After the “Wubble” season triumphantly concluded in mid-October, with zero positive Covid-19 cases and a 68% increase in viewership, a large portion of the W’s players began their annual voyage to leagues across the globe, where they earn the bulk of their annual basketball income.

Surprisingly, the ongoing pandemic had little effect on the total number of athletes who went overseas this “off season.” Both this year and the one before, roughly 90 WNBA players took their skills abroad. It appears the substantial income (relatively speaking) and valuable court time were too important to pass up. As the WNBA’s reigning points leader, Arike Ogunbowale, explained to Breanna Stewart on a recent pod episode of Stewie’s World, “I’m still young and I need to make money and there’s a lot of money overseas for me.”

 

STEWART AND OGUNBOWALE: WNBA STARS GETTING BUCKETS IN RUSSIA

Both Stewart and Ogunbowale are playing in Russia this winter. While Stewie feels much the same way as her counterpart, she also emphasizes the need to get minutes on the court since her 2019 Achilles rupture.

“For me it’s like, coming back from an injury, I can’t imagine not playing basketball just by choice,” she tells her listeners. “I want to be able to play as much as possible. In the situation where in our country so many people are unemployed, if we have a job, we need to take that job and go and do what we need to do.”

Someone may want to tell Stewie her “recovery” appears well behind her given the outstanding season she had in Bradenton, Florida. She placed fourth in the league in scoring, fifth overall in blocks, and won her second WNBA Championship in three years with the Seattle Storm.

Unfortunately for Stewart, and all her colleagues abroad this year, the risk of Covid-19 is very real. Stewie tested positive within a week of arriving in Russia despite strict travel precautions and safety measures from her UMMC Ekateringburg team. Luckily, she had no symptoms and was able to return to play after a thorough quarantine period. Alongside the contagion risk is a wide disparity in players’ confidence in their team’s testing protocol.

“It’s pretty much up in the air for us to be honest. There was like weeks and weeks I went without getting tested and another week I got tested like three times,” Ogunbowale laments to Stewie.

No one can guard Arike. It's really like that. @Arike_O

(via @EuroLeagueWomen) pic.twitter.com/GYRdcsD734

— WSLAM (@wslam) January 19, 2021

.@33katielou was ???? ????ℕ ???????????????????? ???? today!

29 pts, 5 reb, 6-8 3PT@CBAvenida

???????????????????? ????????! ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/icwuIChj2J

— Dallas Wings (@DallasWings) January 19, 2021

LIZ CAMBAGE LOOKS READY FOR HER WNBA COMEBACK

Hopping down to the southern hemisphere, Australian-born Elizabeth Cambage spent 2020 putting on a clinic in the Australian Women’s National Basketball League after receiving a medical exemption for the WNBA 2020 bubble season. Cambage and her Melbourne-based Southside Fliers won the league championship in mid-December on the shoulders of the 3x WNBA All-Star’s 23.5 PPG and 8.7 rebounds per game.

The Las Vegas Aces 6’8” center is one of a handful of Australians in the WNBA. Alongside last year’s league MVP, A’ja Wilson, Cambage looks ready to help lead the Aces to another Finals run in 2021.

6ft 8in point guard coming through! ????@ecambage has moves ???? pic.twitter.com/10SFR36t0q

— Southside Flyers (@SouthsideFlyers) December 2, 2020

Fellow Aussie and Seattle Storm back-up guard Sami Whitcomb left the Wubble prior to the Finals in order to make it home to her wife in time for the birth of their first child. A week or so later, she watched from her hotel room as her teammates beat Cambage’s Aces in three straight to win their fourth WNBA Championship, tying them with the Minnesota Lynx and the legendary Houston Comets for most all-time league titles.

 

SOME WNBA PLAYERS TOOK THE OFFSEASON OFF

Whitcomb, who usually plays the off-season either in Europe or Australia, is taking a break this year to be with her new family of three. She isn’t the only veteran player sitting this international season out.

