Episode Introduction

Caitlin: We should have also been celebrating both teams, and we ended up talking about this like sideshow thing. We need to talk about the sideshow now because it's been turned into something that is worthy of talking about. Hi, I'm Caitlin.

Alex: Hi, I'm Alex.

Caitlin: And you're listening to Raising the Game, a women's sports podcast covering prime-time performers, the business behind the leagues, and what the growth of women's sports means for the next generation of women's athletes.

Alex: We did it. Trying that new intro on for size there. That was second take only.

Caitlin: He wasn't going to say it was the eighth take, but yeah, that was take two. I think it was okay.

Alex: Pretty good. How are we doing?

Caitlin: I'm doing pretty good. I'm actually really excited for the show today. Just like last week, I think we're coming in with lots of amazing stuff to talk about. And we are now in March — how did that happen? We have so much to cover in March. You've got international teams playing. You've got leagues starting, leagues ending, like all the things are happening.

Alex: We could do a show every other day if we had the time.

Caitlin: And lo and behold, it is Women's History Month. So what a great month for us to really be leaning in and celebrating women's achievements, successes, the growth of the game, all that good stuff. Buckle your seat belts, folks.

Alex: Yeah, let's do it.

Favorite Things: Unrivaled with Family and Emma Hayes at the Grand Ole Opry

Alex: Let's get into a favorite thing. I'll start. My favorite thing this past week was going down to my parents' house with the girls and getting to introduce them to Unrivaled, which I'm not sure they'd watched before — they didn't know all the rules. So I think it was their first time watching. It was fun to show them and have them ask questions. I seemed like the expert because I watch it all the time.

Caitlin: I love that. Any opportunity we have to expose a new fan to something they maybe didn't know existed is pretty cool. And we get to do that by virtue of researching all the things we do here.

Alex: And the one thing they did say is that they enjoy watching women's basketball more than men's — especially college. So it's just another avenue for them to dig in during the off season.

Caitlin: Yeah, that's a common refrain I've been hearing these days. So my favorite thing — the U.S. Women's National Team was back in action over the weekend, but their game was not my favorite thing.

Alex: We'll actually talk about it.

Caitlin: What was my favorite thing is Emma Hayes, head coach of the national team, out in the wild. She really makes a point, in any city they go to, to get into the cultural elements of that city. She often does it with her son Harry. There were videos over the weekend of her getting her own customized cowboy hat — they were in Nashville. She got to see behind the scenes at the Grand Ole Opry and introduce a musical artist on the stage, which is a huge thing to be able to do. I just love her embrace of different cultures and her willingness to explore. She comes across as having such genuine curiosity for the people and the place she's in. And that actually translates into how she shows up as a coach — genuine curiosity and care for her players. You see that in how the team shows up.

Alex: Yeah. And then she gave all of the announcers and the pregame broadcast their own hats, which was amazing. They were all wearing cowboy hats.

Caitlin: So it was very sweet. And at the end of the game, some of the reporters were still wearing them during their interviews.

Alex: Emma Hayes gives you an authentic cowboy hat — I think you have to wear it.

Top Headlines

Alex: All right, let's dig into the top headlines. Flavor Flav to host a celebration in Las Vegas in July for all women's medal winners from the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. And he's waiting to see how the Paralympics find their way there rather than just making it for the main group.

Caitlin: Yeah, there's a really interesting storyline to follow here too in how he recruited businesses to help support this effort, and also his call to action to billion-dollar businesses to not just send products to these athletes, but sponsor them — be a legitimate advocate for these athletes, not just a performative one. I think it'll be fun to see what comes of that in July.

Alex: Montreal Victoire leapfrog Boston and Minnesota to the top of the PWHL standings as the league returns to play after the Winter Games. They crushed the Frost 4-0. Hard to watch.

Caitlin: Oof. Yeah.

Alex: In SheBelieves Cup opening games, the U.S. Women's National Team notches a 2-0 win over Argentina. Canada thrashes Colombia 4-0.

Caitlin: We'll talk a little bit about the U.S. game and what's coming up in that tournament a little later in the episode.

Alex: Unrivaled playoffs heat up — they head to Brooklyn for the semis, as we are recording this episode. Winning teams to play for the championship on Wednesday, back in Miami.

Caitlin: So we actually just watched Phantom BC — the hat Alex is wearing, if you're watching — win in very dramatic fashion over Vinyl BC. So the second game has probably started by now: Breeze against Mist.

Alex: Kind of hoping for a Breeze versus Phantom final. I'm repping my Paige Bueckers t-shirt tonight. I've got my Breeze hat on, if it isn't clear who I'm cheering for.

Caitlin: Phantom versus Breeze is the game we all deserve.

Alex: Yeah. UCLA, Vanderbilt, South Carolina all won over the weekend, including UConn wrapping up a perfect regular season. Number 12 Duke lost to instate rival number 21 UNC.

Caitlin: Yeah, the ACC was interesting. We'll talk a little bit about the tournament, but unranked Notre Dame also beat number 10 Louisville.

Alex: Oh, wow. Big wins for the big teams.

Alex: In women's college hockey, postseason play: the Badgers and Buckeyes advance in two games, the Gophers and Mavericks advance in three, setting the stage for the WCHA Final Faceoff tournament weekend. We'll talk a little bit about that later. Did you know that at the LA 2028 Olympics, women's soccer is expanding from 12 to 16 teams, while the men's tournament is shrinking from 16 to 12 teams?

Caitlin: Just a little fun fact.

