Speaker 1: Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're still
Speaker 1: loving life in America's hat, We're knee deep and poutine
Speaker 1: and Tim Horton's and the only Orange Monarchs in sight
Speaker 1: are the butterflies in our hotel garden. It's Thursday, June nineteenth,
Speaker 1: Happy June teenth. On today's show, we'll be chatting with
Speaker 1: women's soccer statistician and historian Jen Cooper and her Hoopstats
Speaker 1: contributor Richard Cohen about the behind the scenes work that
Speaker 1: goes into keeping track of records, rules, stats and salary
Speaker 1: caps in the WNBA and NWSL. Plus a cap worthy
Speaker 1: claim to fame, expert tips on spread and sheets, and
Speaker 1: a record that might not ever need updating.
Speaker 2: It's all coming up right after this joining us now.
Speaker 1: She's a researcher for the World Cup in the Olympics
Speaker 1: and the official historian for the NWSL. She's the keeper
Speaker 1: of keeper Notes, the only place NWSL fans can find
Speaker 1: comprehensive statistics and records for every year of the league's history,
Speaker 1: and she runs wo so Nostalgia, a YouTube channel featuring
Speaker 1: a bunch of games from things like w USA and
Speaker 1: conk CAF. She can tell you how many NWSL keepers
Speaker 1: have recorded five hundred or more saves, It's five. The
Speaker 1: number of players who have scored four goals in a
Speaker 1: single game, it's three. And how many regular season minutes
Speaker 1: Abbi dal Kemper has played in her NWSL career so far.
Speaker 1: It's thirteen, three hundred and thirty seven. It's Jen Cooper, Hi, Jen.
Speaker 3: Hey, Sarah, I am so impressed with your stats. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm great with yours. You can take my job.
Speaker 1: Also joining us, He's a contributor to Her Hoopstats and
Speaker 1: the Her Hoop Stats podcast. The man behind the now
Speaker 1: defunct website WNBA leen dot com, an independent site that
Speaker 1: covered women's professional basketball across the globe. He's a must
Speaker 1: follow on Blue Sky for all his live WNBA game commentary.
Speaker 1: Everything he says sounds smarter because of his accent. We
Speaker 1: go out now to London for Richard Cohen.
Speaker 4: Hi, Richard, Hi, Sarah, And yeah, I wondered how you
Speaker 4: were going to follow that intro for Jane. I don't
Speaker 4: think I have quite quite the same level of qualifications,
Speaker 4: but I'll try to use the accent to make it
Speaker 4: sound better.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I would say that British people can account for
Speaker 1: so many shortcomings just by using that accent.
Speaker 2: In America, we barely notice anything else.
Speaker 1: You both have tremendous backgrounds, and you both offer a
Speaker 1: lot to a space that oftentimes is lacking in that
Speaker 1: statistics and record keeping in women's sports. So that's why
Speaker 1: you're here. I want to talk about that. Jen, Can
Speaker 1: you explain how you got interested in the.
Speaker 2: Record keeping in stats side of soccer.
Speaker 3: Well, I've always been kind of into archives. I think
Speaker 3: that's why I was a yearbook editor in high school
Speaker 3: and in college and just liked tracking things like looking
Speaker 3: at the history, and so that was already in me
Speaker 3: when you know, the soccer bug got me first in
Speaker 3: ninety four and then of course in ninety nine and
Speaker 3: really exploded with the birth of the WSA. But it
Speaker 3: really wasn't until about ten years later when the US
Speaker 3: women were playing in Houston, you know where I'm based,
Speaker 3: and I was just curious about like, how big you know,
Speaker 3: so this was a good crowd, how big is this
Speaker 3: relative to previous games? And I started building this spreadsheet
Speaker 3: and I just kept going over the years because I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, how many times have they done this?
Speaker 3: When this has happened. Oh well, I need to add
Speaker 3: a new column to this spreadsheet.
Speaker 2: How about this, you know?
Speaker 3: And then when the Dash came to town, I was lucky
Speaker 3: enough to be the analyst for the first three seasons
Speaker 3: when all the games were live and free on YouTube.
Speaker 3: And you know, since the league started really small and
Speaker 3: started very quickly, you know, didn't have a lot of resources,
Speaker 3: so there wasn't a lot of stats that the league
Speaker 3: could give give me in the in the play by
Speaker 3: play announcer. But so I started tracking. I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I'll start you know, digging up you know, info for myself,
Speaker 3: and it just it kept going and going, and I
Speaker 3: had a lot of friends in Houston that said, you know,
Speaker 3: this is really interesting stuff. Why don't you put this
Speaker 3: together in something for fans. And so in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: that's when I started publishing the Keeper Notes Almanac that
Speaker 3: had all the NWSL data, and I've just built it
Speaker 3: over the year, started actually printing it in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: First it was just PDF and it remains a labor
Speaker 3: of love. It is not something that you know.
Speaker 1: Why but why in the labor of love, Because listen,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to you talk and I'm thinking it's short
Speaker 1: sighted of the NWSL when they started to not immediately
Speaker 1: have someone in that job with the belief that their
Speaker 1: league would last and it'd be worth keeping track of things.
Speaker 1: But knowing that they didn't do that, now they've got
Speaker 1: someone on the job who's offering it up, So why
Speaker 1: not hire you for that?
Speaker 2: Well, they did, they did.
Speaker 3: They had a stat service in the beginning, They didn't
Speaker 3: have the funds in the very beginning to have a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff that's available now. This stuff wasn't available
Speaker 3: ten years ago period in terms of the elaborate analytical
Speaker 3: stats and the coverage. So what I was doing. What
Speaker 3: I was doing was compiling. I don't want to diss
Speaker 3: the Andy Russell and say people they didn't do it.
