Latest news with #Gotham
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Passing on Palantir Technologies Stock (PLTR) is a Big Mistake
For those who have been following Palantir Technologies (PLTR) for a while, it's clear that this isn't a stock that plays by the usual rules. Traditional valuation metrics barely scratch the surface of what's really going on. This company is riding the AI wave like no other in the software market, dominating not just the enterprise space but the government sector too. Investors are either all in or scratching their heads, wondering if it's just hype. Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter Unlike typical software plays, Palantir's massive backlog of multi-year contracts and margins that would make most tech giants jealous make it a force that's hard to ignore. But there's always a catch: with a price tag that essentially prices in perfection, there is no room for execution mistakes or a hype cool-off, leaving Wall Street analysts split between cautious skepticism and outright optimism. Ultimately, I believe Palantir is a can't-miss AI disruptor that deserves a premium valuation and a bullish rating. To lay out this case, this article breaks down the numbers, the buzz, and the very human debate that keeps this stock one of the most talked-about—and most polarizing—in the market. Several metrics highlight the phenomenal business fundamentals behind Palantir's trajectory so far. However, one of the best ways to understand the solidity of Palantir's growth story, especially for the long term, is by examining its Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO). This number shows the future contracted revenue locked into its multi-year agreements. As of Q1 2025, Palantir reported total RPO of $1.9 billion—almost half of the mid-term consensus forecast for annual revenue of $3.9 billion. This backlog coverage demonstrates the strong visibility and durability of the contracts Palantir is closing, providing the company with reliable long-term demand. Unlike businesses with primarily transactional revenues, Palantir's multi-year commitments offer a stable foundation that smooths out top-line swings and supports steady growth—a pattern that's held steady for the past couple of years. Another key sign of Palantir's growth is the big jump in billings, which rose from $625 million in Q1 2024 to $925 million in Q1 2025—a solid 48% increase. When billings outpace recognized revenue, it usually means the backlog is growing, which ties directly to the strong RPO figure, both reflecting contract wins and renewals that will generate revenue in future quarters. This blend of immediate revenue and durable multi-year customer relationships is a great sign. Together, these factors enable Palantir to forecast its revenue with a clarity not often seen in hybrid software-service companies, as the company's model isn't pure SaaS but rather includes deep, customized services through platforms like Apollo and Gotham. Arguably, a big part of what might justify Palantir's steep 227x forward earnings multiple is the strength of its RPO. The market has strong confidence in Palantir's ability to consistently convert this backlog into recognized revenue and sustain healthy billings growth. Once Palantir's software becomes deeply embedded in a client's operations, especially in governments and large enterprises, it's both costly and difficult to replace. Beyond that, Palantir has built a unique competitive moat by combining advanced data analytics software with tailored services. This blend is tough for typical SaaS competitors to match, particularly in sensitive sectors like defense, intelligence, and critical infrastructure. The icing on the cake is that Palantir has managed to grow margins alongside revenue at an impressive pace. The Rule of 40 metric highlights this: software companies are considered healthy when their revenue growth plus profitability margins total at least 40%. Palantir crushed this in Q1 2025, posting 39% year-over-year revenue growth and a 44% adjusted operating margin—a combined 83%, after averaging 67% in fiscal 2024. Simply put, Palantir not only exceeds the Rule of 40 but also delivers a rare combo of fast growth and strong margins—something no other large-cap software company currently matches. Despite the countless bearish arguments about Palantir's high valuation multiples, much of my bullishness comes from insights by Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. As a Palantir perma-bull, Ives sees the company as a 'generational opportunity' ready to capitalize on the massive AI revolution, with $2 trillion in software spending expected over the next three years. He believes Palantir is leading the pack in AI adoption across both commercial and government sectors. Given this untapped potential, avoiding Palantir at this stage