Episode 11: WNBA CBA Crunch Time, NWSL Is Back, and the PWHL Playoff Race Heats Up

Intro & Opening

Caitlin: I think the why — why it’s unusual — frankly, is because the league underestimated, seriously, the resolve of the players and what they sought to achieve.

Caitlin: Hi, I’m Caitlin.

Alex: Hi, I’m Alex.

Caitlin: And this is Raising the Game, a women’s sports podcast, covering primetime performers, the business behind the athletes and the leagues, and what the growth of women’s sports means for the next generation of women’s athletes.

Alex: We’re back again.

Caitlin: Here we are.

Alex: We have a lot to get to. NWSL is back.

Caitlin: It’s back, baby.

Alex: PWHL is heating up.

Caitlin: Playoffs right around the corner.

Alex: Yeah. And can the WNBA get out of its own way?

Caitlin: And believe it or not, we still don’t have a CBA.

Alex: It is 8:30 PM on Monday night, on the deadline day. Official deadline day.

Caitlin: We thought we might last week.

Alex: We didn’t.

Caitlin: We didn’t. We’re going to get into all of that. But before we do, we have a couple of announcements, and then we’ll do favorite things.

Announcements

Caitlin: Women’s college basketball brackets are out. We are planning to fill one out and we will be posting our brackets — maybe having a little competition here on the pod — before Wednesday, because that’s when games start for the women’s tournament. We’ve got some play-in games. The First Four games start on Wednesday, and then we’ll really get into the meat of the tournament.

It’s hard to tell you all which ones to go watch right now. Just go watch them all. This is like one of my favorite weekends of the NCAA tournament because there’s just basketball on all the time.

Another announcement: we launched — hard launched last week — our official website, and the URL is rtgpod.com. Right now it’s pretty simplistic. We’ve got some bios for both of us as well as sort of summarized show notes. So if you want to go back and reference, or if you just prefer to read to digest some of your women’s sports news, you can feel free to do that on our website. Hope to have more things there in the future.

Alex: Yeah, hopefully.

Caitlin: And then the final thing: coming here at the end of the month, we will be releasing on our normal release day a special episode focused on the history of women’s sports. We chose a couple of pioneers that we want to focus on. We’re going to take you through a little bit of that journey, really talk about the impact and influence that these seven or eight women had on where we are now. And then we hope to do a deeper dive on each of them in coming episodes.

Alex: Yeah, absolutely.

Favorite Things

Alex: Let’s do it. Favorite thing?

Caitlin: NWSL is back.

Alex: We didn’t forget it this week. That would be our favorite thing — we actually got in a favorite thing without forgetting it. For me it was really fun to watch Sophia Wilson come back and get in off the bench. They kept calling her Gigi’s mom, but like — Gigi’s mom’s playing now.

Caitlin: Gigi’s mom’s in!

Alex: Yeah. So I thought that was really fun.

Caitlin: I love it. NWSL is back, baby.

Top Headlines

Alex: Should we dive into these headlines?

Caitlin: Let’s hit them. Just so viewers are clear, we’re skipping over some of the things that we’ll end up talking about in deeper depth after we get through top headlines.

Alex: PWHL lands national broadcast on ION for the March 28 Takeover Tour game between New York Sirens and Montreal Victoire in Detroit, Michigan.

Caitlin: We’re going to talk a little bit more about this later, but just the momentum here since the Olympics has been off the charts.

Alex: Yep. We’re going to talk about Detroit later in our PWHL segment. ESPN reports a record 3.9 billion minutes of NCAA women’s basketball viewed this season, making it the most viewed season in almost 20 years.

Caitlin: And another fun fact from that was that there were 20 games with over half a million average viewers, which was a record for women’s college basketball.

Alex: Denver Summit announces over 50,000 tickets have been sold for their March 28 home opener.

Caitlin: They play at Mile High Stadium, which has a seating capacity of about 76,000. And now they’re like, can we fill it? We’re about two weeks away. So we’ll keep our eyes on that.

Alex: In US Women’s National Team soccer abroad: Alyssa Thompson wins the Leagues Cup with Chelsea. Lindsay [VERIFY: Lindsey Horan] and Lily [VERIFY] lift the French Cup with Olympique Lyonnais.

Caitlin: And in addition, Katarina Macário, forward for the US Women’s National Team, just signed an $8 million, five-year contract with the NWSL’s San Diego Wave, making her the highest-paid women’s footballer in the world. As these deals keep getting bigger, teams have to keep competing for talent. Trinity Rodman’s deal raised the stock of other players like Macário who are coming back. Super exciting.

