In 2025, Women's Elite Rugby played its inaugural season, marking the first time women in the United States had a professional avenue in the sport, with six founding teams.

Two years into the league’s history, the growing pains aren’t hard to miss — most visibly this season, when fans organized a league-wide blackout in protest of the WER’s trans-exclusion policy.

But no one feels the reality of a new league like the players do. These athletes are playing at a pro level on top of careers and other jobs, commuting hours to practice, and training without access to a dedicated facility. That might sound bleak, and while I do resent the conditions women pros have to deal with in startup leagues, I can’t help but feel proud of what these players are doing: building a legacy of professional women’s rugby because they love the game that much, and care about its future.

Today’s guest, Faith Morley, put all of this into perspective. We talked through:

• Faith’s journey to rugby, out of spite for her older brother

• Her college career and experience playing abroad in Ireland

• What life actually looks like for an athlete in startup leagues like the WER

• Two years of the WER in review, and what Faith hopes to see going forward

• The league's 2026 trans-inclusion controversy, and how players and fans showed their solidarity with the trans community

• The story of the 2026 Exiles season and why they’re coming back hungry next year

Enjoy!

LINKS

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Follow Christiana on Instagram, Substack

We also had a very fun Good Sport event last night: Sports PowerPoint Party. Our speakers treated us to a perfect blend of funny, interesting, and compelling talks. Thank you, Blazers, for hosting us <3 and thanks to everyone who came out.

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NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. Elena Rybakina wins her first US Open. This slam could not have gone better for the Kazakhstani player, who clinched the World No. 1 ranking and won the whole damn thing in NYC, despite coming into the tournament with a foot injury. She defeated hometown favorite Coco Gauff in the semifinals and Aryna Sabalenka in the finals, the latter of whom she had just overtaken in the rankings. The ever-stoic Rybakina came into this tournament looking to cement herself as a force to be reckoned with after an up-and-down few years, and it’s safe to say it was mission accomplished. More on what was at stake for her here.

   

   A nice thing about the women’s finals is we didn’t have to watch a man with multiple domestic violence allegations play tennis. Hunter Harris said it best:

2. Taylor Townsend had a US Open that she—and everyone else—will never forget. First, the doubles specialist had a great singles run, reaching the Round of 16 before losing to Sabalenka, the #1 seed. But the real highlight: Townsend won the US Open doubles championship with her partner, Kateřina Siniaková. This marked the pair's completion of a Career Grand Slam, which for anyone less familiar means a player (or a doubles duo) wins all four major tournaments at some point during their career. Townsend’s star is rising on and off the court, and she’s doing it her way, with brand collaborations, authentic pressers, and fashion pop-ups in Bed-Stuy. Can’t help but root for her.

   

3. Team USA wins its fifth FIBA World Cup in a 97-79 victory over France. That’s five consecutive wins, btw. ’Twas a Liberty family affair at this tournament: It marked the first time in history that a WNBA team had players on each World Cup semifinal team, which makes me test positive for New York pride. Breanna Stewart was named MVP of the tournament, and she had 22 points and nine rebounds in the final game. I’m sad for our girls, Marine Johannès and Pauline Astier, on Team France, but hopefully it gives ‘em some juice to play hard for the Liberty coming back to the W this week.

   

4. The NY Heights head to a decisive Game 3 in the WPBL semifinals. After losing Game 1, the NY Heights leveled the series and won Game 2 against the LA Queens 9-7, thanks to back-to-back home runs. Game 3 is tonight (Monday 9/14), and it’s win or go home. LFG Heights.

What to watch this week

Monday 9/14

⚾ The New York Heights play the Los Angeles Queens in a decisive Game 3 of their WPBL semifinal series at 7:00 pm ET at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, IL. Watch on ESPN Select.

Friday 9/18

🏀 The NY Liberty are at the Minnesota Lynx at 7:30 pm ET. This is New York's first game back from the WNBA's FIBA Women's World Cup break. Watch on ION.

Saturday 9/19

⚽ Gotham FC is at NC Courage at 6:30 pm ET. Watch on ION.

And that’s a wrap…

Thanks for reading, as always! New pod episode coming later this week <3

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Enjoy, and tune in to these games tonight!

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The top 4 seeds make it to the US Open semis

Christiana: As of about two hours ago, the semis were finalized: we’ve got Aryna Sabalenka and Jess Pegula, and Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina. It’s the first time all four top seeds have reached the women’s semis since 1975. So, looking at that field, what were you tracking coming into this?

Ryan: My first Courtship newsletter was about how these were the four women that stood a chance at getting the world number one ranking. Sabalenka held that ranking for 99 consecutive weeks. Going into the US Open, any of the four could have come out the other side as world number one, depending on how they did. And we now learned today that no matter what happens after today, Rybakina will be world number one, because she won her quarterfinal.

Christiana: How does that work?

Ryan: It’s the live rankings, basically a yearly calendar, so your ranking points are really relative to how you did last year. Because Sabalenka won the Open last year, she can’t actually win any points in these two weeks — all she can do is defend her points. She got 2,000 points for last year’s Open. If she loses in the final this year, she’ll lose points, even though she made it all the way to the final. In a vacuum, that should be enough for her to remain number one, because it’s quite a feat to hold onto those 2,000 points. But she hasn’t had the best year, and she hasn’t scored the most points in other tournaments. Rybakina won the Australian Open, which she didn’t do particularly well at last year — she went out in the round of 16. So just by getting to a semifinal here, Rybakina’s now earned enough points to put herself in front.

Christiana: So it’s like, great, you got the number one spot, now turn around and defend it as best you can.

Ryan: Right, Elena Rybakina will gain more points by winning the final, but she doesn’t need to to hold on to number one — the margin is such that whether Coco, Jess, or Aryna win their semis, that will not be enough to catch her. So that was really the story I was tracking most on the women’s side, and it’s fun that even though we got a little bit of a premature ending to it, these are the four women at the end anyway. There’s still so much at stake — emotionally, resume-wise, bucket-list-wise.

The stakes: Aryna Sabalenka

Christiana: So let’s go through the stakes for each of them individually. Starting with Aryna Sabalenka.

Ryan: She’s just lost that #1 ranking, which is really hard. To get to 99 consecutive weeks, you want to hit 100. 99 weeks total already puts her in a really elite club, but still, this has got to sting. And we all know this has not been a fantastic year for her. When the hard court season started after Wimbledon — hard court is really her surface — we might have expected a little more domination from her, and instead there were early exits. She hasn’t beaten a top-10 player since Miami, which was back in the spring.

So what’s really at stake for her isn’t just proving “yes, I can still do this, you should still be afraid of me, I’m still the tiger queen.” It’s that this would be the third time in a row she’s won the US Open — the three-peat, which is so rare. She had a chance at doing it this year in Australia, and the person who took that from her was Rybakina. It’s very possible they’ll show down again in the final, and that would be an incredible story: can she get her revenge, can she get this three-peat, can she get back on top mentally and performance-wise?

Christiana: So for people who haven’t followed her year as closely, what’s the story behind her struggles lately?

Ryan: My interpretation is she has a hard time when the match isn’t already going her way. Coco knows how to do what we call “winning ugly”. Her former coach, Brad Gilbert, wrote a book called Winning Ugly, and his whole philosophy is win the match even if that means dragging your opponent down into the mud with you. That’s kind of a Coco Gauff special—she doesn’t have to play her best tennis; she’ll make sure you play your worst tennis with her, and hers will somehow be good enough.

With Sabalenka, her firepower and her weapons are so central that when they’re not firing, I don’t see her finding another gear. So I think there’s maybe a little bit of versatility and imagination missing. She’s so dominant, and when she’s not, she can unravel.

Christiana: Do you think the loss of the number 1 ranking matters to her? Or do you think she’s not even thinking about that and just wants to win the tournament?

Ryan: She probably has an attachment to number one that the other women hadn’t necessarily formed in their minds, because she had it for so long. So I do believe this stings, but she had to have come into this tournament with a much bigger goal than that, because she didn’t know how this was going to play out. I’d imagine her larger motivation is to prove what a champion she is. To have been number one for as long as she has, but not been able to beat the people at her elite level for going on five months now, I think that’s actually the fire under her. If I were in her shoes, this would really be about reestablishing what her name means and the kind of dominance she’s tasted in the past, especially at this point of the year — from now through next March we’re on hard court, so she wants to scare the other women a little. I’m rooting for all of them in different ways, but as Sabalenka fans, we’ve had a hard time knowing she can play better than this, because it has to be mental — the skill is there.

Christiana: I’m curious: Do you think it’s better for her opponents that she just lost the number one ranking now, because maybe it knocks her confidence going into semis? Or should they actually be more scared, because now she has something to prove?

Ryan: I wish it were the latter. It’s a better story; I love the idea of her going in fired up. And no matter how she performs, she will be fired up. She’s not one to come in cool as a cucumber. But looking at her past results in these high-stakes, something-to-prove moments, I’m actually not sure that’s where we see her best tennis. So if I’m the other three…obviously Rybakina’s thrilled this happened, since she’s the one who has number one now. But even if you’re Coco or Jess, I think you’re feeling a little bit better that this happened before the semis.