could mean missing out on one of the most transformational tech stories of the last 20 years. Back in August 2024, when Palantir was trading around $30 per share, critics called it expensive. So, of course, bears will say it's costly at $130, too. But if investors had avoided transformational tech stocks over the past two decades simply because they looked pricey, they'd have missed out big time. Just like Nvidia (NVDA), before it became a giant in the AI space, it traded at sky-high P/E multiples in 2023, sometimes close to or above 200x. Palantir is still in its early stage, centered on disruptive potential and future growth, far from any plateau. And with the AI revolution driving Nvidia's story, few today argue that its valuations are irrational or unlikely to be sustained—something many still question about Palantir. Wall Street leans more toward skepticism than optimism when it comes to Palantir's stock. Among the 18 analysts covering PLTR over the past three months, only three recommend buying, 11 remain neutral, and the other four suggest selling. PLTR's average 12-month price target stands at $100.13, implying a potential downside of approximately 25% from the current share price. Trying to value Palantir through traditional metrics hasn't yielded much clarity in recent years. In my view, that's because Palantir isn't operating on a traditional trajectory. When a company is positioned at the heart of a technological revolution, like AI, and is executing at a high level across both commercial and government verticals, as Palantir is, investor appetite can easily eclipse conventional valuation logic. To skeptics and value purists, that may sound like an excuse to overlook fundamentals. But so far, Palantir continues to consistently beat expectations, quarter after quarter. And in a market where momentum often drives sentiment, that kind of consistent outperformance matters. With a growing backlog, strong margins, and a competitive moat that's only deepening, there's little sign that the company's momentum is slowing anytime soon. Disclaimer & DisclosureReport an Issue
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ben McKenzie on His Crypto Doc ‘Everyone Is Lying to You for Money': A 'Human Story About Trust'
If you still think of actor Ben McKenzie only as a guy who knows his way around the beautiful people of The O.C. or mainly as the star of Fox series Gotham, think again. Since the pandemic, he has become a vocal critic of cryptocurrency. His New York Times bestseller Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, co-authored with journalist Jacob Silverman, raised eyebrows in 2023. And this week, McKenzie is likely to again cause debate when he world premieres his feature film directorial debut, Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, at SXSW London on Friday. McKenzie wrote and directed the cinematic exposé on the world of cryptocurrency and produced it with Giorgio Angelini. Three years of filming took the star to New York, Austin, Miami, London, and El Salvador. More from The Hollywood Reporter "NATO for News": Is a Joint Effort by Media Companies the Way to Go in the Age of AI? Netflix EMEA Content Boss Touts 'Adolescence,' Debunks a "Myth," Talks Ted Sarandos' Acting Debut Paolo Sorrentino to Receive Sarajevo Film Festival Honor and Retrospective The documentary includes interviews with crypto poster boy Sam Bankman-Fried, conducted just months before the FTX founder was indicted on fraud and related charges, and Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network, as well as celebrities and numerous victims of crypto fraud. No surprise then that the film screens in a SXSW London strand called 'Collisions.' 'One may be skeptical when reading that a famous actor slash former teen heartthrob did a big career pivot into cryptocurrency, but Ben McKenzie's directorial debut is swift to poke fun at the stereotype,' highlights a SXSW London synopsis of the film. 'The result is not only hugely informative but wildly entertaining and a galvanizing takedown of the crypto-world.' McKenzie calls the film 'a true indie movie,' explaining: 'There's no studio, there's no finance. I'm the financier.' Sales of the movie are being handled by Amy Beecroft at Verve. This week, the new multihyphenate McKenzie will get to unveil it to the public in London. Ahead of the world premiere of Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, he discussed with The Hollywood Reporter how he made the film, its tone and key messages, why he called the crypto industry 'the largest Ponzi scheme in history' in his testimony in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and the role of celebrities in supporting cryptocurrency. I read you have an undergraduate degree in economics, but you are most widely known as an actor. When and how did you get interested in