Alex: World number one Aryna Sabalenka outlasted number two Elena Rybakina to capture the Indian Wells Championship — her second title of 2026 and her 10th WTA 1000 trophy.

Caitlin: Oh yeah.

Alex: Oksana Masters earns four gold medals and one bronze at the 2026 Paralympic Games, adding to her impressive 24 total Paralympic medals. I wish we could go into her whole backstory. It’s just —

Caitlin: Wild. We’re not going to, but if you have a chance to go learn about her story, do it. It’s both heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. She has got to be, for sure, the best Paralympian ever, if not one of the top medal earners of all athletes.

Going back to Oksana Masters: 14 of her 24 total medals are gold. She’s hands down the most decorated US Paralympian. She would have ranked sixth among countries in this last Olympics for gold medals.

And just rounding out the overall Paralympic medal totals: China stomped the competition with 44 medals, 15 gold. The U.S. was a solid second with 24 medals, 13 gold. So proportionately the Americans did better from a gold medal perspective.

Alex: Team USA has dominated competition so far in the FIBA Women’s World Cup qualifiers in Puerto Rico, going 4-0 with one game to go.

Caitlin: I think by the time you hear this episode, they’ll have played Spain. They’re averaging 98 points per game and winning by an average of 49 points per game. It’s hard to say, assess their play — they’re obviously much better than their competition. I saw a post online over the weekend with a picture of Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers, and Angel Reese getting ready to check into the game.

Alex: Imagine being on the bench on the other team and you see that trio about to check in while you’re playing against Chelsea Gray, Rhyne Howard, and Dearica Hamby.

Caitlin: You can’t. There’s nothing you can do.

Alex: NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Frozen Four is set to feature Ohio State versus Northeastern and Wisconsin versus Penn State on Friday evening. Northeastern upset the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

Caitlin: A little shocking. I predict we are going to see a WCHA championship rematch for the national title between Wisconsin and Ohio State.

Alex: I think Penn State’s the dark horse.

Caitlin: I do too. And I want to call out that Alex talked about Penn State like five episodes ago and was like, they’re sneaky. I think the Badgers are probably pissed that they lost to OSU and they’re going to take care of business again.

Alex: College gymnastics heads into conference tournament weekend, with four teams from the SEC ranked in the top five nationally and UCLA sitting in fifth.

Caitlin: Two incredible performances: Jordan Chiles, US Olympian, entering her final weekend averaging 9.92 across all disciplines with six perfect 10s and five 9.975s on the season. That’s out of 10. And over at LSU, Kailin Chio posted three perfect 10s in one meet — vault, beam, and floor. She’s like, it’s unreal.

Alex: Is that a record?

Caitlin: It’s got to be close. If you get a chance to watch the SEC tournament, do it.

Alex: Sephora announced as top sponsor for F1 Academy, the women’s racing circuit.

Caitlin: This adds to their partnership portfolio already containing Unrivaled, the WNBA’s Toronto Tempo, the Golden State Valkyries, and Athletes Unlimited Softball League. It’s cool to see these brands build sponsorship across women’s sports — they know there’s reach across many disciplines.

WNBA CBA Deep Dive

Alex: All right. Before we start this WNBA CBA update, I think we have to let out a long sigh. Because — what is happening?

Caitlin: We’re going to get into it. Nothing or a lot, but no result. Let me ground ourselves just in a little bit of an update on the last two weeks. Two weeks ago, Unrivaled playoffs were happening. Players from the executive committee for the players association are playing in that tournament — Brianna Stewart, Kelsey Plum, Napheesa Collier. It happens to be that Kelsey Plum and Brianna Stewart’s team end up playing for the championship. The day before the championship, a letter that the two apparently authored together is leaked, saying that they have serious concerns with how the union leadership is handling the negotiations — transparency, process.

This came a week after we had a letter sent by players’ agents to the union saying you’re not being transparent. And so all of a sudden you’re like, wait — what is going on here?

The union then reissued a poll asking players if they were okay with what the league was proposing from a revenue share perspective. They phrased it as “are you okay with 50% of net revenues?” The league has been offering 70%. So — very strange framing. Turns out most of the players were like, no, keep going.

Alex: Yeah. And then we get to this arbitrary March 10th deadline.

