Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

Women’s Sports Podcast covering the WNBA, NWSL, PWHL, and NCAA. We explore the business, growth, and future of women's athletics. Hosted by Caitlin and Alex—a husband-and-wife team raising two young daughters.Each week, we highlight the economic impacts, key headlines, and rising stars in women's professional sports and collegiate athletics. We analyze these stories not just as fans, but as parents looking at how today's sports ecosystem is creating real career opportunities for the next generation Connect with us:Instagram/Threads/YouTube: @rtg_podEmail: raisingthegamepod@gmail.com

Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More is a sports podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 35 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More, a sports show with 35 episodes published.

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  Episode #36

  Ep. 36 | UConn's Dynasty With Jeff Goldberg, NWSL Race, FIBA Discussions

  Sep 9, 20261h 54m

  Women's basketball has been so busy fighting for its future that it never learned to look after its past. That's Jeff Goldberg's line, and it anchors our first-ever RTG interview. Interview starts at 49 minutes. Goldberg covered UConn women's basketball for the Hartford Courant from 2001 to 2006, wrote Bird at the Buzzer and Unrivaled, and is featured as one of the main interviewees in "The Dynasty: UConn Huskies" on Apple TV (not to mention his books were also a lot of the source material). He walks us through the blizzard games, Diana Taurasi, the UConn-Tennessee rivalry, the Red Sox joke that accidentally blew up Geno Auriemma's relationship with Pat Summitt, the Nykesha Sales free basket that generated more mail than any story in his paper's history, and why he thinks the WNBA at 30 looks a lot like the NBA in 1977. Before that, a full slate of headlines from a loaded week in women's sports. This week we dig into: - Cathy Engelbert announcing her retirement as WNBA commissioner, why the reaction split between celebration and dread, and our worry about who the NBA installs next - FIBA Women's World Cup in Berlin: Team USA smoking China 94-61, then surviving an ugly, physical grind against Italy, plus Kara Lawson calling out her veterans and Caitlin Clark's 14-point, 11-assist, zero-turnover night - A record 3.65 million girls competed in high school sports in 2025-26, the fifth straight year of growth, with girls flag football exploding past 100,000 participants and Nebraska offering 16 flag football scholarships - A wild NWSL weekend: three of the top five lost, Denver Summit swept Gotham, Washington won at Providence Park for the first time ever, and Ashley Sanchez's hat trick made her the highest-scoring American in a single NWSL season - Olivia Miles taking Rookie of the Month again, A'ja Wilson's MVP case, and Unrivaled fumbling the rollout of a bus tour announcing a tour We also get into the WSL kicking off in England with more than half its clubs led by women, Alexia Putellas buying the Spanish broadcast rights to WSL games, WPBL playoffs, Jordan Chiles aiming for LA 2028, and the US Open quarterfinals. Follow Raising the Game for weekly women's sports coverage. Instagram/Threads/YouTube: @rtg_pod Website: rtgpod.com Email: raisingthegamepod@gmail.com

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  Episode #35

  Ep. 35 | NWSL's Playoff Scramble, WNBA's FIBA Break, and the Angel Reese Rebound Record Math

  Sep 2, 20261h 10m

  Angel Reese just set the WNBA's single-game and single-season rebounding records, and the comment section already has its rebuttal loaded: they're all "me-bounds." So we ran the numbers. Alex pulled every rebound Reese has this season, stripped out the putbacks off her own miss, and the answer is not what the discourse wants it to be. We walk through the math, the league-average baseline, and what's actually left of the argument. From there it's the last week of WNBA basketball before the FIBA World Cup break, with all eight playoff teams locked in and the seeding still a real fight, plus an NWSL playoff race where five teams are scrapping over one spot. This week we dig into: - The Angel Reese "me-bounds" math: 26 rebounds in a game to break Chamique Holdsclaw's 23-year-old record, past A'ja Wilson's single-season mark, 29 double-doubles to pass Alyssa Thomas, and what her rebounding numbers look like with every putback off her own miss removed - WNBA playoff picture heading into the FIBA break: four games left for everybody, the odds each team holds the seed it's sitting in, and why the actual movement is all in the five-through-eight range - Kelsey Mitchell becoming the second player in WNBA history to score 1,000 points in a season, and Caitlin Clark's back-to-back 30-point, 10-assist games, a first in league history - Golden State's 10-2 August: a defense holding opponents under 45% from the floor, one of the deepest benches in the league, and why nobody wants to draw the Valkyries in a playoff series - NWSL playoff race with six match weeks left: Gotham's refusal to lose, the North Carolina Courage leading the league in goals from sixth place, and Seattle, Denver, LA, Houston, Orlando and Angel City fighting over the last spot We also get to Unrivaled's $650 million valuation after an oversubscribed Series C raise, A'ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum out of the FIBA World Cup with Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen called in, the Williams sisters' US Open doubles wild card, the 2027 National Soccer Hall of Fame ballot, the Global Alliance for Female Athletes expanding from four countries to nine, Boston Legacy FC's 2028 move into White Stadium, Masai Russell's 12.09 world record in Zurich, and the first Upshot League championship. Follow Raising the Game for weekly women's sports coverage. Instagram/Threads/YouTube: @rtg_pod Website: rtgpod.com Email: raisingthegamepod@gmail.com

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  Episode #34

  Episode 34 | Portland's $150M Bet on Women's Sports, WNBA Top Performances & Playoff Predictions