The stakes: Jess Pegula

Christiana: Let’s move on to Jess Pegula, who will be playing Sabalenka in the semis. What’s the story for Pegula here?

Ryan: If I had to give it to you in one sentence: always the bridesmaid, never the bride. She’s performed at an incredibly high level for a while now—a top-five, top-ten staple—and has never won a Grand Slam. That’s not very rare on the men’s side, because we’ve had the dominance of the Big Three—Federer, Nadal, Djokovic—and now Sinner and Alcaraz. On the women’s side, part of why I prefer women’s tennis is the sheer unpredictability. You have so many one-time Slam winners. I think this year alone, and it extends into last year, every Grand Slam has had a unique winner. That’s what’s so fun: the suspense of it all. So if you’re Pegula thinking, “How has it never been my turn? I know how to beat these players, but I don’t know how to win the big one,” she’s got yet another chance to do it. There’s just not necessarily an indicator that there’s a deeper well or another gear for her to shift into when she gets there. American tennis fans always love a hometown favorite, and I think the odds are on Coco, just because of past performance. Even a few years ago, when the Netflix documentary series Break Point came out, you could hear the pain in Jess’s voice when she was talking about how a Grand Slam win hadn’t happened for her yet. Fast-forward to 2026 and it’s still the same story. So I think for her, it’s a story she’s absolutely ready to rewrite.

Christiana: Has she made it to a lot of finals before, and it’s just never dropped her way?

Ryan: For singles, she’s got to one major final—the 2024 US Open—and she lost to Sabalenka. Making it to finals isn’t really a staple of her career outside the Slams either. She has won some titles already this year, but the most recent one was in April. Coco has a much more recent one, from Cincinnati. I think if this plays out and she can get to the final, it would be the sign of a new level for her.

Semi-Final Matchup: Sabalenka vs Pegula

Christiana: So that’s a big thing at stake — proving she can do it, and tomorrow being a rematch of that final. What are you thinking about going into their matchup?

Ryan: They’ve played 13 times, Sabalenka’s won nine of them. On paper she’s the favorite, but obviously anything can happen — they both played really tough three-set matches yesterday, with points where it looked like the match was slipping out of their hands before they clawed their way back. I think the question is just which version of each of them shows up. It’d be exciting to watch the underdog shock us all.

Christiana: Anything on the style of play you’re looking at?

Ryan: They’re both incredibly flat hitters. Not to get too into the weeds with technique, but that’s what distinguishes them from a Coco Gauff or an Iga Świątek, who hit with a lot of topspin and really like to shape the ball. Sabalenka and Pegula clobber it flat — Sabalenka with even more power, while Pegula is known more for her depth and consistency rather than everything being a straight-up winner. I believe she’s known for having the flattest shot shape across the entire top 100 of the women’s tour. That’s not necessarily a detriment against a Sabalenka, since she’s going to hit you a flat ball back too. But if she makes it into a final against a Coco, where the ball has more shape, that’s the clash of the titans — and it’s often a disadvantage to the flat hitter, because Coco’s ball bounces really high, and hitting that flat can just sail long.

The Stakes: Coco Gauff

Christiana: Perfect segue over to Coco. Her match today almost killed me. Tell me about your thoughts on Coco coming into this tournament, and what it all means for her.

Ryan: Coco is the hometown favorite — she’s not from New York, she’s from Florida, but New York really claims her as their own, as all of America does. She’s so beloved. She’s 22 years old and still somehow feels like the most mature player on tour. She’s so graceful speaking on anything from her own shortcomings to issues with decisions made at the institutional level. You can’t help but root for her. Sometimes I emotionally struggle to root for her because it’s just too stressful — this time last year I said, “Coco, love you girl, I gotta pick another favorite ‘cause you’re gonna kill me.”

Christiana: Sometimes we have to take a tolerance break even from our favorites. What else should we know about Coco going into these finals?

Ryan: The on-paper story for her is: can she win the US Open again, after winning it all in 2023? But the more interesting story is that she parted ways with her coach last year because she knew something wasn’t working.

There have been persistent issues in her game — her serve and her forehand, both really important shots; some would say the two most important shots. A good serve wins you a lot of free points, but Coco’s led the tour in double faults the last two years. She’s constantly giving points away, and if she wasn’t as mentally tough as she is, that would break another player. Her forehand is so error-prone that if you watch a Coco match knowing that, you’ll see every ball that comes in goes to her forehand — opponents don’t want to send it to the other side, because it’s more consistent. So at her young age, she was smart enough to recognize she needed a change, and brought in Gavin MacMillan, a biomechanics and serve expert who, funnily enough, fixed Sabalenka’s serve several years ago. Sabalenka used to be so mired in her double faults she’d cry on court mid-match, and now her serve is a weapon.

We’re already starting to see it with Coco — she won Cincinnati, the big lead-up tournament right before the Open, and it felt like everything clicked — all the pieces of her game came together into one whole. It’s been exciting to wonder: does that mean she’ll pull it off here too, across seven matches? I’ve been ready to see her win from the beginning—and I say that as someone who, a year ago, kind of disowned her as a stan—she’s made that much progress. Today was kind of the first sign that maybe there’s still some inconsistency, but I give her the benefit of the doubt that it was one match, and if anything, surviving it gives me even more hope. So I think the Coco Gauff story right now is: is my new and improved game as new and improved as I think it is? Is this where I get to say, as much as I’ve accomplished by 22, I’m still just getting started; I’m only going to keep getting better? And I think the answer, if she can win the US Open, would be a resounding yes.

The Stakes: Elena Rybakina

Christiana: Tell me about Elena Rybakina — she just became the world number one in the rankings. What’s at stake for her this last weekend?

Ryan: She’s such an interesting, enigmatic figure on tour, from her level of consistency to her demeanor. She’s mostly known for how little emotion she shows. After she won the Australian Open, she barely looked like she’d won a point, like it was a casual match against a friend.

Christiana: She’s incredibly stoic. I feel like that sets her apart from these other women.

Ryan: Right, it’s so much easier to map the emotional stakes onto these other players because they’ll show them to you. Today, when she got the world number one ranking, she was just like “cool.” Big moments of emotion are just not her thing.

But getting to world number one — it’s the first time she’s ever gotten here — is a huge achievement, especially for someone who won Wimbledon in 2022 and then didn’t have a whole lot else to her name until this year. That’s three and a half years of “will I ever get back to that peak?” Then she wins the Australian Open this January, but then she went a little more MIA than you’d expect again.

She had an ankle injury that pulled her out of Cincinnati right before this tournament, and in the middle of “can she reach world number one,” a lot of us assumed that chance was over for her. Instead, she comes here and plays her ass off. One thing I love about her: when she’s on, I don’t know that anyone can beat her — she’s breathtaking to watch.

Her story is really: I’ve gone through so many ups and downs, faced so many doubts, internal and external, just gotten through an injury that should have taken this away from me, and now I’ve achieved it — world number one. Can I cap it off in style? Can I get the kind of result that lets me actually hold onto it?

Christiana: Whoa, that’s a lot of factors for her going into this. There are a couple of ways one could think about her situation. She overcomes this injury, she’s flying through the draw, she becomes world number one. Now it’s almost like she doesn’t have anything to lose. Or, she could feel like this is her moment to underline why she deserved that number one spot and silence her naysayers.

But she’s so stoic, maybe that doesn’t even compute for her — maybe she’s just “I like tennis, and I’m good at this,” which has got to be a huge asset, I’d think, because we have these other women here whose success can be at the mercy of how they’re feeling that day.

Ryan: Definitely. In tennis, some players use their emotion as fuel; other players slip on it like a banana peel. Sabalenka’s emotional, and for her it can go either way. With Rybakina, I don’t know if it’s just the outward appearance or if it’s actually her lived experience, but she’s so even-keeled and equally detached from the outcome — and that really can be a gift, like you said. Even Sabalenka said she thinks part of why she won her quarterfinal against Noskova was that she started telling herself she had already lost, she had nothing left to lose, and that’s when you start playing free. So maybe that’s Rybakina’s secret sauce too — the more muted intensity lets her play like she doesn’t give a shit. Even though of course she does — living out of a suitcase, surgeries for injuries you’ve sustained, you have to give a shit. There’s no way she doesn’t.

Semi-Final Matchup: Gauff vs Rybakina

Christiana: Thinking of these two, Coco and Elena — what are you looking for in this matchup?

Ryan: I think this match is going to be the more interesting of the two semifinals. Their attitudes are similar — both incredibly calm under pressure — so I don’t think we’ll necessarily see fireworks in emotional displays, but I think we will in the shot-making.

Coco plays with so much variety, and she’s an incredible doubles player, so she loves coming to the net and doing things that are outside other players’ comfort zones. What she’s really known for that I haven’t touched on yet is her incredible defense — she’s just an athlete; she’ll run down any ball. I guarantee there’ll be points tomorrow that become the new highlight reel, where she runs corner to corner to corner about ten times, past the point where it stops making sense, and then wins the point anyway. You can never count her out. And that’s what you get with Elena Rybakina, who, when her accuracy is dialed in, hits the ball so fast and so cleanly and so close to the line that if you can’t move like Coco, you’re done. So I think they’re perfectly set up to handle each other.

