THIS WNBA SEASON, Y’ALL!

Never take financial advice from me. I had full season tickets for the Chicago Sky for a few years. The grind of not only going to games, tracking how many tickets I had when I missed a game, and making sure I wasn’t using my ticket partner’s share was a lot. A bit too much. Plus last season was HARSH. Then leadership seemed to be doing a whole lotta nothing. I was fed up. My partner was fed up. We gave up our tickets. I moved to a smaller, more manageable, package. I heard people in the winter saying they were going to get season tickets and sell whatever game Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese would be playing to pay for their tickets. I laughed. When Caitlin and the Fever played in Chicago at the end of June the average ticket price was $250. They were right.

This week’s ROOKIE WATCH was so packed with stats and commentary that it was too much for Instagram. Thankfully Facebook doesn’t have that short of a limit. It is so much fun to follow the Rookies stats, but also hard for those not getting the playing time one would expect. And each time I go to write this newsletter a new record drops.

I am keenly aware that we are living in some weird mixture, Venn diagram space of “The Hunger Games,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and “The Parable of the Sower.” And that the national obsession over women’s sports is partially our desperate need for feel-good news. Sports, no matter the gender, allows us to stop what we are doing and focus on a very simple us versus them moment. For a few hours, nothing really matters except what is happening on the court, the field, or the pitch.

Except that in the WNBA, what happens on the court does matter to real life. “Power of the Dream” is a documentary on Prime (I know, I know…) that tells the story of the 2020 season when the Atlanta Dream was owned by Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler who was dismissive of the players’ efforts to uplift the “Say Her Name” campaign and other racial justice work. Once Raphael Warnock passed the test, the WNBA players rallied behind him and his campaign caught fire. And the rest is history. Except it shouldn’t be history, it should be revisited every day as an example of what a collective of powerful women can do to change things. To wield their power.

The US Women’s National Team is legendary in their fight for pay equality after dominating women’s soccer for generations and still bringing home a fraction of what the men’s team did. For the record, they are woefully bad. The Olympics is in two weeks and they just fired their coach. Megan Rapinoe was the first white athlete to kneel during during the national anthem in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick’s work to raise awareness about police violence and social justice.

In essence, women’s sports is full of politics.

Because women’s sports is political.

And here I go sounding like a broken record. Women had to fight and lobby Congress to play sports. Women’s sports is where lesbian, bi, and queer women have pushed to create a more inclusive space. Women’s sports is where you find more acceptance for transgender athletes. To read more about the complex conversation over the inclusion of transgender athletes, please grab a copy of “Fair Play.” Women’s sports is not just a space for athletics. Women’s sports is value-laden from a proxy for freedom and liberation to a must for young girls to learn how to lead and thus become tomorrow’s CEO.

While I don’t have full season tickets to the Sky this season, each time I have gone, I take time to soak it all in. Knowing that just last season it was not a given that the crowd would be big enough to be a factor in the game. Taking in the groups of grown men, there because they love the game, not cause they are doing Dad duty. Loving the guys on Dad duty.

Sports itself has been political, especially in the sense of who pays for stadiums. Recent conversations about the Bears and White Sox wanting new stadiums has started a long-overdue conversation about the inadequate stadium for the Chicago Red Stars. Which is not in Chicago proper, not easily accessible to public transportation, and also was too eager to take Riot Fest money and tell the Red Stars to find a new place to play a nationally televised game. As someone who is against publicly-funded stadiums because they don’t result in the economic boom promised, do I support the use of tax dollars for the women’s team? No. But if the boys get tax dollars, the Red Stars should too. That said, the stadium the Sky plays in is the stadium Rahm built for DePaul while closing 50 Chicago Public Schools. I tell ya, it’s all political.

Still I urge you to turn on a game, upset that guy at the bar by asking to flip the channel, support bars that promote WNBA and NWSL watch parties, and enjoy some fantastic playing.

What I’m consuming

It’s not all women’s sports over here.

The Whisper Sister: My OG blogger friend, Jennifer S. Brown, is back with a fantastic novel about an immigrant woman during Prohibition who lives an epically tragic life. I’m only about half-way through the book, but ready to give it 5 stars. Pre-order today [Bookshop | Amazon]

The Singer Sisters: Sarah Seltzer’s debut novel about is the manifestation of that curse, “May your daughter be as rebellious as you.” Sarah’s touching writing shows us the harm that secrets cause, the power of sharing one’s story, especially to your daughter, and the happiness that comes from finally letting go of the past and restarting your life on your terms. Pre-order today [Bookshop | Amazon]

The Myth of Making It: A Workplace Reckoning: Samhita Mukhopadhyay takes an axe to hustle culture from the perspective of a woman of color. Especially as a daughter of an immigrant. That hustle is praised. But what are we truly striving towards? [Bookshop | Amazon]

BRAT: Charlie XCX’s latest album is SO FUN! Of course, part of why I am loving this album is the track, “Girl, so confusing,” which puts to bed any beef Charlie was having with Lorde. And if you are like me, you are thinking, “THEY WERE BEEFING?!” Yes, it’s all in this great episode of “It’s Been a Minute.”

Ancient Huasteca Women : Goddesses, Warriors and Governors at the National Museum of Mexican Art. It closes on July 21st! I ABSOLUTELY went to see the relic of a woman baseball player. Hear about this slugger on WBEZ.

Next weekend I'll be attending my first Pitchfork. I’m going on Sunday, so if you will be there, drop me a line. I canNOT wait to lose my mind over MUNA. If you haven’t heard of them, I like to describe them as the happy boygenius. They so much fun, so def add them to your summer playlist. I’m also excited to see Brittany Howard and God, herself, Alanis Morissette.

OK, back to prepping for the Olympics! See you after I get my fest on!

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