The WNBA All-Star Game had a little bit of everything. From the pregame introductions (“Leading the league in drip … Courtney Williams!”) to Arike Ogunbowale icing the game for Team WNBA with 26 points, Wednesday night in Las Vegas was made for primetime.

Liz Cambage didn’t play because of a minor injury suffered in practice with the Australian national team. So, the four-time All-Star took the game in like the rest of us, with a bag of popcorn and a smirk.

Liz Cambage is eating popcorn and enjoying the show pic.twitter.com/GOHaUkVz2Q

— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) July 15, 2021

Rebecca Lobo and Holly Rowe each picked Team USA to win the pregame show. So did most other women’s basketball pundits (not ours!). But Team WNBA was full of the best players in the league, too, and they showed why in a 93-85 win over a United States team going for its seventh gold medal in Tokyo later this month.

Don’t call it a revenge game for Team USA “snubs”

On Tuesday, Arike Ogunbowale said she wasn’t trying to prove anything in the All-Star Game.

“We proved what we had to to get to the All-Star Game,” she said. “I’m just looking at it as a regular All-Star Game.”

The 2020 WNBA scoring champion then treated it like anything but, leading all scorers with 26 points on 10-for-18 shooting from the field and 5-for-10 from 3-point range. Ogunbowale’s performance earned her the MVP Award in her first All-Star Game appearance.

.@Arike_O with the 4-POINT PLAY 🥶 pic.twitter.com/rj4fB7YdgR

— WNBA (@WNBA) July 15, 2021

Ogunbowale wasn’t named to this year’s U.S. Olympic roster despite being in the player pool and attending multiple training camps. She wouldn’t say afterward whether she was out for revenge, but her performance did all of the necessary talking.

Jonquel Jones added her two cents about Ogunbowale’s future with Team USA, as well. “She’s young,” Jones said. “She’s gonna have her opportunity.”

Defense? Defense!

Some All-Stars played it down in the days leading up to the game, but it was clear Team WNBA wasn’t taking the opportunity against Team USA lightly. They had a chance to make history in the first official All-Star Game played during an Olympic year, and coach Lisa Leslie made sure to remind them of the stakes in the huddle.

“It was a different mentality,” Courtney Vandersloot said after the game. “It was an opportunity for us to compete against some of the best players in the world, so we didn’t really take it like an All-Star Game either. We were out there competing, we were trying to win the game.”

The WNBA All-Stars finished with more rebounds and steals than Team USA. A Candace Parker strip of Brittney Griner in the first half set the tone. Then, late steals and a Courtney Williams block on A’ja Wilson with 1:17 to play helped seal the win.

Leslie told her team that the key to beating Team USA was to create more possessions by out-rebounding them. At one point, ESPN caught Leslie on the mic yelling in the huddle, “Rebound on 3!” It wasn’t your typical directive for an All-Star Game, but the game plan and execution paid off for Team WNBA.

Allie Quigley vs. Jonquel Jones

The best drama of the night might have come at halftime.

Jonquel Jones, a 6-foot-6 center/forward for the Connecticut Sun, was the obvious dark-horse candidate in the 3-point shooting contest based on position. But if you’ve watched her boldly knock down step-back 3s during an MVP-level first half of the season, you knew she would put up a fight.

JONQUEL JONES WENT OFF 🤯

27pts for the 1st round 👌 pic.twitter.com/njytVWTPzq

— WNBA (@WNBA) July 15, 2021

Standing in her way was Allie Quigley, for whom this competition is practically named after she won it previously in 2017 and 2018.

Quigley barely edged Jones in the first round, scoring 28 points to Jones’ 27. The Sky guard started off slowly in the championship round before hitting nine of her last 10 shots to defeat Jones 28-24.

Quigley, the only three-time winner of the event in WNBA history, confirmed after the game she doesn’t plan on participating in the contest again.

“I told myself before, this is the last time I’m doing this so I’ve gotta go out on top,” she said.