What’s interesting is we don’t have a lot of data on how they play each other — they’ve only played each other twice, and their head-to-head is tied 1:1. Coco won their first matchup when she was 19 at the 2022 Canadian Open, but when they met most recently this year, Rybakina won. So I think this one’s pretty impossible to call. Coco can win whether she plays her A or her B level, but I think Rybakina needs her A level, because her B level has a steeper drop-off — she plays without a ton of margin, so she’s gotta be nailing it. I think this could’ve been the final, just in terms of sheer unpredictability.

Christiana: This might be the most interesting matchup we have here.

US Open Women’s Finals Predictions

Christiana: What’s your ideal final matchup?

Ryan: Not to knock Jess Pegula, I think she’s so talented, I just don’t find her tennis as compelling as the other three. If our final ends up being Coco versus Sabalenka, the story is so there — Coco’s beaten her at the US Open, she beat her at the French Open last year, she knows exactly how to frustrate Sabalenka, and when you frustrate Sabalenka, that’s when you get the fireworks and the screams — that can be really electrifying TV.

When Coco beat Sabalenka at the French Open, Sabalenka was so bitter she gave a really shady press conference afterward, basically saying, “Well, Coco didn’t win, I lost.” Though they patched it up and made a TikTok together, you have to wonder if there’s a wound there. I’d be excited for that rematch.

And for Rybakina and Sabalenka — here’s the player who just took your crown, and here’s the player who stole your Australian Open title in January, so are you going to let her take this one too? Either one would be a great final, honestly — those stories are pretty damn good.

Christiana: So what’s your prediction — who’s in the final, and who wins?

Ryan: My gut says it’s a Coco-Sabalenka final, and Coco wins. That felt dialed in until today’s Coco match gave me a little pause — but Rybakina didn’t have a great match either; she figured it out and turned it around, and she raised her level more than Coco did to get the win. I just think either of them beats Sabalenka this year, which is bittersweet to say out loud, because Sabalenka’s so good that you want her to take home more of these.

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Other Key US Open storylines

Christiana: Our focus is on these four women, but there have been a lot of cool stories at this Open — from both the women’s side and the men’s side, and all the cultural stuff around the tournament. What else have you been paying attention to?

Ryan: One storyline not connected to these four is Qinwen Zheng. She was in the top 10, an incredibly dominant player two years ago — she beat Iga Świątek at the Paris Olympics for gold, on a court that was absolutely Iga’s to lose, since they played at Roland Garros, where Iga had won four times. Then Zheng faced an injury, and her ranking fell all the way to number 121. She had to play qualifying matches for this US Open, so she played three more matches than these other women before the tournament even started. She only just lost today to Rybakina. I saw an interview she did with Jessica Schiffer, who runs Hardcourt, one of the best tennis Substacks out there, where she talks about what that does to you mentally — representing your country, being a Chinese player who’s sort of alone in the echelon she used to occupy, since there weren’t a lot of other Chinese players even near the top 10. There was so much weight on her shoulders, and not being able to find her footing again took her to a dark place at times. So I was really happy to see her make a deep run — she even won the first set against Rybakina. Zheng could have won that match, and we could have been talking about her instead. I think that’s a really beautiful story.

Christiana: I’m happy for her; that’s great. I also thought Taylor Townsend has had a really cool U.S. Open story. She had a great singles run, and her star feels like it’s rising, too. She did a fashion pop-up in Bed-Stuy here in Brooklyn, and she’s so authentic with the press — she’s like a Coco in that way, but rawer. I feel really drawn to how she carries herself.

Ryan: I wrote about her in my piece going up Friday, because I think we should all be watching her doubles final — she just won her semifinal with Katerina Siniakova, and the two of them together are unstoppable. They’ve been number one in doubles for a while now, and that’s what I love watching even when Taylor plays singles — she brings that doubles mentality, goes to the net, and does anything up there because she’s such a lethal weapon in doubles. It’s never a dull moment watching her, and she brings something a lot of other players don’t have. I’d love to see her win the US Open in doubles, and honestly I think she will — I never bet against those two.

I agree that’s not necessarily a new story for her, since she’s so dominant in doubles all the time. But what does feel new is the way she’s claiming her space as a star. I think a lot of other players focus on the tennis, and then the brands either get excited about them or they don’t. Taylor feels like someone charting her own path, saying, “I’ve decided what I want my uniform to look like, and I don’t necessarily need it to come from a big brand’s department — I’ll fashion it myself.” You can feel that, and you can see how hard people ride for her in the comments — she’s collected a really loyal following. I think it’s smart and inspiring to lean into that. Because honestly, in this world, women’s doubles doesn’t always get the respect it deserves; at the institutional level, they keep cutting resources for it, and the stories don’t get told. She feels like one of the few breakout stars we have.

Christiana: It’s so cool to see trailblazers like her in a tennis world that can be strict about how things are done and how people get deals. Black women have a legacy of doing that in tennis, obviously. She’s exactly where she belongs on this stage. Anything on the men’s side you’ve been loving before we close out?

Ryan: Now that Carlos Alcaraz is out of the tournament, I’ve been feeling Ben Shelton, too. And I have been since before Djokovic lost — I made Ben my winner prediction last week. If we get Coco and Ben as our US Open winners, to have two Americans…And the first American man to win the US Open since Andy Roddick did in 2003, and the first Black male player to win since Arthur Ashe. And to do that alongside Coco, who is also just an incredible trailblazer for Black athletes, I just can’t imagine a better story.

Christiana: It’s just so fun to root for them. And with Shelton and Tiafoe facing off in the men’s semis, a Black American man is guaranteed to reach the US Open final for the first time since Arthur Ashe. I grew up playing tennis, but this is the first year I’m following the Open to the extent that I feel the anguish of this sport. There’s something about individual athletes vs team sports where it is just so personal and intimate, seeing them get frustrated and looking at their coaches and doing all these things. It impacts me so much.

Ryan: I don’t know if you saw that emotional moment between Frances Tiafoe and Alex Michelsen after Tiafoe won. It was tragic, but it was beautiful, too, and it just reminds you what it’s like. You don’t have a team that’s shouldering that loss with you. There’s no teammate. Andre Agassi, in his memoir Open, calls it the loneliest sport. Not only is it individual, but your opponent is also very far away from you. You’re these two gladiators surrounded by cheering fans, but you don’t ever make contact. Even when they cross at the changeover sides after the odd-numbered games, they don’t look at each other; they don’t talk to each other. It’s very isolating.

It makes these moments of victory so much more impactful. I’ll be so thrilled for whoever wins, and I just have to hope that whoever loses can carry it without letting it turn into scar tissue, because the great thing about tennis is there’s just always another tournament on the horizon — the momentum shifts just never stop.

Christiana: Before we close out, can you tell us about Courtship? What can readers expect?

Ryan: Courtship is written for tennis fans who already follow the game but are looking for a different conversation around it; I talk about these players like I’m in a group chat, bringing you their lore, keeping it real without denigrating anyone. What I think I offer that you won’t get from legacy media, or even some other Substacks that have relationships with these brands, is a really unvarnished take and a personal connection to the sport.

But if you’re someone who loves women’s sports and tennis is new to you, I’d encourage you to check us out, too — I’m breaking it down week by week, as an ongoing story of who these people are and why this week in tennis matters in a larger context. That’s what you need when you jump into any new sport — someone to hold your hand and tell you why it all matters, and why it’s worth staying up till 3 a.m. for a match.

Another thing about Canmore: It’s roughly 4,300 feet above sea level. Something about me: I’m sensitive to altitude change. When I went to Denver for the first time, I got the spins after one measly margarita. It makes me think about how athletes will train at higher altitudes to gain an edge over their opponents, since their bodies adjust by producinh more red blood cells and growing new capillaries (ew), which boosts oxygen delivery and muscle efficiency. So in my case, this means I’ll be able to jump to Mr. Brightside—mandatory at a wedding if one of the betrothed attended a Big Ten university—in a vastly superior manner at my next sea-level wedding. Eat your heart out…

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REMINDER: Good Sport’s next event is this week. Join us on Sunday 9/13 for Sports PowerPoint Party at Blazers. The lineup of talks is shaping up to be a mix of funny, informative, and crazy. RSVP here.

NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. The women of the US Open are giving us a show on and off the court. Here’s what I’ve been loving: Naomi Osaka outdoes herself with the court walk-in outfits, including a tribute to Allen Iverson during Round 1 that featured his signature cornrows and arm sleeve. Taylor Townsend’s hard work is paying off, and her star is rising; the doubles specialist made it to the Round of 16 in singles and put up a great fight against world #1 Aryna Sabalenka, showing she can compete with the world’s best singles players. Townsend’s authenticity seems to come naturally; she was open about what her success in this tournament has meant after a difficult year, and she’s gaining a ton of fans for her candor and how fun she is to watch. I liked Sabalenka telling a reporter off earlier in the tournament for implying she partied too much. My GOAT Coco doing Coco shit; I loved her yellow New Balance set from Saturday’s match. Plus, we got to see Venus and Serena hit the court as doubles partners. Lots of big matches coming this week; peep the schedule below for details.