Alex: Yeah. We'll talk about that at some point. Together and Horizon Sports and Entertainment announce a women's sports media venture.

Caitlin: Yeah, so this is really cool. Together and HSNE are focused on creating, developing, and commercializing premium storytelling, unique intellectual properties, signature live experiences, and high-value brand partnerships. They've talked about bringing in content creators like the Stud Buds from the WNBA — Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman — who gained fame last year with their pink hair and their podcast, among many others. This is another legitimizing of the business of women's sports and the understanding that there are multiple angles where there's opportunity to back them.

Alex: Absolutely. Get your popcorn. ESPN original series NWSL: The Final Third premiered last week on ESPN+ and the ESPN app. It follows the Washington Spirit, Kansas City Current, and Angel City FC as they battle for supremacy.

Caitlin: Yeah, and here in March it's coming to Disney+. Watch it with your kiddos.

Alex: The expansion Atlanta NWSL team signed a record $20 million, seven-year jersey sponsorship deal with Aflac.

Caitlin: Yeah, so the expansion Atlanta NWSL team that starts competitive play in 2028 — Aflac is already signing up four million dollars a year to be the front-of-jersey sponsor for this unnamed Atlanta team. Really awesome to see.

Alex: That's awesome. The NWSL has launched a bid for a second division, in a major signal that the league is continuing to grow.

Caitlin: I think that speaks for itself.

PWHL Returns from Olympic Break: Attendance Records and Injury News

Caitlin: Those are just a few of our top headlines. We're going to cover a little bit of the PWHL return, get into the WNBA CBA negotiations — we didn't get to talk about that as much last week as we would have liked to, and there were some major developments — talk a little NCAA basketball tournament, NCAA hockey tournament, and get into what to watch. Let's start with PWHL.

Alex: Yeah, it's back. I'm happy.

Caitlin: It is back, y'all, and they are riding the wave of Olympic success. Setting the stage here — we talked a little bit about how the teams performed. Montreal really literally leapfrogged right over Boston and Minnesota as they came back. What's more telling though is this story of how they've captured the hearts and minds of people who may not have been PWHL fans prior to the Olympics, but who are now looking for: where do I watch these women play hockey?

Alex: If you're on Threads, my whole feed was just like, it's crazy that these women play professional hockey — where? Everyone's like "the PWHL," and there are so many people trying to jockey for getting more fans — "Hey, come over to our side, we're the best one."

Caitlin: So it's around this time of year that we tend to start to hear about where they might expand to next. While they might do two, there's also been chatter prior to the Olympics that they could do four new teams. And now I'm looking at data from StubHub based on ticket searches. I feel like the league has to be looking at this going, if we're going to do four in a year, we might as well do it this year.

Alex: Yeah. This would be the year.

Caitlin: So we'll see. Speaking on that Olympic effect — this is data from StubHub on ticket sales and purchases. There was a 50% increase above January baseline ticket searches overnight after the women's gold medal game. And just to be clear: USA and Canada played in the gold medal game. All 23 Canadian players play in the PWHL, and there were 39 total players in that game who play in the league. PWHL-related event searches spiked 216% after the Olympics wrapped. Immediately afterwards, people are like, where's the closest game to me? And U.S.-based PWHL ticket purchases are up 42% year over year.

Alex: That's good.

Caitlin: They're seeing a surge. We could make the argument that maybe that's attributable to momentum in the league, not just the Olympics — but we can't discount the effect the Olympics has had in addition to that. There were about six games total played since coming back from the Olympics. The Seattle Torrent — the expansion team Hilary Knight plays on, though she was not playing (we'll talk about that in a second) — had a 17,000-plus crowd come out for their first game back, which set the U.S. attendance record. There were a couple of other games over the weekend where it was over 10,000 fans, and the Ottawa Charge had a sellout. They play in an arena with about 8,600 capacity and had 8,735 or something like that.

Alex: Everyone watches women's hockey.

Caitlin: It'll be interesting to see if that trend continues. Obviously this is the first weekend since the Olympics. The season ends at the end of April, so they have about two months left. I actually could see momentum staying with them, because if you get invested in a team that might be going to the playoffs, it's tight right now — nobody is mathematically eliminated. They have a cool rule about the draft called the Golden Draft Plan or something, where you can't tank your season. So people have to continue to compete to get good draft picks.

Alex: I've been getting an email every other day for three-game ticket packages for the Frost. I'm sure they're all pushing that hard, trying to get as many people to these last two months of games as they can.

Caitlin: Yeah. One other quick note — we did learn that a handful of players were put on injury lists. Marie-Philip Poulin, the Canadian captain, sustained a pretty significant injury in the group stages of the Olympics and was out. Hilary Knight was put on long-term injured reserve. Turns out she played the entire Olympics with a torn MCL, so she's not likely to be back this season for the Torrent. And here in Minnesota, Kendall Coyne Schofield, who was leading the league in points heading into the Olympic break, was also placed on LTIR with an upper body injury she sustained at the Olympics.

Alex: That'll be a bummer. It's one of those things where, if the Olympics weren't here, some of our top players would still be playing — but the Olympics were really fun and it was great. Yeah.

Caitlin: Yeah, you wouldn't trade it. And neither would the players — they're happy to be coming back into a league. You're not waiting four years to watch women's professional hockey anymore.

