NWSL's big opportunity, plus Steph Curry joins college sports' GM era
Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic's weekly sports business cheat sheet. Name-dropped today: Alex Cooper, Caitlin Clark, Steph Curry, Stephen A. Smith, Ki'Lolo Westerlund, Shohei Ohtani, Drake, Sidemen, Adam Schefter, Jon Rothstein and more. Let's go:
After an exciting Challenge Cup last week, the 2025 NWSL regular season officially starts this Friday.
The league's business is sizzling. Just a glimpse:
It's not all perfect, and my colleagues Melanie Anzidei and Meg Linehan recently detailed the enormous issues within Bay FC, plus last month's $5 million league settlement around its abuse scandal.
Overall, the first 90 days of 2025 have seen the latest manifestation of the surge in women's sports investment that has defined this decade. Consider: January's launch of Unrivaled, February's Super Bowl promotion of women's flag football and this Sunday's launch of a women's NCAA Tournament that is on track to set TV audience records — even above those of the Caitlin Clark era.
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Now NWSL's biggest season ever is here. I got in touch with Linehan to answer two questions:
What is the biggest opportunity in front of the league in 2025?
Meg: The NWSL's actively courting new and casual fans and has shared goals around storytelling and cultural relevancy. Right now, it's pretty simple: Make sure people know about the league, and convert them into viewers and ticket buyers for continued growth.
What is this year's biggest potential pitfall that would stall the momentum?
Most professional leagues are probably watching the economic outlook of the U.S. pretty closely, but any signs of a recession could impact everything from ongoing and potential brand partnerships to fan purchasing power.
Linehan's essential 'state of the league' piece will be up on The Athletic on Friday morning — be on the lookout! (For now, read this season preview from Full Time, our free women's soccer newsletter.)
Big talkers from the sports business industry:
To wit: Davidson men's and women's basketball programs' revised NIL budget goal is now pegged at more than $10 million, which totally changes their trajectory in the NIL era.
Expect a lot more NBA players to sign on with their alma maters in loosely official GM-like roles. (And a fellow Carolina team recently hired an NBA agent for a similar position.)
Related-ish: Power Ranking
Highly paid NBA players as college assistant GMs/NIL czars I want to see:
1. Lehigh: CJ McCollum (2025 salary: $33,333,333)
2. Williams: Duncan Robinson ($19,406,000)
3. Weber State: Damian Lillard ($48,787,676)
4. Wichita State: Fred VanVleet ($42,846,615)
5. Akron: LeBron ($48,728,845)
Other current obsessions: Reebok golf shoes … Shohei Ohtani in Fortnite … Ki'Lolo Westerlund, the first recipient of a DI flag football scholarship … SailGP, the F1 of the Seven Seas … Kyler Filewich, the Wofford player who shoots granny-style free throws and will charm us all next week …
Selection Sunday is in a few days, and when the brackets come out, we're all looking for every advantage. My go-to is The Athletic's annual Bracket Breakers analysis of teams most likely to pull an upset. There is gold in this year's pre-Selection preview … Drake!
They rank among the nation's top 21 teams in forcing turnovers, offensive rebounding and defensive rebounding, which gives them a massive edge in possessions.
Drake also plays at the nation's slowest pace, which makes that possession advantage even more pronounced. After all, in a game where each team has the ball less often than usual, each trip up or down the floor matters more.
Add it all up, and Drake profiles as an epic underdog: Their Underdog Rating is nearly twice as high as any team that made last year's field as an 11-seed or lower.
How good is Drake, the college basketball team? So good it's the most popular 'Drake' in the sports world's consciousness right now. Plenty more March Madness hints on the site next week.
Time for a lightning round.
Elevator pitch: 'Sidemen' is the future of sports
This past weekend, 90,000 fans packed Wembley Stadium to watch 'Sidemen Charity Match 2025,' pitting soccer mega-influencers against each other on the pitch. That attendance number is eye-popping enough, until you check out the Sidemen YouTube livestream page: 22 million views of the match.
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Combine the Sidemen event with the audience for the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson Netflix fight in November and the other absurd audience numbers done regularly by influencers like soccer's Céline Dept (44M+ YouTube subs), and what you realize is the massively undervalued TV rights opportunity around events specifically featuring sports influencers.
Save the date: Nov. 15, 2025
Kudos to women's college basketball powerhouses South Carolina and Southern California for agreeing to a new two-year series dubbed 'The Real SC.' JuJu Watkins vs. Dawn Staley's squad in November in L.A. at Crypto Arena is the ideal way to tip off the new college hoops season.
Data point: 95.5% optimistic
A year ago, Mets fans ranked 23rd among MLB fan bases for 'optimism' — a measly 38.4 percent of fans were optimistic. This season? That's up to 95.5 percent optimistic — Mets fans! That's good for fourth on The Athletic's enlightening annual MLB optimism rankings.
Review: ESPN app insider alerts
Monday's Twitter/X implosion just as NFL 'legal tampering' started was a fascinating use case for Adam Schefter's ESPN app alerts.
Optimally (if not practically), Schefty should always be posting to ESPN users first, then X, but in this case he — er, his assistant — had to go straight to the ESPN app (in addition to IG and Bluesky, among others), and it was kind of cool as a fan to not be beholden to social media.
One nit-pick: The alerts were written for Twitter's word count, not ESPN's mobile notifications, which is not g …
Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition
Puzzle #170
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🟡🟡🟡🟡
🟢🟢🟢🟢
🟣🟣🟣🟣
⏱️ 00:26
Out of my rut! Can you top :26? Try the game here!
Jon Rothstein is the quirkiest reporter in college basketball. After you read this profile of him, the question remains: Is he in on the bit?
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