2. The WPBL post-season picture is set. The semifinals kick off on Wednesday. No. 1 San Francisco faces No. 4 Boston in Series A, while No. 2 New York takes on No. 3 Los Angeles in Series B. Here’s how it’ll work: Each semifinal is best-of-three, and the first team to win two games advances. The Series A and Series B winners meet in the best-of-five WPBL Championship, with the first team to win three games claiming the title. Here’s a great write-up on our NY Heights semi-final match-up vs the LA Queens. We have momentum on our side thanks to a few clutch wins in the last few regular-season games that led us to clinch the #2 seed, but this is a very evenly matched series. Should be a blast…

   

3. Liberty forward Satou Sabally out for the season. Sabally suffered her second concussion in 8 months in June, and it was announced last week that she has been ruled out for the remainder of this season due to lingering symptoms. This is a huge loss for our team going into playoffs, but it is absolutely the right call for her long-term health. She is also missing out on representing Germany in the FIBA World Cup as a result. After losing Sabally, the Liberty signed developmental player Anneli Maley to a standard player contract and guard/forward Madison Scott to a developmental contract.

What to watch this week

Monday 9/7

🏀 Team USA closes out group play at the FIBA Women's World Cup against Czechia at 2:45 pm ET (8:45 pm in Berlin). USA is 2-0 in group play so far.

Tuesday 9/8

🎾 US Open women's singles quarterfinals matches. Watch on ESPN

Wednesday 9/9

🎾 US Open women's singles quarterfinals matches. Watch on ESPN

Thursday 9/10

⚾ The New York Heights play the Los Angeles Queens in Game 1 of their WPBL semifinal series at 7:00 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

🏀 Team USA plays its FIBA Women's World Cup quarterfinal in Berlin, opponent and exact time slot are still TBD until the rest of the bracket is set. Watch on TNT/truTV, or stream on HBO Max.

🎾 US Open women's singles semifinals, roughly 7-11 pm ET. Watch on ESPN.

Friday 9/11

⚽ Gotham FC is at Racing Louisville FC at 6:30 pm ET. Watch on NWSL+.

Saturday 9/12

⚾ The New York Heights play the Los Angeles Queens in Game 2 of their WPBL semifinal series at 7:00 pm ET at Robin Roberts Stadium. Watch on ESPN.

🏀 If Team USA advances, it plays its FIBA semifinal in Berlin, opponent/exact slot TBD — the two semifinal windows are roughly 10:30 am and 2:00 pm ET. Watch on TNT/truTV, or stream on HBO Max.

🎾 US Open women's singles final at 4:00 pm ET. Watch on ESPN.

Sunday 9/13

🏀 FIBA Women's World Cup third-place game (~10:30 am ET) and final (~2:00 pm ET) in Berlin: Team USA plays if it advances. USA is going for a 5th straight world title. Watch on TNT/truTV, or stream on HBO Max.

Classifieds & Community

Shouts and calls from the community. Things to do. Plus jobs.

And that’s a wrap…

Thanks as always for reading! We’ll be hitting your inbox again this week, all about the last women standing at the U.S. Open. See you then.

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And I have a specific call-out for my dear readers: If you have an idea for a talk and want to participate as a speaker, I would LOVE to hear from you! For more info + to submit your pitch, head over to the beautiful Google Form here.

Can’t wait to see you there! And with that, here’s your newsletter.

On the Good Sport podcast: Our amazing pod editor Rosabelle hosted last week’s episode and interviewed ME about why I’m building a women’s sports media company. We had such fun! Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

Listen to the pod

NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. Former Gotham FC star Esther González sparks backlash after signing with Al-Qadsiah of the Saudi Women’s Premier League. Earlier this month, González announced her departure from the NWSL and mutual contract termination with Gotham FC, citing personal reasons that needed her attention back home in Spain. Last week, it was announced that she signed with Al-Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia. Part of the backlash stems from her identity; González is a publicly out queer woman with a wife and child, who will now be playing in a country that criminalizes same-sex relationships and gender nonconformity. Photos with her family have been removed from her Instagram. The other bit is soccer-related; some Gotham fans are concerned she ended her contract under false pretenses, citing family reasons when really she wanted to leave Gotham after the team signed Sam Kerr. It sparks a lot of questions and feelings in me, and I think I’ll try to write a longer piece about this soon.

   

2. What’s eating Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu? During Saturday’s game against the Sky, Ionescu missed all 10 of her field goal attempts, including seven inside the arc. She’s 8-for-53 from deep over the last eight games. Naturally, critics and some fans are calling it out and saying she needs to play less, especially as the Liberty bench players like Han Xu and Rebecca Gardner make a case for more time. But Sab isn’t sweating it, at least not outwardly: “It’s not that big of a deal to me…I know who I am. I know what I’m able to do. Kind of felt like the ball was allergic to the rim there for me. Like it’s literally just toilet-bowling out. I’m not really understanding. They’re not bad misses. They’re just literally popping out, so sometimes you just gotta laugh and shake it off.”

   Her teammates and coach know who she is, too, and reiterated their support in the post-game presser. So what’s eating her? My take is her injuries are more pesky than she cares to admit, especially back pain when working through a rigorous W schedule. I think her confidence is a bit knocked as a result, and getting snubbed for the US roster for the World Cup couldn’t have helped. That said, a nearly three-week break for the FIBA World Cup to rest and get her shot back is just what the doctor (and NY fans) ordered.

   

3. Seven New York Liberty are headed to the FIBA World Cup in Berlin. We lead the WNBA in the number of players selected from a team to represent their home country in this year’s World Cup. Here’s the breakdown of who’s headed abroad and where they’re from:

• Breanna Stewart – United States

• Marine Johannes – France

• Pauline Astier – France

• Han Xu – China

• Elizabeth Balogun – Nigeria

• Leonie Fiebich – Germany

• Raquel Carrera – Spain

What to watch this week

Thursday 9/3

⚾ The New York Heights play the LA Queens at 7:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Friday 9/4

⚾ The New York Heights play the San Francisco Firebells at 7:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Sunday 9/6

⚽ Gotham FC is at Denver Summit FC at 2:00 pm ET. Watch on CBS.

Classifieds

Shouts and calls from the community. Plus some jobs.

And that’s a wrap…

Thanks as always for reading. See you next time :)

I wanted to use this week’s post as an opportunity to spell out why I’m building Good Sport and what the big vision is here, so our editor Rosabelle did a huge coup, took the mic, and interviewed ME all about it.

Spoiler: Good Sport exists because I wanted to create a media outlet for women’s sports that I wished existed as a fan. One that’s more swaggy than girlboss, more gen-z than millennial (no shade, I’m 27 and a generational cusper), and more pro-women than clickbaity. I want to help build the cultural relevancy of this space and tell the stories that get lost in the bigger news streams. I want to celebrate the distinct cultures in different cities around women’s sports.

And I want to have fun! Is that too much to ask?! No, because I’m in charge of my own destiny…Here’s what Rosabelle and I covered:

• What Good Sport NYC actually is, and why we’re building it

• What’s missing from the current state of women’s sports media

• Cool work happening right now: the WNBA’s 30th season campaign, the New York Liberty’s retro branding, and the indie creators doing the best work out

• Three months of Good Sport by the numbers

• What it’s been like building this thing solo and on the side of a full-time job, and what I’ve learned so far

• The five-year vision: a national network of Good Sport hubs

• My sports origin story, including my soccer-themed room and Mia Hamm posters

• Women’s sports trivia: Cromer family edition

Enjoy this episode :) I had so much fun with Rosabelle talking about it all.

LINKS

Subscribe to Good Sport NYC on Substack

Follow Good Sport NYC on Instagram, TikTok

Follow Christiana on Instagram, Substack

Follow Rosabelle on Instagram

As reported by many outlets, and as corroborated by my friends who went to the game, it was a tense and frankly distressing experience, with anti-trans protesters clashing with trans allies who were rallying in response. The women’s sports scene in our city is a safe space for queer and trans people, and even from my personal genderqueer safe space (living room couch), I felt violated and pissed and disheartened.

But the thing about these people rallying around Cunningham is they aren’t women’s sports fans. This Sportico video asking protesters from both sides to name five WNBA players speaks for itself. The handful of people I’ve personally argued with about trans inclusion in women’s sports do not watch women’s sports. And that’s because, to them, it isn’t about women’s sports. It isn’t about women, either. It’s about power. If you get to your first WNBA game via the fandom of an ignorant white girl who isn’t exceptionally good at basketball, I don’t really trust the integrity of your argument.

Sophie Cunningham is now sticking to a comfy script when asked about all this; she’s glad people are exercising their freedom of speech, but she’s focusing on basketball. The Liberty beat the Fever, 109-102. Focus harder, I guess.

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NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. Fiebich back, Fever beaten. The NY Liberty forward Leonie Fiebich is back after missing 16 games with a foot injury, and all I can say is thank god. She put up 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists in 34 minutes in our win over the Fever, a very efficient first shift back which earned her Player of the Game. Seeing Leo impact both ends of the court made me feel a lot better about heading into the post-season…Speaking of which….

