As the NWSL calls it a wrap on a record-breaking 2020 season, all eyes now turn to those stars who are working to increase the visibility and support of the league and its world-class talent. But no, we’re not talking about the players.

For decades, fans of women’s soccer have emerged en masse in four-year cycles to cheer on the U.S. women’s national team as they battle it out for Olympic golds and World Cup Championships. But despite the adulation and fanfare that accompanies each triumph, professional female soccer players have routinely returned home to leagues fighting for survival and clubs that are wildly underfunded.

Despite monumental victories on the world’s stage, funding for the NWSL and the U.S. leagues which preceded it has often floundered due to a host of factors, many of which can be pinned on the unending fight for more air time and sponsorships.

That stops now.

The launch of Angel City FC, the first majority-women founded NWSL team, and one that is backed by a platoon of Hollywood stars, athletes, and influencers, marks a turning point for the longest-running women’s soccer league in U.S. history.

Welcome to the next evolution.

We are #AngelCityFC ✨⚽️ pic.twitter.com/FGdY9jEkNf

— Angel City FC (@weareangelcity) October 21, 2020

Over the next two years, the NWSL will add two new expansion teams, with Racing Louisville FC suiting up next year before the celebrity-backed LA squad hits the turf in 2022. Growth is a positive sign regardless of who is signing the checks, but the derivation and mission of Angel City FC represents a new model for growing professional women’s soccer. It’s a moment that’s turning inspiration into action, one that acknowledges that parades and morning television interviews aren’t enough to keep a business going year-after-year.

 As reported by the New York Times, in a revolutionary shift from traditional protocol, the team owners worked together to implement a foundation of values for Angel City FC that were drafted in consultation with the U.S. women’s national team to ensure that the mission embodied the needs of professional female players. And unlike expansion teams in other sports battling to be the best, Angel City is gearing up to change the game for the entire NWSL by putting pay equity front and center while setting up the necessary infrastructures to make it a reality. It also marks the first time that former players themselves — Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, and Joy Fawcett to name a few — are sitting in the front office.

The founding group, led by Natalie Portman, Kara Nortman, Julie Uhrman, and Alexis Ohanian, will launch the new team at a time when the NWSL is shattering ratings records, pulling in 653,000 viewers for the CBS network broadcast of the Challenge Cup final between the Houston Dash and Chicago Red Stars — a 293% increase compared to last year’s final, which garnered 166,000 viewers. All in all, the league increased its viewership by over 500% this year compared to last.

The LA team is also getting off the ground in the midst of a larger racial reckoning and cultural paradigm shift in the United States. As Olympian and world-champion defender Kelley O’Hara noted on the Just Women’s Sports podcast with Nneka Ogwumike of the Los Angeles Sparks, “sports can drive culture.”

2020 has proven that point in a number tangible ways, from the fight for gender equality to athlete-led protests against racial injustice and police brutality. The diversity exhibited by the founders and founding investors of Angel City FC embodies the notion that pushing the ball forward shouldn’t be the burden of the players alone.

Nearly 30 years ago, a squad of girls set out to revolutionize soccer and change the archaic narratives that were holding back the potential of professional women’s sports in America. Today, thanks in large part to those early USWNT squads, the dream has been realized, and girls around the world can turn on the TV and see themselves chasing victory.

The implementation of Angel City FC  is a manifestation of years of imagining and re-imagining the potential of a professional women’s soccer league. It harkens back to the driving ethos behind the 1991 and 1999 U.S. teams, that no single player was out there for themselves, but they were all playing for each other — and for those who would follow.

U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that the USWNT will play their last home game on July 16th in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Send-Off Match against Costa Rica will take place at Washington, DC’s Audi Field — home to both the Washington Spirit and DC United — at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 16th. The friendly rounds out a four-game Olympic run-up campaign under incoming head coach Emma Hayes’ side, with the last two set to feature the finalized 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team roster.

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Hayes will appear on the USWNT sideline for the first time this June, helming the team as they embark on a two-game series against Korea Republic hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on June 1st followed by Allianz Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 4th. 

