Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're going to need a full documentary about life in the Unrival facility during this four day one on one Attorney, the trash talking, the intimidation tactics, and the training room.
Sideie has got to be so good.
It's Tuesday, February eleventh, and on today's show, we'll talk to NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman about what the league makes of the recent migration of top stars to Europe, whether the new CBA was a tough sell to owners, and whether we can expect the league to hold on to its values under the new presidential administration. Plus a Super Bowl celebration we can get behind. Pro women's lacrosse is finally here, and your favorite players odds of winning on
Rivals one B one Attorney just got slightly better. It's all coming up right after this welcome back slices. Here's what you need to know today. Un Rivals one on one Attorney got under way last night, and ahead of tip off, the league announced that just twenty three players of the original thirty would be taking part. This is a decision that the league said was made quote due to lingering injuries and to prioritize player well being for
regular season games end quote. As a result, seven players will now receive buys for the first round, causing the league to change up Monday's tourney schedule and hold just one evening session of games instead of both afternoon and evening.
Now we're recording this before.
The one v one action tipped off, so in our reality, our brackets are still perfect.
Let's go team.
The second round and the quarterfinals continued tonight at seven pm Eastern on True TV to the WNBA, where the Indiana Fever announced on Monday that the team has mutually parted ways with forward Katie Luce Samuelson, who was with the franchise for one year, playing in thirty seven games and averaging four point three points, just a year after
giving birth to her daughter. Because Samuelson was signed to a protected veteran contract for twenty twenty five, she would have been entitled to receive her full salary in this situation, but typically a team and a player will instead agree to a lower buyout number so the player takes a little less but can find a deal elsewhere as opposed to being stuck where they're not one or having to wait to be waived.
Now, we'll be real with y'all. We were a little confused.
About how exactly this quote unquote divorce deal kind of thing works in the WNBA and why a player might agree to one and take less. So we'll link to a story from Richard Cone at her Hoopstats that does a good job spelling out why players often sign deals
like these, even if it means they aren't pocketing guaranteed money. Samuelson, who's played with five different teams during her five seasons in the league, is currently in Miami for Unrivaled, where she's a member of the Phantom Basketball Club, and per ESPN's Alexa Philippo, the six y three Forard has been
in conversation with four WNBA teams. She'll be on the waiver wire for five days, during which time any team could agree to pick up the contract and salary she signed with Indiana four and twenty twenty five about one hundred and eighty K per her Hoopstats, But after five days, if she hasn't claimed off waivers, she'll become an unrestricted free agent. To hockey, the PWHL is back in action tonight, following a week and a half long pause for international competition.
The regular season resumes with the second place Minnesota Frost traveling to fourth place Toronto.
We actually caught up.
With Frost defender and badass med school student Claire Thompson from her hotel room ahead of tonight's game, so we'll bring it that interview tomorrow. To lacrosse and the debut of the Women's Lacrosse League.
Oh sorry.
The Maybolene Women's Lacrosse League competition gets underway tonight as part of a week long tournament that's part of the plll's men's Championship Series. The Marilynd Charm and New York Charging play tonight. That game is at seven pm Eastern on ESPN Plus. Still no word on what the future of the WL is beyond this tourney, but regardless, we're excited to see these players take the field in the six's format that will also be used at the twenty
twenty eight Olympics. To alpine skiing, American star Mikaela Shiffrin announced that she won't attempt to defend her world title in the giant slalom at this week's World Championships in Austria. Schiffrin said she's been dealing with PTSD following the crash in November that resulted in a deep puncture wound and severed oblique muscles, causing her to spend nearly two months
away from competition. In a statement shared with the Associated Press, Schiffrin said, quote, I'm mentally blocked in being able to get to the next level of Payson's speed and putting power into the turns, and that kind of mental psychological like PTSDSQ struggle.
Is more than I anticipated. End quote.
Schiffrin, the most decorated alpine skier in modern World Championship history, said she still plans to enter Thursday slalom, as well as the slalom portion of the team event, a new event that gets under way today. Finally, we're sending our best to former Iowa basketball player Ava Jones, who announced on social media that she's been diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma. If you're not familiar with Jones, this is a kid
who has been through a lot. Back in twenty twenty two, just days after committing to the Hawkeyes, she and her family were walking on a sidewalk when they were struck by a driver who was under the influence a crash that tragically killed her father, injured her mother, and left Ava with a brain injury. IOWA honored her basketball scholarship, and she was on the team as a freshman before
she retired from the sport due to medical reasons. In a post on social Ava wrote it for cancer diagnosis quote, this is the news no one ever wants to get, but especially after spending the last two and a half years working my butt off and recovering from getting hit by a car, body is very strong and I'm confident in the doctors here at Iowa.