2. 2026 WNBA Playoff spot clinched by the NY Liberty. With a loss by the Portland Fire on Sunday, we stamped our ticket to the playoffs. We’re now sitting at #6 in the standings. Here’s the current picture:

   

3. Rose Lavelle exits with an injury during Gotham’s tie with Angel City. I hate seeing players get hurt. I especially hate seeing any player get what looks like a concussion. So seeing Gotham FC’s star midfielder go down with a probable concussion last night… sick to my stomach. The team hasn’t shared more details about her injury as of writing this Monday morning, but she left the game and didn’t return. Losing Lavelle for the season would be a huge blow to our team. Watch this space. And watch her guest appearance on Broadway’s Titanique as well for fun:

What to watch this week

Thursday 8/27

🏀 The Liberty host the Golden State Valkyries at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on Prime Video.

⚾ The New York Heights host the Los Angeles Queens at 6:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Friday 8/28

⚽ Gotham FC hosts Portland Thorns FC (Pride Night) at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on Prime Video.

Saturday 8/29

🏀 The Liberty host the Chicago Sky at 1:00 pm ET. Watch: not yet announced — check liberty.wnba.com.

⚾ The New York Heights play the Los Angeles Queens at 6:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Sunday 8/30

⚾ The New York Heights play the San Francisco Firebells at 6:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Classifieds

Shouts and calls from the community. Plus some jobs.

And that’s a wrap…

Thanks, as always, for reading. Close to 300 subs…Love ya.

There’s a gap in local media around women’s sports. Massive growth in this space has led to more coverage and investment overall, but there aren’t enough resources dedicated to the specific women’s sports scenes and cultures in different cities. So I’m taking a whack at it myself, starting here in New York, not as a sports expert or journalist, but as a fan who felt that gap myself.

Good Sport covers the NYC women’s sports scene, mostly from a cultural lens. This weekly newsletter contains highlights from what’s going on with NYC’s pro women’s sports teams (both on and off the court), plus a weekly game schedule, events, and more fun stuff.

If you have feedback, ideas, skills to share…I want to hear all about it. Hit reply, DM me, talk to me if you see me around. I would love to know what you think.

Now here’s your newsletter :)

Subscribe now

On the Good Sport NYC podcast: Kenny Saint-Vil—longtime NY Liberty loyal and WNBA reporter—joined us for a temperature check on our team three months into the season. Listen on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. Sabrina On SLAM. The NY Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu is the latest cover star for SLAM, announcing her SLAM X Nike Sabrina 4s. I think these are fire. Nike and SLAM did some cool promo with a Sabrina 4 Slushy Truck that popped up around Brooklyn and at Barclays ahead of last week’s game against the Sparks.

2. Sam Kerr set some new records this weekend. In a 2-1 win over the KC Current, Sam Kerr scored after a pass from Jaedyn Shaw, becoming the first player in NWSL history to reach 80 regular-season goals, and setting a new franchise record (31 goals) for regular-season goals scored. Not bad for just two months back in NYC.

   

3. Gotham FC is sitting pretty at the top. Speaking of soccer, our win against KC marks our 8th in a row, giving us a 6-point first-place lead at the top of the NWSL standings. NYC is in fact a soccer town.

   

What to watch this week

Tuesday 8/18

🏀 The Liberty are at the Chicago Sky at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on ESPN or Fubo.

Wednesday 8/19

⚾ The New York Heights play the San Francisco Firebells at 6:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Thursday 8/20

⚾ The New York Heights play the Boston Hunters at 6:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Saturday 8/22

🏀 The Liberty host the Indiana Fever at 7:00 pm ET. Watch on Prime Video.

⚾ The New York Heights play the Los Angeles Queens at 6:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Sunday 8/23

⚽ Gotham FC is at Angel City FC at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on ION.

Events

All-Love Racquet Club just dropped three different event dates for their August NYC Tour. Dates and info here.

Women’s Sports Rally is hosting a WPBL Watch Party on Thursday 8/20 at Athena Keke’s. RSVP here.

NEW: Classifieds

Shouts and calls from the community.

And that’s a wrap…

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

Share Good Sport NYC

Kenny’s take was a lot more balanced than what a casual fan might see in the comment sections after a loss (or ugly win, like last night’s against the LA Sparks). He’s in the building every week, so I’m inclined to trust his read, which felt like a hopeful reality check.

Here’s what we got into:

• Why it’s a Championship or bust situation for the 2026 NY Liberty

• Placing our record in the context of player injuries and looming playoffs

• The situation with Betnijah Laney-Hamilton and her ultimate release

• This season’s standout performances from Pauline Astier and Marine Johannes

• Insights into Head Coach Chris DeMarco’s relationships with players, and whether or not he’s passed the vibe check yet

Enioy, and let us know your takes in the comments. Links below to keep in touch with Kenny’s reporting on the Libs.

LINKS

Subscribe to Good Sport NYC on Substack

Follow Good Sport NYC on Instagram, TikTok

Follow Kenny and NYLFTV on Instagram, X and YouTube

Follow Christiana on Instagram, Substack

My friend Maya Goldberg-Safir—the writer behind one of the best publications in women's basketball, Rough Notes—interviewed two legends of the New York Liberty fan base, Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld. They’re longtime season-ticket holders who are regularly featured on game broadcasts thanks to their courtside seats. Perhaps you’ll recognize them:

Justine and Scott took Maya through their nearly 30-year Liberty fandom experience, from the 90s to now. Give it a read and subscribe to Rough Notes.

Now here’s your Good Sport guide for the week.

Update on the Good Sport NYC podcast: Announcement! The pod is now on a bi-weekly cadence, so we’ll put out a new episode 2x a month. I was struggling to keep up with a weekly pace while maintaining a high-quality bar, and I want that extra time to do the research and planning each episode and guest deserves. Thanks to everyone who reached out sweetly about this move :) All that said, new episode on Thursday!

NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. The NY Liberty release Betnijah Laney-Hamilton. When I saw this news I was SICK!!! Laney is a 2024 WNBA Champion with the Liberty. She’s a 2021 All-Star and a 2023 All-Defensive Second Team selection. She’s gritty, loyal, and unafraid, perfect for representing NYC and connecting with our fanbase. But she wasn’t getting playing time, and it seemed like the coaching staff wasn’t building her into the plan for the team’s future. Despite feeling gutted, I love seeing Laney already stepping into a veteran leadership role at the Washington Mystics, the youngest team in the league. She deserves to feel valued at this next stop. She is too good to sit on our bench. We’ll talk about losing Laney in depth on this week’s podcast episode.

   

2. Denae Benites hits 4 home runs in 5 games. The captain of the NY Heights keeps hitting dingers. This one is my favorite. Our team is 2-2 after Week 2 of the WPBL. I watched some innings at Athena Keke’s this past Saturday, and I must say: The Baltimore fries were delicious.

   

3. Han Xu makes it to wnbaart™️. If you don’t know wnbaart on Instagram...well then you must. The artist behind the account quickly draws snap moments of games and then shares them for our collective enjoyment. Her bio reads “NO AI. Sharing Fine Art. Yes it’s supposed to look bad." My favorite from this past weekend was her drawing of the Liberty’s 6'11" center Han Xu guarding the Aces’ 5'5" Mai Yamamoto. Wholesome and sweet.

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What to watch this week

Tuesday 8/11

🏀 The Liberty are at the Indiana Fever at 7:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN.

Thursday 8/13

⚾ The New York Heights play the Boston Hunters at 7:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Friday 8/14

🏀 The Liberty host the LA Sparks at Barclays Center at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on Prime Video.

⚽ Gotham FC hosts the Kansas City Current at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on Prime Video.

Saturday 8/15

🏀 The Liberty are at the Connecticut Sun at 1:00 pm ET. Watch on YES Network.

⚾ The New York Heights play the San Francisco Firebells at 2:00 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Sunday 8/16

⚾ The New York Heights play the Boston Hunters at 7:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

The Scene Report

Here’s some fun stuff going on in the NYC W sports scene.

Spykes just announced its first ever glow in the dark beach volleyball tournament! I am still learning volleyball (ouch my wrists and stuff like that), but I want my friends to enter as a team so I can become a cheerleader. Details here.

It’s a banger of an event week at Blazers. On Tuesday 8/11, they’re having a Liberty vs. Fever watch party celebrating trans inclusion in WBB, hosted by comedian Murray Hill. Details here.

And then on Saturday 8/15, they’re hosting an arm-wrestling competition in support of the Alice Austen House, a nationally designated site of LGBTQ+ history dedicated to the photography and life of Alice Austen. Details here.

Good Sport NYC will be hanging at GUNK’s 3rd birthday party on Saturday 8/15 and participating in the raffle! Indie media supporting indie media. Come through.

And that’s a wrap.

Thanks as always for reading! Don’t be afraid to share Good Sport with a friend…a crush…an enemy.

Share Good Sport NYC

And now it’s August. Summer’s bookend and the most richly melancholy month of the year. My intentions for this month are to play outside and do good work and be a super good sport. Here’s your newsletter.

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On the Good Sport podcast: Last week’s pod covered the history of women’s pro baseball, what to expect from the WPBL, and reviewed the NY Heights roster. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. NY Heights highlights from the WPBL’s Opening Weekend. After a rain delay and an extremely strong start, our NY Heights fell short in their first game of the season in a 10-8 loss against the LA Queens. But there’s still a ton to smile about. Our team captain Denae Benites hit the league’s first home run. She also got to spend time with 99-year-old Maybelle Blair, who was a pitcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League 70+ years ago. And the game was played in front of a sold-out crowd.