the topic of cryptocurrency? It was pandemic boredom, mainly, and a slow-moving midlife crisis, perhaps. I was super happy with my personal life. I'd met my now-wife [Morena Baccarin] on Gotham, and we'd started a family, and I was trying to figure out what the next chapter of my career was going to be. I'd made a lot of television, three different shows for 15 years, and I did a play on Broadway. I was getting my mojo back. But the play closed on March 2, 2020, and the next week, everything shut down. There was a pilot I was going to do that went away. I was having an existential crisis that I think so many of us were having. And then a buddy of mine reached out to tell me that I should buy Bitcoin because it was going up and was in the news. And you said? I was like: 'I'm not going to buy it, but tell me more.' It was a confluence of things. I was looking for something new to do. I had all this time on my hands. I had this [economics] degree that was 20 years old that I hadn't used, and then I just became fascinated by it. Hopefully, what will come through in the film is that it's not at all about technology, because the technology of crypto is actually quite old. It's a human story about trust and belief systems. Crypto is really just a story, I would argue, rather than a real thing. There isn't any physical, material world in crypto. It's just pieces of code on ledgers called blockchains. So it's really a human story about my obsession, the people that I've met, the lying and the cheating, and the Sam Bankman-Frieds of it all. Why did he even agree to talk to you for the film? Yeah, I was fascinated that Sam Bankman-Fried agreed to an interview like that, even though he must have known that Jacob Silverman and I were writing a book about cryptocurrency and fraud. It was in our Twitter profiles. I couldn't really figure out why he agreed to it. That's either extreme confidence or extraordinary stupidity, or some combination. The way I've sort of come to understand it, and I'll never know, of course, but I'm talking about this in the film: Fraudsters don't view themselves the same way as other criminals. Other criminals who commit violent acts are perhaps more at ease with their moral failings. Fraudsters perceive themselves as legitimate businessmen. They rationalize their behavior. And so I think Sam, at the time, had convinced himself that what he was doing was totally fine. What you see in the interview is that I challenge him just a little bit. 'What does crypto do? Explain to me what it does!' And his thing kind of just collapses in on itself. It's funny and sad at the same time, and sort of uncomfortable. Because I had worked my way up the chain and talked to everybody – regular folks, other CEOs, Alex Mashinsky, who is also in jail now – and no one had explained crypto to me. So, I figured, well, now I'm at the top – Sam is sort of the most public face of the whole thing, surely he can explain it to me. And it was about as hollow as it can get. Talk about a post-truth world. It's a very amusing example of that. Whenever I talk to people, the majority bought crypto because their friends bought it, and they saw it going up, and maybe they had some extra money, and they probably lost it. People I have talked to almost always say the same thing if they're not into crypto: 'I don't understand it, and it seems kind of scammy.' And I'm like: 'It's not you. It's the crypto. You're not the crazy one.' If it doesn't make sense to you, it's because it has the language of a multi-level marketing scheme, where the words that they use don't mean what they mean in regular English. Stablecoins aren't stable. Currencies aren't currencies. Decentralized means centralized. It's to sort of indoctrinate you. It's going to self-select. The number of people who are going to keep going and believing in it are going to believe in it no matter what, and the rest of us are going to be like: 'This is weird. This doesn't make sense.' Are you arguing that crypto is a self-perpetuating model and nobody's to blame? And how do you see the role of celebrities who have endorsed crypto? You have been critical of them. There's plenty of blame to go around. I don't think the celebrities are the root of the problem. I view them as the megaphone that's necessary. As the Ponzi scheme gets bigger and bigger and bigger, you need more and more famous people to keep selling it. When I entered the fray in 2021, 2022, that was the crypto Super Bowl, where every ad was a crypto ad. In the doc, there are plenty of famous folks who get lightly roasted. I don't ascribe intentionality to their participation in what I view as a Ponzi scheme. I think for the most part, it's depressingly simple. They were paid in real dollars to convince you to take your real dollars and turn them into something else. They're not paid in crypto, they're