Speaker 3: They were doing it. They just you know, that league
Speaker 3: started so quickly, so suddenly. But what was great once
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen came around and you had A and E
Speaker 3: get into the league, that's when boom, like they hired
Speaker 3: a real stat service, right, and a much better website
Speaker 3: and all these things. And we're seeing that progress now
Speaker 3: where I come in is really filling in those holes
Speaker 3: of those first three seasons that aren't on the same bandwidth,
Speaker 3: and it's very similar to all the tracking that I've
Speaker 3: done with US Soccer that there's really good records going
Speaker 3: back to the Olympics in ninety six, right, but that
Speaker 3: first decade, especially because it's basically pre Internet, right, you know,
Speaker 3: and we forget that before the ninety four World Cup,
Speaker 3: US Soccer did not have money. So it's not like
Speaker 3: there's a lot of great men's records and no women's record.
Speaker 3: It's just the records are just really a spotty.
Speaker 1: So it starts out as a passion project. And now
Speaker 1: it's sort of a job. You do the work independently,
Speaker 1: but you also work for several outlets.
Speaker 2: So who do you work for now? And where have
Speaker 2: you worked in the past where you've sort of held
Speaker 2: this statistician role.
Speaker 3: Let's see, I haven't had a statistician, a paid statistician
Speaker 3: role before this, but for a long time I was
Speaker 3: the like the main stat person for my alma mater
Speaker 3: for this annual event called beer Bikes, which you just
Speaker 3: you just have to google, but it's it's a relay
Speaker 3: erase where somebody chugs and then somebody rides a bike,
Speaker 3: and I was I was the keeper of all of
Speaker 3: you know, who won, what year, how many people had streaks, what,
Speaker 3: what were the records? And so I did that for
Speaker 3: a long time. So my background is actually graphic design.
Speaker 2: So you're not.
Speaker 1: Working for Anny Networks now in that capacity, you're just
Speaker 1: doing your website stuff.
Speaker 3: So I'm a contractor, uh for for Andy Broussel, you know,
Speaker 3: year round, mostly helping broadcast, right, so so that all
Speaker 3: the notes are ready, so all clubs if they have
Speaker 3: a question, especially the older clubs that have so much data,
Speaker 3: it's like, wait, is this the first time we've done this,
Speaker 3: Like no, this happened in twenty fourteen, you know. And
Speaker 3: I have a couple of great people helping me out,
Speaker 3: you know, on the stuff, because it's just going to
Speaker 3: get bigger and bigger, right, we got two more teams
Speaker 3: coming next year. I also work on occasion as a
Speaker 3: contractor when there's a big event, right. So I went
Speaker 3: to France last summer to work the Olympics, following the
Speaker 3: US team around. Basically I was the stat person in
Speaker 3: the booth for John Champion and Julie Foudy as they
Speaker 3: were calling James right, you know. And I have to
Speaker 3: give props to Julie for dragging me along to France
Speaker 3: because the previous Olympics I was in the NBC headquarters
Speaker 3: in Connecticut while the Olympics are.
Speaker 1: In Why am I not surprised that Foudy made sure
Speaker 1: to lift and take along with her, including to France.
Speaker 2: Shee's like, next time you're coming with me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And then and then next month I will
Speaker 3: be in La supporting the studio show for Fox's covered
Speaker 3: of the Women's euro Right. So it's like it's that
Speaker 3: thing as we've all seen in many different kinds of jobs,
Speaker 3: like once you're known, then everybody is like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: we need to use.
Speaker 1: So and so well, especially in a space where there
Speaker 1: aren't a ton of people doing it. And that's part
Speaker 1: of the issue across women's sports space, and Richard, her
Speaker 1: hoopstats is filling a hole in the women's basketball space.
Speaker 1: That's very similar. I remember distinctly a piece from Sue
Speaker 1: Bird in the Player's Tribune begging for more advanced statistics
Speaker 1: for the WNBA so that we could have debates about
Speaker 1: who's the best at corner threes and things like that,
Speaker 1: and her Hoopstats offers a lot. So can you explain
Speaker 1: for those who aren't familiar what the site is and
Speaker 1: the work that you do for them.
Speaker 4: Well, the site is sort of an effort to make
Speaker 4: advanced stats available about the women's game that weren't really
Speaker 4: there until we started up in twenty seventeen. I wasn't
Speaker 4: there in twenty seventeen, but when Aaron Buzzilai, our founder
Speaker 4: and who still runs the place, started the website because
Speaker 4: he used to work it as the director of analytics
Speaker 4: for the seventy six ers in Philadelphia and before that
Speaker 4: with the Grizzlies, and a friend of his came to
Speaker 4: him and said the friend was working with Tennessee with
Speaker 4: the Lady Vols and said, I'm used to having all
Speaker 4: of these statistics at my fingertips from the men's game.
Speaker 4: Is there anywhere that does this for the women? And
Speaker 4: Aaron looked around and said, no, there isn't and that
Speaker 4: led to him essentially making up her hoopstats. And Yeah,
Speaker 4: when I was talking to him in preparation for this recording,
Speaker 4: he mentioned that same bird article as something that he
Speaker 4: went back to and was surprised no one had done
Speaker 4: anything in response to that. Even when she said that,
Speaker 4: there was very little reaction to it. So, yeah, her
Speaker 4: Hoopstats was sort of to try and create something like
Speaker 4: a sports basketball reference for the women's game. And yeah,
Speaker 4: it's been a steadily growing effort since then. It sort
Speaker 4: of started as a as just a stat site and
Speaker 4: a social media presence, and then since then, people like
Speaker 4: me you've come along and it's added articles, podcasts, and
Speaker 4: a lot of extra stuff, all of our work on
Speaker 4: the CBA and the salary cap, information that you can't
Speaker 4: get anywhere else except from the people that copy us.
Speaker 1: Not exactly people like you, though, because Richard, I want
Speaker 1: to know how someone like you gets into the WNBA
Speaker 1: from across the pond.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I get that question quite a lot, as you
Speaker 4: might imagine, and I don't have a great answer for it.