   

2. Another day in the women’s sports streaming hellscape. Two days before the games kicked off, the WPBL announced that it had inked a streaming deal: “ESPN will be the streaming home to the 2026 WPBL Inaugural Season, with all regular season and playoff games broadcasting live on ESPN Select (my note for anyone else who was confused: Select was FKA ESPN+). Additionally, 11 regular season games…will be broadcast co-exclusively on Scripps Sports Network.” Fans did not react well to a paywall announcement 48 hours before the opening day, as you can see in the comment section here. I personally didn’t watch the games because I don’t subscribe to ESPN Select, and I was bummed. My take: Deals like this are super important for the long-term success of our leagues, but I think fan engagement and sentiment should be the #1 priority for brand new leagues, and this alienated a lot of the casual fans (and some super fans) we need. I’m planning to watch at sports bars for now.

   

3. Gotham’s Emily Sonnett is out for the rest of the season. Ugh. The defender underwent surgery to repair the ruptured patellar tendon in her left knee and will miss the remainder of the 2026 NWSL season, according to the club. Literally nothing much to say other than this sucks, and I’m wishing her a speedy and safe recovery <3

What to watch this week

Monday 8/3

🏀 The Liberty host Seattle Storm at Barclays Center, 7:00 pm ET. Watch Peacock or My9 for local TV.

Wednesday 8/5

🏀 The Liberty host Seattle Storm again at Barclays Center, 7:00 pm ET. Watch USA or Fox 5 for local TV.

Friday 8/7

⚽ Gotham FC hosts San Diego Wave FC at Sports Illustrated Stadium, 8:00 pm ET. Watch on Prime Video.

Saturday 8/8

⚾ WPBL’s New York Heights play Boston Hunters at Robin Roberts Stadium, Springfield, IL, 2:00 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

Sunday 8/9

🏀 The Liberty host Las Vegas Aces at Barclays Center, 12:30 pm ET. Watch on ABC.

⚾ New York Heights play Boston Hunters again, 7:30 pm ET. Watch on ESPN Select.

The Scene Report

Here’s some fun stuff going on in the NYC W sports scene.

Our friends at Women’s Sports Rally are hosting a NY Liberty watch party at Henrietta Hudson this Wednesday, August 5th. RSVP here.

Spykes, NYC’s beloved queer volleyball league, is going dual-sport athlete mode and hosting a Basketball Clinic Pop-Up for all skill levels on August 15th. I will do my best to attend because I need help with my bball skills BAD...RSVP here.

That’s a wrap…

Thanks for reading as always :) See you next week for more. Bye!

Share Good Sport NYC

Here’s what we covered:

• The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (1943–1954), and the racism and femininity requirements baked into the organization

• Toni Stone, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, and Connie Morgan, the three women who played in the Negro Leagues

• Effa Manley, the first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame

• How A League of Their Own (the 1992 film and 2022 A24 series) depicted women’s pro baseball in pop culture and media

• Paths to the WPBL: Switching to softball, playing in the Banana Ball, and the US National Team bringing women like Kelsey Whitmore, Mo’ne Davis, and Ashton Lansdell into the spotlight

• A full breakdown of our team, the New York Heights: our head coach (the league’s only woman manager) and our roster

I read and listened to a lot of good stuff in prep for this episode, which I’ll link below as always. Enjoy, and watch women’s baseball this weekend!

LINKS

Subscribe to Good Sport NYC on Substack

Follow the WPBL on Instagram

Follow the NY Heights on Instagram

Follow Good Sport NYC on Instagram, TikTok

Follow Christiana on Instagram, Substack

RESOURCES USED:

Crying In Baseball from the You’re Wrong About Podcast

Storied: Women of the Negro Leagues from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Dorothy Height by Arlisha Norwood from the National Women’s History Museum

I think we all know Cornhole, or Bags, depending on where you’re from. I had never heard of Bottle Bash, though, which is a game where you and a partner try to knock your opponent’s bottle off a stand with a frisbee, and everyone has to have a drink in one hand while playing.

A common intuitive test for deciding sport vs game: Does success depend substantially on physicality (strength, speed, endurance, or coordination)? If so, then sport. Or, some say it comes down to whether success depends on measurable, quantifiable performance.

Bernard Suits, the late thinker known for his work in the Philosophy of Sport, argued that games are activities where you adopt agreed-upon unnecessary obstacles for the sake of the activity itself. In his view, sports are a subset of games, but not all games are sports.

If you think about that long enough, though, whether it’s cornhole or soccer, it’s all kind of the same intellectual framework. People come together to suspend reality and play in a fantasy world where you can win or lose.

Guys, the truth is, it’s a spectrum. Like all of the best things in the world. There are levels to this and different categories of games and sports. Maybe when I go bowling, it’s a game. But when someone who has trained their whole life goes to work as a professional bowler, it’s a sport. Maybe a sport is whatever game you take extremely seriously and thus makes you sick in the head.

If I’m still thinking about a round of cornhole where I totally shit the bed, and I’ve thought about how I never play cornhole in New York and I might not get better before the next family trip…Am I a cornhole athlete? No. But I am sick in the head.

I love games and sports. Here’s your newsletter.

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NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. The Liberty’s Jonquel Jones adds All-Star MVP to her resume. This makes JJ the only player in WNBA history to have a WNBA MVP (2021), Commissioner’s Cup MVP (2023), Finals MVP (2024), and WNBA All-Star MVP (2026). It was an emotional weekend for JJ, who recently lost her aunt and had to miss the memorial service to attend ASW. To add to the weekend’s complication, JJ was also heard on the StudBudz livestream telling Courtney Williams that she thought the Lynx deserved to win the 2024 Championship, which got blown up by the media. She called that situation a gut punch and clarified her meaning in a press conference. My take: Everyone needs to lay off JJ. From everything I’ve heard about her, she’s salt of the earth, and I know what she meant, and it seems like most of the fans do, too. I hope she enjoyed that MVP moment because she deserved it.

   

   I wasn’t at All-Star, but my friend and Good Sport truther Ashtyn (who everyone should follow because she’s talented // hilarious // knows ball) was there and wrote about the weekend in her newsletter for Offball. Read it here to get more details on what appeared to be a very chaotic and fun weekend in the Windy City.

2. Esther Gonzalez departs from Gotham FC. Earlier today, it was announced that the forward and Gotham mutually agreed to a contract termination. Fans were quick to judge this as a bad soccer move by the team, possibly to make room for Sam Kerr, who joined us earlier this month, but it’s been made clear that this is due to Gonzalez temporarily stepping back from soccer to attend to personal matters back in Spain. In her time with Gotham, Gonzalez led the Bats in scoring and finished as a runner-up in the 2025 Golden Boot race. She won two NWSL Championships with the team. I wish she could’ve gotten a proper, more in-depth send-off, but I’m wishing her all the best as she takes care of what she needs to back home.

   

3. The WPBL kicks off this weekend. Our NY Heights will play in the league’s first game against the LA Queens. I’m going to dive into our roster and the history of women’s pro baseball on the podcast this week, so stay tuned for more come Thursday. All of the WPBL games will be played in Springfield, IL this season, and I have yet to find the details on streaming…Perhaps on the league’s YouTube? I’ll report back. But virtual or not, take me out to the gd ball game. Also, WPBL, please restock the merch. In need of the white jersey severely.

What to watch this week

Tuesday 7/28

🏀 The Liberty are at the LA Sparks at 10:00 pm ET. Watch on My9 local TV.

Wednesday 7/29

⚽ Gotham FC is at Bay FC at 10:00 pm ET. Watch on Fubo / CBS Sports Network.

Thursday 7/30

🏀 The Liberty are at the Las Vegas Aces at 10:00 pm ET. Watch on Prime Video.

Saturday 8/1

⚾ The New York Heights play the WPBL’s first-ever game vs the LA Queens at 5 pm ET at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, IL. Streaming details TBA.

And that’s a wrap…

That’s all for this week! At Good Sport HQ, we’re cooking up some fun events and other new stuff for the rest of summer and early fall…More soon but I’m excited.

Love you, bye!

Back2Back with the LOML at Prospect Park, for optimal comfort and posture. Hot spotting. Phony negroni in hand. All around me, people are defeating their Sunday scaries via recreational sports. PUGG goals and volleyball nets as far as the eye can see. My legs itch from the grass, but I don’t care, for I am summertime bliss.

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Enjoy this week’s guide :)

On the Good Sport podcast: I talked with DAMECORE founder Olivia Nielsen about building a basketball brand made for women from the jump, and the cultural intersection of women’s bball x fashion. Listen on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. The Queens Classic: 42,175 fans set a NYC record. The attendance record for a women’s sporting event in NYC got blown out of the water last week at Citi Field. Despite the bad air quality and rain, Gotham fans turned out to see our team take a 1-0 victory over the Washington Spirit. It was a really special night for women’s sports in our city. Three friends and I got a seafood dinner before the game in Astoria, which was chased with stadium Dippin' Dots, as god intended. Sibling band Infinity Song played at halftime and crushed it.