paid in U.S. dollars. And what was so unsettling to me at the time was that celebrities have always shown products. There's nothing wrong with that. My wife has done it. Celebrities have sold products since there have been celebrities. It makes sense. I totally get it. But crypto is a different kind of thing, because it's a financial product. This isn't soap, this isn't clothing. This is something that you're supposed to make money on. It's an investment, and the celebrities didn't understand what they were selling, in my opinion. Most of them didn't understand anything about it. They listened to the boilerplate talk and learned their lines, basically. But you couldn't convince me that Gwyneth Paltrow knew anything about blockchain technology, or Matt Damon, or any of them. So yeah, there is some light roasting in there. It was kind of lonely. I was the only one of my celebrity colleagues – maybe there were a couple of others, but I was the most vocal, saying: 'This seems bad, guys, don't do that.' So, it's a way of showing what I was up against at the time. Did your book co-author Jacob Silverman work on the film with you? No, he pivoted to his new book, which comes out this fall and which I'm very excited about. It's called Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley. How did you decide on the balance between likely dry financial and technological explanations and entertainment elements in the film? That was probably the key challenge: how do we keep the story entertaining and not devolve into a lecture or a bunch of charts and a lot of econ dork stuff? I would love that stuff, but I don't think the general public does or should. So we figured out how to do it through humor. The film's a comedy. I mean, it's hilarious that I'm the one doing it. The guy from The O.C. is the one trying to take down this trillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Whether I succeed or not, we also kind of joke about. I did everything I could, got some attention, and maybe didn't really have much of an effect at all. Maybe people still just did whatever they wanted to do. That's funny. We live in an absurd time. So we kept it playful. If you walk away from the film having been entertained – it's an hour and a half, so you're in, you're out – and you learned that crypto is dumb, great! Yeah, it was super fun. Some graphics we used are 1980s video game-style rather than trying to explain crypto to you. That's where I think things get lost, because it's not really about what it is. It's about the story. When I wrote this book, I was recording my conversations as I was reporting out the story. And I had other pieces. But when I finished the book in '23, I needed to switch over to: How do I turn this into a proper film with a narrative structure? And that's where we had fun with my trip down the rabbit hole and Morena's view of this. I think is one of the things that's not talked about enough in crypto is just how much women hate listening to men talk about crypto. Guys will just drone on and on and on about it. You have mentioned the word Ponzi scheme again in our chat, just like in your Senate testimony. In case someone doesn't know the exact definition, why do you like using that word for crypto? I used it at the Senate hearing to communicate the message as simply and as clearly as possible. So, I wanted to use a word everyone's familiar with: Ponzi scheme. The reason why it accurately describes it is that there is no product with crypto, there isn't a thing, it's not an actual currency, and it's not backed by [physical assets]. If money is trust, these things are trustless. They're based on code. You know that saying, 'If you can't figure out what the product is, you're it!' It's sort of like social media – your attention is the product. I interviewed people who were victims of one of the scams, Celsius. And what was interesting about it was hearing their stories and finding common ground, but also asking them at the end of the film, 'Do you still believe in cryptocurrency?' Some of these people have lost their life savings. But every single person still believes in it. Every single person who was a victim, who volunteered to be interviewed, said that. It varies person to person, but they can now acknowledge that Celsius was a scam, but believe that Bitcoin is different. I think that's really interesting. It's really more of a story about belief. How much do you discuss definitions and issues of Bitcoin versus crypto in general in the film? I talk about it in the book, but it's too in the weeds for the film. It's interesting that people have clung to Bitcoin. I think in part that is because the other stories have fallen apart. I mean, the Trump coin is a perfect example of just how shady and awful the whole thing is. The New York Times reported on this: about 800,000 people have