into more and more women’s sports. I think the big exposure for me was watching you coach high school women’s soccer, and I think that was kind of the first big one — and then just into the U.S. Women’s National Team, and then more and more as we’ve been together the last 10, 11 years now.

Caitlin: Yeah. Alex is our technical director here at RTG_pod. I do some things here. No, I would also say that Alex is the one who came up with the idea for this podcast. So I think, recognizing kind of our passion for sports, knowing that we have two young daughters and that some of the momentum we’re seeing — as we say in the intro — is really cool for them to see, I want to thank him for that.

But I will also do a little introduction. I am the chief of staff at a technology consulting company, so both of us are working kind of in the tech space. I came up through that as an operations analyst, but prior to that I actually have a background in exercise science and nutrition. I spent about 10 years in the health and fitness industry before making a huge career change as we were expecting our first child. And so I have had a lifelong passion for sport performance — sports specifically, looking at performance as it relates to women. I wrote my entire master’s thesis project on a comprehensive college-level full-season training program.

So that’s sort of where a lot of my background comes into play as we talk about the pod. And I think just, like I said, it seems like an opportune moment to spend some time talking about something we already talked about, and hopefully sharing it with other people. We’ve had a couple of people give us feedback as we’ve shared this out, being like, “I didn’t realize there was that much going on in women’s sports.”

Alex: Yeah, we have plenty of content. That’s why we’re here. If we’re going to talk about it for an hour around the dinner table over the course of a week, why not?

Favorite Things

Caitlin: All right. Should we get into favorite thing?

Alex: Yeah, let’s do it. What was yours?

Caitlin: Oh man. Well, I looked at your cheat sheet, so I know what yours is. And I have a second secret one.

Alex: He’s got a secret one.

Caitlin: So my favorite thing was back in action over the weekend. We’ll talk about this, but the U.S. Women’s National Team hit the pitch again for the first time in 2026. Well, it was a bumpy first half. Yeah, I think we saw some magic in the second. Very fun to see all the youth out there, as well as see Trinity kind of cap off a really exciting week for her. So I think that was it. If I think of something else I’ll let you all know.

Alex: I mean, same thing for me — slow start, kind of almost disappointing in a way, but then they just poured it on in the second half. So that was really fun to see. My second one was tonight when we were sitting at dinner watching the Lunar Owls versus the Hive. We record this on Monday nights if you can’t tell — in Unrivaled action. So I think when one of our first podcasts I had said, I asked the question: does this expose system players and not just like straight one-on-one ballers? And I had brought up earlier this week that maybe someone like Natisha Hiedeman may be more of like a system player. She hadn’t been playing well, and it’s like she heard me through the TV the past two nights and just lit up the scoreboard. So I just thought it was really funny that it’s like she heard me call her out and then just lit it up.

Caitlin: Yeah. And TT — for those who are following along a little bit — she plays for the Lynx, our home team in the W, and then went off to have, I think, 11 points in her first game over the weekend and then 18, dropping threes. Crazy, like insane. So that’s a good one.

Top Headlines

Caitlin: All right. You want to take us through top headlines?

Alex: Let’s do it. To start us off, big news: Trinity Rodman signs a huge three-year deal with the Washington Spirit, making her the highest-paid women’s footballer in the world. We’re going to dig into this a little bit. We know we’ve been talking about that saga with the NWSL and the High Impact Player rule, so we want to touch on that as well. We’ll talk a little bit about the national team performance over the weekend. U.S. Women’s National Team returned to the pitch with the youngest starting 11 in 25 years — average age of 24 — to rout Paraguay 6-0 in the second half to kick off their 2026 campaign.

You heard here last week that Ayo Oke signed with NWSL expansion team Denver Summit. She also ended up getting her first national team call-up as Avery Patterson was ruled out with an illness. So we are calling it that when we say things, things just manifest in the universe. The reverse Madden curse — we talk about you, you do better. Yeah, so you want us to talk about you.

U.S. Women’s National Team announces a trio of friendlies against Japan in April — kind of announced accidentally by Emma Hayes before. Yeah, we’ll talk a little bit about her press tour in a bit.

In the WNBA, the league released the 2026 season schedule, a move that seems to create some pressure for the union to accept a deal. Yes, this is interesting — we’re not going to get into it today, but could be a tactic. Part of that schedule release are some marquee must-see TV matchups that first week: Wings versus Fever on May 9th, defending champion Aces versus Sparks on May 10th, rematch of last season’s Western Conference Finals with Links versus Mercury on May 12th, and an expansion team showdown on May 23rd with Portland Fire versus Toronto Tempo. Looking forward to all of those — mark your calendars. Crossing my fingers that the season happens. That’s what we do on this podcast.

Sticking with WNBA news, Chicago Sky star Angel Reese is joining the cast of The Hunting Wives on Netflix in the upcoming second season. And I’m offline — I’m gonna need you to tell me what The Hunting Wives is because I have no idea. Those who know, know.

