The NWSL remains on track to add two expansion teams for 2024, with the league expecting up to 10 bids by the deadline of next Friday, commissioner Jessica Berman told the Wall Street Journal.

Berman anticipates five to 10 “meaningful bids,” and a decision will be announced in early 2023, she said.

While the Sally Yates report released earlier this month, which detailed systemic abuse in the NWSL, did bring questions from potential ownership groups, “the right groups are still very much engaged,” Berman said.

“We need people around the table who are willing to face down the challenges that women face in society, and are willing to do the hard work to solve those challenges in the NWSL,” she continued.

Still, Berman cautioned that calls for current owners — such as the Red Stars’ Arnim Whisler and the Thorns’ Merritt Paulson — to sell in the wake of the Yates report are premature, as the NWSL and NWSLPA remain in the midst of their own joint investigation into misconduct in the league.

Berman has said the Yates report makes the joint investigation even more important.

“In order for this league and the players to heal, and to rebuild the foundation, credibility and trust in the league, we have to make sure that the player association in particular is comfortable and confident in the process,” Berman told ESPN last week. “And for that reason, the joint investigation is absolutely paramount to our ability to move forward because they have a seat at the table in the sort of oversight, from a process perspective, in how the joint investigation has been carried out since last November.”

Even as the NWSL continues to deal with the fallout from the Yates report, the league also is capping a season in which it has seen significant growth, an attractive prospect for potential owners.

Ahead of Saturday’s championship match between the Portland Thorns and Kansas City Current, ticket revenue is up 125% from last season. And four of the largest crowds in NWSL playoff history have all happened this month, as the four postseason matches have averaged 22,756 fans.

Viewership is increasing as well. Games on CBS drew audiences ranging from 349,000 to 461,000, and streaming audiences on Paramount+ increased 29 percent from 2021.

Sponsorship revenue, too, is soaring, up nearly 90 percent from last season. Sponsors have not pulled their dollars from the league in the wake of the Yates report, Berman said, though some individual teams have seen sponsors redirect funds after the investigation.

Berman hopes the upcoming NWSL championship will focus more on the league’s triumphs than its hardships, she told the Wall Street Journal.

Players on the Current and the Thorns are looking “to focus on their trade, which is what all of us sort of strive for in our work,” Berman said. “And that’s what I hope the championship’s about.”

The NWSL has made a decision, as the league officially moves forward with its new "High Impact Player" rule despite stated opposition from the players union.

Announced last week, the rule change allows clubs to exceed to the NWSL salary cap by up to $1 million to attract or retain players that meet one of eight qualifying metrics set by the league.

Those metrics include major media award rankings like the 30-player Ballon d'Or shortlist and ESPN FC's Top 50 Football Players, as well as marketing power, top USWNT minutes, and end-of-year NWSL awards.

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Developed with Washington Spirit superstar — and current free agent — Trinity Rodman and her potential contract in mind, the "High Impact Player" rule will not go into effect until July 1st, 2026.

Meanwhile, the NWSLPA has spoken out against the mechanism, proposing instead to up the salary cap by $1 million without league-imposed spending regulations.

"Under federal labor law, changes to compensation under the salary cap are a mandatory subject of bargaining — not a matter of unilateral discretion," the union wrote on Wednesday.

Additionally, per The Athletic, NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke expressed concerns that the rule ties top athlete pay, in part, to player valuations in third party publications — a move that externally defines who a club can consider "high impact."

Led by six Kansas City athletes and five from Gotham FC, just 27 current NWSL players across 10 of the 16 clubs in the expanded 2026 season meet the new HIP qualifying criteria — though all teams could use the mechanism to attract a new athlete to the league.

In a growing global market, the NWSL could be falling into a trap of half-measures, as the union pushes back with league parity potentially on the line.

The Kansas City Current have apparently found a new manager, with ESPN reporting last week that the 2025 NWSL Shield-winners will bring on former MLS head coach Chris Armas to lead the team in 2026.

Armas built his career in the MLS, coaching the New York Red Bulls from 2018 to 2020 before taking over Toronto FC in 2021, then spending the last three years heading up the Colorado Rapids.

The ex-USMNT player also has experience in the women's game at the college level, leading the Division II Adelphi University women's soccer team from 2011 to 2014.

Despite their many victories in 2025, the Current found themselves without a coach after third-year boss Vlatko Andonovski moved into a sporting director role with the club in November.

ESPN reported that Kansas City chose Armas over internal candidates like assistants Milan Ivanovic and ex-Angel City and Gotham manager Freya Coombe.

"I want my staff and people I've worked with to become successful coaches. These are things I'm very passionate about and want to be able to execute," Andonovski told ESPN last month.

Armas would be the first former MLS coach to make the leap to the NWSL, with the winds of change in Kansas City blowing stronger than anticipated.

With the 2026 Winter Olympics fast approaching, US skiing icon Mikaela Shiffrin has started the 2025/26 FIS World Cup cycle in top form — particularly in her favored slalom event.

Closing out last season with a victory, Shiffrin is currently on a multi-event winning streak, earning her sixth straight slalom title in Semmering, Austria, on Sunday.

"It was a really hard day today, tough conditions, a really big fight, and the pressure's on… I did my best, best possible run," Shiffrin said afterwards.

Momentum is on her side, with Shiffrin set to enter the 2026 Winter Games in Italy as the winningest skier in World Cup history, surpassing Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark's 86 wins in March 2023 and becoming the first skier to reach 100 World Cup victories earlier this year.

Sunday's race marked the 30-year-old's 106th career World Cup title, with Shiffrin looking to add to her ever-growing historic record with three more slalom events scheduled before the Olympic women's Alpine skiing events kick off on February 8th.

The 2014 Olympic slalom champion and 2018 Winter Games giant slalom gold medalist is aiming to return to the podium after failing to medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Shiffrin will likely hit the slopes again next weekend, when the women's FIS World Cup lands in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, for a giant slalom and slalom competition.

South Carolina basketball is stocking up, as top-ranked high school senior Jerzy Robinson announced her commitment to join the head coach Dawn Staley and the No. 3 Gamecocks last Tuesday.

"I chose South Carolina because I had a sense of peace when it came down to the decision for me," Robinson told ESPN. "When I visited South Carolina, I was already home. I was already valued there.... I felt like this was where I needed to be for the next four years."

A 6-foot-2 guard who averaged 27 points and 10.2 rebounds in her junior season at Los Angeles's Sierra Canyon High School, Robinson is now the highest-ranked Class of 2026 recruit heading to South Carolina — as well as the final Top 5 player to make a college decision after also visiting No. 1 UConn and No. 5 LSU.

Robinson first made a name for herself at the youth level, winning three gold medals and the 2025 U-19 FIBA World Cup with Team USA.

The young talent also inked one of the first-ever shoe sponsorships for a high school player, signing an NIL deal with Nike in November 2024.

"Basketball has always been my love and my passion," she said. "To see it pay off and the hard work and the hours pay off, in the sense of I get to play for one of the best universities in the country, I just have so much gratitude."