Speaker 4: The tournament I mentioned is this thing we used to
Speaker 4: have over here because basketball isn't big in the UK,
Speaker 4: but there used to be a tournament called the WYICB
Speaker 4: which was held over New Years each each year, and
Speaker 4: they played men's basketball, women's basketball, juniors, and wheelchair basketball
Speaker 4: all in the same tournament, all on the same court,
Speaker 4: one after the other, going from one to the other.
Speaker 4: And I think that was part of sort of ingraining
Speaker 4: in me that it was all the same that like
Speaker 4: one wasn't the proper version of the sport, and one
Speaker 4: was this sort of other that you didn't have to
Speaker 4: pay attention to. So that meant when the WNBA started
Speaker 4: up in the late nineties, I was interested and yeah
Speaker 4: started following it. Then there was a gap there because
Speaker 4: we were sort of pre streaming, so it was very
Speaker 4: difficult to follow given that I wasn't in the US right.
Speaker 4: But once that advanced a bit and it was actually
Speaker 4: possible to follow the game and get back I got
Speaker 4: back into it sort of in the mid two thousands,
Speaker 4: and Yeah. From there it just sort of developed from
Speaker 4: a fandom into sort of posting on forums and things
Speaker 4: like that, and then eventually sort of thinking, I'm posting
Speaker 4: these massive comments on forums, I might as well turn
Speaker 4: them into articles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or get paid for it. Do this for my job.
Speaker 4: Well, getting paid for It's still kind of difficult. A
Speaker 4: lot of people trying to cover women's basketball have found
Speaker 4: it's hot, still hard to make it your primary job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: What's the biggest challenge you've encountered, gen when it comes
Speaker 1: to trying to stat keep and track in soccer.
Speaker 3: Really the biggest challenge is connecting the older stats to
Speaker 3: the newer stats. Right, so we have data from twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen onwards. That's that's great, right. Once once Sandy Bissel
Speaker 3: made the jump with that with A and E coming
Speaker 3: in as a twenty five percent investor, of course that's
Speaker 3: all changed out, but that that kind of made this
Speaker 3: big leap into Okay, we have a real live stat
Speaker 3: service and we're going back and analyzing these things like like,
Speaker 3: that was a huge step. But to connect to those
Speaker 3: first three seasons twenty thirteen to fifteen has been problematic,
Speaker 3: partly because those are the games where, especially that first season,
Speaker 3: you know, you may only have four cameras some of
Speaker 3: those some of those games just didn't.
Speaker 1: It just had issues, Right, there's a whole assist that
Speaker 1: just comes from offscreen, like who was it?
Speaker 2: God knows?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so like we need to add all that
Speaker 3: data to the main database. But there's going to be
Speaker 3: data that we cannot get from those those games, right,
Speaker 3: just because you're you're not going to be able to.
Speaker 2: See Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Now, thankfully, almost every one of those games still exists
Speaker 3: in their entirety on YouTube. I thought that was one
Speaker 3: of the most brilliant decisions the NWSL made early on
Speaker 3: was all right, we don't have a TV deal. Games
Speaker 3: are all free live on YouTube worldwide. You know that
Speaker 3: that that was brilliant. But I think it's that connecting
Speaker 3: that final piece to our current data that's the last
Speaker 3: thing that that that's going to be a hiccup. Right,
Speaker 3: Once we have that, it'll be much easier for any
Speaker 3: of the older clubs to be able to do just
Speaker 3: a you know, easy query of who has the most
Speaker 3: minutes for this club. You're right, because if you if
Speaker 3: you have one of the older clubs, they've got a
Speaker 3: they've got.
Speaker 2: To two distincts data. Yeah, Richard, what about you?
Speaker 1: Biggest challenge when it comes to stack keeping or keeping
Speaker 1: track of things in the W.
Speaker 4: I think the stat keeping has gotten relatively straightforward, possibly
Speaker 4: partly because basketball is more geared towards keeping stats in
Speaker 4: the first place. That sort of soccer becoming a stat
Speaker 4: based sport is something that's fairly new, even in like
Speaker 4: major men's leagues, never mind on the women's side. But
Speaker 4: sort of the major challenges are more sort of beyond
Speaker 4: the stats, sort of getting people who actually talk to
Speaker 4: us talk to us about sort of information and sources
Speaker 4: about rules and things like that, and getting the league
Speaker 4: to tell anyone anything. Basically always been very very secretive
Speaker 4: about everything, which is why half of my job, well
Speaker 4: not really my job, half of what I end up
Speaker 4: doing at the moment is answering questions on social media
Speaker 4: when people say is this legal? What's going to happen next?
Speaker 4: Because no one at the league bothers to tell anybody anything.
Speaker 2: So well, that brings me to my next question.
Speaker 1: Actually, because technically WNBA salaries are private, so whenever a
Speaker 1: team signs a player, there's usually a line at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the press release that says, per team policy,
Speaker 1: terms of the deal, we're not disclosed. But then if
Speaker 1: you go log in her hoopstats just a few minutes later,
Speaker 1: you can find the.
Speaker 2: Details of the deal that were not disclosed.
Speaker 1: They have been disclosed, and they're beautifully laid out charts
Speaker 1: detailing how much each player on each team is making
Speaker 1: and how long their contract is for.
Speaker 2: And that's really helpful for us.
Speaker 1: Can you explain how this technically private information becomes public
Speaker 1: on her hoopstats?
Speaker 4: I mean, I would my basic got so that would
Speaker 4: be the same way that they become public in the
Speaker 4: NFL or the NBA or Major League Baseball or anything
Speaker 4: like that. You talk to people, you find sources, and
Speaker 4: you try to get the information out there. Fortunately, when
Speaker 4: you spend as long around the league as I have
Speaker 4: and you try to say intelligent things, this is a
Speaker 4: small enough community that eventually people sort of gain some
Speaker 4: confidence in you and are willing to talk to you, because, yeah,
Speaker 4: this is a small league and a small groups where
Speaker 4: everyone kind of talks to each other. Even though it's
Speaker 4: obviously growing. I mean, we've seen a massive explosion in
Speaker 4: fan interest the last few years, but in terms of
Speaker 4: people who are sort of embedded within the league, this
Speaker 4: is still quite a tight group of people that know
Speaker 4: each other a lot and talk to each other. So, yeah,
Speaker 4: we source it and then we try and put it together. Again,
Speaker 4: you need to know the rules as well, because different
Speaker 4: contracts are different numbers for all sorts of weird CBA reasons.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's part of why it is better than
Speaker 4: anyone who's copied us, because we actually know the rules
Speaker 4: that are being followed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think also the idea that the
Speaker 1: WNBA is better off being so withholding is very antiquated.
