Angel City FC is partnering with Crypto.com, the first cryptocurrency platform to officially join forces with a women’s sports team.

As part of the deal announced Tuesday, the cryptocurrency and financial services platform will act as the Los Angeles-based NWSL club’s official cryptocurrency and NFT partner. The new collaboration will promote and support education around cryptocurrency as well as access to NFT development, providing ACFC players with the opportunity to build their own creations.

Julie Uhrman, Co-Founder and President of Angel City Football Club, tells Just Women’s Sports that the club’s ownership group, which includes venture capitalists, product, entertainment and tech entrepreneurs, is especially excited about the prospects of NFTs. Uhrman says they’re “incredibly valuable, especially for sports teams.”

“It’s another opportunity to authentically connect fans with their favorite players, with their favorite teams and with their favorite leagues,” she said.

Angel City also incorporated NFTs into their their July crest launch, fractionalizing the club’s emblem into 5,000 digital assets, which were gifted and sold to investors and fans as a way to foster a sense of communal ownership in the team.

“With Angel City, we wanted to find a way to increase our connection with our community and fans and found that NFTs were a perfect way of doing that,” Uhrman said.

Another key component of Angel City’s partnership with Crypto.com is financial education.

“It’s important to us to make sure that we are empowering women in all parts of their lives,” said Jess Smith, Head of Revenue at Angel City. “And if you look at the current landscape, and you look at the data behind women and engagement with NFTs and Web3 and cryptocurrency, they’re behind the men in adaption to this.”

The expansion club aims to close the growing gender disparity within crypto by providing their players and the community with the education and means needed to participate in the market.

“Crypto.com is the leader as far as creating an exchange, so we want to educate our community and fan bas e… and really just help people understand the space,” Uhrman said. She also sees the NFT side of the relationship as an opportunity to empower players “to become creators, to create community through their creations and to have ownership of the product or of the item that they create.”

As the first deal of its kind, the collaboration also serves as a decisive moment for women’s sports. Angel City takes great pride in being a part of that progress.

“This partnership is a turning point for women’s sports and signifies the growing recognition of the power and influence they yield,” ACFC Leading Founding Investor Alexis Ohanian said in a statement.

While this may be Crypto.com’s women’s sports debut, the platform has already made its mark on the Los Angeles sporting community, signing a 20-year rights agreement to rename Staples Center, which hosts the Sparks of the WNBA, the Lakers and Clippers of the NBA, and the NHL’s Kings.

ACFC said the company’s commitment to Los Angeles will be central to their evolving relationship.

“[Crypto.com is] really looking at the culture of Los Angeles and the creators that exist and how the world looks to L.A. for what comes next,” Smith said. “You can expect this partnership to be representative of that and how we bring those worlds together through our platform with them.”

Though the joint venture is just getting off the ground, ACFC hopes to have a broad impact on the space, with Uhrman saying her ultimate goal would be to play “a critical role in seeing women equal 50 percent of investors in cryptocurrency.”

She hopes Angel City players, who are already savvy at building personal brands, will harness NFTs to build a community and create ownership over a product, which in turn can “significantly [impact] their yearly income in a positive way.”

Angel City, which begins play in the NWSL in 2022, previously announced their inaugural home kits in November. Among the club’s many initiatives is a first-of-its-kind Players Fund, which pays ACFC players a percentage of all home ticket sales. The club announced last week that it had already sold 13,200 season tickets for its debut season.

Wisconsin volleyball is off to the attendance races, with the No. 7 college squad averaging 8,620 fans per match this season to become this NCAA's best-attended program — narrowly beating Big Ten rival No. 1 Nebraska's 8,602 current average.

Other than the Badgers and Cornhuskers, no other college volleyball team has surpassed 6,000 fans per match this year, but Wisconsin is well on track to surpass even their own dominant attendance history in the sport.

If they finish the season in the top attendance spot, the Badgers will snap a six season streak logging the second-best average crowds per year.

Even more, Wisconsin is on their way to blasting through their program-best mark, set when 7,761 fans per match filled the bleachers in 2022.

The growing demand for Badger volleyball is also translating into significant revenue boosts for school.

"We're really, really excited; we're going to exceed $2 million in volleyball ticket sales for the first time ever," Wisconsin deputy athletic director Mitchell Pinta told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier this week. "And we're largely sold out for the rest of our matches at the Field House for the remainder of the season."

Should the Badgers reach that $2 million mark, they will see a massive 25% increase over the $1.6 million the team garnered just two seasons ago, and a near 18-fold growth from the $111,809 in volleyball ticket sales that Wisconsin logged in 2013.

