As WNBA free agency begins and the conversation around the destination of some key free agents heats up, Breanna Stewart’s future team remains in question.

On the most recent episode of Real Ones with Raja + Logan, Stewart’s longtime Seattle Storm teammate Sue Bird addressed her potential move. In doing so, she says that money isn’t the largest factor in Stewart’s decision making.

“Seattle currently can pay Stewie more than New York can, unless she did a sign and trade. But the money, the margin is like, 20 or 30 thousand dollars. So it’s not millions,” Stewart said on the podcast. “And so right out of the gate money is not a player. Why? Because Stewie goes overseas, because Stewie has marketing deals that are paying her far more than her WNBA salary.

“Stewie can now look at other things and New York is New York. She’s from Syracuse, which obviously is not New York City, but it makes a difference. It’s closer. Her wife is from Spain. It’s closer. She has a family now. Your priorities and what you need from a team start to shift and change because money is not the only thing at play.

“If Seattle could offer Stewie five more million than New York, I think we’re having a different conversation.”

The conversations around WNBA free agency are starting to grow, particularly as teams like New York appear to be building “Super Teams.” Just a few days ago, they traded for Jonquel Jones, the 2021 WNBA MVP. Reports have also indicated that both Stewart and Chicago Sky guard Courtney Vandersloot would like to play together.

Bird thinks that part of the reason these potential teams are coming together is because of the nature of the women’s game.

“The interesting thing is, because we play overseas together so much we’re around a lot of different players, with a lot of downtime. And I think that’s where super teams are going to get formed,” she said, noting that players are having conversations about their contracts and where they want to play.

“I think we are going to see it more and more, just because those conversations are now happening.”

Part of the reason those conversations are happening, Bird says, is because the league is able to pay players more money. But also, the rules have changed with the most recent CBA.

“For a long time, there wasn’t enough money. The rules were set up in a way where there wasn’t a lot of movement to be had,” Bird said. “People were getting core’d like three, four, five, six times in their career, taking away all opportunity to leave if they wanted to. That has changed. A lot of the rules have changed. The money [has changed].

“Now it’s set up in a way where you can consider things like market, market size, and eyeballs. You can start to consider those things whereas before it wasn’t really a player. There was nothing to be gained whether you were in New York or Indiana, it didn’t really matter. Now it matters. Now it’s a thing.”

France's Olympique Lyonnais is now OL Lyonnes, with team owner Michele Kang announcing the Lyon rebrand of the world's most successful women's soccer club on Monday.

In an effort to distance themselves further from the men's side while still paying homage to the team's home of Lyon, the now-independent club merged the word "lionne," French for lioness, with the city's name.

Along with the new name, OL Lyonnes has a refreshed crest, departing from the club's traditional lion and instead opting for a gold-crowned, blue- and yellow-maned red lioness posed mid-roar.

"This is not about just a name change and some graphic changes," Kang told reporters on Monday. "This is about giving the most successful women's team in the world its own platform, its own identity."

"We’re not a subset of the men's team. We are a standalone force."

New facilities to fuel continued OL Lyonnes dominance

The team, whose roster includes USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps, has a history of setting the standard for what's possible on the women's pitch.

The eight-time Champions League winners scored their 18th Division 1 Féminine championship in 19 years on Friday, boosting the 21-year-old club's tally to a world record-extending 39 titles.

Kang literally bought in on that success, purchasing the club last August, pulling it under the umbrella of her global multi-team organization Kynisca Sports International alongside the NWSL's Washington Spirit and newly promoted WSL side London City.

The rebrand is just one part of Kang's next steps with OL Lyonnes, with the billionaire investor also committing to financing the renovation of the club's boys' academy training facilities to turn them into a new performance center designed specifically for women's soccer athletes.

While the club is aiming for a July 2026 opening of that training center, OL Lyonnes will have a more immediate upgrade for matchdays, with Kang stating that all future games will take place in the 59,186-seat Groupama Stadium — a venue with nearly 39 times the capacity of the nearby 1,524-seat Stade Gérard Houllier that served as the team's primary home pitch.

"From day one, I was impressed with how the women's team has achieved this kind of success with the amount of resources that was available to them," said Kang during the Monday announcement.

"The best team in the world... playing the majority of games at a training center. It is unfitting," Kang told the Associated Press. "We want our fans to be part of our journey, part of our community and you can't achieve fan engagement by constantly switching back and forth."

Adding to their already historic season, 2024/25 WSL champions and 2025 League Cup winners Chelsea FC handed Manchester United a 3-0 defeat in Sunday's 2025 FA Cup final, completing the club's second-ever domestic treble.

Though the Blues first claimed an elusive treble in the 2020/21 season, this year's roster did so without dropping a single match in any of the three domestic competitions.

"I could not have expected this," said first-year Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor about her debut success leading the Blues. "It is almost ideal in terms of domestic dominance."