End quote. We're sending you our best, Ava, all right, Selicais.
We want to give a quick shout out to Philadelphia Eagles assistant sports performance coach Autumn Lockwood, who became the first black woman coach to win a Super Bowl on Sunday, Way to Go, Autumn. As part of a future story published to the Philadelphia Eagles site earlier this month, Lockwood
was asked about the importance of Black History Month. She said, quote, Black History Month is important to me because it's a time to celebrate the lives and accomplishments of all of those who have come before us and give them their flowers for paving the way. It's dedicated and acknowledged. Time to reflect on just how far we've come. It's a time to empower the current generation to continue to push
the needle in a positive direction. While we may not get to reap the benefits, I believe that by doing good and what is right in the here and now, the future generations to come will live amongst each other in nothing but love and unity, becoming one like the one above wants for us end quote, make it history during Black History Month. That's something we love to see. We'll link to that full feature, which includes interviews with
three other members of The Eagle staff. In our show notes, we're gonna take a quick break when we come back. My conversation with NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman, who I spoke with last week at Radio Row in New Orleans.
Stick around.
Joining us now the commissioner of the National Women's Soccer League since twenty twenty two. A Michigan undergrad and a Fordham Law School product, she spent time with the National Football League and National Lacrosse League before joining the NWSL. Winner of the Sports Business Journals twenty twenty four, Executive of the Year Award and SI's twenty twenty four Innovator of the Year. Mom of two occasionally mistaken for Marley Mattlin and one hell of a Dancer, it's Jessica Berman.
Oh, I love that intro, Hi.
Anyone, thank you're Marley Mattlin and Radio Row Today.
You're my first. But I have heard it before.
I mean when we went to the NWSLPA party, the first one in New York with fat Joe, who's more like sh medium Joe now. But when we went there and we did the dancing in that one booth and I posted it to Instagram, Soon's like, is that Marley Mattlin?
I love it? Ye, I love it.
That was a fun night, very fun.
I want to start with the biggest news of the last couple weeks. We've seen a handful of players Naomi Germa, Crystal Dun, Jedda Niswang or head over to Europe. Should the NWSL be worried about losing players to these European clubs?
Short answer, no, okay, It's part of the global game and it's a testament to the interest in women's soccer everywhere. And when we say we want to be the best league in the world. We know that there's competition for that. It's going to keep us on our toes, keep us on our game. And by the way, we took in more players than we lost in this transfer window, so
we're excited about the players we brought in. We wish the players who decided to go elsewhere the best of luck and look forward to welcoming them back when it's time for them to come home.
That's such a great point. It's so jinguistic of us that we're like, how could they leave? But then when people come to us, it's not as big of a note to us.
We're like, look up the eleven players who came into our league in this transfer window, and if you don't know their name now, you will when our season starts.
Well, we certainly saw that last year rite with ten Wischhewinga and Barbara Bandon, all these new players coming in from foreign leagues. You know, the new CBA set a standard for player rights in autonomy. It also put the league more in sync with global football rules and regulations at schedule?
Was that a hard sell to owners? What did those negotiations look like on the league side?
Surprisingly not to most people. It was actually our choice to approach the union and present something that was innovative, and it was in truth driven by our owners. Coming out of the Women's World Cup of twenty twenty three, it was clear to us that there was going to be competition for our asserted claim of being the best league in the world, and in order to compete with the global game, you need to play by their rules.
And so we've always said since twenty twenty two when I came, we were going to be really intentional about the policies and protocols that we adopt from the men's leagues and the ones that we don't. This was one that wasn't serving us any longer, and in a world of global free agency, we didn't want to be different. We didn't want to have artificial impediments or obstacles to
bringing in the best in the world. And you've heard comments from US men's national team players historically who decided to go play overseas because they didn't appreciate that professional women's soccer in the US was not in sync with the rest of the world's rules. And so we remove those barriers and it's actually when I got the Innovator
of the Year award from SI. It was in large part because of that, and really testament goes to our owners and the players who joined together to decide and reimagine what was in the best interest of the NWSL moving forward.
Yeah, and particularly obviously, abolishing the college draft is a massive move for a professional, high level league in the United States. It's very interesting to see how people from other leagues, particularly players will look over and be like, well, that looks nice.
Funny to be here at the NFL.
Because my first interview after we made that announcement in August of twenty twenty four was do you think the NFL is going to remove their I'm like, you know what. I love that it's making people question because those decisions to maintain or change your rules should always be intentional. It's easier to maintain the status quo, no doubt, but you should pressure test all those asking.