Caitlin: Then begins the marathon negotiation sessions. Why are we only starting now? Because back at the end of 2025, the union put forth an offer that the WNBA sat on for six weeks and didn’t respond to. And then they finally had a meeting, I think it was early February, and they showed up with nothing in hand.

Alex: They didn’t think the first offer was serious.

Caitlin: Well, I don’t think they thought any of it was serious.

Alex: I think what I really believe is they thought if they just sat on things for a while, the players would eventually capitulate. But they didn’t realize that would also possibly hurt them in the long run.

Caitlin: Yes. So I have this really great quote. This was reported by Jackie Powell — she’s the host of the Nine Sports Podcast, she’s been covering this extensively, essentially camped outside headquarters. She and Alexa Philippou from ESPN are both there.

Jackie Powell reported that the players association’s outside counsel, Deb Willig — who has done union labor negotiations for 50 years — said this has been a “highly unusual” negotiation. The quote: “I think the why — why it’s unusual, frankly — is because the league underestimated, seriously, the resolve of the players and what they sought to achieve.”

Alex: Yeah. I think they really did.

Caitlin: And to add to that, that eight-year timeframe is actually really critical. These women right now are negotiating contracts for young women who are currently in high school. One of the big sticking points was rookie contracts and how those are structured. The other thing is they are looking to the monumental CBA and pay equity deals signed by the USWNT and the NWSL and saying, we’ve got to continue that charge for women’s sports as a whole.

And here’s something mind-blowing: 42% of WNBA ownership is NBA owners, 42% independent WNBA owners, and 16% outside investors — and sometimes the same person sits in all three of those chairs. The NBA is planning to announce two expansion teams with buy-in bids of $7 to $10 billion each. You cannot tell me these people are not raking in money.

Alex: For the players to stand on business, as they say — 10 toes down, pay us what you owe us — feels very legit.

We tried hard this weekend to give benefit of the doubt. We kept coming back to: this is about control. The WNBA gets to control the definition of “net revenue.” They get to say, oh yeah, we had all these expenses — and maybe they’re paying double rent because the team owner also owns the arena. Gross is just always the gross. There’s no manipulation.

Caitlin: I think you said it best: the players are basically saying, “We get to the revenue number first, and you’re gonna pay us before you go down the line.” And the league is saying, “You’re an expense.”

And here’s another piece: the COVID dip. The WNBA’s old CBA required compounding revenue growth over multiple years to unlock revenue sharing. COVID crushed that trajectory and sent them way negative. Every year since COVID, they’ve had to show over 20% growth just to dig out of that hole — and they finally unlocked revenue sharing last year. Had COVID not happened, they probably would have unlocked it in 2021. The last-year numbers had to be massive. And we now know the growth is there.

Alex: By the time you hear this, there may be a CBA. We really hope so.

NWSL Opening Weekend

Alex: All right. Let’s get to your favorite — NWSL Opening Weekend is back.

Caitlin: We promised we’re not going to do this every week, but I’m going to run through the results because it sets the stage.

All but one game was a one-goal game. Friday night: Portland Thorns upset the Washington Spirit at home, 1-0, behind Olivia Moultrie’s goal. Abby Wambach highlighted that first touch Moultrie had before she scored, and she was right — it was incredible.

Boston Legacy lost their home opener to defending champs Gotham FC, a goal scored by Esther González of the Spanish national team, who is also coming back from parental leave. Bay FC beat expansion team Denver Summit 2-1 in San Francisco. Worth noting: both Boston and Denver had players sent off on reds in their inaugural games. The fact that they both only lost by one is actually impressive.

Kansas City Current looked strong in a 2-1 win over Utah. Goals from their recent signings Croix Bethune and Ally Sentnor. North Carolina Courage topped Racing Louisville 2-1 behind a brace from Ashley Sanchez. San Diego Wave dropped their home opener 0-1 to the Houston Dash. Barbara Banda returned from the injury list and scored, but Orlando lost to Seattle 1-2. And Angel City FC netted goals from four different players in a 4-0 shutout over the Chicago Red Stars — including Savy King coming on as a sub in the 63rd minute.

Caitlin: 129,000 people across opening weekend — about 16,000 per game. Over the last three seasons, they’ve averaged about 10,000 per game. 19,000 at the Spirit home opener. North Carolina was a capacity crowd. Boston Legacy at Gillette Stadium had 30,000+.

Alex: It’s kind of crazy seeing all of this energy. The NWSL really did their homework — they found the right cities to break into. The work shows.