Maybe her wife can convince her otherwise.

Sloot was HYPE for @alliequigley in the #MTNDEW3PT Contest ‼️ @MountainDew pic.twitter.com/aetuGhbM4E

— WNBA (@WNBA) July 15, 2021

The live tweets

Who needs live TV commentary when you have athletes and Twitter?

Several players pulled double duty Wednesday night, competing on the court and narrating the game from the sideline. Arike Ogunbowale was the MVP in more ways than one.

I smoked that layup 🥲

— Arike Ogunbowale (@Arike_O) July 14, 2021

Tied up going into the 4th. Who y’all got winning it 👀

— Arike Ogunbowale (@Arike_O) July 15, 2021

I need to start live tweeting more often 😂

— Arike Ogunbowale (@Arike_O) July 15, 2021

Yes, we’ll take more where that came from, please.

The last word of All-Star week goes to Candace Parker, the first woman to appear on the cover of NBA 2K, who talked about the importance of events like this for the growth of the sport. The All-Star Game aired on ESPN before Game 4 of the NBA Finals, giving the WNBA a chance to capture new fans who were tuning in.

“This was a great move. This was a great step forward for our league, because there are a lot of fans that support us and we’ve got to continue to grow,” Parker said. “I want my daughter, I want Dearica (Hamby)’s daughter to have the opportunity to play in a league like this.”

US swimming icon Katie Ledecky is back on top, earning her 22nd world title with a gold medal-winning 1,500-meter freestyle performance at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships on Tuesday.

Finishing with a time of 15:26.44, Ledecky now owns 25 of the top 26 times in the event's history and holds six World Aquatics Championships titles at that distance.

"Each one has meaning, and I love every race that I've had at Worlds over the years," the 28-year-old swimming star told broadcasters following her Tuesday victory.

That 22nd title brought Ledecky's combined Worlds total to an overall 28 medals, lifting the star to second on the all-time most decorated list where she trails only retired US men's star Michael Phelps's 33 podium finishes.

Earlier in the week, the Team USA standout took bronze in the 400-meter freestyle, coming in third behind China's silver-medalist Li Bingjie and Canadian sensation Summer McIntosh, who won the race with a time of 3:56.26.

Gold medals have been hard to come by for Team USA at this year's World Championships.

Other than Ledecky's win and the 100-meter butterfly title snagged by Gretchen Walsh on Monday, the US women have struggled to claim gold medals as they push to recover from the acute gastroenteritis that hit several team members at their pre-meet training camp in Thailand.

That stomach bug inhibited multiple US swimmers from traveling with the team to the Singapore meet, and saw contenders like 100-meter butterfly Olympic gold medalist Torri Huske pull out of initial heats.

"We're taking it a day at a time," said Team USA head coach Greg Meehan about the impact of the illness. "Obviously, this is not how we thought the first few days of this competition would go. But I'm really proud of our team."

How to watch Ledecky at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships

The 2025 World Aquatics Championships runs through Sunday, and US star Ledecky has two events left to swim at the meet.

On Thursday, she'll compete in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay, before facing another showdown with rival McIntosh in the 800-meter freestyle on Saturday.

Preliminary heats kick off the night before at 10 PM ET, with finals seeing staggered starts beginning at 7 AM ET.

Live coverage of the meet airs on Peacock.

UEFA Women's Euro 2025 made a splash across the pond, drawing an average of 458,000 US viewers per match across FOX platforms to mark a 97% viewership increase over the 2022 edition — making this year's tournament the most-watched English-language Women's Euro on record.

Building off the 2025 competition's previously reported record-breaking numbers, Sunday's grand finale between defending champs England and 2023 World Cup winners Spain averaged 1.35 million US viewers — a 53% increase in viewership over the last Women's Euro championship match.

Even more, the broadcast ultimately peaked at 1.92 million fans tuning in, making it the most-watched English-language Women's Euro Final on record.