Team USA Women's Hockey Gold Medal and the Men's Team Phone Call Controversy

Caitlin: So, if you haven't seen or heard — there was a lot of swirl last week around the men's and women's U.S. hockey teams. They both won gold. There was now a very infamous phone call to the men's team from the President of the United States, who made a joke at the women's expense. It was at a very heightened point when we recorded last week and we chose not to address it at the time. Primarily because I think Alex and I have both been in environments where maybe your judgment isn't as clear as you want it to be, and you don't necessarily show up the way you want to. And in retrospect, you acknowledge that and apologize for what you did.

Alex: Yes.

Caitlin: So we wanted to give time for that to happen. Because we thought that it should happen.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: And it mostly didn't.

Alex: There were maybe attempts. Maybe.

Caitlin: I want to say a couple of things. We went back and forth about this a lot. And I realized that maybe this is old news at this point, but I feel really strongly about this as a former female athlete who has been the butt of those kinds of jokes — who has had to laugh along with the people making the joke. And as the mom of two young girls, I really want to see a world where someone speaks up in the moment, and if not in the moment, afterwards owns their mistake and apologizes. It's not hard to apologize. The fact that it seemed quite challenging for most of the men in that locker room to apologize is pretty disappointing.

I do want to make sure too that we say: I do not view this as political at all. I would be upset about this regardless of who called the team. So I really discourage the argument that we're making this political. To me, this is actually about treating people with respect and being a decent human. We need to stop normalizing bullying behavior.

I went to dinner with some friends last week and they were all talking about different incidents with bullies with their kids — and it's not just girls to boys or boys to girls, it's boys to boys too. When we laugh at things like what the President said on the phone, we make it okay for those kinds of comments to be said. And even if it's a joke, it has lasting effects. I have been in situations where boys are just joking and you leave feeling demeaned, feeling less than, feeling degraded. We need to stop that.

The story to me was less about what was actually said and more about the fact that we're now spending a ton of time — including national news media — talking about the behavior of these men, and not highlighting the successes of these amazing women. Once again, a women's team went in, they dominated that tournament, had historic record-breaking performances, won their third gold medal, and we are talking about the men's team. It makes me mad, because this is a pattern.

Caitlin: We should have also been celebrating both teams, and we ended up talking about this like sideshow thing. But let's talk about the success. Team USA women had a perfect record in the tournament. They were not beaten. They scored 36 goals, allowed two. They set the shutout record for consecutive periods, number of games, and number of minutes. They competed in their seventh gold medal game out of eight. Women's hockey has been in the Olympics for 28 years. In that time, the women have won three gold medals. The men have also won three gold medals — but men's hockey has been part of the Olympics for 102 years. So if we actually want to compare achievements, the women have done more in less time with far fewer resources and far less support.

Somebody who has become a role model and an icon of women's hockey — Captain America, Hilary Knight — said it best when she was asked about this at her press conference returning to Seattle. Hilary said: "The joke was distasteful and unfortunate. I think the way women are represented, it's a great teaching point to shine light on how women should be championed for their amazing feats. And now I have to sit in front of you and explain someone else's behavior. It's not my responsibility. But what is, is shifting the focus and shifting the narrative to this amazing accomplishment that we all did together. The men's and women's team did it together and that is super special. These women are amazing and whatever's going on should never outshine or minimize their work and our success on the world stage. This was the best American women's hockey team, the best American team we've ever put together when the lights have been the brightest. Drop the mic."

Alex: Yeah. Right.

Caitlin: There's a couple of reasons why this was really important to me to say something. The reaction online, frankly, to anybody who has spoken up — and I'm expecting that this may come our way too — has been gross. And it is systemic of a joke like the one that was told. Because now what you see is: a woman speaks up and says that's not okay, and a bunch of men come into her comments and insult her looks. They talk about how no one would want to date her. They talk about how she's fat — anything but substance. This culture of misogyny, frankly, we need to do better. And that's why we are calling this out.

Alex: Yes, absolutely.

Caitlin: What are your thoughts?

Alex: There's not much I can say that you haven't already said. I don't have the life experience of any woman — purely biology. I cannot say I've been bullied because of the gender that I am. I've really let you lead on this because I don't have that experience. I don't get to know that experience. I know that the men in that locker room bailed, at least from what we saw. The fact that there was no effort around any sort of apology or making it right — and every time they did say something, it was completely avoidant — it kind of blew my mind a little bit, how they treated it after the fact. Because like you said, you can always apologize. It's always there.

I think the biggest surprise, and I don't know if anybody talked about this, is from the leadership of USA Hockey. It's like they had zero PR people there, or even the people in charge didn't look at this situation and say, "We've got to do something here to make this right." And they just kind of let it go.

Caitlin: Yeah. It felt like it was the initial couple of incidents, and then it kind of compounded. There were all the videos from the strip club the day after, and all of this kind of stuff. You can celebrate however you want. I'm just going to say that you insult female athletes and then you go do that — the optics aren't great. And everybody has a camera these days. Nothing that you do doesn't get filmed.

Alex: You've got to be careful. And I want to clarify — when I say USA Hockey leadership, I don't mean the women's team coaches and staff. I mean whoever is the head of USA Hockey and the men's team leadership. Was there not a meeting at all after this happened?

Caitlin: Yeah, thank you. That's important. So that's our take on that. We did see the clip from the SNL skit this past weekend and it was funny — still disappointing that the Hughes brothers weren't the ones to apologize. They just stood there and took the joke.

SheBelieves Cup: USWNT vs. Argentina Recap

Alex: All right. Moving on here to the SheBelieves Cup.

Caitlin: Moving on to one of my favorite teams in the entire land — the U.S. Women's National Team — who opened their SheBelieves Cup match play yesterday at the time of taping against Argentina, the number 30 team in the world. The U.S. is currently ranked number two in the world behind Spain. We have a couple of notable things as we get started here and we'll talk through the results of the game — some of the good, some of the bad, some of what we'll be watching for next week.