Caitlin: Denver and Boston bring them to 16 teams. They’ve got plans to add a team in Atlanta starting in 2028, and Columbus looks very likely for 2028 as well. And they’ve moved to an ongoing assessment approach to expansion — there’s no fixed window. Commissioner Jessica Berman says there are dozens of people interested right now.

One thing I want to point out: 26 new moms are returning to play in the league this season — either as birthing partners or partners who were on parental leave. What’s really cool is that in 2026, the NWSL expanded their maternity benefits. Players can now access both a childcare stipend AND covered caretaker travel for children up to age 14. In 2025 it was just one of those options, and only for one child under five. This has expanded significantly.

Alex: I was sitting there thinking — you’re a player in the WNBA and you’re looking at what the NWSL has. And they’ve been around less than half as long.

Caitlin: I think Jessica Berman aims for the NWSL to be the precedent-setting league — not only in football, but across sports. Right now, I think they have the right formula to be doing that.

Alex: Hot take: it feels like she is someone who wants to see soccer grow. Whereas Kathy Engelbert is potentially in it for the money.

Caitlin: I agree on that.

NWSL Rule Changes

Caitlin: Rule changes going into effect this season. Goalkeeper timeouts: when goalkeepers get hurt, teams are no longer allowed to congregate by the touchline. They have to stay in the middle of the field.

Starting July 1st: on throw-ins and on goal kicks, there’s a five-second countdown. If you don’t get the ball back in play in time, on a throw-in the other team gets possession; on a goal kick, it becomes a corner kick.

Substitutes must leave the pitch within 10 seconds. If they take longer, the incoming player can’t enter until the first stoppage after a minute has passed.

When play is stopped for injury assessment on an outfield player, that player must leave and remain off the pitch for at least one minute.

And VAR can now check incorrect cards given to the wrong player and wrong corner decisions. I think expanding the use of VAR is helpful. If you get the wrong card, that affects your entire game.

PWHL Standings & Expansion

Alex: Let’s level set on PWHL standings. In order: Boston Fleet (39 points), Minnesota Frost (36), Montreal Victoire (36 — Minnesota has the tiebreaker), Ottawa Charge (28), Toronto Sceptres (28), New York Sirens (27), Vancouver Goldeneyes, and Seattle Torrent.

The most interesting storyline is at four, five, and six. Ottawa at 28, Toronto at 28, New York at 27 — all in a tight race. Top four teams make the playoffs. This is going to be a big push.

Caitlin: The golden draft rule makes everyone competitive. Once you’re mathematically eliminated, wins increase your draft positioning — so teams at the bottom keep playing hard. And if we know who’s coming out in this next draft — Caroline Harvey from Wisconsin, the Olympics MVP — you’re going to be a team that wants to compete for that pick.

Alex: Moving on to expansion. The PWHL likely wants to add two to four teams by 2030–31, targeting 10–12 teams. The Takeover Tour is market research: five cities getting two stops this year — Detroit, Denver, Chicago, Edmonton, and Halifax.

Detroit had 14,000 fans last year, 9,000 this season so far — but it’s one of the most hockey-passionate cities in the country. The nationally televised game on March 28 on ION should show what the market can do.

Denver is probably the strongest US candidate. They pulled 14,000 last year, 11,500 during a snowstorm competing directly with the AFC Championship game at Mile High, and 15,500 just recently. The Denver Summit just sold 50,000 tickets for their NWSL opener at Mile High. As a PWHL league, you look at that and go — this has to be one of our next spots.

Caitlin: From the Canadian side, if you’re adding four, you want Canadian balance. Edmonton is a natural fit for mountain time zone. Halifax has sold out games. Quebec City has sold out games. Hamilton has a new arena with no tenant and is wide open.

The timing also matters: Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2030. These executives are making decisions with a runway view toward mutual momentum between leagues and major events.

And the decision to put that ION game on national TV was made in Milan — they were watching what was happening with women’s hockey viewership at the Olympics and said, people want to watch this.

What to Watch

Alex: NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament March Madness. Play-in games Wednesday and Thursday. Games run every weekend until about April 5.

Caitlin: I listed out some potential trap games. If you’re in the four-five seed bracket — those brackets look horribly competitive. Duke is in one of those. UNC is in one of those. I think the one seeds are going to be fine getting to the Sweet 16, probably the Elite 8 — that’s when it gets interesting for them.