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The historic viewership is a major win for broadcaster FOX, who secured the women's tournament's first-ever US media deal back in May.

Initially committing to live coverage of 20 of the tournament's matches, record returns motivated the broadcast giant to quickly pivot and air all 31 matches live as part of its FOX Sports Summer of Soccer campaign.

"More and more people are tuning in to watch soccer in the US," FOX Sports commentator and UWSNT vet Carli Lloyd told The Athletic. "There's just been an incredible amount of soccer on display, which has been fantastic for the sport."

As the NWSL preps for this weekend's return from an extended summer break, No. 4 Washington Spirit star forward Trinity Rodman is also hoping to re-take the pitch for the first time since April.

Rodman is currently back training with the team, rejoining her club after undergoing extended treatment overseas for chronic back issues.

"I'd never really dealt with something like that," Rodman admitted after an open practice earlier this week. "So, for me, mentally, it was very difficult."

"[I was] trying to function through pain, and kind of gaslight myself to thinking it was fine every day, when it wasn't," she said. "I can now kind of openly say, I was in pain all the time."

Rodman also admits that stepping away was, though difficult, the right call to make for her healing.

"Obviously, it sucks being away from the team and being away from soccer in general," she added. "But I got to work on things that I wouldn't have gotten to work on if I was in the team environment all the time, so I think that was a positive."

Rodman's availability fluctuated after she earned an Olympic gold medal with the USWNT in Paris last summer, with the soccer superstar featuring in just four Spirit games this season — and none since stepping away in April.

Now functioning pain-free, Rodman's next on-pitch challenge is balancing her competitive intensity with her newly found health.

"It's really understanding my body and acknowledging [when] it's in pain," she explained. "And not pushing through things that I shouldn't."

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Rodman eyes new contract amid NWSL return

On top of navigating her return to play, Rodman is also actively negotiating with the Washington Spirit for a contract renewal.

Her current deal expires at the end of 2025, and with interest in the US standout reportedly mounting from overseas clubs, the 23-year-old could eventually field multiple offers.

Considering her lack of minutes so far this season, the star called the assumed interest "a weird situation."

"I'm trying not to stress about it or put too much pressure on it," she said of the ongoing talks. "At the end of the day, I'm worried about health first.... Everything else can come next."

Wednesday's WNBA bill puts a heavyweight battle in the spotlight, as 2024 finalists and 2025 league leaders Minnesota will host reigning champion No. 2 New York in their first face-off of the season — with the Liberty hoping to rattle both the Lynx and the standings.

"I think common sense would say that those two teams probably should have played earlier in the season," Minnesota head coach Cheryl Reeve told media this week, referencing the apparent scheduling idiosyncrasies that delayed the championship rematch.

"It doesn't feel like a Finals rematch anymore, honestly," Lynx forward Napheesa Collier echoed. "It's a new year for us. And it's been so long, it's almost August, so it's just the two top teams going against each other."

Both squads enter the clash on uncharacteristic skids, as Minnesota and New York look to avenge recent losses while other WNBA teams jockey for positioning during the league's Wednesday night slate:

• No. 3 Phoenix Mercury vs. No. 6 Indiana Fever, 7 PM ET (ESPN3): The Fever must continue to contend without injured star guard Caitlin Clark, as Indiana faces a newly healthy Mercury side striving to steal back the No. 2 spot with a win.

• No. 5 Atlanta Dream vs. No. 11 Dallas Wings, 8 PM ET (ESPN3): After a disappointing Tuesday upset loss, the will Dream close out a back-to-back against a bolstered Dallas squad fresh off a big victory over New York.

• No. 2 New York Liberty vs. No. 1 Minnesota Lynx, 8 PM ET (ESPN): With a four-game lead in the standings, the Lynx aren't in danger of giving up their perch at the top, but a strong performance from the Liberty could provide a much-needed boost to the ailing title-holders.