In Unrivaled action last week, Paige Bueckers won the league free throw challenge, earning her $50,000, which she turned around and donated to supporting her hometown of Hopkins amid the tension and challenges in Minnesota. Yeah, that was big. Just kind of speaks to who Paige is as a person — she’s been giving back to her community since she got into the W, I think even before that with some of her NIL money. Pretty cool to see, doing the right thing.

We also got to see live — we saw this live — the second ever dunk in Unrivaled history, by Bueckers’ teammate Dominique Malonga, which had Sephora Arena almost lose the roof. I saw a quote from Dominique; they asked her about it, and she was like, “I didn’t want to just be a practice dunker — I needed to be an in-game dunker.” And we were watching, like, “Oh my God, she did it.” It was cool.

South Carolina spoiled Vanderbilt’s perfect season with a dominant 103 to 74 victory. Olympian Jordan Chiles lands a perfect 10 in vault as UCLA defeats Nebraska. This was dope — you should go find the clip. It’s so cool. She lands a Yurchenko double full, something I’m not going to try to repeat, but it got me really hyped for us to go to the Gopher women’s gymnastics meet this weekend.

Team USA names 97 athletes to the official Milano Cortina ski and snowboard roster. Includes Shiffrin, Vaughn, Diggins, Kim, Benecky, Irving, among many others.

LOVB’s Match of the Week on USA Sports posted top regular season viewership.

In Australian Open action, the American women are putting in a strong performance with Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova, Jessica Pegula — did I say that right?

Caitlin: Yeah, you got it right this time.

Alex: And teenage phenom Iva Jovic, all reaching the quarterfinals. We had to do a lot of pronunciation practice. We’re going to get to an Australian Open segment and we’re just going to pray that I make it through. Yes.

Nebraska becomes the first school from a Power 4 Conference to name flag football as a varsity sport. Yeah, that one’s — we talked last week about how the NCAA voted to put that as an emerging sport, and then a Power 4 conference, Nebraska, turns around and makes that a varsity sport. I had a school teacher, a woman I coach soccer with actually, reach out and say they’re starting flag football at that high school. Amazing. So I think we’re going to see a lot of momentum behind flag football. The NFL is behind it at certain levels, and things like that. Plus you’ve got that as an Olympic sport too. So that’ll be a fun one to watch.

PWHL Deep Dive: League History, Structure, and Business

Alex: All right. We’re digging into some PWHL this week. Yeah. So for those who are watching — and if you’re not watching, Alex and I are wearing matching Minnesota Frost hats today in honor of our deep dive on the PWHL. The last couple of episodes we talked about Unrivaled in Episode 2, and last week we came out and talked about the NWSL and sort of how that offseason is shaping up. We haven’t gotten much into the structure of the NWSL — we’ll talk about that in a later episode — but we wanted to flip it to hockey. Yeah, right. It’s hockey season here. We’re in the state of hockey here in Minnesota. We’ve got the Olympics coming up — Team USA kicks off their action on February 5th against Czechia. We’ll be watching that. We went to a Frost game a couple weeks ago, so we really felt like we needed to dive in a little bit more about the league and share that with all of you.

We’re going to take you through a little bit of the history of the PWHL, how it’s structured, how they’ve grown, what’s their deal with broadcasting and sponsorship, and then we’re going to talk about the players and then potential upcoming challenges for that league. We’ve talked a lot about labor disputes in the W and NWSL. I think there is a potential labor dispute on the horizon for the PWHL, but there are going to be some tells we’ll be looking for, so we’re going to take you through that.

But let’s back up and ground us all in what the PWHL is. PWHL — we’ve been throwing that around — Professional Women’s Hockey League. You can think of that acronym when we mention it. It launched on January 1st, 2024. They actually played a mini season that first season, right? They ran January to around the May timeframe. And then a typical season now, for the last two years, starts around November and runs until about May when the playoffs all wrap up. It was formed after the Mark Walter Group — led by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter and his wife Kimbra — purchased assets of the Premier Hockey Federation in 2023. I think this was a previous iteration of professional women’s hockey in the United States, and they partnered with the Players’ Association, the PWHPA, to create a unified, financially stable league.

Caitlin: So something that’s unique about this league versus some others is that it is single-sourced in its funding — one single entity. This helped create stability across the different markets as it got started. But there’s also some interesting things to think about in the future as this grows. It kind of reminds me of a franchise versus corporate-owned type business. A lot of other leagues have you actually buy in as a franchise versus this, which is like having six hotels that are all corporate-run.

Alex: Yeah, exactly. As far as kind of the decision-making body, there’s a strategic advisory board led by Billie Jean King of tennis fame. Alongside her is her wife and equally great tennis figure, Ilana Kloss. Stan Kasten and Royce Cohen, who I learned are actually both involved with the Dodgers. These folks come together and really make the decisions around the league right now. We actually got to see Billie Jean King at one of the games we went to a couple of years ago — the championship game last year. Yes. She said, “Let’s play hockey,” which is a big deal here in Minnesota.

