It’s a crossover-episode kind of day in the indie women’s sports media universe … Rough Notes is on Good Sport! Maya Goldberg-Safir, the independent journalist who writes my favorite Substack about women’s basketball, joins the podcast.
Maya has covered the Golden State Valkyries since before their first game, but she’ll be the first to tell you that Bay Area women’s basketball history began long before that. She was born and raised in Oakland and moved home from Chicago two years ago to cover the WNBA and the Valks full-time. If you read her women’s basketball Substack Rough Notes, you’ll quickly learn that Maya writes from the gut, and her work spans on-court coverage and the cultural phenomenon that surrounds the game. I would say we got properly into the guts of things during our convo <3
We recorded on November 3rd, just a few days after the Valkyries won the 2026 WNBA Championship. Here’s what we covered:
How the Valkyries’ title, just two years into the team’s existence, is sinking in
Valks tech-rich owner Joe Lacob and the blessing and curse of how the Bay got its well-resourced WNBA team
The Valks as a “misfits to champions” story, and Ballhalla as a refuge for fans and players alike
Independent writers in the press room and the WNBA’s new media policies
How regular fans are included in and affected by a team’s success, with the Valks and the Liberty as case studies
Bay Area women’s basketball history: Natalie Nakase and the Japanese American leagues she grew up in, the San Francisco Pioneers of the WBL, and Anna Johnson, the Bay Area’s first pro women’s basketball player
Queer elders in women’s basketball and some of Maya’s favorite stories from the Bay Area fan community
Why it’s up to fans and independents to claim the meaning of the WNBA and its team fandoms
Quick note: a technical glitch made it so we lost our trivia and closer segments, so our convo ends a bit abruptly. The audio is crispy tho…and that’s what counts.
Enjoy :) Thank you, Maya, for coming on.
LINKS
Subscribe to Good Sport NYC on Substack
Subscribe to WNBA Rough Notes on Substack
Read Maya’s SFGATE story on the Espinosa-Jones family
Come to Reading for Sport, Good Sport x Reading 101, Wed 11/11 at Nightclub 101 - RSVP
Follow Good Sport NYC on Instagram