lost money in their wallets on it, but 50 people made $10 million or more. That's exactly how crypto works. It's like you're gambling, and you might win, but you're probably going to lose – you are very likely to lose. And the people who make the money are usually involved in the enterprise. It's just rife with fraud and abuse. And that's really the story that I wanted to concentrate on. Since you mentioned the financial benefit of a small group, I want to ask you about technology oligarchs, or 'the tech bros,' such as Elon Musk, who have been seen as being close to the political elite in various countries, including the U.S. How timely is your film given debates around that issue? It is timely. I feel that's bad for the world, but good for the film. I was worried that I was going to be too late by the time I'd finished the film, since all these crypto guys had gotten arrested, and a lot of them were in prison, and the price had crashed. But then, in a way that I never could have predicted, Trump was re-elected. He's embraced crypto fully, and so it's back up, and it's back in the news. How did you enjoy writing and directing the film? Could we see you do more of that sort of work in addition to acting? It was actually much, much harder than I thought, but I do love it, and I would love to direct again. I plan to direct again. There is no specific plan, but a goal. It's been really rewarding to watch both the book and the film start with just an idea and go all the way through to the end. Is there anything else you would like to highlight? I think the film is timely for all the reasons we mentioned. But at its core, it's about trust, and it's about human beings. There's this fantasy that we can replace something that is inherently human, trust, with technology and with computers and with these fictitious currencies. That's a lie. We can't do it because it doesn't work that way. I can't trust this computer. It's a piece of machinery. I can trust you. I can trust the people that built the machinery or not, and so at the end of the day, I think it's really about coming together and finding common ground and finding and rebuilding the trust that I think is so frayed right now. We're so divided, or at least that's the appearance online. My experience meeting folks in person, even people that I completely disagree with on crypto, was that most of it was entirely pleasant. I think that's really worth reflecting upon. That's something I reflect upon a lot. Let's get outside of our information silos! Let's get out! Let's get offline and into the real world and take care of each other! 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Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
10 Excellently Weird Sci-Fi and Horror David Dastmalchian Performances
He's one of the hardest-working genre actors right now—so let's pause for some Dastmalchian apprecia-chian. It's not every actor that can say they made their big-screen debut in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, playing one of the Joker's freaky henchmen, but David Dastmalchian is not every actor. He's been appearing in movies and TV for years, though his big leading-man breakout came fairly recently, in 2023's Late Night With the Devil. With that, he went from being 'that guy' to a face with a name everyone recognizes. Along the way he's done some interesting side gigs, including writing comics and hosting a YouTube series (Grave Conversations) in which he and his celebrity guests chat while reclining in coffins. His earlier work has been interesting too, with credits in Twin Peaks: The Return, the reboot of MacGyver (as the recurring baddie), Netflix horror hit Bird Box, and Hulu true crime tale The Boston Strangler (as the title character, or one of them at least). Apparently not being fond of sleep or vacations, Dastmalchian has more coming very soon, including roles in Mike Flanagan's Life of Chuck, Bryan Fuller's feature directorial debut Dust Bunny, season two of One Piece, and Dexter: Resurrection, to name a few. Currently, though, he's co-starring on one of our new favorite TV shows: Murderbot. And that's what's inspired this list of Dastmalchian's most excellently weird sci-fi and horror roles so far. 1. Murderbot On the current Apple TV+ sci-fi show, Dastmalchian plays Gurathin, the 'augmented human' member of the survey team Murderbot is assigned to protect. Though he has more in common with the resident robot than anyone else, Gurathin is still very suspicious of the AI in their midst, to the point of being antagonistic—long before he realizes, as the audience learns early on, that Murderbot has hacked its programming and doesn't actually have to obey any orders. Gurathin's a complicated guy, something the show explores more in later episodes, and Dastmalchian infuses him with a blend of skepticism and vulnerability that feels appropriately awkward for the character. 