Very different leagues.
It definitely serves the NWSL and makes it a better league to get rid of it.
Would it make the NFL a.
Better league when it's not as much of a global sport, it doesn't have rules and regulations that they're trying to align with across the globe, But like you said, it's always worth asking because doing things because they've always been done is never the right answer, never the right or anything, and that's not how.
You win Innovator of the AAR Awards.
Has the final language of that CBA been solidified because we saw the report of it being done months ago, but we haven't actually seen the document.
I believe we're in the final I dots and T crossing.
Between the dat above an eye is called a tittle.
I've never heard that before, and I should have known since I was a former labor lawyer.
But yeah, drafts have been going back and forth.
I think we're down to like the final minutia and yeah, it'll be out very soon and I'm sure shared by the NWSLPA and US when it's ready. But we are already operating under those rules. All of what our clubs and players need to know has already been communicated. It's just formalizing the document and we're days away.
Okay.
So we used to wear the shirts that said it is the schedule out yet?
Meg?
And now we're going to wear is the CBA out yet?
Meg?
Until we see the doc perfect exactly.
We are seeing some impressive facility wars going on in the NWSL, new training centers being built, it is fantastic. It also further highlights the haves and have nots of the league, and I wonder if the league has an interest in supporting or subsidizing the teams that have fewer investors, lower revenue, or is your philosophy that those places will eventually be forced to catch up or shut up shop.
I believe that investors in sports are inherently competitive, and I believe that the incentives are aligned in our league to force everyone to think about how they're going to retract and recruit the best players, and free agency is going to be a forcing function for that. If you look at where we are today versus where we were a year ago or even three months ago, since then, five new teams have either announced or actually are opening
a brand new purpose built training facility. So that is angel City that already announced that they're opening, Portland, I believe, announced yesterday, we have they in process of being built, and of course our two expansion teams in Denver and Boston. So between those five plus the ones that already have them, more than half of our league will have purpose built training facilities by twenty twenty six, and no one could
have imagined that three years ago. So it is happening, and we have ongoing conversations right now with all of our owners thinking about the ways in which they can leverage public private partnerships, support school districts, identify other sources of capital, and all of the options are on the table about how we can incentivize and support and motivate that investment, which is obviously great for the game.
So in your opinion, it is worth trying to at least lend a hand to teams that have struggled or are struggling and see if they can get themselves elevated. Before the answer is simply let them drop off if they can't.
Hang, we're doing it already. I mean we see all of the changes that are happening. I often quote Rick Welts from the NBA, who is an original David Stern disciple built the Golden State Warriors, recently announced to be the CEO in Dallas, and he told me, I'll never forget this when we had breakfast last year. The reason you're so exhausted is because you all have done in two years what it took the NBA.
Twenty five years to do.
And I think about that often because in the first two years that everyone we brought in came into the league, we sold nine of our fourteen teams. The change is happening so quickly. I don't know that we would want to force it to happen faster, because those changes require
time and intentionality and digestion in the system. And there's hundreds of millions of dollars coming into the professional women's game, and we want that to be done strategically and thoughtfully so that we accomplish our ultimate objective of creating a viable, sustainable business.
Yeah, it's so true, and we talk about that a lot in terms of giving people context for how attendance and viewership and investment and money and everything works on the women's side. When you don't have one hundred year head start or a thirty year head start or whatever it is. You recently said, there's no reason in the ENWSL couldn't expand to thirty teams. What does the timeline look like on that.
Then, I think it's going to be evaluate and see. Most important thing is that as we expand, we do it without compromising the quality of the competition and the
quality of the business. And as I was just alluding to in the other context, as it relates to infrastructure, ingesting new teams requires holistic setting of expectations in terms of how technical staff is distributed, in terms of the pipeline for talent, as it relates to players, all of the fandom, the media value, the sponsorship that we're selling, to make sure all of it is in line with not where we were, but where we are, and so
it has to be done thoughtfully. We've done what I described shorthand two by two for the last essentially six years, which is a tremendous amount of growth, and we have to make sure that we have the infrastructure in place at the league office to make sure that we operationalize that successfully because there's nothing more important than that for increasing values of teams. So bottom line is time will tell.
As part of the recent settlement regarding the league's role in widespread allegations of abuse, it's creating a five million dollar player compensation fund and could be hit with up to two million dollars in penalties if it defaults on any terms of an agreement that includes things like vetting coaches, front office staff fires, creating multiple ways for players to report misconduct, dedicated HR staffers for every team, and more.
How do you plan to ensure that each team complies?