Ultimately, the sky's the limit for both Wisconsin volleyball — and the sport at-large.

"If there's a saturation point on the demand for Wisconsin volleyball, we certainly have not seen it yet," said Pinta.

How to watch Wisconsin volleyball in action

With conference play kicking off this weekend, No. 7 Wisconsin will host unranked Big Ten foe Rutgers at 8 PM ET on Friday, before paying a visit to also-unranked Iowa at 3 PM ET on Sunday.

Both Big Ten battles will stream live on B1G+.

WSL side Liverpool opened their 2025/26 League Cup campaign with an emotional 5-0 win over WSL2 club Sunderland on Wednesday, dedicating the shutout victory to former manager Matt Beard after the 47-year-old's sudden passing last Saturday.

The match marked the Reds' return to the pitch following the postponement of their Sunday regular-season game against Aston Villa due to Beard's passing.

"It's a good win for Matt. We played with a lot of emotion," Liverpool defender Jenna Clark said afterwards, calling Wednesday "a really emotional night and an emotional few days for everyone involved with the club."

"We have pulled through together as a team the best we could and you saw that on the pitch tonight," Clark added.

Beard won back-to-back WSL titles with Liverpool in 2013 and 2014, departing the Reds in 2015 for a two-year stint with the NWSL's Boston Breakers.

He made his return to Liverpool in 2021, lifting the club back into the top-flight WSL by earning promotion his first season back at the helm.

"Matt will leave a huge void in the women's game," USWNT head coach and former Chelsea boss Emma Hayes said in a statement earlier this week. "He was one of a kind, and his loss will be felt by all. My heart goes out to his family, but I want to take the time to acknowledge what a special man he really was."​

How to watch Liverpool this weekend

Liverpool will continue their 2025/26 WSL campaign against Manchester United this Sunday, kicking off live at 7 AM ET on ESPN+.

The 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup culminates on Saturday, when host nation England battles for their first tournament title in more than a decade in a top-tier final against Canada, who are hunting their first-ever world championship trophy.

The Red Roses' long dominance on the Rugby World Cup pitch has led them to eight finals in the competition's nine editions, with England emerging victorious twice — in 1994 and 2014.

On the other hand, Canada will make just their second-ever appearance in the World Cup final this Saturday, as the Maple Leafs aim for a decidedly different outcome from their 21-9 loss to England in the 2014 championship game.

The top-ranked Red Roses will also be looking to avenge their narrow 34-31 loss to New Zealand in the tournament's most recent 2022 edition when they square off against No. 2 Canada in front of an sold-out crowd inside London's Twickenham Stadium — with another women's rugby attendance record on the line.

"You feed off of that energy, especially knowing what this game is going to be," England defense coach Sarah Hunter said. "It's a cliché, but [the crowd] almost becomes the 16th person in those moments where you need them."

How to watch the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup final

England and Canada will battle in the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup final at 11 AM ET on Saturday, with live coverage airing on Paramount+.

While the No. 1 Kansas City Current have officially run away with the 2025 NWSL Shield, the race for top playoff seeding rages on, as the No. 2 Washington Spirit fights to hold their ground against an unpredictable No. 9 Houston Dash this Sunday.

Bolstered by star Trinity Rodman's return from injury, the Spirit enter the weekend on a nine-game unbeaten streak, going up against a motivated Dash side sitting just two points outside of postseason contention.

"Every game we just need to be a lot more clinical in the final third," Rodman said after last weekend's 2-2 draw with No. 11 Angel City. "We're doing all the hard stuff and then it's [lacking] quality at the end."

Washington isn't without top-table challengers, with No. 3 Gotham FC riding their own five-game unbeaten streak into a Friday night match against the No. 4 Portland Thorns, who sit tied for points with both the Bats and the No. 5 San Diego Wave in the NWSL standings.

"At this stage, almost everyone still has a real chance to make the playoffs, which is great for the league," said Gotham manager Juan Carlos Amorós after the Bats' 1-1 draw with Bay FC last Sunday. "But it also means nothing can be taken for granted."

How to watch the Washington Spirit and Gotham FC this weekend

No. 3 Gotham FC kicks off this weekend's NWSL action when they host the No. 4 Portland Thorns at 8 PM ET on Friday, with live coverage on NWSL+.

Then in Sunday's NWSL action, the No. 9 Houston Dash will visit the No. 2 Washington Spirit at 1 PM ET, airing live on Paramount+.