Speaker 1: There are so many discussions that fans want to have
Speaker 1: about leagues, they want to play GM They want to
Speaker 1: know how much each player is making so that they
Speaker 1: can argue whether should.
Speaker 2: Be traded or kept or moved, or if they're pulling
Speaker 2: their weight.
Speaker 1: And I think we're at the point now where the
Speaker 1: WNBA has to address and understand that the more information
Speaker 1: that's out there, the more conversations and debates and conflicts
Speaker 1: can be discussed in a way that's really beneficial to
Speaker 1: making the sport feel as valuable as some of the longer,
Speaker 1: more storied brands. NWSL player salaries also are not public.
Speaker 1: There is an internal database that players have access to
Speaker 1: which is meant to help with contract negotiations, but no
Speaker 1: one has yet made a move to make that info
Speaker 1: public like it is on her hoopstats for the WNBA.
Speaker 1: Do you think that NWSL could benefit from more transparency
Speaker 1: on player salaries in the same way.
Speaker 3: I definitely think it could benefit. But of course, you know,
Speaker 3: the obstacle is the end of cell Players Association would
Speaker 3: have to agree to make those public. Right, just just
Speaker 3: the fact that the players can now see internally what
Speaker 3: other players are making that's fairly recent, right, you know,
Speaker 3: it's I always feel like there's this push and pull
Speaker 3: between we want these sports. I'm sure Richard feels the
Speaker 3: same way about Debba. We want these sports that we
Speaker 3: love and cover to be considered the same way every
Speaker 3: other men's sport is out there, which comes with, well,
Speaker 3: you have the eyes looking at your salary and you
Speaker 3: have people discussing every day that you had a good
Speaker 3: performance or a bad performance, or you should be trade
Speaker 3: or stuff like that. But you know, I've also seen,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of discussion from fans. It's like, well,
Speaker 3: I don't you know, I don't think we need to
Speaker 3: do that, you know, and also the players like I
Speaker 3: don't want that, right. So it's like I I want
Speaker 3: the information, right, I want this to be in our
Speaker 3: daily breath of Yeah they had a great game, No,
Speaker 3: that was horrible because of the you know, these data
Speaker 3: points and oh that player is overpaid or she needs
Speaker 3: to be paid more, she needs to be traded.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: That's how sports.
Speaker 3: Gets into you day in day out. That's how that's
Speaker 3: why there's so many talking head shows for men's football, basketball,
Speaker 3: stuff like that. The more information you have, the more discussion,
Speaker 3: the more discussion there is, period.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, a lot of your work is
Speaker 1: accessible and free on your site, and then your stat
Speaker 1: almanacs are available for purchase. But because it's your work
Speaker 1: and not the league's work, most historical NWSL stats are
Speaker 1: not able to be googled. For example, if I were
Speaker 1: to google most NWSL career goals, something the folks who
Speaker 1: work on this podcast have done on more than one occasion.
Speaker 1: Looking for that, we discovered that the top result is
Speaker 1: an NWSL news entry from twenty seventeen, so not exactly
Speaker 1: the up to date info that we're looking for. There,
Speaker 1: have you ever had conversations with the league about selling
Speaker 1: your work to them and making it a part of
Speaker 1: the official NWSL website, therefore a part of more coveraging
Speaker 1: conversation about the league therefore more likely to pop up
Speaker 1: in SEO, so that when we search that it comes
Speaker 1: to the top.
Speaker 3: Well, I hadn't thought about it from the SEO angle,
Speaker 3: But they have all, you know, all all my data.
Speaker 3: They have, you know, everything that I create for them
Speaker 3: as a contractors is available to them. And I have
Speaker 3: to give their social media department a huge shout out
Speaker 3: for the work they don't in the last year and
Speaker 3: have to really highlight anytime something big happens. Right, Oh
Speaker 3: my god, that was lynn Lynn Biendelo's you know, seventy ago. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, it's like this was you know, this is
Speaker 3: the first time this has happened, this is the youngest.
Speaker 1: Well, if they're going to post it on social, why
Speaker 1: not have a part of their website that makes it
Speaker 1: all easy to find.
Speaker 3: I think that's the next step.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: We've seen a lot of hiring over the last year,
Speaker 3: and this league is growing so fast. I feel like
Speaker 3: sometimes it can't keep up with it keep up with itself, right,
Speaker 3: But that's that's what I would love to see, is
Speaker 3: that for any media outlet that they can find the
Speaker 3: answers they need, you know, and anything the league wants
Speaker 3: in that I'm you know, happy to help with. But
Speaker 3: you know, when we think of all the challenges they've
Speaker 3: been dealing with, you know, with var and all kinds
Speaker 3: of other issues, Like I understand, you know, it's frustrating
Speaker 3: for me, but I understand how this always gets moved
Speaker 3: down in pity.
Speaker 1: It's true, Right, they've got a lot on their plate
Speaker 1: from trying to professionalize an update based on all the
Speaker 1: new resources, we.
Speaker 2: Got to take a quick Break more with Jen and
Speaker 2: Richard right after this.
Speaker 1: You know, Richard, we've been talking on our show about
Speaker 1: the different WNBA contracts, and one of the reasons it's
Speaker 1: hard to sometimes have discussions is because we don't really
Speaker 1: understand them. Right, there's a guaranteed contract, there's a hardship contract,
Speaker 1: there's a rest of season hardship. There's a rest of
Speaker 1: season contract that's not a hardship contract. Can you just
Speaker 1: give us briefly a summation of the different ways that
Speaker 1: a player can be signed and is there a limit
Speaker 1: on how many have to be or can be guaranteed?