2. We should all know Arsh Raziuddin: The designer behind NYC’s World Cup universe. The tournament may be over, but I plan to think about New York’s World Cup visual identity for the rest of my life. It’s one of my favorite brand campaigns I’ve ever seen, and we have Arsh Raziuddin to thank. She designed, consulted, and creative directed this project. She’s done a lot of great interviews on this work; you can watch this video to hear her talk about her process. Arsh said it best in her recent IG caption: “We are so lucky to have leadership who cares about artists and how design can change the way we approach the world.”

3. The women have HAD Heated Rivalry. The PWHL has many WLW couples between and among its teams, and quite a few got engaged this summer. Including our very own NY Sirens defender Jamie Bourbonnais <3 Bourbonnais got engaged to her partner Emily Clark, a fellow PWHL player (she’s on the new Hamilton team) and member of the Canadian national team. Loves it.

What to watch this week

Monday 7/20

🏀 The Liberty are at the Dallas Wings at 8:00 pm ET. This is a rescheduled matchup after mechanical issues with the Liberty’s plane led to the Thursday 7/16 game being canceled. Watch on local TV or on the Liberty livestream.

Wednesday 7/22

🏀 The Liberty are at the Chicago Sky at 7:00 pm ET. Watch on Fox.

Friday 7/24

⚽ Gotham FC is at Portland Thorns at 10:00 pm ET. Watch on Prime Video.

Saturday 7/25

🏉 The Exiles host the Boston Banshees at 5:00 pm ET, closing out the WER regular-season round robin. Watch on WSN.

The Scene Report

Here’s some fun stuff going on in the NYC W sports scene.

This Wednesday, our friends at Women’s Sports Rally are hosting a NY Liberty watch party at Henrietta Hudson. Fun fact: Hen’s is the longest-running lesbian bar in the country.

And that’s a wrap :)

As a reminder, no pod this week; I’m going on vacation and will need to focus on being on vacation.

Have a great week, and don’t be afraid to share Good Sport with a loved one…or an enemy…or someone you feel totally neutral about…

Share Good Sport NYC

I talked with Olivia Nielsen, the founder of DAMECORE, a fashion and media brand built for women's basketball. As a competitive athlete, and someone who knew herself and her fashion sense from a young age, Olivia was not satisfied with the options—or lack thereof—when it came to basketball gear and brands that treated women like an afterthought. So she decided to build a basketball fashion universe built for women from the start.

Here’s what we covered:

• Olivia’s journey from competitive basketball in the DMV to the fashion world in Paris, where she merged her two passions and started DAMECORE at just 18 years old

• Why the “shrink it and pink it” playbook pushed her to build something made for women from the ground up

• How the brand has grown from media to apparel to consulting, including styling for WNBA players

• The athletes killing it style-wise and Olivia’s takes on the fashion partnerships we’re seeing in the WNBA

• What’s next for DAMECORE and the fashion x women’s sports space

DAMECORE launched its latest drop of shorts TODAY. Check it out here. Enjoy the episode <3

LINKS

Subscribe to Good Sport NYC on Substack

Follow Good Sport NYC on Instagram, TikTok

Shop DAMECORE’s latest drop and follow them on Instagram, Substack

Follow Christiana on Instagram, Substack

Follow Olivia on Instagram

It’s sorta sad that I spent so much of my childhood doing something that now haunts me as a stand-in for whatever stressful thing is going on in my adult life. I would ask who hurt me, but I literally know: Coach Redacted and a few Redacted girls...

And yet, I miss playing! Maybe it’s that I’ve been watching some of the men’s World Cup, or dreaming about going to Brazil for the women’s next summer. Perhaps it’s not too late to heal my personal relationship with the beautiful game. Or perhaps I need to ask my therapist if we can tackle that time I was backpedaling during a game and tripped while the ball was nowhere near me.

Anyways…Here’s your newsletter.

NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. Meet our new baseball team: The NY Heights. The Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL) unveiled the names and logos for the four inaugural teams ahead of opening day on August 1st. Each team’s identity is inspired by a local legend. Our New York City team is the NY Heights, in honor of women’s and civil rights activist Dorothy Height. Height was known as the godmother of civil rights; she served as the president of the NCNW for 40 years. She focused on anti-lynching and criminal justice reform, and literacy and employment programs.

2. Gotham FC is officially moving to Queens. The team will start playing at Etihad Park, NYCFC's new $780M stadium, in 2028. This news joins an already packed announcement collection from the club: the new $35 million dedicated training facility, signing Sam Kerr, and the Queens Classic happening this Wednesday. Not everyone is jazzed about this; some longtime Jersey fans are feeling left in the dust and unseen in their commitment to the club during their tenure in the Garden State. I dug into the move, the club’s vision, the people pushing it forward, and more on this week’s podcast episode.

   

3. Let me tell you about Shoe Gate. The Liberty played Toronto last night, and things got chippy fast between the Tempo’s Marina Mabrey—self-proclaimed crash-out queen and one of the best shit talkers in the W—and our Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, who is not someone I would ever want to have beef with, let me just say that. Both got techs for a dust-up earlier in the game. And then shoe gate happened. JJ lost a sneaker during the fourth quarter, and the next thing we saw was Mabrey getting hit in the back with it. Who threw it?? You guessed it: Laney! This led to her ejection from the game.

   

   People assumed she threw it on purpose, but in the post-game interview, Laney made it clear that wasn’t intentional:

   “I would never intentionally try to hit someone with a shoe, especially while they're not looking… Teammate was without a shoe, so I did my best to try and get it to her. Unfortunately, it did hit someone.” - Betnijah Laney-Hamilton on Shoe Gate

   I like that she said, “especially if they’re not looking.” It speaks to the ethos that she would consider throwing the shoe if she had been looking, which is honorable.

What to watch this week

Wednesday 7/15

⚽ Gotham FC hosts the Washington Spirit at Citi Field for the Queens Classic at 8:00 pm ET. You can get $15 tickets thanks to Gotham and Mayor Mamdani here. Watch on ESPN.

Thursday 7/16

🏀 The Liberty are at the Dallas Wings at 9:00 pm ET. Watch on WNBA League Pass.

Saturday 7/18

🏀 The Liberty are at the Indiana Fever at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on WNBA League Pass.

⚽ Gotham FC hosts the Seattle Reign at 12:00 pm ET. Watch on ABC.

🏉 The Exiles travel to face Bay Breakers at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on the Women's Sports Network.

The Scene Report

Here’s some fun stuff going on in the NYC W sports scene.

Snatch Magazine—created by artist, designer, and Good Sport podcast alum Sophia Mitropoulos—just announced the theme for Issue 3: Recreational Sports! The pitch window is open until 7/17. Find all the submission guidelines and info here.

Froot Hoops is celebrating its fourth anniversary with a ball + beach day! RSVP here.

And that’s a wrap…

New pod episode coming Thursday about WBB x fashion, and then I’m taking a week off from the pod to attend my girlfriend’s family reunion <3 Slay for me. Have a great week!

Love,

Christiana

On the big Gotham move, we hit on:

• Why now: The team’s vision of becoming an elite club, and overcoming Gotham’s attendance issues, which lag behind NWSL averages despite two championships in three years

• The New Jersey of it all: Empathy for longtime NJ fans, and what I hope Gotham does to honor them and the club’s Garden State roots

• This announcement as a crown jewel in a collection of buzzy moments: the new $35 million dedicated training facility, signing Sam Kerr, and the Queen’s Classic happening on July 15th

• The people behind the vision: Yael Averbuch West and Carolyn Tisch Blodgett

As for our WPBL team, the NY Heights, I talked about the woman who inspired our team name and identity: Dorothy Height, a lifelong leader in the women’s and civil rights movements.

Height’s contributions and legacy can’t be overstated, but of course she didn’t get nearly the same recognition for her work as her male counterparts. The league honoring her in this way feels extremely special; I’m really proud of the WPBL with this rollout. I plan to do a deep dive on Height and the other legends the league chose as namesakes in the coming weeks.

Hope you enjoy this episode! Links below to things I mentioned, as always.

LINKS

Subscribe to Good Sport NYC on Substack

Gotham’s announcement video

Learn more about Dorothy Height and her legacy

Follow Good Sport NYC on Instagram, TikTok

Follow Christiana on Instagram, Substack

Miki Sudo won her 12th straight Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest this year, consuming 38.75 dogs in 10 minutes. The second-place competitor ate 22. Sudo holds the women’s world record with 51 total dogs downed, which she set in 2024.

For my part, I had 2 hot dogs this weekend at my bestie’s house in Connecticut <3 My truth: I find competitive eating gnarly and grotesque, but at the end of the day, I’ll hear it for the girls in male-dominated fields (eating). Also the organizing body being Major League Eating … Sounds like a hot girl’s Instagram handle.

We’ve got an absolutely jam-packed lineup of NYC women’s games for your viewing pleasure this week. Keep reading for your weekly news digest, the game schedule, and events happening in the scene.

On the Good Sport podcast: I chatted with journalist Frankie de la Cretaz about how to keep the magic, inclusivity, and community vibe alive amidst hypergrowth in women’s sports. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

NYC women’s sports news & culture

Here’s what you should know this week.