2-3. Early DC TV: The Flash and Gotham While Dastmalchian's collaborations with James Gunn pre-date Gunn's ascension to the top job at DC Studios—and we'll get to those!—so too does his association with DC Comics characters. In 2017, he had a two-episode run as Dwight Pollard (a morgue worker who's secretly a cultist trying to revive the show's proto-Joker character) on Gotham; and he popped up twice on The Flash playing supervillain Abra Kadabra. 4. The Suicide Squad In a misfit team-up that also included King Shark, we're still leaning toward Dastmalchian's meta-human, pustule-popping Polka-Dot Man as the most ridiculous character in James Gunn's 2021 DC Studios film. There's some poignancy that goes with that, yet, but ridiculous all the same. In 2016, Dastmalchian also had a small role amid the office-building carnage in the Gunn-scripted action-horror tale The Belko Experiment. 5. Ant-Man and Its Sequels Not one to just stick with DC Studios, Dastmalchian also popped up in all three of Marvel's Ant-Man movies, playing Scott Lang's Russian computer hacker buddy Kurt in the first two. The character's accent and distinctively tacky style of dressing (not to mention hairstyling) made him stand out among the ensemble cast. The fan favorite even popped up on Marvel's animated alt-reality series, What If…?, though seeing as how it was the 'What If… Zombies?!' episode, he ended up eventually succumbing to an undead Wanda Maximoff. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania brought back Dastmalchian as a slimy Quantum Realm dweller named Veb, because you can't spell 'Ant-Man' without 'Dastmalchian.' Metaphorically speaking. 6. Denis Villeneuve times three In Prisoners, he's a creepy as hell, maze-obsessed suspected child kidnapper who shoots himself before cops can thoroughly vet all the repulsive and seemingly irrefutable evidence tying him to the crimes. In Blade Runner 2049, he's the crime lab tech who confirms the mysterious buried skeleton is a woman who gave birth—and a replicant at that, a detail so startling he's killed for being associated with it. In Dune, his computer-like brain, talents with poison, and sadistic tendencies are put to good use the Harkonnens. Basically, if Denis Villeneuve needs to fill a small role with a talented actor capable of bringing nuance to a ghoulish sort of character—he goes straight to Dastmalchian. 7. The Boogeyman Another 'disturbed guy' role, this time in Rob Savage's 2023 tale of a father and two young daughters grieving the recent loss of the family matriarch. Dastmalchian plays a man who's suffered his own terrible loss, and shows up early in the movie to deliver a macabre warning about evil spirits—before passing on the great beyond himself. As in many horror movies past, a whole lot of trouble that follows might have been avoided, if only the main characters had paid closer attention to what they assume is a raving lunatic. 8. Rosario This recent horror indie lends genre cred to the proceedings by casting Dastmalchian as the greasy neighbor of an elderly woman who dies amid a blizzard—trapping her estranged granddaughter in with the corpse. While supernatural forces supply the majority of the menace in Rosario, Dastmalchian's character is there to add even more unease to the situation. He's quirky, too; let's just say if you borrow his air fryer, he'll be very interested to get it back sooner than later. 9. Last Voyage of the Demeter Dastmalchian tests his sea legs aboard the same ship bringing Dracula from Bulgaria to London, playing the ill-fated but determined quartermaster on the similarly ill-fated voyage. Ahead of the film's 2023 release, his status as not just a horror actor, but a diehard horror fan, came through in an interview with Fangoria: 'I'm grateful to be a part of making the first, in my opinion, absolutely scary Dracula film to come along in a very, very, very long time,' he said. 'The fact that I'm a part of not only a Dracula movie, but a Universal Pictures Dracula movie, and the fact that it's going to be in cinemas and that people are going to get to go and be on the ship, the Demeter, which I've always dreamt of telling that story.' 10. Late Night With the Devil With retro style that perfectly captures its late 1977 talk-show setting, this 2023 found-footage tale imagines a TV host has decided to film a live program in honor of Halloween with carefully selected spooky guests. It's a gimmick that backfires when the host's own dark past reaches out from beyond the grave—but the ride to get there is entertaining as hell, with Dastmalchian giving an outstanding performance as a man whose glib exterior hides some rather terrifying secrets. What are your favorite Dastmalchian performances to date? Share them (genre and non-genre too!) in the comments below.
