Breanna Stewart won the 2023 WNBA MVP award despite receiving fewer first-place votes than Alyssa Thomas.

How did that happen? The New York Liberty star benefitted from the ranked voting process, which allowed Stewart to accumulate more points than Thomas.

Thomas, who posted a WNBA record six triple-doubles during her historic season for the Connecticut Sun, received 23 first-place votes, compared to 20 for Stewart and 17 for A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces. But Stewart finished with 446 points, compared to 439 for Thomas and 433 for Wilson.

Each voter on a national panel of 60 sportswriters and broadcasters listed their top five candidates, with the No. 1 player on each ballot receiving 10 points. For a second-place vote, a player received seven points, while a third-place vote equaled five points, a fourth-place vote three points and a fifth-place vote one point.

Together, Stewart, Thomas and Wilson received all the first-place and second-place votes. The trio received 59 of the third-place votes, and Las Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray received one. Wilson also received one fourth-place vote.

In total, Stewart received 20 first-place votes, 23 second-place votes and 17 third-place votes. In contrast, Thomas received 23 first-place votes, 12 second-place votes and 25 third-place votes; her larger number of third-place votes sunk her in the overall tally.

This marks the second time in WNBA history that the MVP runner-up finished with more first-place votes than the winner. The first time was in 2005, when Lauren Jackson received more votes for the top spot but Sheryl Swoopes won the award.

2023 WNBA MVP: Voting results

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On Wednesday, US tennis icon Venus Williams was awarded a wild card spot to play in next month’s BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, with the 44-year-old signing onto participate in her first WTA competition in a almost a year.

Williams has not featured in a tour event since the 2024 Miami Open, exiting that tournament in her March 19th opening match after dropping two straight sets to Diana Shnaider.

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Williams continues her storied career

Often stating her desire to play professional tennis for as long as she can, the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion has never officially announced her retirement.

"Serena ruined it for me," Williams joked during an October 2024 TV interview, referencing her sister’s 2022 retirement. "Because as soon as she retired, everybody thought I retired."

Williams, who turned pro over 30 years ago, boasts a resume with 49 singles trophies and five Olympic medals. Her combined 21 Grand Slam titles includes five Wimbledon singles championships, two US Open singles trophies, and 14 doubles titles alongside her younger sister.

While she has more major singles titles than any other active woman on tour, Williams hasn't added to her tally since winning the Taiwan Open in February 2016.

Having drastically decreased her competition schedule over the last few seasons, Williams has competed in just nine events over the past two years.

"At this point, it’s about picking and choosing places I want to be," she said. 

A roller coaster history with Indian Wells

Given her stated intention to specifically choose her competition appearances, it's somewhat interesting that Williams set her sights on the Indian Wells tournament.

While she first competed at the event in 1994, both Williams and her sister boycotted the tournament for 14 years following Serena's experience during the 2001 final. Though she ultimately won the title, then-19-year-old Serena experienced booing and racist abuse during the match — an ordeal the younger Williams sister calls "very traumatizing."

Serena ultimately returned to the competition in 2015, with Williams doing the same in 2016.

With 10 Indian Wells appearances on her resume, including three trips to the competition's semifinals, this year's tournament marks the second straight year that Williams will play as a wild card entry. At the 2024 edition, she fell 6-2, 3-6, 0-6 to Nao Hibino in the first round.

How to watch the 2025 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells

The 2025 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells runs from March 2nd through 16th.

With her wild card berth, Williams will begin play when the main draw starts on March 5th.

Live coverage of the tournament will air across the Tennis Channel's platforms.

ESPN scored a pair of blockbuster wins last weekend, as Sunday’s NCAA basketball doubleheader featuring No. 5 UConn vs. No. 6 South Carolina plus No. 2 Texas vs. No. 7 LSU earned the network record viewership.

First, UConn’s 87-58 blowout of the reigning national champion Gamecocks garnered an average of 1.8 million viewers with a peak of 2.2 million. Later, Texas’s 65-58 victory over the Tigers peaked at 2.3 million viewers while drawing an average of 1.7 million fans.

The back-to-back lineup became the most-watched women's basketball games across ESPN platforms this season. Even more, the matchups registered the third and fourth highest regular-season viewership in the NCAA sport in the broadcast giant's history.

Sunday’s pregame show also put up impressive numbers, becoming the most-watched regular-season Women’s College Gameday since 2010.

Notably, Sunday's doubleheader aired on the broadcast conglomerate's flagship network, ABC — placing some of the country's tops college stars into a prime national spotlight.

Fans tune in as NCAA season sprints toward March Madness

With March's postseason play fast approaching, interest in top NCAA basketball programs — and the elite stars on their rosters — continues to explode throughout the 2024/25 regular season.