Speaker 1: Why is there a rest of season and then a
Speaker 1: rest of season hardship?
Speaker 2: Like, how does that work?
Speaker 4: Right? Rosters have to be eleven or twelve players base
Speaker 4: rosters only a maximum of six of those per team
Speaker 4: can be protected.
Speaker 2: Contracts that means guaranteed.
Speaker 4: Which means guaranteed.
Speaker 1: Yes, no matter what injury wave cut decides to fly
Speaker 1: after Hawaii.
Speaker 2: For a nooner with someone, they're still going.
Speaker 1: To get paid, barring anything in their contract about behavior.
Speaker 4: And unless they get hurt overseas, which is obviously a
Speaker 4: thing in WNBA because people sometimes play in other leagues
Speaker 4: in the WNBA off season. The rest of season contract
Speaker 4: confuses people because they then they hear that and they think, well,
Speaker 4: the player is going to be there the rest of
Speaker 4: the season. Then understandably given the terminology, but especially with
Speaker 4: a hardship all that means practically is that the contract
Speaker 4: is until the end of the season, but when a
Speaker 4: player returns, because hardship's are signed when players get hurt,
Speaker 4: so you get those when players are out. When the
Speaker 4: main roster player returns, the hardship player has to be released,
Speaker 4: so it's only a rest of season contract if that
Speaker 4: injured player were to stay injured all season.
Speaker 1: And is there a difference between a regular hardship contract
Speaker 1: and a rest of season hardship contract.
Speaker 4: Every hardship contract signed in the first half of the
Speaker 4: season will be a rest of season contract. Every hardship
Speaker 4: contract signed in the second half of the season will
Speaker 4: be a seven day contract until because there are two
Speaker 4: rules that come into conflict, you signed three consecutive seven
Speaker 4: day contracts with the same team, then you can sign
Speaker 4: a rest of season hardship contract after that. Yeah, you
Speaker 4: can see why the fans get confused and why teams
Speaker 4: don't bother to explain this stuff themselves.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, because sometimes it feels like
Speaker 1: maybe we're looking at the same thing. It's just some
Speaker 1: team rights has signed a rest of season contract and
Speaker 1: some team just sigence has signed a hardship contract.
Speaker 4: And sometimes they're right, completely nonsense in their press releases
Speaker 4: as well. In Indiana recently had to release a player
Speaker 4: and wrote that she'd been waived in their press release,
Speaker 4: wrote twice that she had been And you don't waive
Speaker 4: hardship contracts. You release the player because they don't go
Speaker 4: through waivers, so it's different terminology. So again, the teams
Speaker 4: don't always understand this stuff either, or certainly their PR
Speaker 4: departments don't. So yeah, that creates confusion.
Speaker 1: Well, this is why we need you, Richard. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to remember and memorize any of that. I'm just
Speaker 1: going to call you next time I need to know
Speaker 1: what again out.
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't expect anyone to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jenna, I loved learning that you actually helped correct
Speaker 1: the number of caps for none other than world record
Speaker 1: holder for number of caps US women's national team legend,
Speaker 1: Christine Lilly. Can you tell us about that? How do
Speaker 1: you find mysterious uncapped caps.
Speaker 3: Well, first you have to be a really big nerd.
Speaker 3: Then you have to have collected many many US Soccer
Speaker 3: media guides, all right, And so I was gonna do
Speaker 3: some trivia. I love to do trivia, you know, through
Speaker 3: social media. And the US women were playing in Arizona.
Speaker 3: So I was like, okay, I know they've played there
Speaker 3: three times. Maybe I'll do something about that. But I've
Speaker 3: learned working in TV. It's like, but let's always check
Speaker 3: the media guide. Don't just sure it's in here, but
Speaker 3: let's check the media guide. So I look at the
Speaker 3: media guide and they have it all separated by state,
Speaker 3: and I was like, wait, there's these games in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety five. I don't have these in my huge, ridiculously
Speaker 3: nerdy spreadsheet. So then I start flipping through the whole thing.
Speaker 3: I can't find those nineteen ninety five Arizona games anywhere
Speaker 3: else in the book, right, So then I start checking
Speaker 3: against Christine's game by game thing, and I'm like, wait,
Speaker 3: this is off, Like what if she played in those games?
Speaker 3: And so I reached out to US Soccer and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: we have we have, you know, the game reports for
Speaker 3: those games and so when the next media guide came out,
Speaker 3: her numbers had adjusted, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: like I had just kind of talked to it and
Speaker 3: forgotten about it, and then when it the next one
Speaker 3: came out, I was like, ooh, I was.
Speaker 2: Like, it changed. It changed. You know, that's wild. That's
Speaker 2: not just any cap number.
Speaker 1: That is a record that may never be broken, or
Speaker 1: at the very least should be broken correctly if it is,
Speaker 1: which now will it?
Speaker 3: And it took it took like a couple of years
Speaker 3: for it to cycle through the internet for everything to
Speaker 3: get threety four. And I was so thrilled that when
Speaker 3: when I met Christine Lilly for the first time, the
Speaker 3: person who introduced me, I said, will you please tell
Speaker 3: her that I changed her cap record?
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 2: That's wonderful.
Speaker 1: By the way, Jenna have to ask, have you and
Speaker 1: my producer Alex ever been in the same room at
Speaker 1: the same time, Because the more you talk about your
Speaker 1: spreadsheets and your trivia nights and your nerdiness, the more
Speaker 1: I think that you and Alex may be separated at
Speaker 1: birth or potentially the same person.
Speaker 3: We have not been in the same room at the
Speaker 3: same time, but we have texted a lot about very
Speaker 3: nerdy stat things.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, good. You guys should have a spreadsheet off sometime, Richard.