But let’s talk a little bit about the league structure. The PWHL this season is comprised of eight teams — four in the U.S., four in Canada. This is up from six teams for the first two seasons. They play 30 games in the regular season and are looking to earn one of four playoff spots, and then through that tournament, that determines the Walter Cup winner.

Current teams are the Boston Fleet based in Massachusetts, Minnesota Frost based right here in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Montréal Victoire in Quebec, New York Sirens — who actually are based in New Jersey, because that’s what happens when you’re a New York sports team — the Ottawa Charge, obviously from Ottawa, Ontario, Toronto Sceptres also in Ontario, and then the two expansion teams: Seattle Torrent and Vancouver Golden Eyes. They kind of kept that balance, and I’m suspicious that as they continue to expand, the league will continue to try to keep an even keel between Canada and the United States.

PWHL: Expansion, Scoring Rules, and the Jailbreak Rule

Caitlin: I was kind of wondering, actually, about the expansion. Have you read anything about the depth of talent that’s out there — like how quickly are they going to be able to expand and kind of keep that level of talent?

Alex: I’m going to hold off on answering that. We’re going to talk a little bit about the PWHL players who are part of the Olympic teams and what proportion of the total player grouping that is. And I think we can lean into that a little bit more once we put those numbers on the table.

One other thing I just want to talk about to close out the league structure: they do have some innovative rules. Similar to what we talked about with Unrivaled, the PWHL has created their own rules. They don’t have ELAM endings in hockey, but they do a creative scoring mechanism where instead of the typical point system, you get three points for a win, two points if you win in overtime, one point if you lose in overtime, and zero if you don’t win. So it actually makes tying worthwhile — you’re not out everything if you lose in overtime.

Additionally, they have what’s called the jailbreak rule in hockey. So if a team scores a shorthanded goal — meaning the penalized team scores while their player is in the penalty box — that player comes out. I find this a super fun rule because it does make you maybe a little bit more willing, when you’re on the penalty kill, to poke it out there and try to get something going. But obviously that also comes with the risk of them scoring anyway. It’s really fun to see someone break that player out of the penalty box after scoring. That’s contrary to the NHL, where even if a shorthanded goal is scored, the penalty continues.

Also: best-of-five shootout if they’re tied. And body checking — which is not as common in women’s hockey — has specific restrictions around that, mostly player safety situations.

Something I think was really interesting: I don’t think they did it this past year, but I believe in the first year they did a winner-gets-to-pick-their-first-opponent in the playoffs. So if you’re the highest seed, you got to pick who you played — based on either seeding or how you felt about a matchup. And then the other two are just left playing each other. I don’t think they continued it going forward, but it was really fun that first year.

Caitlin: So moving on — we mentioned a little bit about the ownership. Wholly owned and operated by the Mark Walter Group. The league currently is under an eight-year CBA that was established at the end of 2023, before that January 1st, 2024 start. So that means it goes until 2031. And this is something we’ll come back to in a second. But essentially that CBA created an agreement where there are $35,000 minimum salaries — for those keeping track at home, that’s not that much in this day and age — housing and food stipends, as well as health insurance. We’re going to put that out there and let you think about it for a second while we talk about a few other things.

One thing we did want to talk about: we get questions like, what’s the investment level? Like, how can you afford to increase salaries if you were to negotiate? So it’s interesting. I looked into broadcast deals because that’s actually a lot of money these sports come in through. In Canada, there’s comprehensive coverage for all 90 regular season games plus playoffs. They do French-language broadcast for all Montréal games, run it through a couple of different channels — Prime Video, things like that — so it’s accessible to everybody. In the U.S., run it through your regional networks, like FanDuel Sports here in Minnesota. Even our normal Fox channel — the Plus version, the Plus version. Yes, so you have to have the Plus version in order to see it.

Alex: I will add, for those who are interested, all PWHL games are available for free on YouTube in the U.S. So if you’re looking to watch and can’t find it, go on YouTube. You’ll be able to find those games.

Now what I find really interesting about this — we’ve talked about how players are contributing to the revenue the league is generating, oftentimes through broadcast deals. I’m pinning this as a key watch area so that if we see a U.S. broadcast deal come through, that may be a sign that we may start to see players push for negotiation on that CBA. And I actually think that will come before that CBA expires in eight years.

In addition, and sort of related, I’m going to read through a couple of the sponsors — and what we’ll notice is that there are no major U.S. brands. The list is very short, and there are a lot of Canadian brands involved. I think a big part of that is that they don’t have a cohesive U.S. broadcast deal. You’re not going to have a major brand sign on to advertise on FanDuel Sports Network.