Caitlin: Notable: the SheBelieves Cup is also known as the Sonnett Cup, or the Sonnett Believes Cup, because Emily Sonnett — who did not feature in yesterday's game — is a center back for the national team who has played in every single SheBelieves Cup in existence. That's 11 years in a row. She's also amazing, so I'm assuming she's going to be in the starting lineup against Canada on Wednesday — which will be release day for this podcast. Go watch her, she's one of my faves.

Youth really headlines Emma Hayes' first starting lineup here at SheBelieves Cup. Initially I was a little like, what is this starting lineup? And then I realized they were really laying their cards to be ready for number 10 Canada on Wednesday. They were going to give some of the youth time against the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, because the game against Canada is likely going to be the decisive game on who wins the tournament.

Alex: That was my question coming into this section — are we going to get one or two veterans out there to kind of manage the youth and say, "This is a lower-stakes game, let's get out of this with a win," or just let the youth go out there?

Caitlin: They chose no veterans to put around Lindsey Heaps. The total caps in the starting roster was 272. 172 of those caps were Lindsey Heaps by herself, which left a hundred caps for 10 other players. You have players who have been in camps — Jaedyn Shaw, Olivia Moultrie, Tara Rudd — players who have been there before, but 10 caps is very different than 30 caps, which is very different than 50.

They started in a 4-4-2, which was interesting. Typically we see the U.S. come out in a 4-3-3 — that's been their bread and butter for the longest time. But Emma is clearly still testing things. There was a lot of talk about how there were no uncapped players for the first time, but she's still testing where we are. We're the furthest away we're going to be from the World Cup. They've got qualifying at the end of the year. You can see her masterminding this whole thing.

Caitlin: As we talked about in the top headlines, they won 2-0. It was fairly convincing. Argentina maybe had two significant chances. We actually scored four goals — two were called back for what I would say were both very questionable offsides calls.

Alex: I think that first one, the announcer was like, "That's not offsides." They were both not offsides.

Caitlin: You go roll the tape — they were not offsides. Unfortunately the officiating was part of the storyline of this game. If you want to be a good official, you do not want anybody to talk about you — you want to control the game but not make yourself the headline. The center ref did not control the game. There was a lot of physical, chippy play. There was a hair pull at one point on Jaedyn Shaw. We saw Trinity Rodman get kneed in the back at the end of the game. Those things don't happen when the referee is willing to dole out cards. There were multiple times where she let it go, let it go, let it go — and then called a foul on something that was way less harsh. Weird makeup call.

Alex: You kind of feel like you can get away with anything, and then suddenly you do something small and you can't.

Caitlin: Yeah, exactly. Lindsey Heaps and Jaedyn Shaw both scored. I am not the biggest fan of Lindsey Heaps' style of play — I never have been — but I thought this was one of her better games. She showed up really, really well. She was in the spaces she needed to be in, and when it came to attack, she scored the first goal and assisted on the second. I do love her leadership on and off the pitch. I think she's an incredible leader. It's just that her style of play has never really clicked for me. And I really liked how she looked in this game.

I could understand the strategy they were trying to employ — Argentina sort of creates a gap between their back line and their midfield line, and the U.S. was trying to play into that gap and then play out of it. They didn't execute it well, and I think that was part of the youth. They didn't have a true six — which is like a holding center midfielder in soccer jargon — and that really hurt them. Heaps tends to attack more. Lily Yohannes is more of a box-to-box center midfielder. So they struggled to really control possession through the midfield and break from there.

Alex: I feel like we saw that in the first 15 to 20 minutes — it was really loose, not connecting on passes. And then it felt like they slowly tightened up as the game went on.

Caitlin: Yeah, it did get better. My two other big questions going into this tournament are still very open. Who's going to play left-back for this team? They had Maddie Dahlien, who in the last camp was listed as a forward, starting at left-back. She did fine, but that whole back line had never played together before. I am a former goalkeeper, y'all, and I would have been freaking out. They were not the most organized. Claudia Dickey was the goalkeeper who started and played the whole game — also newer, not too many caps. Just a lack of experience in that back line.

We will see that change against Canada. I assume we're going to see Naomi Girma and Emily Sonnett paired up at center-back — that is a ton of experience. You're going to see Emily Fox as well. Lilly Reale came in at left-back late in the game, but she got clocked on a tackle, which is more of that chippy and physical play from Argentina.

Alex: I was kind of wondering if some of that early looseness — or even some of the offsides calls — was a chemistry factor of just not having that pass-to-pass chemistry that the veterans might have.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think so. There's a little bit of just reading the game with experience generally, and then there's the experience of women who have played together. This was very much a "where can I make this pass, is she fast enough to get to this?" situation.

Caitlin: What we're watching for coming out of this: we talked about it already, but Trinity Rodman got hurt right at the end of the game just as stoppage time was about to start, and she was screaming — like, it's not good.

Alex: Like it's not good.

Caitlin: I was very worried for a couple of minutes. She was able to get up and walk and was moving a little bit. She had a really challenging season last year, primarily due to lower back issues. She's talked about how a lot of that is just managing load — the amount of training and the amount of games affecting her back. So seeing that, after she'd signed this big contract, came back in and captained the team and finally seemed like she was on the upswing again — it was hard to watch. We'll be watching for headlines around what that is. I don't think she plays against Canada with NWSL season starting. I'm sure her management has already called and said probably not.