While the total number of players abroad held steady, there are several athletes who went overseas last year but decided against it this season. Among them are DeWonna Bonner, Jewell Loyd, Sydney Weise, Teira McCowan, Ariel Atkins, and Bria Hartley, to name a few.

 

AND SOME COULD STILL HEAD ABROAD

If you’re a Minnesota Lynx fan, keep your nose to the grindstone to hear whether 2020 Rookie of the Year Crystal Dangerfield and 2019 Rookie of the Year (and co-host of a gem of a podcast) Napheesa Collier head overseas later this winter or spring.

There are also mumblings that number one overall 2020 draft pick, Sabrina Ionescu, is considering going abroad soon to get some playing time. Ionescu missed most of her rookie season after severely spraining her ankle in just her third professional game. The injury robbed us all of the dream of what Ionescu’s rookie WNBA season could have been, especially after she dropped 33 points in her second game. It was also salt in the wound of 2020 after the pandemic first robbed us of watching Ionescu and her Oregon Ducks compete for a NCAA Championship.

Then there’s a long list of vets who have closed the book on their year-round playing days: Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Candace Parker, Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike, Elene Della Donne, Sylvia Fowles, Skylar Diggins-Smith, etc. But the one vet we’d love to hear any and all whispers about getting back to the court? The one and only Maya Moore.

If 2021 is going to redeem the dumpster fire that was 2020, re-gifting the world the honor of watching Moore do her magic on the hardwood would be a fantastic start.

That may just be a pipe dream, the result of too many hours in quarantine. But while the pandemic has turned normal life upside down for most Americans, the year-round grind of the WNBA’s biggest stars remains a constant. And though we love catching highlights on Twitter, we can’t wait to see them all stateside for this next WNBA season.

US swimming icon Katie Ledecky is back on top, earning her 22nd world title with a gold medal-winning 1,500-meter freestyle performance at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships on Tuesday.

Finishing with a time of 15:26.44, Ledecky now owns 25 of the top 26 times in the event's history and holds six World Aquatics Championships titles at that distance.

"Each one has meaning, and I love every race that I've had at Worlds over the years," the 28-year-old swimming star told broadcasters following her Tuesday victory.

That 22nd title brought Ledecky's combined Worlds total to an overall 28 medals, lifting the star to second on the all-time most decorated list where she trails only retired US men's star Michael Phelps's 33 podium finishes.

Earlier in the week, the Team USA standout took bronze in the 400-meter freestyle, coming in third behind China's silver-medalist Li Bingjie and Canadian sensation Summer McIntosh, who won the race with a time of 3:56.26.

Gold medals have been hard to come by for Team USA at this year's World Championships.

Other than Ledecky's win and the 100-meter butterfly title snagged by Gretchen Walsh on Monday, the US women have struggled to claim gold medals as they push to recover from the acute gastroenteritis that hit several team members at their pre-meet training camp in Thailand.

That stomach bug inhibited multiple US swimmers from traveling with the team to the Singapore meet, and saw contenders like 100-meter butterfly Olympic gold medalist Torri Huske pull out of initial heats.

"We're taking it a day at a time," said Team USA head coach Greg Meehan about the impact of the illness. "Obviously, this is not how we thought the first few days of this competition would go. But I'm really proud of our team."

How to watch Ledecky at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships

The 2025 World Aquatics Championships runs through Sunday, and US star Ledecky has two events left to swim at the meet.

On Thursday, she'll compete in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay, before facing another showdown with rival McIntosh in the 800-meter freestyle on Saturday.

Preliminary heats kick off the night before at 10 PM ET, with finals seeing staggered starts beginning at 7 AM ET.

Live coverage of the meet airs on Peacock.

UEFA Women's Euro 2025 made a splash across the pond, drawing an average of 458,000 US viewers per match across FOX platforms to mark a 97% viewership increase over the 2022 edition — making this year's tournament the most-watched English-language Women's Euro on record.

Building off the 2025 competition's previously reported record-breaking numbers, Sunday's grand finale between defending champs England and 2023 World Cup winners Spain averaged 1.35 million US viewers — a 53% increase in viewership over the last Women's Euro championship match.