Because there's been an incredible predominance of this across the league and so many different coaches and owners and spaces, it's hard to understand why it's so common and also how it continues happening.
Well, first of all, I would say that it isn't endemic to the NWSL. It's endemic to women and girls' sports, and so we were the focal point of it, and that gave us an opportunity to reset expectations and institute the necessary systemic reform and policies and protocols that will change the game forever. We are very confident that we've done that.
It will continue to be an.
Evaluated process where we make sure that we're continuing to be best in class. We didn't actually make a big deal about it, but in twenty twenty four we were the first professional sports league men or women to be recognized by the Center for Human Rights in Sport as best in class on these types of safeguarding health and
safety issues. We couldn't be doing more than we're doing to ensure that the system is safe and is a place that is welcoming and makes everyone in the ecosystem, players included, of course, proud to play.
That is our goal.
That is what the standard by which we will continue to evaluate ourselves, and we know that that is critical to our future success. This will always be part of our history, and it's a dark time that no one enjoys talking about, but we can't ignore it. And this was a reminder that it is still there and it is still part of our story, and we're going to continue to face it down and make sure we do all of the hard things that are necessary to make the league a success.
We just talked about players feeling safe, and you said in November that the league's values wouldn't change after Donald Trump became president. Again, do you feel empowered to remain committed to that moving forward, especially as we're seeing things like the recent executive orders. Does the league policy change it all on trans athletes? Does anything change as the results of what might come from above.
Our focus is on maintaining our core values no matter who is president, no matter what the political climate, There is no doubt and our fans tell us consistently that the NWSL is a place that gives them a sense of belonging, that makes them feel seen, that makes them feel heard. And we're confident that there are so many people in our country that want that, that enjoy that, and we have no reason to question or doubt whether that is something that will be supported from a business perspective.
And so we're going to continue to do all the things that got us here over the last few years and lean into the things that make us unique and differentiated in the marketplace and be a beacon of hope and light for people who are looking for the things that we have to offer.
I love that. I know you've got to run. We're going to have you on again.
You've walked up to the stage.
You said, I can't believe I haven't been on your show yet, and I'm taking that as.
A confirmation that you'll come back anytime. We'll get to all the other questions I didn't have time for anytime. Thank you. Let's stance soon.
Absolutely, Thanks to Jessica for stopping by. We got to take another break. When we come back, be mine, so XO.
You're cute who you send in candy hearts to this Valentine's Day.
Come on back, Welcome back.
We love that you're listening, but we want you to get in the game every day too, So here's our good game play of the day. Watch the debut of the Women's Lacrosse League tonight and let us know what you think. We'll link to the schedule in the show notes. Also keep sending us those platonic Valentines. We already got one from a Slice who kept things anonymous.
Take a listen, Hello, longtime Slice, first time caller. I'm calling to shout out my platonic WNBA crushes for Valentine's Day. Want a first shout out Big Mama Steph Stephanie Dolson back when she was on the Chicago Sky you were my first WNBA crush. Also want to shout out Tush Cloud. You are so wonderful every time we see you around Win Trust Arena, so thoughtful to take photos of people even though that's not your team, so thank you for that.
And then my newest platonic crush on this bride, Nick Buckets, So shout out to those folks, and also shout out to my actual lover Andy, thank you for falling in love with a WNBA so that you could keep going on dec Thank you, Happy Valentine's Day.
Thank you anonymous slice.
We stan a quote unquote lover who gets into the WNBA to make a relationship work. Let us know what people in the sports world you would give a number one fan or a qutie pie candy heart to We'd love it if you leave us a voicemail eight seven, two, two oh four fifty seventy the phone numbers also in the show notes, or you can always hit us up on email. Good game at wondermedianetwork dot com. And you know what I'm going to say. Don't forget to subscribe,
rate and review. It's easy watch Moms who Ball rating five out of five.
How does she do it?
Review shout out to Blue Sky user Nonjula, who pointed out that one of the best first round matchups in the Unrival tournament featured not just.
Two mothers, but two mothers of two.
When Deerica Hamby and Skyler Digg and Smith faced off last night, it was a battle between two ballers who each have two kids, who have battled back twice after pregnancy, who managed to balance game schedules with nap schedules and training meals with happy Meals. I cannot even imagine how difficult that is, both physically and mentally. So Props to Skuyler and Deerica, both winners in the Good Game with Sarah Spain book.
Now It's your turn, rate and review.
Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow, Good Game, Jessica, Good Game Autumn and the Eagles You Cancer. Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett,
Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rudder, Britney Martinez, and Grace Lynch. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and I'm your host Sarah Spain