Speaker 1: I recently discovered your blue Sky content, and I love
Speaker 1: it in particular because your eye for coverage differs from
Speaker 1: a lot of other folks, not just fans, but media
Speaker 1: as well, including calling out coverage that doesn't feel up
Speaker 1: to the professional standards that it should, for instance, just a.
Speaker 2: Few days as I used to. So I like it.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, I'm familiar for it. No, you were watching
Speaker 2: a sky Sun game and you blue skiede. Quote.
Speaker 1: You put the details of the Maybrey trade on the
Speaker 1: screen and don't even mention how vastly important the pick
Speaker 1: swap at the bottom of the list could be. If
Speaker 1: an NBA broadcasted that didn't mention it might move a
Speaker 1: team from number fifteen to number one in the upcoming draft,
Speaker 1: they'd be laughed at end quote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I wonder if you could.
Speaker 1: Talk about the ways that you think coverage isn't up
Speaker 1: to snuff for the most sophisticated viewers and what we
Speaker 1: lose in that, Because, to be honest with you, this
Speaker 1: is my job, and that's one of my teams and
Speaker 1: I hadn't really processed that part of that pick swap
Speaker 1: because it isn't talked about and it isn't written about
Speaker 1: the same way it might be in immen's league.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do think there are gaps in the coverage.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously we do, or we probably wouldn't exist.
Speaker 4: But the broadcasting of the WNBA has absolutely improved. I
Speaker 4: give all of the various channels involved and the people
Speaker 4: involved credit for that, but we do still have people
Speaker 4: who don't necessarily watch that many games apart from the
Speaker 4: ones that they're working, and don't necessarily aren't as embedded
Speaker 4: within thinking about the league and watching the league and
Speaker 4: covering the league as you kind of expect an NBA
Speaker 4: or an NFL broadcaster to be. You sort of think
Speaker 4: if you hear, you know, Richard Jefferson or Doris Burke
Speaker 4: doing the NBA, you kind of expect that if someone
Speaker 4: asked them about a game that was on the previous night,
Speaker 4: they'd have watched it, they'd have been at home watching it,
Speaker 4: or they at the very least watch highlights of this game.
Speaker 4: You don't always get that feeling with some of the
Speaker 4: people who work on WNBA games. It's more that they've
Speaker 4: done their research, they've invariably talked to the coaches and
Speaker 4: things like that. They know they're prepared. They're all prepared,
Speaker 4: but they're not as obsessive about the league as you
Speaker 4: sort of expect the men's league broadcasters to.
Speaker 1: Be or potentially have multiple other jobs. Absolutely are the
Speaker 1: rules in order to kind of.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not a dedicated job because like lots of
Speaker 4: the writers, Yeah, it's hard to make them make money
Speaker 4: and make this your sole career covering a WNBA, which
Speaker 4: you know, we all hope the leagues, these women's leagues
Speaker 4: are going to get bigger and bigger, and then people
Speaker 4: that will be their only coverage, that will be their focus.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think also it's the way you watch
Speaker 1: and what matters to you, which is why it's so
Speaker 1: necessary to have folks like you two, because it's not
Speaker 1: the way my brain works and watches, but it makes
Speaker 1: the experience more interesting for me when folks like you
Speaker 1: offer things up because of the way you watch. And Jen,
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can still ever watch a game
Speaker 1: for fun or do you always find that your critical
Speaker 1: eye for content and stats is tracking things.
Speaker 3: I think I gave up watching games for fun maybe
Speaker 3: twenty years ago. No, no, no, no, but well, okay,
Speaker 3: let me put it this way. Gave up watching for
Speaker 3: from a fan's eye twenty years ago because for me,
Speaker 3: what I'm doing it the way I consume these games,
Speaker 3: it is fun for me. It is fun for me
Speaker 3: to have my laptop with me anytime I'm watching a game.
Speaker 3: A lot of the times I am, you know, running
Speaker 3: a live Slack channel with the talent and producers and
Speaker 3: graphics at the time. Sometimes I'm not. It depends, you know,
Speaker 3: on the game, So my engagement level varies. But there's
Speaker 3: no way I can just watch a game and not
Speaker 3: have some critical thoughts. Even watching the US Women's game,
Speaker 3: I'm like, why are they choosing those colors for the score?
Speaker 2: Bug?
Speaker 3: What are they thinking?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Like, it's down to every detail.
Speaker 4: I was just going to say that I watched some
Speaker 4: of the games Gens covering as a fan. This is
Speaker 4: a weird crossover. I'm going to be in Switzerland for
Speaker 4: the Women's Euros that you're going to be covering from
Speaker 4: the Studio's a little dot in the in the crowd
Speaker 4: at the end. So yeah, I still get to watch
Speaker 4: the soccer as a fan. But yeah, I know the
Speaker 4: feeling in terms of yeah, I don't. I don't have
Speaker 4: a WNBA team and haven't for a long time, which yeah,
Speaker 4: does mean I can be neutral about it all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, until they expand to Europe, it's going to make
Speaker 1: for some tough travel.
Speaker 4: I've been calling for a London team for a long
Speaker 4: time now. I'm not not expecting it anytime soon.
Speaker 1: I will say that, Richard, I have to ask you
Speaker 1: just did or her Hoop Stats podcast about EuroBasket, which
Speaker 1: is something that is huge where you are and mostly
Speaker 1: just a nuisance to us because players leave our w
Speaker 1: teams to go play in it. Can you give us
Speaker 1: the top two reasons we should listen to that podcast
Speaker 1: episode and we should be excited about watching EuroBasket.