That does open the door, as we talk about the number nine position. Jameese Joseph got a start against Argentina. One of the goals that was called back was scored by her. I'm still watching for that nine to come through — it was pretty apparent in that game that we didn't really have a consistent scoring threat up top.

USWNT vs. Canada Preview: SheBelieves Cup Decisive Match

Alex: So we've got USA versus Canada — the age-old rivalry — coming up on Wednesday, which is release day for this podcast, in Columbus, Ohio. Kicks off at 5:45 PM Central, right? I believe it's on TNT, TruTV, somewhere in that region.

Caitlin: HBO Max, Peacock, Universo if you want it in Spanish.

Alex: Some of them are on Telemundo as well. Canada looked great against Colombia — came out strong. They've got Casey Stoney, former English national team player and former San Diego Wave head coach, at the helm. They've got a lot of experience. I think that's going to prove to be a pretty difficult test. I hope we show up better than we did against Argentina. Can we get a podcast prediction on the score of that Canada game?

Caitlin: Look, I think it goes to penalties.

Alex: Ooh.

Caitlin: In the SheBelieves Cup format, if it's tied at the end of regulation it goes immediately to penalties. I just don't see either team having the scoring threat. Christine Sinclair doesn't play for Canada anymore — she's the top goal scorer of all time in international soccer, of all people. You've got Jordyn Huitema over there, but I just don't necessarily see it being high scoring. Maybe 1-1, going to penalties.

Alex: I would love to be proven wrong, because you hate watching penalty shootouts as a former goalkeeper.

Caitlin: This pains me to say, but Canada has one of the best goalkeepers in the world in Kailen Sheridan. She's experienced, she's been back there. We don't know who our number one is right now. If we still had Alyssa Naeher, I would say us in a heartbeat — that woman can stop everything, and she scores. So that's my take on that, plus you have a lot of youth on the USA side and penalty shootouts are a lot of pressure. I think you have more veteran leadership on the Canadian side.

Alex: I hope you're wrong too. It'll be hard to celebrate if you're right.

Caitlin: You can still rub it in my face — I doubted my team. I'm just trying to be realistic.

WNBA CBA Negotiations: Revenue Sharing, Strike Vote, and the Path to a Deal

Alex: All right. Moving on — we've got some more WNBA CBA updates, and there is potentially a future state where we are no longer talking about the CBA, at least for a few years.

Caitlin: Oh my gosh, I think we actually might be close. This might be our eighth or tenth episode where we've discussed this. One of the big things is that the deadline the league put forth is March 10th — which is next Tuesday — so ideally by the time we're editing next episode, it'll actually be done, and we'll be celebrating an agreed-upon CBA.

Let me back up a little bit and get into how we got here. The WNBA Players Association and the league — which is WNBA leadership, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, and team ownership across the league — have been negotiating on a new CBA for the better part of 17 months. In the last week, there were five major things that happened.

First, the league set that March 10th deadline so that they can get all of their pre-season activity done — we'll talk about what that timeline looks like at the end of this segment. They also announced that they unlocked revenue sharing for the first time in the 2025 season. What that meant is that $8 million, after all the splits were accounted for, was to be distributed amongst the 13 teams. That is huge. If you go back and listen to our deep dive on the CBA, you'll learn that unlocking revenue sharing is no small feat, because there are very specific benchmark thresholds that have to be hit for multiple years. Then there's a divvying up of how those percentages get sliced amongst the league ownership, the NBA, and some private investment that holds a 16% stake in the league.

Alex: Half of me thinks that with the momentum they've had, they actually did unlock it — but half of me thinks this is a negotiating tactic. Like, "Look, you unlocked it, finally. You could do this again next year."

Caitlin: I hadn't thought about that, but I could see it. Although I'm also like — I don't think so. If you were anywhere near the WNBA last year, you know that it was on fire. Sellout crowds, moving to bigger arenas for previously scheduled games. The players also unlocked $9.25 million in earnings from jersey sales and merchandise going back to the 2020 season, which — I'm like, how have you not been paying that out? How does that work?

What's crazy too is that the revenue sharing — the league didn't announce it. They told the union, and the union shared it with the players. You want to talk about weird behavior. Would it not be a win for you to announce that yourself?

Alex: Would it not be a win?

Caitlin: So that happened. Then the league met with the Players Association on Monday and communicated all this information. On Tuesday, all the players were invited to a Zoom call with the Players Association executive leadership. In these negotiations, the Players Association has an executive leadership board — seven players voted on by the players — and then player representatives from each team as well. They occasionally pull the whole league together, like back in December when they authorized the strike. What's interesting is the Players Association presented to the rest of the players on this Zoom call what the current league offer is. And it created what articles described as heated debate, passionate discussion, even disagreement.

Coming out of it, what I could glean was: I think some players are in the position of being like, "Whoa, we're actually getting a lot here." If you recall some of the math, we're essentially 5x-ing a lot of these different salary caps, minimums, maximums, and averages. There's been some concessions on expenses. It seems like the league will move on expenses but not revenue sharing. And I think there was a cohort of players that was like, hold on — time out — we don't know if we want to strike anymore.

Alex: I was wondering if that strike authorization is still valid for new terms.

Caitlin: I would hope that the Players Association leadership would take a revote, because it's evolved so much. When they did the authorized vote to strike last time, the league hadn't responded in like four weeks. It took them six weeks to respond to the Players Association's last offer. The next day, agents of top players reached out to the Players Association and said, "You need to clue us in more on what's going on here, because we're on this crunch time deadline." I'm sure some of them are like, "I don't get paid if my player doesn't get paid." So they need to help facilitate a survey of the current agreement being sent out to players.