Even more, the broadcast ultimately peaked at 1.92 million fans tuning in, making it the most-watched English-language Women's Euro Final on record.

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The historic viewership is a major win for broadcaster FOX, who secured the women's tournament's first-ever US media deal back in May.

Initially committing to live coverage of 20 of the tournament's matches, record returns motivated the broadcast giant to quickly pivot and air all 31 matches live as part of its FOX Sports Summer of Soccer campaign.

"More and more people are tuning in to watch soccer in the US," FOX Sports commentator and UWSNT vet Carli Lloyd told The Athletic. "There's just been an incredible amount of soccer on display, which has been fantastic for the sport."

As the NWSL preps for this weekend's return from an extended summer break, No. 4 Washington Spirit star forward Trinity Rodman is also hoping to re-take the pitch for the first time since April.

Rodman is currently back training with the team, rejoining her club after undergoing extended treatment overseas for chronic back issues.

"I'd never really dealt with something like that," Rodman admitted after an open practice earlier this week. "So, for me, mentally, it was very difficult."

"[I was] trying to function through pain, and kind of gaslight myself to thinking it was fine every day, when it wasn't," she said. "I can now kind of openly say, I was in pain all the time."

Rodman also admits that stepping away was, though difficult, the right call to make for her healing.

"Obviously, it sucks being away from the team and being away from soccer in general," she added. "But I got to work on things that I wouldn't have gotten to work on if I was in the team environment all the time, so I think that was a positive."

Rodman's availability fluctuated after she earned an Olympic gold medal with the USWNT in Paris last summer, with the soccer superstar featuring in just four Spirit games this season — and none since stepping away in April.

Now functioning pain-free, Rodman's next on-pitch challenge is balancing her competitive intensity with her newly found health.

"It's really understanding my body and acknowledging [when] it's in pain," she explained. "And not pushing through things that I shouldn't."

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Rodman eyes new contract amid NWSL return

On top of navigating her return to play, Rodman is also actively negotiating with the Washington Spirit for a contract renewal.

Her current deal expires at the end of 2025, and with interest in the US standout reportedly mounting from overseas clubs, the 23-year-old could eventually field multiple offers.

Considering her lack of minutes so far this season, the star called the assumed interest "a weird situation."

"I'm trying not to stress about it or put too much pressure on it," she said of the ongoing talks. "At the end of the day, I'm worried about health first.... Everything else can come next."

Wednesday's WNBA bill puts a heavyweight battle in the spotlight, as 2024 finalists and 2025 league leaders Minnesota will host reigning champion No. 2 New York in their first face-off of the season — with the Liberty hoping to rattle both the Lynx and the standings.

"I think common sense would say that those two teams probably should have played earlier in the season," Minnesota head coach Cheryl Reeve told media this week, referencing the apparent scheduling idiosyncrasies that delayed the championship rematch.

"It doesn't feel like a Finals rematch anymore, honestly," Lynx forward Napheesa Collier echoed. "It's a new year for us. And it's been so long, it's almost August, so it's just the two top teams going against each other."

Both squads enter the clash on uncharacteristic skids, as Minnesota and New York look to avenge recent losses while other WNBA teams jockey for positioning during the league's Wednesday night slate:

• No. 3 Phoenix Mercury vs. No. 6 Indiana Fever, 7 PM ET (ESPN3): The Fever must continue to contend without injured star guard Caitlin Clark, as Indiana faces a newly healthy Mercury side striving to steal back the No. 2 spot with a win.

• No. 5 Atlanta Dream vs. No. 11 Dallas Wings, 8 PM ET (ESPN3): After a disappointing Tuesday upset loss, the will Dream close out a back-to-back against a bolstered Dallas squad fresh off a big victory over New York.

• No. 2 New York Liberty vs. No. 1 Minnesota Lynx, 8 PM ET (ESPN): With a four-game lead in the standings, the Lynx aren't in danger of giving up their perch at the top, but a strong performance from the Liberty could provide a much-needed boost to the ailing title-holders.