Atlanta Dream co-owner Renee Montgomery has adopted a vision for the revamped Dream that transcends the WNBA and even the gym.

While mingling with hundreds of Atlanta-based youth athletes for a day of drills, games and giveaways at Gateway Arena on Saturday, Montgomery had a moment of clarity for her long-term approach to the Dream’s rebuild inside and outside of competition.

“We don’t want to just only excel on the court — we want to excel in the community, we want to excel as an organization,” Montgomery told Just Women’s Sports during The DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation’s Sports Matter Giving Truck #SportsMatterDay. “I love what DICK’s is doing getting in at the ground level, ages six through 18 are here, so that’s a large range of teenagers, kids, people that are trying to stay in sports, people that are trying to figure out if they want to be in sports.”

That ground-up approach has become familiar within the Dream organization.

A year after real estate developer Larry Gottesdiener bought the Dream from former owners Kelly Loeffler and Mary Brock, forming an ownership group with Montgomery and Suzanne Abair, the team overhauled its front office and roster this offseason.

“Everything’s new, literally everything is new, but that’s how you start over and that’s how you build,” said Montgomery, the first former WNBA player to become part owner of a franchise. “We wanted to build from the ground up and build a foundation, and so that was our whole intention this offseason.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Renee Montgomery (@reneemontgomery)

Atlanta finished second-to-last in the WNBA last season with an 8-24 record and missed the playoffs for the third consecutive season. It didn’t take long for Montgomery and the ownership group to start making their mark on the team’s direction.

In September, the Dream hired former NFL executive Morgan Shaw Parker as their President and COO. The next month, they named former WNBA player and Las Vegas Aces assistant coach Tanisha Wright as head coach. A couple of weeks later, they made arguably the biggest coup of all, hiring two-time WNBA Executive of the Year Dan Padover away from the Las Vegas Aces to serve as the team’s general manager.

“When we got the team last year, it was about 45 days before the season started, and we couldn’t really put our imprint on the team how we wanted to,” Montgomery said. “But now, a year later, we are really starting to see the Atlanta Dream we wanted to be.”

A critical element in the Dream’s rebuild this season is rookie Rhyne Howard, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2022 draft. Long considered to be one of the most pro-ready players in this year’s draft class, Howard led Kentucky to new heights and is already showing what she can bring to Atlanta, scoring 15 points on 50 percent shooting in her preseason debut.

The Dream also nabbed Michigan star forward Naz Hillmon with the 15th pick on draft night after she unexpectedly fell to the second round.

“We started out with the No. 1 pick with Rhyne Howard, and then we got the steal of the draft with Naz Hillmon, who has a motor, is a workhorse,” Montgomery said. “We were ecstatic. As it was getting closer and closer to our pick, we were holding our breath, and so really excited to get who we wanted to get.”

Montgomery believes Howard and Hillmon will be good fits on the court and in the locker room, where the Dream also have some rebuilding to do after a tumultuous 2021.

Last July, the Dream indefinitely suspended former No. 4 draft pick Chennedy Carter after an incident during a game against the Aces, which was later reported to be a verbal argument between Carter and Courtney Williams. As the episode hung over the team, Williams was at the center of a video that surfaced in October showing her and teammate Crystal Bradford throwing punches outside of an Atlanta club. The WNBA later suspended Williams and Bradford for their role in the fight, and all three players have since left the Dream.

With many new faces and more time to build, Montgomery is eager for Wright to make her mark on the team’s culture.

“Our goal was just to build a culture here with the Atlanta Dream, so we want great players, but we want great players that are also going to be aligning with our same views and values,” she said.

Atlanta hopes a fresh philosophy will lead to a better finish this season. Montgomery, however, isn’t letting the immediate results cause her to lose sight of the long-term mission.

“Of course we want to win, but for me, it’s how we are playing, how we are building this thing. Is there growth every week? Are we staying in the same spot? Those are the kind of things that I am looking to see from our team,” she said. “The wins and losses are going to take care of themselves at a certain point, but right now, we have to build this thing the right way.”

The Dream will play their final preseason game on Sunday against the Connecticut Sun before kicking off their regular season against the Wings in Dallas on May 7.

“I want people to understand that this is going to be a completely different experience than people have experienced before with the Atlanta Dream,” Montgomery said. “We really just expect people to visibly see the difference in what we are trying to build here with the Atlanta Dream.”

Clare Brennan is an Associate Editor at Just Women’s Sports.

The 2025 NWSL regular-season attendance numbers are in, with a Tuesday Sports Business Journal (SBJ) report outlining a 5% decline from the record highs the league saw in 2024.

Despite setting a new single-game record in August, the NWSL averaged 10,669 fans per match this season, down from average crowds of 11,250 last year — though the 2025 numbers do mirror 2023's attendance averages.

"Our underlying business is incredibly strong," NWSL COO Sarah Jones Simmer told SBJ, citing multiple single-game team highs. "Across the league, we're seeing consistent attendance growth, franchise-best seasons, and record-breaking moments in markets big and small."