Speaker 4: I mean the top two reasons are the people that
Speaker 4: did it with me, which are Alfred Currier and Robert Mummery,
Speaker 4: who both know these teams and players inside out and
Speaker 4: gave great coverage of what to expect and what to
Speaker 4: see in those games. It's a major tournament, a major
Speaker 4: international tournament that these players care about a lot, and
Speaker 4: that will be high level basketball with potential upsets because
Speaker 4: Eurobusque involves a lot of teams that are relatively close
Speaker 4: to each other in terms of talent level. In that France, Spain,
Speaker 4: Belgium will go in as favorites, but the other teams
Speaker 4: are capable of beating them. It's close enough that you
Speaker 4: know it's it's not an America up where if the
Speaker 4: US sent a full squad they would win most games
Speaker 4: by thirty forty points. We're talking about.
Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm wrong, But France is actually missing
Speaker 1: a lot of players who decided to stay in the
Speaker 1: w and not travel over, so they won't have quite
Speaker 1: the advantage we expected even a month or so ago.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Marine Johannes, Gabby Williams, Carla Lake, Dominique Malongo, who's
Speaker 4: obviously gotten.
Speaker 2: A lot of pretty big names.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and France of probably still the favorites, which shows
Speaker 4: you how much talent is coming out of France in
Speaker 4: the basketball.
Speaker 1: Well, they sure gave the US run for their money
Speaker 1: at the Olympics, so I think we finally woke up
Speaker 1: to that. All right, last question for both of you,
Speaker 1: I'm putting you on the spot, but is there a
Speaker 1: specific statistic in your sport that you have your eye
Speaker 1: on that you think someone is about to break, or
Speaker 1: a team is likely to up end, or a long
Speaker 1: standing stat that is finally ready and ripe to be broken.
Speaker 3: Well, for NWSL, we have now, as of after the
Speaker 3: other night's Kansas City game, we now have four players
Speaker 3: tied for thirty one career assists, and assists don't happen
Speaker 3: as much as goals, right, you know, So it's like, please,
Speaker 3: will somebody just take this record and run?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So it's Lynn, it's Sophia Huerta, it's the retired Jess McDonald,
Speaker 3: and now Vanessa di Bernardo is tied. And I've had
Speaker 3: this queued up, you know, in our you know, milestones
Speaker 3: to watch for months.
Speaker 2: Now it's like it's going to take it.
Speaker 3: Somebody take it and run with it.
Speaker 1: Everyone stops scoring solo goals using this tricks.
Speaker 2: Yes, just take an assist.
Speaker 1: And bury it from one of those four peoples, please, Richard,
Speaker 1: how about you?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm going to twist your question a little bit
Speaker 4: and say that welcome to We're probably less than a
Speaker 4: year away of somebody shattering the highest salary that we've
Speaker 4: recorded since we've been doing this. Because we have a
Speaker 4: collective bargaining agreement negotiation going on at the moment because
Speaker 4: the leap, the players Association opted out of the current one,
Speaker 4: which means the current CBA expires after the season that
Speaker 4: is being played at the moment, so they need to
Speaker 4: get a new one done before next season. We're all
Speaker 4: crossing our fingers that that happens without a strike, without
Speaker 4: a lockout, because that's not going to be good for anyone.
Speaker 4: And yeah, once it does, players could be earning maybe
Speaker 4: a million dollars a year. The people have certainly thrown
Speaker 4: that out as sort of, yeah, add a zero one
Speaker 4: to what we're seeing at the moment, So it'd be.
Speaker 1: Very different, very different, I would imagine, And I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's a record of this that this season
Speaker 1: has the highest number and percentage of players with contracts
Speaker 1: ending in the exact same year.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, we have about because.
Speaker 1: Almost every roster, everybody's contract is done this season, so
Speaker 1: they could take advantage of that CBA yep.
Speaker 4: Apart from the players that are on rookie scale contracts,
Speaker 4: which are three years plus one, virtually everyone else has
Speaker 4: said I'm not signing beyond twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Right, So unless the league started with everybody on a
Speaker 1: one year deal or a three year deal or something
Speaker 1: like that. Unless the very beginning of the w involved
Speaker 1: everyone signing the same length of contract, I would guess
Speaker 1: that this would be a statistical anomaly in that category.
Speaker 4: It's going to create a ridiculous free agency next year,
Speaker 4: assuming we actually get a CBA to allow us to
Speaker 4: have it. Yeah, because anyone can sign anyone.
Speaker 1: And we here at this show are very excited about that. Richard, Jen,
Speaker 1: this was so fun. I learned a ton. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for the time, Thank you, Thanks, thanks again to
Speaker 1: Jen and Richard for taking the time. We got to
Speaker 1: take another break when we come back. What makes a
Speaker 1: record untouchable? Welcome back, Slay says, you heard Jen's story
Speaker 1: about getting Christine Lily's cap world record changed from three
Speaker 1: point fifty two to three fifty four international appearances after
Speaker 1: Jen stumbled upon two previously unrecorded games from nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: Well that got us thinking, will any other soccer player
Speaker 1: of any gender ever come close to Lily's record? The
Speaker 1: current men's record holder isn't even close. Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo
Speaker 1: is the only man ever to reach two hundred international appearances,
Speaker 1: and he's currently at two hundred and twenty one. Total
Speaker 1: caps worth noting at forty years old, his biological footy
Speaker 1: clock is ticking, so perhaps another woman well. Canadian star
Speaker 1: Christine Sinclair, who retired last year, has the second most
Speaker 1: caps ever at three hundred thirty one. As for the
Speaker 1: most capped active player, that honor belongs to thirty five
Speaker 1: year old Dutch player Sharita Spitza, who has logged two
Speaker 1: hundred and forty three appearances for the Netherlands since two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. Meantime, on the US national team, thirty
Speaker 1: one year old Lindsay Heaps formerly Iran, has the most
Speaker 1: caps of any US active player, one sixty seven, meaning
Speaker 1: she's still less than halfway to Lily's record of three
Speaker 1: point fifty four, and there's reason to believe that Lily's
Speaker 1: record may never be broken. First, and foremost, her longevity
Speaker 1: is legendary. She played for the US women's national team
Speaker 1: for twenty three years, starting at the age of sixteen,
Speaker 1: but also the world of women's soccer has fundamentally changed
Speaker 1: in Lily's playing days. The national team was essentially the
Speaker 1: only stable postgrad opportunity. In fact, a few years after
Speaker 1: graduating from unc Lily played for the Washington Wart Hogs
Speaker 1: of the now defunct Continental Indoor Soccer League, a men's league.
