All eyes are on the Commissioner’s Cup, set to tip off between the Seattle Storm and the Connecticut Sun at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday.

That includes those outside of the WNBA.

“It’s a really good idea. Another opportunity for people to see these women compete at the highest level,” Spurs assistant Becky Hammon told the Associated Press. “It’s not foreign to women playing overseas. The WNBA players are used to it.”

Hammon played 16 seasons in the WNBA, starting her career with the New York Liberty and ending it with the San Antonio Stars. Almost every offseason, like most WNBA athletes today, she went overseas to play for another professional team and supplement her WNBA salary.

“They are always fun, always bonuses in everyone’s contract. That was overseas,” she said of the Commissioner’s Cup-style games she was used to. “Put a little something extra on the line.”

For the inaugural Commissioner’s Cup championship game, that bonus includes $500,000 in prize money. The winning team will line each player’s pockets with an additional $30,000, while the game MVP will take home an additional $5,000.

Sun forward Jonquel Jones appreciates the innovation behind the event.

“It’s funny because I feel like in our league we do things first and then you see things on ESPN about how the NBA is thinking about doing an in-season tournament, and I’m like, ‘Been there, done that,’” Jones said. “We are always the first to do things and other leagues do it after that, and I like that we are always the first to bring things up.”

Other players and coaches involved recognize the challenges surrounding the championship game Thursday. The Sun have had three weeks of practice to prepare, while the Storm had five players competing in the Tokyo Olympics and haven’t had as much time to get up to speed with their full roster. That includes Breanna Stewart, Sue Bird and Jewell Loyd, who helped Team USA win its seventh consecutive gold medal in Tokyo.

Neither team has played a WNBA game in five weeks while the league was on a break for the Olympics.

Sun guard DeWanna Bonner said Connecticut has been preparing to perform at their peak, working on plays and defensive schemes and getting some lifting sessions in.

“Coach Miller definitely didn’t take it lightly on us, that is for sure,” Bonner said. “It felt like college all over again.”

“It’s a great story for the broadcast,” Sun coach Curt Miller told reporters on Monday. “Not playing a game for five weeks, are you a little rusty? Are you a little nervous? Are you playing a little fast? Do you settle into the tempo of the game? Or does Seattle look tired and look like they haven’t practiced together?

“We have to get the cobwebs out — we haven’t played a game in five weeks,” Miller continued. “That is the benefit that Stewie, Bird and Lloyd have. They played games throughout this whole stretch and while they may not be beach with their core group practicing as hard as we practiced, there is no substitute for games.”

Meanwhile, the three players returning to the Storm aren’t exactly coming back with fresh legs. Bird and Lloyd tallied 150 minutes and 112 minutes, respectively, for Team USA at the Olympics. Stewart, logging at least 34 minutes in four of the six games, played a tournament-high 192 minutes.

“Obviously it’s not the best for us,” Stewart said in Tokyo about the timing of the Cup game. “We’ll see what happens.”

Jones believes the Sun can take advantage of the Storm’s fatigue.

“It’s just playing smart basketball,” she said. “We can probably get up and down the court a little bit quicker than them. We will just try to work them early to see how tired they are.”

Storm coach Noelle Quinn acknowledged that the minutes Seattle’s three Olympians played in Tokyo and the time the team spent apart in the past month will play a key role in Thursday night’s game.

“It wasn’t that our Olympians were away on vacation; they were away on a work call so to speak,” Quinn said. “I’m hoping that it’s seamless, but there’s very much the reality that the play may not look great those first few possessions because of the time that we’ve had off. We have to get back into a groove and a rhythm.”

Storm center Mercedes Russell feels similarly.

“Honestly, I feel like those first four minutes may get us because we have been off for a month, but it will be nice to be back in game mode,” she said. “For it to be the first Cup of the WNBA is exciting.”

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.