The 2025 season saw the Portland Thorns unseat Angel City as the NWSL's top-supported team, with the LA club seeing a 15.8% drop in overall attendance before missing the playoffs for the second straight year.

ACFC's SoCal neighbor, the San Diego Wave, experienced the steepest 2025 fall, with ticket sales down 26.4% from 2024 and 35.2% from the 2022 expansion club's Shield-winning 2023 campaign.

Some teams did see gains, however, with the North Carolina Courage improving attendance by 40.8% over the last two years while the Washington Spirit's numbers jumped 42.3%, Gotham FC's rose 41.1%, and the 2024 champion Orlando Pride saw a massive 51.5% growth over the same period.

Though this year's attendance declines are not cause for immediate alarm, with two new teams launching next year — and even more in the pipeline — sustainability concerns are increasingly entering the expansion conversation.

The 2025 NCAA soccer postseason has arrived, with this week's conference tournaments setting the scene for November 10th's Selection Monday — and the 64-team Division I College Cup.

While 30 teams will earn automatic bids to the national tournament by winning their conference titles, all NCAA squads are looking to impress this week with 34 additional bracket spots awarded by the selection committee on Monday.

Stanford entered this week at No. 1 in the United Soccer Coaches rankings, with the ACC regular-season title-holders also earning a bye into Thursday's conference tournament semifinals.

"We've got to keep getting better," Cardinal head coach Paul Ratcliffe said. "If we want to win the national championship, you gotta learn from each game and continue to push forward and improve."

After sending four teams to the 2024 College Cup, the ACC remains on top of the women's college soccer landscape with four of the current Top-7 teams hailing from the conference — though other contenders loom.

The No. 3 Memphis Tigers remain the year's surprise success story as one of the sport's two unbeaten teams, with the mid-major squad now vying for their fifth American Conference championship this weekend.

Elsewhere, the No. 13 Washington Huskies and No. 9 Michigan State Spartans enter Thursday's Big Ten tournament semifinals as the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds, respectively, while upsets already ousted the top seeds from both the SEC and Big 12 tournaments: No. 4 Arkansas and No. 5 TCU.

How to watch the 2025 NCAA soccer conference tournaments

The majority of the 30 NCAA soccer conference tournaments will kick off their semifinals on Wednesday and Thursday, with live coverage of most matches across the Big Ten Network and ESPN platforms.

No. 8 Tennessee opened their 2025/26 NCAA basketball season on a down note, falling to No. 9 NC State 80-77 on Tuesday as the Volunteers hope to better last season's Sweet Sixteen finish under second-year head coach Kim Caldwell.

Vanderbilt transfer forward Khamil Pierre led the Wolfpack with a 21-point, 14-rebound double-double, while fellow preseason Top 25 player Talaysia Cooper led Tennessee's efforts with 23 points and 11 rebounds of her own.

"We wanted to see where we were early, so we had time to fix it," Caldwell said postgame about Tennessee opening the 2025/26 NCAA season against a Top-10 foe. "I think that's exactly what we got out of it. We have a lot of things we can fix. We can get a lot better."

Tuesday's narrow loss was encouraging news for a Tennessee side reeling from a recent roster loss, after Caldwell dismissed starting guard Ruby Whitehorn — a double-digit scorer for the Vols — following the senior's second offseason arrest.

"I love Ruby and will always be rooting for her, but my priority is to uphold the respected reputation of the Lady Vols," Caldwell said in a Sunday statement.

"I have failed to uphold the standards of the lady vol legacy and what it represents and for that I apologize," Whitehorn posted in response.

With the Vols' next ranked matchup set for November 30th, Tennessee's softer slate will allow Caldwell's team to continue refining their new starting lineup before their next big test.

The Toronto Tempo has officially landed a sideline leader, with the 2026 WNBA expansion team announcing ex-New York Liberty boss Sandy Brondello as their inaugural head coach on Tuesday — and making her one of the league's highest-paid coaches in the process.

"This is the place I wanted to be," Brondello said during her introductory press conference. "To build a team from the ground up — that really excited me."

Brondello joins the Toronto Tempo as a two-time championship-winning coach, claiming her first title with the Phoenix Mercury in 2014 before taking the New York Liberty to the top in 2024.

The first-ever Canadian WNBA team is also doubling down on their choice, with multiple reports valuing Brondello's multi-year contract at over $1 million annually.

The 57-year-old Australian — a three-time Olympic medalist as a player — will join the Mercury's Nate Tibbetts and Las Vegas Aces boss Becky Hammon as the only known WNBA coaches earning seven-figure salaries.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

That said, Brondello could have banked even more, with Front Office Sports reporting that a different WNBA team offered her a more lucrative offer, but Brondello deemed Toronto a better fit.

 "From my first conversations with the Tempo organization, it was clear we share the same vision: to build a world-class franchise that competes at the highest level, to create a strong and dynamic culture, and to root everything we do in clear and consistent values," Brondello said in team statement.

"This is a place that's serious about doing things the right way — about excellence, about people, about community — and that's exactly the kind of environment every coach wants to be part of."

As the offseason coaching carousel nears its final turn, teams are stretching resources as they prep for big spending — and a contentious new CBA — in 2026.