I think what happened last week — and I don't know this for sure — is that the current agreement from the league was sent out to players to review with their agents, with a survey asking: Do we like this? Do we not? How are we feeling? Which is how democracy should work. And one of the questions in that survey was probably: Do you still feel strongly about striking if we don't meet terms?

And my guess is — a lot of these women are playing in other leagues right now. You've got Unrivaled, you've got Athletes Unlimited, you've got players playing overseas. And there are definitely some players who are more marketable than others — they've got sponsorship deals. A strike doesn't hurt them. But you have a whole cohort of role players who aren't necessarily making a ton of bank with their NIL-type stuff.

Alex: This is their job.

Caitlin: This is their job. And the other thing I read was that players have families — they want to know where they're playing, where their job is happening for the next season at least. They want to settle down.

Alex: If you're a top player, you can't hold out to hopefully make an extra $100,000 to $150,000 when a role player could make an extra $40,000 to $60,000 and be really happy for them.

Caitlin: Yeah. So the final big headline: just to catch everybody up, the latest Players Association counter reduced revenue sharing to 25% of gross revenue shared, down from 30% where it started — but still 10 percentage points off from what the league's offer is. I saw a quote today from Kelsey Plum, who we just watched go crazy in the Unrivaled game — she's the first vice president of the Players Association. She had a quote out there that was like, "A strike would be the worst thing for everybody involved." She said she's all about fighting, continuing to negotiate, continuing to push the envelope — but she's more of a "what's the gain versus what's the gap" kind of person.

Alex: They might be really close.

Caitlin: They might be really close. I've seen this said in podcast interviews: "Open the books. If we are proven completely wrong in our perspective on these numbers, we will own it — but you haven't shared with us in good faith. How are we supposed to come to the table with a realistic deal if you aren't giving us all the information?" I still think that's shady. I want to call it out.

Let me wrap this section up by talking about this timeline, because it is wild. They backed into this March 10th date because the belief is if they can get a verbal agreement by March 10th, they can have a signed agreement by March 31st. Then you can hold the expansion drafts for Portland and Toronto between April 1st and April 6th — remember, you have two teams you still have to get players for. Free agent qualifying offers, including franchise tagging, can be sent out the 7th and 8th. After that draft happens, free agency negotiations can happen April 9th through the 12th. Signing period from the 12th to the 18th. College draft on the 13th. And then training camp opens on the 19th.

Alex: Yeah, it's insane. But I'm looking at this like — so, podcast every other night in April?

Caitlin: We're just going to have special episodes on WNBA signings.

Alex: Just live breaking news. Here's the teams, we'll grade them —

Caitlin: Who'd you get? Yeah. We are very hopeful that by the time we record next week we'll actually know what's going to happen with the season. I hope there's a season.

Alex: I really do. We loved the Lynx last year. And Unrivaled has really exposed me to a lot of other players that I want to watch now.

Unrivaled Playoffs Head to Brooklyn

Caitlin: Let's talk a little bit about where we're at with the Unrivaled playoffs.

Alex: Yeah, let's do it.

Caitlin: Quarterfinals were over the weekend. We saw some really good games — two upsets. Both of the lower seeds beat the higher seeds. Vinyl BC beat the three-seed Laces, and the Breeze dominated defending... well, Paige Bueckers had a night.

Alex: She did. Paige Bueckers had a night.

Caitlin: I hope she's having a night right now. And so it's going to be fun. They've already kicked off the semis here tonight in Brooklyn. I think another testing ground for Unrivaled in different markets. I heard before we started recording that they had a near-sellout crowd of 18,261 at the game and it was rocking. A little bit less than what they had in Philly — I think Philly was a little over 21,000, but they had a higher capacity arena. Barclays holds about 18,000. Barclays in Brooklyn is also the home of the New York Liberty. Breanna Stewart, co-founder of Unrivaled, got to kick off events there tonight. They had Sabrina Ionescu, star guard for the Liberty, on the call.

Alex: We'll be watching the final Wednesday night.

Caitlin: Wednesday night. They'll be back in Miami. We'll find out after we get off the mic here who's in it. I think the one thing I wanted to say about this whole season is that it was very interesting how teams fell, and we had what felt like true parity in the league. We didn't know the last playoff seed until essentially the final day of the regular season, which is wild.

Caitlin: And anyone could win on any given night. Even the Phantom weren't dominant until halfway through the season — they were struggling at the beginning and kind of found their groove. Any given night, you're literally watching Olympians — four, five, or six Olympians on the court between the two teams. Tell me where else you can do that. We are Unrivaled fans for life. I think next year we're going to have to figure out a trip down to Miami.

Alex: Yeah, a hundred percent. Watch these ladies ball out live.

NCAAW Basketball Tournament Preview: Conference Tournaments and Top Contenders

Alex: A little bit more basketball here. Speaking of ball — the NCAA women's basketball tournament is beginning soon. We have conference finals coming up this weekend, actually.

Caitlin: Yes. I think the official national tournament starts next Wednesday, with some play-in games. Conference tournaments are kind of where March Madness starts. Which ones do you think we should be watching?

Alex: I think the Big Ten and the SEC are the big ones. I like how the Big East puts their championship on Monday night — like it's some big deal — when we all know their one ranked team is going to win anyway.

