By the time Robert Sarver officially became majority owner of the Phoenix Mercury and Phoenix Suns in 2004, Diana Taurasi was a couple of months into her first pro season. The No. 1 pick of the Mercury in that year’s WNBA Draft, she would go on to finish sixth in the league in scoring and be named Rookie of the Year.

It was just the start of Taurasi’s WNBA career, one of the most storied in the league’s 25-year history. And for Sarver, a first-time sports team owner, Taurasi’s arrival that year was fortuitous.

“That was just luck on my part,” Sarver told Just Women’s Sports. “It’s likely I won’t ever have another player like that on my team. She is not only great for our franchise, but great for the sport.”

Lucky as it may have been, what Sarver set out to accomplish from there was purely intentional.

The Mercury, one of four remaining original WNBA franchises, captivated Sarver from the beginning. A lifelong Arizona resident and businessman, he says he went to games and got to know the players over the years, inviting them over to his house for cookouts.

So, when Sarver started looking into buying the NBA’s Suns from owner Jerry Colangelo, he also saw a unique opportunity for growth with the Mercury.

The organization had a tradition of success, having reached the playoffs in three of its first four seasons under coach Cheryl Miller. Building championship-level teams from that foundation, Sarver believed, would help grow the game for girls and women in the community. And Taurasi, a franchise-changing talent, would lead them there.

“We were able to use the entire weight behind the Suns’ organization to help develop the Mercury and take it to another level,” Sarver said. “I would say we kind of over-sized the allocation of resources in order to help build up the team and the organization because it was like a new business, the WNBA. It’s still relatively new for professional sports leagues, but back then it was only seven years old.”

With Sarver’s backing, the Mercury were the first WNBA team to sign a marquee jersey sponsorship deal with Lifelock in 2009. They’ve had jersey sponsorships every year since then, including a badge deal with PayPal starting in 2019.

Last November, the organization unveiled a $50 million, state-of-the-art training facility that the Suns and Mercury share. Funded by Sarver, the Verizon 5G Performance Center includes a gym, weight training, performance analytics and biometrics, a rest and recovery zone and nutritional services. Taurasi spent this past offseason training at the facility rather than playing another season overseas, as many WNBA players do to supplement their salaries.

“I feel like we’re on par with the Suns and how they treat us professionally on the business side of things,” Taurasi said. “I think we have that business support that a lot of teams don’t have in the WNBA. And you can tell when you come to our arena and you drive around the city of Phoenix, we’re a presence in the community.”

Taurasi signed a two-year extension with the Mercury in February and says she’ll keep playing as long as she still feels a drive to compete. The 38-year-old has won three WNBA championships and two Finals MVPs in Phoenix, but still wants to add to her legacy.

It helps that the Mercury have been able to recruit and retain stars like Brittney Griner, their No. 1 draft pick in 2013, and Skylar Diggins-Smith, who signed with Phoenix last offseason. All three players are making the WNBA’s maximum salary this season and next, before Taurasi and Griner become unrestricted free agents in 2023. The Mercury also traded for All-Star Kia Nurse in February and have developed 2019 first-round pick Brianna Turner into a frontcourt mainstay.

Between the roster continuity and on-court product, the Mercury have built one of the most loyal fan bases in the WNBA. They’ve finished in the top three for average fan attendance every year since 2013, per data from Across the Timeline, and they retained 96 percent of their season-ticket holders through the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They’re hardcore, too,” Taurasi said of the fan base. “Some seasons have been rough and they’ll let you know about it, but there’s nothing like having fans that are invested emotionally and want their team to win.”

This year, Phoenix fans will get to enjoy the championship game of the WNBA’s inaugural Commissioner’s Cup, an in-season competition that awards $500,000 in prize money to the winning team. The final game will be held at Phoenix Suns Arena on Aug. 12 and streamed on Amazon Prime as part of the league’s new multi-year partnership with the platform.

To WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, having Phoenix host the first Cup championship is fitting as the league celebrates its 25th year.

Engelbert has been asked repeatedly about the possibility of expanding the WNBA beyond its current 12 teams to create more room for talented players. An organization like the Mercury, she says, represents the standards of success the league would be looking for in future teams.

“If you’re going to expand, you have to find markets where women’s basketball will be supported, where you can build a loyal fan base and, with appropriate investment, you can make it a very successful franchise,” Engelbert said. “That’s how we think about using the Mercury as a role model for how to build a franchise and sustain it for, now for them, 25 years.”

Taurasi has been an integral part of both the investment and the payoff during her 17 years in Phoenix. And for now, as the Mercury get set for their home opener against the Connecticut Sun on Friday night, she doesn’t see herself finishing her career anywhere else.

“I just think it’s a special place to be,” Taurasi said. “This organization is committed to the Mercury and to winning, and those are two things that I value very strongly, that loyalty.”

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.