Founding partners include Canadian Tire Corporation and AirSuprà, which was the first U.S. founding partner. There’s Air Canada as the premier partner and official airline, doing jersey branding for the Montréal Victoire. Rogers Communications is the telecommunications partner in Canada. Bauer Hockey is the first official jersey partner beginning in 2024-25. CCM Hockey for equipment, base layers, and pads. Scotiabank. And then other partners: Hyundai Auto Canada, Royale Canada, Molson Canada. Are you getting the theme? So if you look at the comparison between the broadcast deals and the sponsorships, you’re really seeing a big emphasis and investment from the Canadian side and less from the U.S. so far.

Caitlin: I think it kind of tells you this is a model that people want to get in on. It’s very exciting to have a league this big happen, and I think these big partners are saying we want in at the ground floor. And as soon as there’s a U.S. broadcast deal, I think it’s just a matter of time before U.S. sponsors dig in. Yeah, I agree.

PWHL: Olympic Players and Star Profiles

Alex: So now we’re going to shift gears a little bit. We’re going to talk about the players. As we mentioned at the top, the Olympics are coming up. Every single player I’m about to mention is playing in the Olympics for either Team USA or Team Canada. I apologize in advance to these lovely women if I mispronounce their names — I tried really hard to learn, but no promises.

I’m going to start with the Montréal Victoire and Team Canada captain.

Caitlin: She was voted the top player by the players and claimed both the Billie Jean King MVP Award and Forward of the Year honors in the 2024-25 season, leading the league with 19 goals in 30 games. If you’re doing the math on that, that’s a lot of goals in that many games. As I mentioned, she’s captain of both the Victoire and Team Canada. She has won three Olympic gold medals — the last three Olympics she’s played in — and has scored the game-winning goal in all three of those games. She is known as “Captain Clutch” by her teammates. That’s Marie-Philip Poulin.

Hilary Knight — she has been known for a long time as the face of women’s hockey. She’s a 36-year-old veteran. She became the first player signed by expansion team Seattle Torrent. She captains Team USA. She co-led the league in scoring last season with 29 points — 15 goals and 14 assists in 30 games. So you’re scoring a point a game. Yeah, that’s a great clip.

Followed here in our highlights by Sarah Fillier, who plays for the New York Sirens. She co-led the league in scoring last season as a rookie — 13 goals, 16 assists, recording 10 more points than any rookie prior to that in PWHL history.

Other stars we’ll mention: Kendall Coyne Schofield, captain of the Minnesota Frost. She’s so far been in the mix for top scorers in the 2025-26 season. She’s an Olympian as well.

Sarah Nurse, she now plays for expansion team Vancouver Golden Eyes — a Canadian international. She’s just coming back off of injury, but I saw the other day that she scored like two goals in her second game back or something.

Taylor Heise, also of the Minnesota Frost, playing for Team USA.

Renata Fast plays for Toronto — Team Canada.

Ann-Renée Desbiens plays for Montréal. She is the number one goaltender for the Canadian national team.

Aerin Frankel is a goaltender for Team USA.

And Natalie Spooner of the Toronto Sceptres, playing for Team Canada.

All right. Well, some names for you to watch out for as you watch the Olympics in a couple of weeks here.

PWHL: The Takeover Tour and Expansion Potential

Caitlin: Now I have to just briefly do a little shameless thing here — mention who has won the PWHL Walter Cup for the last two seasons. That would be the Minnesota Frost. Obviously, we’re fans. Obviously, it’s fun to say that. I think this season presents some unique challenges with the Olympic break and things like that. But what I do want to point out is that in both of their runs, they were seeded fourth — and ended up beating Toronto in both seasons in the semifinals. They reverse-swept Toronto in the 2024 season, defeated Toronto in the semis in 2025, beat Boston for the championship in 2024, and Ottawa for the championship in 2025.

Alex: Yeah, I just really want to know what was going on in the locker room around that team, both years, to come in as the four seed and end up taking it all. I also want to know why every time we go to see a championship-clinching game, they go to like triple overtime and we end up having to go home before it’s over.

Caitlin: Championship because their games take so long. But it means really competitive, awesome hockey. In the 2025 finals, all four games were decided 1-0 in overtime. Yeah. So like they are at each other — it’s fun to watch. You’re always waiting for that. Got to be nerve-racking as all get out for the players.

Alex: So we’re going to wrap up here with a little mention of what the PWHL dubs the Takeover Tour. This is an interesting way that they’re able to test expansion markets. Each season they pick neutral game sites around the U.S. and Canada to bring two of the teams to play a game.

In the inaugural 2024-25 season, they drew about 120,000 fans across nine games, which averages 13,700 fans per game — double what their average attendance is at home. For the 2025-26 season, the tour has expanded to 16 neutral site games in 11 different locations, including seven new cities. Take note, because we’re going to talk about expansion potential in a minute: Calgary, Chicago, Dallas, Halifax, Hamilton, Washington D.C., and Winnipeg.