Some two seeds I’m worried about: Iowa and Michigan in the Big Ten — those could have spoiler written all over them. I think LSU and Vanderbilt will be fine.

Dream matchup to watch for: Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes vs. Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo — potential Sweet 16 clash between two of the top scorers in the country.

And shoutout to our Minnesota Gophers hosting this weekend. They earned the four seed. I am scared for them. They face Green Bay, and I swear, for the last four years I turn on this tournament and Green Bay is whooping somebody’s rear end in the first round.

Alex: Hopefully not this time.

Caitlin: So check out our brackets once we get them posted.

Alex: NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Frozen Four. Ohio State versus Northeastern, Friday at 3 PM. Wisconsin versus Penn State, Friday at 6:30 PM. Final on Sunday at 3 PM — all on ESPN+. And all women’s college basketball games are on the ESPN family of networks.

PWHL: Ottawa and Minnesota, Wednesday at 6 PM. This is a bigger game for Ottawa than for Minnesota — Ottawa needs those points. But Minnesota needs to protect home ice advantage.

Minnesota at Vancouver on Saturday — could be a trap game. Don’t give up those points late in the season.

And one more: Seattle at Boston on Saturday at 3 PM. Best versus worst. Don’t leave points on the table.

Caitlin: Check out the Sarah Nurse goal from the Vancouver Goldeneyes this weekend. She plays for Vancouver, and go look up that goal. Some kind of dangle. It’s sick.

Alex: NWSL: Friday night, Portland Thorns versus the Seattle Reign — Pacific Northwest rivalry, both won their openers. Chance to see Sophia Wilson play more minutes.

Saturday: Bay FC versus Angel City FC — on ION nationally. Angel City scored four last week.

Sunday: Chicago Stars versus Kansas City Current on ESPN2 at 1 PM. Chicago got blanked by Angel City last week. Kansas City looks sharp with Temwa Chawinga, Ally Sentnor, Croix Bethune, and Michelle Cooper.

Caitlin: And NCAA Gymnastics conference tournaments: Big Ten starts Friday night. Big 12 and SEC start Saturday. You have no excuse not to watch women’s sports this weekend. Watching the SEC conference tournament — you could see Kailin Chio make more history.

Winners & Losers

Alex: Losers — and I can only imagine what I’m going to say. Some sort of combination of the WNBA, its fans, its players, the hundred-plus free agents trying to figure out what they’re going to be doing next season.

Caitlin: Yeah, that feels like a gimme. I know we sound redundant, but it does seem upsetting that it’s dragged on the way it has.

Alex: I really hope we get off this recording and they’ve figured something out.

Caitlin: I want to be able to respond to Kate who keeps calling me from the Lynx saying “can you buy season tickets?” I can’t buy them until you have a season that’s actually going to get played.

Alex: Winners. What do you got?

Caitlin: My winner is all the moms returning to play soccer. I think that’s so incredible, so inspiring — that they have the support to make that choice. They are doing it the right way, they’re supported by the league with policies that actually allow them to keep their families close. It makes me so happy as a mom. Not that long ago, having a kid essentially meant your career was over. And I am never going to get tired of saying “Gigi’s mom” on this podcast.

Alex: Mine — well, number one is the PWHL. I’m so excited just about the energy they’re having. That game in Denver the other day was so fun. And I love hockey so much and I just love seeing how they’re going to expand. It just continues to grow.

And I have a second winner. I want to make sure I get this right. Savy King — Angel City defender — returned to the pitch after an incident last May where she collapsed on the field. They had to do chest compressions, removed her via cart with an oxygen mask, transported her to the hospital, and she later had heart surgery. She came back this past weekend.

Caitlin: It was so emotional. If you go see that video when she comes out — fans knew what to do. Honor her. And then I saw her make one of the best-timed sliding tackles I think I’ve ever seen. Sprinting full tilt back toward her own goal, beat by the forward — Jordyn Huitema (Chicago Stars), who has legs for days — and Savy King slid across and got that touch. It was just one of those moments where you’re like, I love this. I love these moments.

Alex: Perfect story.

Caitlin: All right. Well, we hope you’ll join us again next week for more. Where can folks find us in between?

Alex: RTGpod.com or @rtg_pod on Threads, Instagram, and YouTube.

Caitlin: Leave us comments, likes, and shares.

Alex: All those things.

Caitlin: All the good stuff. Appreciate you guys being here. Till next week. Bye!

Alex: Bye.