Hamilton Spectator
2 days ago
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
Vancouver Rise FC Academy learns its path at the 2025-26 CONCACAF W Champions Cup
The Vancouver Rise FC Academy was drawn with defending champion Gotham FC and fellow NWSL side Washington Spirit in Group B for the second edition of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup, which kicks off in August. Group B also includes Mexico's CF Monterrey Femenil and El Salvador's Alianza Women FC. Group A is comprised of Mexico's Club America and CF Pachuca Femenil, NWSL champion Orlando Pride, Costa Rica's LD Alajuelense and Panama's FC Chorrillo. The group stage, to run from August to October, will see each team play two home and two away games. The top two from each group advance to the semifinals, set for May 2026. The 10-team tournament is the elite women's club competition in the region that covers North and Central America and the Caribbean. The winner qualifies for the 2027 FIFA Women's Champions Cup, an annual tournament featuring the champions of each confederation, and for the inaugural FIFA Women's Club World Cup, set to debut in 2028. Gotham, the 2023 NWSL champion, defeated Mexico's Tigres UANL 1-0 in the May 25 final of the inaugural edition of the tournament. As winner, Gotham qualifies for the 2028 FIFA Women's Club World Cup. The Vancouver Rise Academy, formerly Whitecaps Girls Elite FC, qualified virtue of winning the League1 Canada Inter-Provincial Championship — the same pathway it used for 2024-25 qualification. Whitecaps Girls Elite failed to reach the knockout rounds after finishing fourth in Group B at 1-3-0, outscored 16-2 after losses to Club America (7-0) and NWSL's Portland Thorns (6-0) and San Diego Wave (2-0) and a win over Panama's Sante Fe FC (2-1). The Northern Super League is currently in discussions with Canada Soccer and CONCACAF about the qualification process for future editions. Gotham was the highest-scoring team in the inaugural edition of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup with 25 goals. CF Monterrey won the 2024 Apertura title while Alianza Women won the 2024 Apertura and Clausura titles in El Salvador for a domestic four-peat. Tuesday's draw was conducted by Carlos Fernandez, CONCACAF's chief football competitions officer, and assisted by former Mexican footballer Desirée Monsiváis. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2025.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
Vancouver Rise FC Academy learns its path at the 2025-26 CONCACAF W Champions Cup
The Vancouver Rise FC Academy was drawn with defending champion Gotham FC and fellow NWSL side Washington Spirit in Group B for the second edition of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup, which kicks off in August. Group B also includes Mexico's CF Monterrey Femenil and El Salvador's Alianza Women FC. Group A is comprised of Mexico's Club America and CF Pachuca Femenil, NWSL champion Orlando Pride, Costa Rica's LD Alajuelense and Panama's FC Chorrillo. The group stage, to run from August to October, will see each team play two home and two away games. The top two from each group advance to the semifinals, set for May 2026. The 10-team tournament is the elite women's club competition in the region that covers North and Central America and the Caribbean. The winner qualifies for the 2027 FIFA Women's Champions Cup, an annual tournament featuring the champions of each confederation, and for the inaugural FIFA Women's Club World Cup, set to debut in 2028. Gotham, the 2023 NWSL champion, defeated Mexico's Tigres UANL 1-0 in the May 25 final of the inaugural edition of the tournament. As winner, Gotham qualifies for the 2028 FIFA Women's Club World Cup. The Vancouver Rise Academy, formerly Whitecaps Girls Elite FC, qualified virtue of winning the League1 Canada Inter-Provincial Championship — the same pathway it used for 2024-25 qualification. Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. Whitecaps Girls Elite failed to reach the knockout rounds after finishing fourth in Group B at 1-3-0, outscored 16-2 after losses to Club America (7-0) and NWSL's Portland Thorns (6-0) and San Diego Wave (2-0) and a win over Panama's Sante Fe FC (2-1). The Northern Super League is currently in discussions with Canada Soccer and CONCACAF about the qualification process for future editions. Gotham was the highest-scoring team in the inaugural edition of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup with 25 goals. CF Monterrey won the 2024 Apertura title while Alianza Women won the 2024 Apertura and Clausura titles in El Salvador for a domestic four-peat. Tuesday's draw was conducted by Carlos Fernandez, CONCACAF's chief football competitions officer, and assisted by former Mexican footballer Desirée Monsiváis. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2025.