Some key highlights — they played in front of a sold-out crowd of 19,000 in Vancouver prior to Vancouver becoming an expansion team, so when they did the tour last year, that happened, and then they got a team. They had 14,000 in Detroit, which was the U.S. attendance record until D.C. showed them how it’s done this season — over 17,000 folks in attendance. They also saw attendance growth just in general across the PWHL. The league surpassed its entire inaugural season attendance through the first 55 games of the second 90-game season. And average attendance jumped about 50 percent season to season, from about 5,700 to 7,200.

Caitlin: I’m really wondering, with that D.C. game — do they look at that and go, “This could be a good expansion opportunity?” Like, what is the business that goes into actually betting on an expansion team in this city?

Alex: Yeah, so I think I have a little bit of a clue. I was reading an article and they were talking about how oftentimes you’ll look for markets where you can create a sister team — where is hockey really popular, where is there an NHL franchise? So you’ve got the infrastructure and sort of the fan base already. You saw that with Detroit and D.C. — they’ve got the Red Wings and the Capitals. So I have a feeling they’re going to be looking at markets that already have hockey teams. That’s my prediction for future expansion potential.

They might actually jump to 12 teams. I think there’s benefit in that — there are probably broadcast deals tied to scale. As far as U.S. markets, I could see Detroit and D.C. — those two are holding like top attendance so far, and D.C. is new. Detroit has been consistent two years in a row where they’ve brought out more than 13,000 people for those games. My dark horse is Pittsburgh — Sidney Crosby, like that could be a potential market. I’m kind of wondering if they look at the men’s side and say, “Who still watches hockey when their team is not good?” Because then you know you’ve got the fans that are gonna go no matter what.

And from a Canadian markets perspective, the same article mentioned they’re really looking at Halifax as a potential market, which would break our kind of “sister team” concept. But Winnipeg or Calgary also seem ripe for that, given that you’ve got the Flames in Calgary and the Jets in Winnipeg.

Caitlin: A couple other milestones just to mention before we move on. The PWHL was recognized by the Sports Business Journal as the sports breakthrough of the year in 2024. It’s been ranked number one in Canada for corporate reputation. The PWHL was integrated into EA Sports’ NHL 25 video game — you can go be Hilary Knight and play. And then getting back to something you mentioned before: 61 PWHL players are due to go compete in the Olympics. That’s over a third of the total players in the league. And so when you think about that talent pool — I don’t know of many other leagues where you have that many Olympians. And if you think about that, you’ve got growth in the college women’s game, and you’ve also got players from overseas potentially wanting to come in and play in this league if it can support a lifestyle. Which could argue that maybe that’s where we need to be doing some negotiation, PWHPA.

So I think we’ll move on from the PWHL for today, but we will come back to it. We want to talk about that CBA. We want to talk a little bit more about the financials — we would like to nerd out on that stuff. But we’ve got to talk about the big news.

NWSL: Trinity Rodman Contract and the High Impact Player Rule

Alex: Yeah. Big news. The Rodman deal. We’ve got to shift gears. We’ve got to talk about the Rodman deal, the Rodman rule. And then the U.S. Women’s National Team performance.

So quickly — the details of the deal are not public, but we have some quotes from Trinity’s agent that essentially say she’s signed a three-year deal with the Washington Spirit. This is a huge win for the Spirit, it’s a huge win for Trinity, it’s a huge win for the NWSL. This deal purportedly makes her the highest-paid women’s footballer in the world — she’s going to be making upwards of, they’re saying, a million dollars per year, two million with bonuses and incentives if she achieves those milestones.

I do want to pull a quote in here. From Michelle Kang — we’ve talked about her before; she is the owner of the Washington Spirit and a huge investor in women’s sports, I aspire to be Michelle Kang one day — but what she said after this deal was made public was this: “Trinity is a generational player, but more importantly she represents the future of this club and the future of women’s soccer. This agreement reflects our belief that elite talent deserves elite commitment. At the Spirit, we are building something enduring — a club that competes for championships every year, invests in excellence, and creates an environment where world-class players can thrive long term. Trinity choosing to continue her career in Washington is a powerful statement about what we are building here.”

Caitlin: I mean, I immediately think about the “elite talent deserves elite commitment” line.

Alex: Does this set the floor for, like, the triple espresso? Possibly. I mean, it’s starting to establish what potentially the floor should be on these big players. I also think it was a little bit of shade at the league. Like, “Hey, if you really want these players to stay, we’ve got to raise salary caps across the board, we have to be compensating these players more.” And Michelle Kang is like, “And I can. Come here with me.”