To clinch that dominance, Chelsea upended the defending FA Cup champs Manchester United at London's iconic Wembley Stadium behind a brace from French fullback Sandy Baltimore and a header from USWNT attacker Catarina Macario.

Baltimore gave Chelsea the lead by slipping a late first-half penalty past 2024/25 WSL Golden Glove winner and USWNT goalkeeper prospect Phallon Tullis-Joyce, and the Blues never relented, with second-half sub Macario doubling their scoreline in the 84th minute before Baltimore tacked on a final goal in stoppage time.

"It's a very emotional day," an emotional Macario told the broadcast after finishing her first season following a long ACL recovery. "It's a trophy we always wanted to win."

"All the credit to my players," said Bompastor. "We showed our mentality and our values in this game so we ended the season in an almost perfect scenario – we won, we were playing at Wembley, the stadium was nearly sold out, and we had a strong performance and result against a strong opponent."

"It is an almost ideal way to finish the season."

FA Cup crowds prove sustained demand for women's soccer

Chelsea FC's undefeated treble-winning season wasn't the only notable victory on Sunday, as the FA Cup final drew a crowd of over 74,000 fans for the third straight year.

Sunday's 74,412 attendance mark was just shy of both last year's crowd of 76,082 and the 77,390 fans who watched Chelsea defeat the Red Devils in 2023 — all well beyond the tournament final's previous record of 49,094 attendees achieved in 2022.

Fueled by the football fervor following England's 2022 Euro victory — the country's first international trophy, men's or women's, since the 1966 men's World Cup — the 2023 FA Cup final still stands as the largest crowd at a domestic women's soccer match across all nations.

With Sunday's match joining the over-74,000 attendance club, it's clear the post-Euros enthusiasm wasn't a blip, but a boost to the continued growth and sustained success of the women's game.

While most WNBA stars hit the court running this weekend, a few saw their 2025 campaigns already shortened as teams released season-opening injury reports.

Phoenix forward Kahleah Copper will miss four to six weeks of play, the Mercury reported on Saturday, after the 2024 Olympic gold medalist underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on her left knee last week.

Another knee injury has LA's Rae Burrell sidelined for the next six to eight weeks, after the fourth-year guard took a knock to the right leg just 41 seconds into the Sparks' 2025 debut win over Golden State.

On Friday, the Mystics released updates on both second-year forward Aaliyah Edwards and rookie guard Georgia Amoore. While another assessment of the Unrivaled 1v1 runner-up's back injury will occur in two more weeks, Washington confirmed that the Australian standout will miss the entire 2025 WNBA season after undergoing a successful surgery to repair her right ACL.

Seattle's Katie Lou Samuelson is also out for the full 2025 campaign, with the 27-year-old Storm forward recovering from last week's successful surgery after tearing her right ACL in practice on May 1st.

Kitley makes long-awaited WNBA debut as Brink eyes return

In more uplifting news, LA's Cameron Brink is on track to return to the Sparks sometime next month, one year after her standout rookie season came to a halt in a left ACL tear.

Already celebrating, however, is 2024 second-round draftee Elizabeth Kitley, who battled back from injury to make her WNBA debut and score her first league points in Las Vegas's Saturday loss to New York.

The Aces took a draft chance on Kitley, despite the center suffering an ACL tear in her final NCAA postseason. In response, the former Virginia Tech star successfully translated her year-long delayed shot at a pro career by surviving Las Vegas's brutal 2025 roster cuts.

Notably, Kitley's close friend and collegiate on-court counterpart with the Hokies is the aforementioned Amoore, who will aim for a rookie-season redo of her own next year.

The No. 1 Kansas City Current strengthened their grip on the 2025 NWSL Shield race on Friday, taking down now-No. 3 Orlando 1-0 on the road to earn a four-point lead atop of the NWSL table.

Reigning league MVP Temwa Chawinga scored the top-table game's lone goal. With five goals in nine matches, Chawinga now sits in a four-way tie for second place in the 2025 Golden Boot race.

"If you don't come with heart, you have no chance," Current head coach Vlatko Andonovski said after the match. "And today I think we showed heart."

Kansas City now stands 7-2-0 on the season, putting the NWSL Shield firmly within their grasp.

Kansas City's rise aside, the weekend's biggest drama hovered near the playoff line.

Gotham FC fell to No. 2 San Diego 1-0 on Friday, sending the Bats skidding to No. 8 on a three-game winless streak while boxing No. 9 North Carolina out of playoff contention — despite the rising Courage securing their third win in four games with Saturday's 2-0 victory over last-place Chicago.

"Obviously, we were hot for a little bit, and teams have slumps all the time, so now it's just finding a way," Gotham midfielder Jaelin Howell said of the team's recent struggles.

While some rebuilds soar, last year's postseason contenders are still finding their way as the league moves into the second third of the 2025 season.