Caitlin: You don't even need to watch the Big East. UConn is undefeated. They're beating teams regularly by 30 points. We will actually talk about who we think could challenge them in a second. What I think will be interesting is the SEC — they've got nine top-25 teams right now. That is going to be a bloodbath, frankly. You've got Texas, South Carolina, Vanderbilt — really quality play. And then in the Big Ten, you've got seven top-25 teams. Together that's 16 of the top 25 teams between those two conferences.

Caitlin: What's interesting though — we called this out in the top headlines — the ACC could be completely up for grabs. You've got ranked teams: Duke, North Carolina, Louisville. But unranked Notre Dame, who has one of the best players in the country in Hannah Hidalgo on that team, beat number 10 Louisville over the weekend. And Duke got upset by UNC. A lot of those ACC rankings are probably 10 to 25, so at that point it's anybody's game.

Caitlin: And UConn's not really going to get tested in the same way — whereas South Carolina is going to have to battle through eight other ranked teams in the SEC. UCLA is going to have to battle through the Big Ten. I will say one more note just on UConn: we were watching them last night and they win by being so disciplined and so well-coached. But they get everyone's best game, because everyone wants to be the team that says, "I beat UConn."

Alex: You would kind of think that the way they dominate, they're not getting challenged in a way that prepares them for the tournament. But if you're up against them, you want to win and you're going to go as hard as you can.

Caitlin: So we've kind of alluded to top contenders for the tournament. UConn is likely to continue on their magical run. A team that could really challenge them is UCLA. They have a different kind of discipline. They've got Lauren Betts — she's a senior who played in the tournament last year. She's got the size. I don't know if UConn's Sarah Strong, as good as she is, can really get Lauren Betts off her block and off her position. They've got Azzi Fudd and Kiki Rice — I think there are ways they match up pretty well with the Huskies.

Outside of that, South Carolina is going to bring it to you — Dawn Staley, that's just in your DNA — but they don't have the same level of discipline. That's the thing with Geno's teams. They're so disciplined, and they were talking to Azzi after the game yesterday about how practice is really hard in a UConn jersey. Practice is harder than some of the games, and Geno does that on purpose. So I expect we're going to see another national championship for the Huskies, but they've got to earn it.

Alex: Yep. Everyone's got to go through the same tournament.

Caitlin: A couple players to keep your eye on as you head into conference tournaments this weekend. [VERIFY: Mikayla Blakes?] plays for Vanderbilt. I've watched her play a couple of times this season and she's incredible. She's put up 30 points per game in SEC play, which — we just talked about how competitive that league is. She's averaging 27 points per game, leading the nation in scoring. She can get it anywhere: threes, twos, drive to the bucket, pull-up mid-range. What really impressed me in the game I watched over the weekend was her defense. You think of these players as scorers, and she did a really good job of disrupting play and getting people off their spaces.

We already mentioned Azzi Fudd — fifth-year senior, likely a top WNBA draft pick out of UConn. Madison Booker from Texas — she's so clean, just such a clean style of play. Her mid-range game is fire, which is always tough to guard. She's got a lot of length, so it's effective defensively too. Hannah Hidalgo from Notre Dame — top three in the nation in scoring, and she leads the nation in steals. In the game against Louisville she had something like 30 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists, five steals. That's a line.

And then Sarah Strong from UConn — she's their big post presence, really versatile. She can shoot from three as well. We saw her light it up last year in the tournament. And I threw Flau'jae Johnson on here — she's a senior from LSU. She's got a little bit of a chip on her shoulder, and she just comes alive in tournament time. LSU is always a great program. They've got Kim Mulkey at the helm. You can never count her out of anything. You can definitely count on her to yell a few things at you, but it's good cinema.

Alex: Good cinema.

Caitlin: So keep an eye on those players and those teams. We'll do a bracket — we'll each do our own and post some updates so you can play along with us if you want to.

What to Watch: Paralympics, SheBelieves Cup, NCAAW Hockey, and PWHL

Alex: All right. On to what to watch. We have the Paralympics — don't sleep on the Paralympics. They kick off March 6th until March 15th, with wheelchair curling starting on the 4th, which is release day. You can find these on NBC and Peacock, kind of however you watched the regular Olympics, they'll be in the same spot.

Caitlin: Nice.

Alex: A few athletes to look for: [VERIFY: Laurie Stephens?], a five-time Paralympian and seven-time medalist in para-alpine. [VERIFY: Brenna Huckaby?], three-time gold medalist in para snowboarding — one more gold makes her the most in the discipline. Oksana Masters, the most decorated U.S. Paralympian, returns to para biathlon and para cross-country skiing. I can't do that normally, so the strength that these people have to go out there and do that is just amazing to me.

Caitlin: Yeah. We talked a lot about the mental toughness of the athletes in the Olympics a few weeks ago — and if you want to talk about grit and mental toughness, these folks have overcome so much to be able to compete. It's incredible.

Alex: We also have Kendall Gretsch, who started competing in wheelchair curling at 43 and is now 52 and back for her second Paralympics, aiming for a medal. You can't count her out.

Caitlin: You can't count her out. I watched the most incredible wheelchair curling shot — she did this perfect little push and the stone landed dead center, right on the button. It was so cool. I thought I was done with curling, but no — we're back into it.

Alex: Moving on to the SheBelieves Cup: Wednesday at 5:45 PM Central, USA vs. Canada on TNT, TruTV, HBO Max, Peacock, and Universo. And then Saturday at 2:30 PM Central, USA vs. Colombia on all the same channels.