Really quickly, just transitioning to the league reaction — it was funny to me to read the quotes coming from commissioner Jessica Berman immediately after this. She’s like, “This is a proof of concept that the High Impact Player rule works,” and they also talked a lot about how they consulted or acted in good faith with the NWSL Players Association about the High Impact Player rule. And the PA is like, “No, you didn’t.” I think I read that their executive director received notice that this was a rule being discussed on December 11th, and then by December 23rd of last year, they had voted it into action. The league also came out and said, “Oh, this has been an idea for years.” And the Players Association is like, “News to us — you didn’t tell us.”

And this goes back right to the whole thing about negotiating in good faith. Also the whole “oh, this isn’t the Rodman rule” — but like, conveniently worked out to keep her in the league at this time. If you had it as a thing on the table back in 2023, why didn’t you activate it then?

Caitlin: So is this kind of a workaround? Because it was that fourth year that was the issue in her original contract, right? And this is a three-year deal. So they’re kind of just saying, “We’re hoping to have everything figured out by year four and we want to keep you here longer.”

Alex: Yeah, honestly, I found an article where the league had some finance person trying to explain exactly how the original contract violated the salary cap and then how this one didn’t, and I couldn’t follow it — and I work with business financials on a regular basis. Like, I was like, I don’t even know what you’re trying to say. There’s some contingency here.

Caitlin: So it was a little confusing to me. But I believe that has to have been part of it. I also do think they are employing the High Impact Player rule. So they had access to a pool of funds that previously didn’t exist when they were striking that original contract. Now they’re like, “Great, we’ll keep her for three.” And in that three-year time period, the salary cap is going to go up — that’s going to get negotiated. Obviously it seems to be on the table here.

So let’s switch gears, because Trinity signed that contract, then is in U.S. national team camp, gets told she’s going to captain the team, and then she scores a goal. Yeah, amazing. Let’s talk about a great weekend.

USWNT vs. Paraguay Recap

Alex: I think some of the stats that really stood out that we talked about on game day were: average caps per player in camp, 6.6; average caps of the starting 11 on Saturday, essentially 10; and average age in camp, 24. We already mentioned the least-capped starting 11 in 25 years.

A couple other fun facts: Hayes has been at the helm for 31 matches now. 30 players have gotten their first cap — so almost a player per game while she’s been in. And it makes sense, right? We talked about this in last episode: you’re seeing her test this pool. I actually saw an article that called it an “ocean of talent” because there’s so much depth in the USA soccer talent pool right now.

Frankly, watching the game — I knew going into it, it was going to be a little bit of a “we’re feeling each other out.” It’s the first camp, you’re coming off some of this NWSL offseason. None of these players are playing right now — they’re all in their offseason, prepping for NWSL preseason. And I thought this showed. I thought the youth showed. But I actually feel like it was a really appropriate spot for it to show.

We heard from Emma in her media day that the next rosters we see are going to be those of the folks she thinks are going to be playing in the World Cup. So you can imagine these young players being called up to this camp, you’re like, “Well, I want to be on the next roster absolutely,” and instead of maybe being a little more fearless —

Caitlin: — you saw Trinity. She’s established. She kind of knows her position. She can go after things and make mistakes. You’ve got these younger players who are like yeah, exactly. So I’m just checking over here if you stole my notes because I was literally going to ask: is this a stress test of the depth of this team? And you just literally answered that. So I think my follow-along to that is: in the young group, who has the highest ceiling to actually break into the starting 11 for the World Cup?

Alex: So I was thinking about this. Just level-setting who we didn’t see — for those who follow USA women’s soccer: Emily Sonnett wasn’t there. Tierna Davidson’s been out with injury — she might be back ready to play. We didn’t have Naomi Girma. We didn’t have Catarina Macario. We didn’t have Rose Lavelle, Lindsey Heaps, Alyssa Thompson, among others. And then you’ve got Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson, who are coming back after maternity leave. Emma — I watched an interview with Emma where she said Sophia Smith is likely to be named in the next roster, that she is training and getting back up to speed.

So to go back to your question: there’s not a lot of spots available to fill. From what I saw and what I’ve been seeing, I really, really think that Ally Sentnor — who has kind of played a versatile role at 10 or 9 for the team — has put in some good showings. She had a brace in both games where she really stood out, so this last game against Paraguay, she had two goals. She seems to play really well in there.

I really like how Gisele Thompson was playing in the game this past weekend. She’s Alyssa Thompson’s younger sister, but she was playing some beautiful slip passes, really seeing the field well. I think Olivia Moultrie, who’s been in the side — she’s one of the more capped players there on that team — plays well, is very creative out of the midfield. Decision-making still needs some refinement, but I really like watching her play. I think Claire Hutton is another one who’s just a really calm presence in the midfield.

Caitlin: I saw in that same interview with Emma, she mentioned that Claire is a future captain of the national team. Like she sees that leadership and poise. So a lot to watch out for.

I still wonder about that goalkeeper position. Mandy McGlynn started for the team over the weekend. I think she’s great — they said she’s been performing really well in camp. So a lot to watch.