The team is then scheduled to meet a talented Mexico squad on July 13th at Gotham FC’s Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, where the Olympic-bound lineup will attempt to rewrite February’s shocking 2-0 loss to El Tri Femenil in the group stages of this year’s Concacaf W Gold Cup. And while clear roster favorites have emerged from both of this year’s Gold Cup and SheBelives Cup rosters, a spate of recent and recurring injuries means making it to the Olympics is still largely anyone’s game.

Broadcast and streaming channels for the USWNT's final July 16th friendly at Audi Field include TNT, truTV, Universo, Max, and Peacock.

The USA Basketball Women's National Team is still considering Caitlin Clark for a spot on the Paris Olympics squad, says selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti. 

On Monday, Rizzotti told the AP that the committee will be evaluating the college phenom’s Olympic prospects by keeping a close eye on her first few weeks of WNBA play with Indiana.

The move is somewhat unconventional. While Clark was invited to participate in the 14-player national team training camp held earlier this month — the last camp before Team USA’s roster drops — she was unable to attend due to it coinciding with Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

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Judging by the immense talent spread throughout the league in what might be their most hyped season to date, competition for a piece of the Olympic pie could be fiercer than ever before.

"You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it's for now or the future," said Rizzotti. "We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It's got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It's still not going to be fair to some people."

Of course, Clark isn’t the first rookie the committee has made exceptions for. Coming off an exceptional college season that saw her averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 4 assists per game for UConn, Breanna Stewart was tapped to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil less than two weeks after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm. Eight years prior, fellow No. 1 pick Candace Parker punched her ticket to the 2008 Games in Beijing just two weeks after making her first appearance for the L.A. Sparks.

In the lead-up to Paris’ Opening Ceremony on July 26th, USA Basketball Women’s National Team is scheduled to play a pair of exhibition games. They'll first go up against the WNBA's finest at the July 20th WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix before facing Germany in London on July 23rd.

While an official roster announcement date hasn’t yet been issued, players won’t find out if they’ve made this year’s Olympic cut until at least June 1st.

For the first time in history, three different WNBA teams have completely sold out of season ticket plans well before the league's May 14th kick-off.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect, attribute it to this year’s tenacious rookie class, or look to the skyrocketing visibility of veteran players across the board. But no matter the cause, facts are facts: Tickets to the 2024 WNBA season are selling like never before. 

On Monday, the Dallas Wings became the third team to sell out of season ticket memberships in the league’s 27-year history. The announcement from Arlington came shortly after the Atlanta Dream issued their own season ticket sell-out statement, also on Monday, and almost seven weeks after the back-to-back WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces made headlines by becoming the first-ever WNBA team to sell out their season ticket allotment.   

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According to the Wings, season ticket memberships will fill nearly 40% of the 6,251 seats inside their home arena, College Park Center. The club also said that their overall ticket revenue has ballooned to the tune of 220% this year, spanning not just season tickets but also a 1,200% increase in single ticket sales. There’s currently a waitlist to become a Dallas season ticket holder, a status that comes with extra incentives like playoff presale access and discounts on additional single-game tickets. 

In Atlanta, season tickets aren't the only thing flying off the shelves. The Dream also announced that they broke their own record for single-game ticket sales during a recent limited presale campaign. Sunday was reportedly their most lucrative day, with five different games totally selling out Gateway Center Arena. Individual tickets for all upcoming matchups will hit the market this Thursday at 8 a.m., while a waitlist for season ticket memberships will open up next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

"Excitement around women's sports, particularly basketball, is at an all-time high and nowhere is that felt more than here in Atlanta," Dream president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in the team’s statement. "We’ve continued a record-setting growth trajectory over the past three years under new ownership — both on and off the court — and 2024 is shaping up to be our best season yet."

As of Tuesday, season ticket sales revenue for Caitlin Clark’s hotly anticipated Indiana Fever debut haven’t yet been announced by the club. But if these numbers are any indication — not to mention the explosive demand for Fever away games felt by teams around the country — it won’t be long before we see some scale-tipping figures coming out of Indianapolis.

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

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The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.