Alex: NCAA women's hockey: we're into the semifinals and finals for the conferences. The WCHA can be found on Big Ten Network this weekend, starting Thursday evening. We've got number 13 Minnesota State taking on number one Wisconsin. These are no longer best-of series — this is one and done.

Caitlin: I was talking to the girls about this today when I was bringing them to swimming lessons. They were like, "But what if the Mavericks win, Mom?" And I was like, well, that would be amazing. We are very much fans of Minnesota State Mavericks, but it's highly unlikely. And my oldest kept asking, "But what if they do?" I was like, you know what? That's the beauty of sports. Anyone can win on any given night. You just need a couple bounces and you've got to go out and play hard.

Alex: We also have number four Minnesota versus number two Ohio State on Thursday at 7 PM, with the WCHA final between the winners on Saturday at 2 PM — and for our local audience, that's being played at St. Thomas, up in St. Paul.

Continuing on: we have the ECAC conference, which I believe is on SportsNet New York. Number 11 Cornell versus number seven Yale at 3 PM Central on Friday, and number eight Quinnipiac versus number nine Princeton at 6 PM Friday. Their final is Saturday at 4 PM Central. And then one game out of the AHA: number 12 Mercyhurst at number three Penn State, 1 PM Central on Saturday.

Caitlin: I think we should have a game at some point where we just force people to guess what the acronyms for all these conferences stand for.

Alex: I can't even do it right now. We'll do that later. Moving on — for PWHL, I tried to pick out the two best games going into the weekend. We have Boston at New York, 6 PM Central on Thursday. I think this is the best game of the week. Boston is second overall, playing at a 0.711 clip — meaning they're gaining 71% of the available points when they play, which is the best in the league. And New York is currently underperforming their record with a minus-seven goal differential, zero overtime wins, and 45 goals against. This is like a "Boston should win," but they're in New York — anything can happen.

Caitlin: New York is sitting in that fourth position as of this recording, and you have eight teams where four go to the playoffs. They've got to win games.

Alex: They do. And then Minnesota at Toronto, Sunday at 11 AM Central — hopefully a chance for Minnesota to find their skates again after that 4-0 loss to Montreal. Toronto is ranked sixth but only two points from leapfrogging number four New York. You're in sixth, you could be in fourth after one game. There's a lot of movement in the middle right now.

Caitlin: It's really tight. We'll be watching this weekend and ongoing as we head into the playoffs.

Winners and Losers

Alex: All right. Let's close it out with winners and losers. Losers first.

Caitlin: My loser is somehow it being 2026 and we're continuing to perpetuate the idea that it's okay to make fun of people, and that it's funny. There is a time and a place, and usually it's when the person can be laughing with you — not you laughing at them. I love comedy, I love jokes, but there's a time and a place. Even if I remove the whole story about the President's phone call and the men's team, the reaction I've seen online — I've read some really horrible takes. I've seen an employer get online and call one of his employees a lunatic for saying it wasn't okay to make that joke, and saying she was blowing it out of proportion. If I had a penny for the number of times women get told they're overreacting... So that's my loser. We're here in 2026 and we're still having this conversation.

Alex: My loser is in the same vein. USA Hockey leadership either really failed or really didn't care. I don't know which is worse.

Caitlin: They didn't set those young men up for success either. Not that they should have needed help — you should know how to apologize to someone — but it seems like no one really came in and was like, "You really need to think about this in a different way."

Alex: All right. Winners.

Caitlin: Ooh. Breeze BC — Paige Bueckers. I know I'm repping hard here. But actually my real big winner: there was a post-game interview with Paige after her huge game where they knocked off defending champions Rose BC. This reporter just did such an excellent job of framing a question that allowed Paige to introspect and talk about her achievement. That is not something that is often comfortable — specifically for women to do. And this reporter just created such a beautiful space for her to do it. I was mad because I lost the clip on social media. I was going to share it on our Instagram page — if I find it, I will. But Paige had a great answer just talking about her growth and what Unrivaled has really provided her. And you've got to remember, y'all — she was a rookie in the W last year. She comes across as this seasoned vet, but she's young, she's got a lot of room to grow, and she's very humble but leans into those opportunities.

Alex: She's got the game and she's got the media smarts. It's just kind of rare.

Caitlin: Yeah.

Alex: Hold on a second. For those of you not watching this, I'm putting on my Minnesota State Mavericks hat right now. My winner is the Mavericks. We saw them win a three-game series versus the University of Minnesota Duluth — an upset, number 13 beating number nine. I think this was the first time they've moved on in the playoffs since 2009. I'm really proud of the work they did. They were skating so fast and so hard, like when they played the Gophers and swept that series. If they can keep that up, they can hopefully at least keep it close against Wisconsin.

Caitlin: And they came back in that series — they were down 1-0, playing in Duluth for the whole weekend. They won the second game in double overtime. In the WCHA in this round, you just keep going full periods of hockey. They were in the second overtime period and they scored, then took care of business in the third game.

Alex: Be fun to see what they do.

Caitlin: Anyone can win — as you told your daughter tonight. All right folks, we appreciate you being here. We had a lot of fun with this episode. A lot more to come here in March — stay tuned next week. We'll talk all about the SheBelieves Cup, maybe have a CBA agreement on the table, lean into some Paralympics, conference tournaments for basketball and hockey...

Alex: These could turn into long ones if we're not careful.

Caitlin: We've got to be careful. Thanks for being here.

Alex: RTG underscore pod on socials and raisingthegamepod@gmail.com. Gotta get those in there.

Caitlin: We'll be back next week.

Alex: All right. Talk to you later. Bye.