Let’s do a little reminder on upcoming matches for the national team. By the time you’re listening to this, the national team will have played Chile in a friendly — we’ll see how that goes. But then in March, we have the SheBelieves Cup. They’ll play in Nashville, Columbus, and Harrison, New Jersey, against Argentina, Canada, and Colombia. So that’s going to be an interesting CONCACAF-Coleman mashup. Really interesting given that with qualifying later in the year, the U.S. is likely to see Canada again. And then in April — these are the games that Emma let slip in her press — the U.S. national team will play Japan three times, which is a little unprecedented. Usually you don’t play an opponent that many times, but Emma was quoted as saying Japan is just so good and so disciplined that if you can show up three times in a row and try to best them, you’re doing something.

Alex: Two things that are interesting about that matchup: Japan will be coming off of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, which is the qualifying tournament for the World Cup. So they will know, once they arrive here on U.S. soil, whether or not they’re competing next year in the World Cup. And the last time these two teams played was at the SheBelieves Cup last year, in which Japan beat the U.S. two to one on their way to their first-ever SheBelieves Cup title. So I’m definitely looking forward to that as somebody who loves to watch Japan play. Yeah, looking forward to that.

Australian Open Roundup

Caitlin: I think we need to move on, don’t we?

Alex: Yes. All right. We’re moving on to the Australian Open roundup. Yeah, I’m going to try my best with these names. You’re going to do it. I’m not going to do all of it, but I’m going to try my best with some of these names. We’re going to rapid-fire this at you guys — the Australian Open is going on this week. By the end of the week, they’ll be playing the finals.

So we have four Americans remaining in the quarterfinals. We could have three Americans in the semis, which is crazy. On one side of the bracket, we see top-seeded American Coco Gauff — she’ll make her third straight quarterfinal appearance, taking on the 12 seed Elina Svitolina. Very nice, thank you. And then opposite them is world number one Aryna Sabalenka, looking for her third crown in four years. She just defeated this up-and-coming teenager from Canada, Victoria Mboko, and now has to turn around and play this up-and-coming teenager from the United States, Iva Jovic.

Caitlin: Jovic, not Novak. I was thinking of that because I had read an article where I think Novak Djokovic had actually given her some advice pre-match. She wasn’t sharing what it was, but she’s like, “Yeah, he came over and we chatted.” She’s 18. That’s pretty cool. She is the youngest American woman to reach the quarterfinals since Venus Williams in 1998.

Alex: On the other side of the bracket for the quarterfinals, we’ve got 6-seed Jessica Pegula, who just beat a fellow USA teammate, Madison Keys, the defending champion. She will face another American — 4-seed Amanda Anisimova. Before I said that one. We’re going to have an American come out of that side into the semis.

And then number-two seed Iga Świątek — she is looking for her career Grand Slam. A Grand Slam is when you win the Australian Open, Wimbledon in England, Roland Garros the French Open, and then the U.S. Open at the end of the year. So she is taking on number-five seed Elena Rybakina. From what I saw doing some prep here, the two of them have met 11 times head to head and it’s nearly split 6-5 Świątek. So Rybakina won their last meeting. This is probably going to be one of the more exciting matches on the schedule either way.

Caitlin: Some other notable mentions: Naomi Osaka probably a name that many of you have heard — she withdrew due to an abdominal injury. She did cause a stir with her second-round match outfit when she came out of the tunnel. She looked like she was going to go catch butterflies or something.

Alex: Look it up — it’s supposed to be a jellyfish or I don’t know. Anyways, amazing. You can go see that.

Then back to Venus Williams — one of the famed Williams sisters — she became the oldest woman to compete in the singles main draw at 45 years, seven months old. I don’t think she won, but kudos to her, continuing to compete. She also plays on the doubles side as well. I think that’s really cool.

All right, that was sort of our Australian Open roundup. We’ll see next week what happened.

What to Watch This Week

Alex: All right, let’s move on to what to watch. PWHL. OK, this is kind of a lot because Wednesday night is big. The night that we released this podcast will be a lot of matches. We have number-one Boston Fleet versus number-four New York Sirens. New York is only five points back — depending on how the other games shake out, a win here could put them into second place, unless on that same night number-two Minnesota Frost can beat number-five Vancouver Golden Eyes. If New York and Minnesota both win in regulation, the standings would be one Minnesota, two Boston, and then kind of New York and Montréal based on the other outcomes. And this is important because these are the last games, I believe, before we head into the Olympic break. So the Frost, if they can take care of business and have some other things in their favor, could come out of the other side of the Olympic break in first place. I think it’s like four games — yeah, everyone’s playing that night. So you’ve got a massive game of hockey — massive night of hockey. Find them on your local sports networks if you’re in the United States, or YouTube.