1. The Queens Classic has already made history. The July 15th soccer match between Gotham FC and the Washington Spirit at Citi Field has officially broken the NYC attendance record for a women's sporting event, with over 30,000 tickets sold as of last week. This will be the first women’s sporting event ever held at Citi Field. For reference, Gotham’s home attendance record is 15,569 tickets sold, set back in 2024.

   

2. A moment for Gotham’s Queens Classic merch collection. It’s a limited drop, with pick-up only from the match. The baseball jersey…it calls to me…

3. The NY Liberty win the 2026 Commissioner’s Cup. We hosted the Las Vegas Aces for the 2026 in-league Commissioner’s Cup championship game, and brought home the win. The Aces were without their leader, 4x MVP A’ja Wilson, but they deleted a double-digit lead in the second half to make it a very fun watch. With our 93-85 win over the Aces, the Liberty became the first WNBA team to win multiple Commissioner’s Cup titles.

4. A’ja Wilson’s reaction to Marine’s 3. I’ve been replaying this video from the Cup game all week. A’ja is so funny.

   

   @espnw#basketball #WNBA #LasVegas #Aces #ESPNSocial

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5. Fans rally behind Betnijah Laney-Hamilton. Liberty fans are making their feelings known after two consecutive healthy DNPs (did not play) for Laney-Hamilton. After working her way back from an injury that saw her miss all of last season, the healthy benchings are befuddling some fans — chants of “We want Laney” broke out at Friday’s game against the Lynx, and supporters are organizing to wear only Laney-Hamilton gear to Tuesday’s game. This is what Coach Chris DeMarco said about his decision:

   “We obviously didn’t play a lot of players tonight. I still have confidence in her, our staff and players have confidence in her. She’s going to get her opportunity again, we believe in her. I just didn’t go to her tonight, but we know what she can do, and we’ll get there.”

   Of course this is sparking trade rumors; even some Libs fans are getting behind it if she’ll get the playing time they think she deserves. My personal take: I love Laney as a person and player, and think she has the most defensive juice out of anyone on our team. I would hate to lose her from a play and vibes POV.

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What to watch this week

Monday 7/6

🥎 The Rise are on the road to open a 2-game set at Atlanta Smoke at 7:00 pm ET. Watch on AWSN (Pluto TV).

Tuesday 7/7

🏀 The Liberty are home at Barclays Center to take on the Dallas Wings at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on ESPN.

🥎 The Rise wrap up at Atlanta Smoke at 7:00 pm ET. Watch on AWSN (Pluto TV).

Thursday 7/9

🥎 The Rise open a 3-game homestand vs KC Diamonds at Bill Edwards Stadium in Hempstead, NY at 7:00 pm ET. Watch on AWSN (Pluto TV).

Friday 7/10

⚽ Gotham FC is on the road at Utah Royals FC at 10:00 pm ET. Watch on Victory+.

🥎 The Rise host KC Diamonds for game 2 of the series at 7:00 pm ET. Watch on AWSN (Pluto TV).

Saturday 7/11

🏀 The Liberty are at the Minnesota Lynx at 1:00 pm ET. Watch on ABC.

🥎 The Rise close out the KC Diamonds series at home at 7:00 pm ET. Watch on AWSN (Pluto TV).

🏉 The Exiles travel to face Chicago Tempest at 6:00 pm ET.

🥍 The Charging face the Maryland Charm at a neutral site in Chicago at 8:00 pm ET. Watch on ESPN+.

Sunday 7/12

🏀 The Liberty close out the road trip at the Toronto Tempo at 3:00 pm ET. Watch on Fox5 local.

The Scene Report

Here’s some fun stuff going on in the NYC W sports scene.

Blazer’s is hosting a shoe drive with the Liberty from July 8th - August 8th. Donate a pair, get a free drink. Deets here.

Women’s Sports Rally is hosting a Liberty watch x zine folding party at Kitty Sullivan’s in Astoria this Sunday. An amazing combo if you ask me. RSVP here.

One last thing…

Good Sport NYC is in GUNK this month: NYC’s physical indie show paper. GUNK was created by my friends Ceci Sturman and Hannah Pruzinsky of Sister. and it’s designed and printed at Secret Riso Club.

GUNK has been a huge inspiration for me as I’ve built Good Sport. It’s really special to be included in July’s issue. Thank you, GUNK <3 Subscribe to them on Substack here.

And that’s our newsletter for this week. Love you guys.

Cheers,

Christiana

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When it comes to what happens in women’s sports around and on top of actual gameplay, Frankie is prolific. They’re also deft at threading the needle between the joy and legacy of women’s sports, while saying the quiet part out loud about things like the consequences of hypergrowth, corporate interests in the women’s game, and racism and homophobia in media coverage, just to name a few.

Here’s what we covered:

• Frankie’s pivot from MLB reporter to women’s sports culture journalist

• Telling the (very gay) story of the women behind the National Women’s Football League with their book Hail Mary

• Inclusivity attracting fans rather than alienating them in women’s sports

• The gentrification of the WNBA and what the Liberty need to do better

• Misogynoir in ESPN's WNBA coverage

• How fans can help keep the magic and safety of women’s sports alive

• Frankie’s all-sport, all-gay starting 5

I could’ve talked to Frankie for hours, and the good news is they have a treasure trove of pieces that make me feel smarter about this space I love so much. All the links to keep in touch with their work are below. Enjoy!

Stay in touch with Good Sport NYC on Substack

Subscribe to Out of Your League

Follow Frankie on Instagram, BlueSky

Follow Good Sport NYC on Instagram, TikTok

Follow Christiana on Instagram, Substack

Imagine the look Maya and I shared. I, the proprietor of Good Sport NYC. Maya, the proprietor of Liberty season tickets. This girl had no idea how unsafe an audience she had. Never have I been more excited to tell someone about this here project. And when I did, she was appropriately mortified, and attempted to get on my good side throughout the night. My love, I just think you’re so boring! I feel sad for you! You’re 30-something, and you haven’t figured out that you can be a fan of men’s sports without putting women down!

I trust my memory haunts her. I am a poltergeist for casual internalized sports misogyny. Anyways…

I’ve got something for ya that was the opposite of hater vibes, though: Last week’s Big Gay Knockout, our first event. Like 50 people came and we had fun and made merch and ate fruit roll-ups. I’m still smiling about it! More fun gatherings on the horizon.

In today’s newsletter: Gotham FC makes it official with Sam Kerr, and brings home a cup. Plus the Liberty look towards a chip of their own.

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What to know

1. Welcome back to NYC, Sam Kerr. Earlier today, Gotham FC confirmed what was reported last week: The all-time NWSL regular-season leading scorer is returning to the league, and returning to New York City. Gotham’s socials were buzzing with the announcement all day. Here’s what Gotham’s President of Soccer Operations, Yael Averbuch West, told Jenna Tonelli for Sports Illustrated:

   “There are very few players in the world who can take over a game the way Sam can, and she’s consistently proven why she’s one of a kind. The fact that she chose to return to Gotham speaks volumes about our ambition, the environment we’ve created, and the direction of this club.”

   I’ll be honest, Averbuch West has only given me reason to trust her vision and leadership so far. I am so excited to see Kerr play with our team.

   

2. Gotham FC are the 2026 NWSL Challenge Cup Champions. On Friday, we beat the Kansas City Current 2-0 in the Challenge Cup. TLDR on this thing: The Challenge Cup is a winner-take-all "super cup" game played between the two top teams from the previous season: the NWSL Champions and the NWSL Shield winners, which is the team with the best regular season record. I personally don’t put much stock into in-season tournaments, but for a league that’s still trying to grow, it’s fun, and I’m here for it. Especially when my girls win!

   

3. It’s the Liberty vs. the Aces for the 2026 WNBA Commissioner’s Cup. Speaking of in-season tournaments…Barclays hosts the Commissioner’s Cup Championship tomorrow (Tuesday) night. The quick on how this cup works: The team with the best Cup record in the Eastern Conference faces off against the team with the best Cup record in the Western Conference. Players are competing for a $500,000 prize pool, and the W donates money to both teams’ selected non-profits based on game results. Kay…maybe I do like these tournaments…

What to watch this week

Tuesday 6/30

🏀 The Liberty are home at Barclays Center to take on the Las Vegas Aces at 7:00 pm ET for the 2026 WNBA Commissioner's Cup Championship. Watch on Prime Video.

Thursday 7/2

🥎 The Rise open a 3-game road series at the KC Diamonds at 7:35 pm ET. Watch on AWSN (Pluto TV).

Friday 7/3

🏀 The Liberty host the Minnesota Lynx at Barclays Center at 7:30 pm ET. Watch on ION.

🥎 The Rise are at the KC Diamonds for game 2 of the series at 7:35 pm ET. Watch on AWSN (Pluto TV).

Saturday 7/4

⚽ Gotham FC returns to NWSL regular season play, traveling to face San Diego Wave FC at 8:45 pm ET. Watch on ION.

🥎 The Rise close the KC road trip with game 3 at 7:35 pm ET. Watch on AWSN (Pluto TV).

Before you go…

There are now over 200 of you subscribed to this thing! I am absolutely honored that you trusted me with your email address in exchange for information and community around our city’s women’s sports culture. Remember when I said I want to hit 1,000 by September? I’m scared, but I believe. Share Good Sport with your friends so our dreams come true…

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New pod on Thursday. Love you bye.