Speaker 2: She was the only woman at the time.
Speaker 1: Lily went on to play in the semi pro USLW League,
Speaker 1: then the professional WUSA and w the two women's pro
Speaker 1: leagues that preceded the NWSL. Lilly also spent some time
Speaker 1: playing at clubs in Europe. Altogether, from ninety four to
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, seventeen years of club ball, she played in
Speaker 1: just one hundred eight games. For comparison, mel Swanson reached
Speaker 1: one hundred five games in just seven seasons so far
Speaker 1: with the NWSL. These days, with the NWSL, the English
Speaker 1: Women's Super League and other international leagues thriving, plus in
Speaker 1: season tournaments and interleague cups being added every year, top
Speaker 1: players are less reliant on their national team for opportunities
Speaker 1: to play, meaning the number of international games scheduled each
Speaker 1: year has gradually declined and players have more games to
Speaker 1: manage than ever before, and that balance can be seen
Speaker 1: in decisions made by the coaching staff. For example, current
Speaker 1: US women's national team boss Emma Hayes recently announced that
Speaker 1: she's essentially giving all Europe based US national team players
Speaker 1: a quote much needed break this summer and she'll rely
Speaker 1: on players in the NWSL instead. Now, remember the NWSL
Speaker 1: in European leagues follow opposite schedules, with the NWSL breaking
Speaker 1: in the winter and the European leagues breaking in the summer.
Speaker 2: Well, what does that mean for someone like Lindsay Heaps.
Speaker 2: Let's take a look at what she's been up to
Speaker 2: since the twenty twenty three World Cup.
Speaker 1: Heeps played for the US in the twenty three World
Speaker 1: Cup in Australia and New Zealand from mid July to
Speaker 1: mid August of twenty twenty three. Then she suited up
Speaker 1: for her club side oll Lyon for a friendly in
Speaker 1: late August before their Division Ie Feminine season began in September.
Speaker 1: Heeps played that season while her club Can currently competed
Speaker 1: in Coope.
Speaker 2: De France and UEFA Champions League matches.
Speaker 1: Leon's campaign ended in May twenty twenty four with another
Speaker 1: championship trophy, and from there Heaps was called into the
Speaker 1: US women's national team training camp in June. She played
Speaker 1: Olympic tune up friendly state side in July, then headed
Speaker 1: back to France for the Paris Olympics from late July
Speaker 1: to mid August.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Then it was back to France for the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four to twenty five Leon season, and back to the
Speaker 1: US where the she believes cup, and on and on
Speaker 1: and on it goes. That's a lot of mileage to
Speaker 1: put on the body. In an interview with ESPN's Jeff Kasoof,
Speaker 1: Emma Hayes said the only Europe based player she expects
Speaker 1: to call it for the team's pair of friendlies against
Speaker 1: Ireland in late June and their match against Canada in
Speaker 1: early July is defender Nami Germa, who currently plays for
Speaker 1: Chelsea and returned from injury earlier this month. Hayes told
Speaker 1: ESPN the decision to arrest players was made using input
Speaker 1: from performance and medical staff, and included analysis of the
Speaker 1: number of minutes players have logged in recent years. We'll
Speaker 1: link to Kasoof's full interview with Hayes in the show notes.
Speaker 1: All that to say, Christine Lily's record feels pretty untouchable.
Speaker 1: But if modern medicine keeps improving, maybe current US women's
Speaker 1: national team teenage phenom Lily Johannes will play into her sixties.
Speaker 1: Never say never. We love that you listen in slices
Speaker 1: but we want you to get in the game every
Speaker 1: day too, so here's our good game play of the day.
Speaker 1: Check out the incredible resources that Jen and Richard have
Speaker 1: poured their hearts into. We've linked to both keeper notes
Speaker 1: and her hoopstats in the show notes. And if you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with the history of June teenth, honored today
Speaker 1: by doing some reading, put some links in our show
Speaker 1: notes to great stories by Henry Lewis Gates Junior and
Speaker 1: Derek Bryceon Taylor. We always love to hear from you,
Speaker 1: so hit us up on email. Good game at Wondermedia
Speaker 1: neetwork dot com. We'll leave us a voicemail at eight
Speaker 1: seven two two o four fifty seventy and don't forget
Speaker 1: to subscribe, rate and review.
Speaker 2: It's easy.
Speaker 1: Watch briefly forgetting You reside in a clown Country, rating
Speaker 1: ten out of ten seconds of ignorant bliss review. Here's
Speaker 1: my exchange with a Canadian barista Me Starbucks US app
Speaker 1: still work here, Barista?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Where are you visiting from?
Speaker 1: Me?
Speaker 2: Chicago? Have you been Barista?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Not yet me. Oh, you have to come.
Speaker 1: It's the best actually, often said to be similar to
Speaker 1: Toronto Barista.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Maybe in a few years.
Speaker 1: Me, Oh yeah, shit, definitely don't come now and ignorant
Speaker 1: bliss bubble burst. Honestly, I'm just grateful I'm still capable
Speaker 1: of forgetting even moment harrily about the whrrors of the
Speaker 1: current time, and that I don't have to be nervous
Speaker 1: when I head back through immigration in the US later tonight.
Speaker 1: I know that's a privilege not everyone has. Now it's
Speaker 1: your turn, rate and review. Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Good game, Jen, Good game, Richard, you being embarrassed of
Speaker 1: where I'm from. Good Game with Sarah Spain is an
Speaker 1: iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports
Speaker 1: and Entertainment. You could find us on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by
Speaker 1: Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan,
Speaker 1: and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez,
Speaker 1: Grace Lynch, and Gianna Palmer. Our associate producer is Lucy
Speaker 1: Jones and I'm your host Sarah Spain.