ESPN’s ratings have risen accordingly, with UConn’s December upset loss to Notre Dame averaging 847,000 viewers, while South Carolina’s win over SEC rivals LSU averaged 1.56 million fans last month.

Ultimately, when major networks elevate regular-season women's college basketball games, fans consistently respond with massive viewership numbers. For ESPN, there’s nowhere to go but up, as the NCAA tournament rights-holder keeps successfully pushing college coverage.

How to watch Top 25 NCAA basketball on Thursday

With almost 260 college basketball games earning airtime across ESPN's platforms this week, 16 of the country's Top 25 teams will be featured on the broadcaster's networks before next Wednesday.

Top Thursday matchups include an SEC clash between No. 18 Alabama and hosts No. 15 Tennessee, which tips off at 6:30 PM ET and will stream live on ESPN subsidiary SECN+.

Earning a prime broadcast spot on ESPN2 is No. 11 Duke, who will host unranked Louisville at 7 PM ET.

Spain's High Court issued a guilty verdict to Luis Rubiales early Thursday morning, finding that the former Spanish football federation president sexually assaulted Spain national team striker Jenni Hermoso.

The two-week trial centered on Rubiales forcibly kissing Hermoso during the 2023 World Cup trophy ceremony, as well as coercion attempts by both Rubiales and three other co-defendants to prod Hermoso into telling the public that the kiss was consensual after the fact.

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Rubiales fined but avoids jail sentence

In the ruling, the court ordered Rubiales to pay a fine of €10,800 for the assault offense, but cleared him of coercion alongside the other trio of ex-federation officials.

Rubiales faced up to four years in prison if convicted on both charges, with prosecutors arguing for an incarceration period of two-and-a-half years. Also on the table was a maximum €50,000 in damages as well as a permanent ban on Rubiales from ever serving as a sports official again.

In addition to the fine, the judge banned Rubiales from communicating with or being within a 200-meter radius of Hermoso for one year. He must also compensate her an additional €3,000 for "moral damage."

In his delivery, Judge José Manuel Fernández-Prieto deemed the kiss "not the normal way of greeting people with whom one does not have an emotional relationship."

Despite calling it a "reprehensible act," the judge ruled against prison time on the basis that there was no intimidation or violence.

"The pecuniary penalty must be chosen, which is less serious than the custodial sentence," Fernández-Prieto explained in his ruling.

Rubiales sentencing earns praise and consternation

While many are celebrating Thursday's guilty verdict, the Rubiales's punishment sparked differing reactions — namely due to the lack of incarceration time.

Applauding the outcome was Spain’s minister of equality Ana Redondo, who tweeted, "When there is no consent, there is aggression, and that is what the judge certifies in this sentence."

On the other hand, the Federation of Progressive Women, a Spanish nonprofit that fights for gender equity, said the minimal sentencing sparked "deep disappointment."

"It has a deactivating effect on complaints from women who suffer #sexualviolence, reinforces distrust in the judicial system, and strengthens aggressors."

The 2025 SheBelieves Cup kicks off on Thursday, when head coach Emma Hayes’s refreshed USWNT roster will take on No. 21 Colombia at Houston’s Shell Energy Stadium.

The match is the first of three international friendlies that the world No. 1 USWNT will play during the annual tournament's 10th edition, with games against No. 15 Australia and No. 8 Japan set for Sunday and Wednesday, respectively.

SheBelieves to test young USWNT players

With a number of big-name veterans missing from the February roster and the road to the 2027 World Cup just beginning, Hayes is using the 2025 SheBelieves Cup to try out less experienced USWNT players against some of the world’s best contenders.

"The reality is we have top ability, that's clear, but we want to develop a combination of things: their personal resilience, which we do, and their learning mindset," Hayes told reporters earlier this week.

"We give them the opportunity, and that opportunity will either tell us that they're ready now, or they're ready later."

One guaranteed area of focus throughout the tournament will be goalkeeping, as the USWNT seeks a replacement for previous mainstay Alyssa Naeher, who hung up her boots at the end of 2024.

With Naeher and her 115 career appearances behind them, Hayes confirmed that both Jane Campbell and Mandy McGlynn are expected to earn starts during this window.

Campbell, the net-minder for the NWSL's Houston Dash, has eight caps with the USWNT, while Utah Royals keeper McGlynn earned her first and only appearance in the team's 3-0 win over Argentina last October.

"[Campbell and McGlynn] have to demonstrate they can make the important decisions under pressure — both sides of the ball," Hayes noted.

With Hayes firmly past the "must win" mode with which she began her USWNT tenure, her next challenge is to properly test this new next-gen roster’s resilience, as the slow and steady ramp-up to the Brazil-hosted 2027 World Cup outweighs immediate results.

How to watch the USWNT vs. Colombia in the SheBelieves Cup

The USWNT will kick off against Colombia at 8 PM ET on Thursday, with live coverage across TBS, Max, and Peacock.