Like we were just talking about with the Australian Open — we don’t know at the time of recording what the full landscape is. The semifinals start Thursday morning, so two semifinal games, and then Saturday morning around 2:30 a.m. Central is when the final will be played. Just a fun fact about me — when I was in college I got really into professional tennis, and I remember waking up to watch Australian Open championships when Serena was playing. I will not be doing that this time around. We will be checking the news. Yes.

Unrivaled: Friday night is the night to watch. The Breeze will take on the Phantom, and the Rose will take on the Lunar Owls at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philly. I’m hearing that it’s already sold out. I’ve heard, on good authority — which was Kylie Kelce’s Not Gonna Lie podcast when she interviewed Paige Bueckers — that there’s over 20,000 seats there, and it’s sold out. Testing out a different market. Kylie is really excited to go with her girls. It’s going to be great. I can’t wait to see what they bring in there. And I think the Breeze and the Phantom are my two favorite teams right now. Yeah, they’re great.

NCAA women’s basketball — I went searching for the highest-ranked teams playing over the next weekend. We have a huge SEC matchup: number-10 Oklahoma, who are 16-4, versus number-four Texas, at 2 p.m. Central on Sunday on ABC. Huge matchup there. And I’m actually really getting excited to see how this starts to flow into March Madness, because that’s going to be a whole — oh yeah, it’s going to be massive. We’re going to have to tune in. I’m already thinking about it — we kind of maybe have to talk about UConn and just do a deep dive on what they’ve done over the past million years. How old is Dino?

Caitlin: Yeah.

Alex: And then NCAA women’s hockey — the biggest games to watch this weekend: number-one University of Wisconsin taking on number-three University of Minnesota, the Golden Gophers. So we’ve got Wisconsin at 23-1-2 versus Minnesota at 22-4-1, a one versus three, a natural border rivalry. 6 p.m. Friday night and 2 p.m. Saturday on Big Ten Plus — massive games. These have got to be some of their last games before — yeah, because I think the college season even takes a little bit of a pause for the Olympics.

Both teams have players that are going to go play in the Olympics. I have been obsessed with Abbey Murphy since we saw her do that — you’ve all seen the viral assist by now that she had. It comes up every time I open Instagram. If you haven’t, go look at it — it’s like unreal. But yeah, between her, the Gophers, and the Badgers, I think you’ve got around eight Team USA players. So that’ll be really fun to watch.

That’s all I’ve got for this week.

Winners and Losers

Caitlin: All right. I think we’re moving on to winners and losers. Let’s close it out. Let’s do it. What do you got?

Alex: From content this week — big, big, big winners: Trinity Rodman. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Caitlin: And what’s your winner?

Alex: I have one serious one and one that’s kind of funny. The first winner is the U.S. Women’s National Team. Like we said — slow start, but they came out and just absolutely routed Paraguay in the second half. Whatever Emma said in that locker room at halftime, they came out and it just clicked. You have that young of a team and they come out and just handle it. Yeah, that’s my winner. Goals are fun.

My second winner is Natisha Hiedeman for absolutely tearing me a new one when I said she might not have what it takes. She just balls out of control. So yeah, she did.

Caitlin: And for losers — we should flip this and do winners first on a positive, but yeah. For losers: I don’t know, digging into the PWHL stuff and knowing how much joy doesn’t generate revenue — we’ve got to support those ladies in a different way. Like I said, I’ve got a bunch of notes on how the salaries break down. There’s a big discrepancy between different players on different teams. And you know how this goes — right now everybody’s like, “Oh, we love each other, we love the sport.” But yeah.

So I think my loser is more that I want to see that accelerate a little bit so that those women are getting valued. The joy and community and love — we saw a beautiful post-game interview with Kelly Pannek. She — these are Frost players — Kelly got really emotional about what’s been going on in our community. She was talking about how she just hoped that people were able to come and experience each other and something good for a couple hours. Yeah. So I just — I want that for them.

Alex: I agree on that. We didn’t get into the deep stats, but I think when the salaries come out, there’s going to be a bit of a mess, whether they show it or not. Yeah. Agree.

Is that it? No, this is the part where I’m supposed to come up with a loser and I forgot to do my homework. Oh, you don’t have a loser? So I’m gonna think of one here off the cuff.

I have one — we might have to cut this. We have barely talked about the WNBA, so I’m gonna give you a gimme and say: they haven’t reached a deal yet. Yeah. That’s a loser. That is a big loser. Like, I think you said this one or two episodes ago, but the fans are gonna be the losers if they don’t have a season and they don’t come to an agreement. So I’m gonna steal your gimme and take it.

Caitlin: You’re not stealing it, I was giving it away.

Alex: Oh, you’re giving it away to me. All right, perfect.

All right, y’all. Well, we appreciate you being here listening with us this week. As we mentioned at the top, if there are topics you’d love to hear us dive into, you can find us on socials at RTG_pod, or you can email us at raisingthegamepod@gmail.com. That’s it. All right. Till next week.

Both: Bye!