  Aug 26, 20261h 26m

  The Portland Thorns and Portland Fire just opened a $150 million training facility built for two professional women's teams, and it might be the clearest answer yet to the "nobody watches women's sports" crowd. The Kaiser Permanente Performance Center in Hillsboro, Oregon is 100,000 square feet on a 12-acre campus, and it's the first facility in the world designed to house two pro women's teams from two different sports under one roof. We use it as a jumping-off point to walk through what NWSL clubs are actually spending on training facilities right now, and the total is not small. Then we get into the WNBA playoff picture, our full bracket predictions, and the harassment that keeps hijacking games the league should be celebrating. This week we dig into: - Women's sports facility investment: inside the Thorns and Fire's new home, from two full-size pitches and a 17,000-square-foot practice gym to family lounges and full-service dining, plus a rundown of what Denver, Chicago, Gotham, Atlanta, Columbus and Manchester City are building. Alex's quick math on the NWSL projects alone lands somewhere north of $240 million. - WNBA playoff predictions: all but one spot is claimed, the seeding fight is really a home-court fight, and we give you our full bracket. Lynx over the Liberty in five, and we explain why NaLyssa Smith's knee injury may have flipped the Aces-Liberty series before it starts. - The harassment problem in the W: objects thrown onto courts, a man who walked onto the baseline to make himself the story, racist messages sent to Dearica Hamby, and our case for lifetime bans and actual leadership from the league office. - Standout performances: Angel Reese's 31 and 14 against the Mercury, Kelsey Mitchell's 20-point streak now at 23 straight games after passing A'ja Wilson's record, Natasha Cloud's career night against the Liberty, Awak Kuier's seven blocks, and Sydney Taylor's second game-winner of the month. - NWSL playoff race: eighth through eleventh separated by two points, Gotham's nine-game unbeaten run, Washington's winless August, and a game-by-game look at whose remaining schedule is actually survivable. We also get to Nneka Ogwumike's retirement after 15 seasons, Tobin Heath's jersey retirement in Portland, Georgia drawing an NCAA-record 25,433 for women's soccer, San Francisco landing the 2027 WNBA All-Star Game, Team USA's FIBA World Cup roster, Coco Gauff's Cincinnati title, Miyu Yamashita's record-tying nine-shot win in Canada, and 12-year-old Kinley Rasmus tying Mo'ne Davis' Little League World Series strikeout record. Follow Raising the Game for weekly women's sports coverage. Instagram/Threads/YouTube: @rtg_pod Website: rtgpod.com Substack: substack.com/@raisingthegamepodcast Email: raisingthegamepod@gmail.com

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  Episode #32

  Ep. 32 | Women's Pro Baseball Ends a 70-Year Blackout, NWSL Playoff Race, WNBA Last Two In Predictions

  Aug 12, 20261h 15m

  Women's professional baseball is back after more than 70 years, and the new WPBL is playing its entire first season in Springfield, Illinois. We wanted to know how we got here. This is a history episode with a purpose. Caitlin walks through 160 years of women trying to get on a baseball field, from college teams in the 1860s to a league that finally stuck in 2026, and then we get into how the Women's Pro Baseball League is actually built, funded, and staffed. After that, playoff math: who grabs the last two spots in the NWSL and the WNBA. This week we dig into: - The long history: Vassar's Resolutes fielding a team in 1866, the first known paid women's game in Springfield in 1875, the barnstorming era of the Bloomer Girls and the Dolly Vardens, and Jackie Mitchell striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in a 1931 exhibition before commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided her contract for being "too strenuous" for women - The AAGPBL and everything "A League of Their Own" skipped: the charm school and skirts, 910,000 fans at the 1948 peak, the Negro Leagues players like Toni Stone, Mamie "Peanut" Johnson and Connie Morgan who were shut out of it, and Maria Pepe's Little League fight that opened youth baseball to girls in 1974 - Inside the WPBL: co-founders Justine Siegal and Keith Stein, four teams named for women pioneers (Boston Hunters, New York Heights, Los Angeles Queens, San Francisco Firebells), a 30-game season at Robin Roberts Stadium, seven innings and aluminum bats, draft names like Kelsie Whitmore, Ayami Sato and Mo'ne Davis, and why MLB's total silence is getting noticed by fans - NWSL playoff race: North Carolina's brutal closing slate, Angel City's streakiness, why Seattle Reign are suddenly live with Jess Fishlock back and Lumen Field theirs again, and Orlando's Barbra Banda dependency problem - WNBA playoff picture: New York hanging on by Breanna Stewart's health, a surging Washington Mystics team leaning on very young players, Chicago's inability to close one-score games, Kelsey Plum's move to Phoenix, and why Indiana is the top-six team we think is most likely to slide We also get into the 17-day FIBA World Cup break and what it does to momentum, the WAFCON semifinals and World Cup qualifying stakes, and the weekend What to Watch, including the first WPBL games we've put on the list. Follow Raising the Game for weekly women's sports coverage. Instagram/Threads/YouTube: @rtg_pod Website: rtgpod.com Substack: substack.com/@raisingthegamepodcast Email: raisingthegamepod@gmail.com

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  Episode #31

  Ep. 31 | FIFA's $20 Billion Plan Collapses in 72 Hours, Lynx Win 10 Straight, WPBL Debuts

  Aug 5, 20261h 8m

  FIFA tried to sell a piece of the World Cup and world football said no. Gianni Infantino's $20 billion plan died in about three days, and the women's game was squarely in the blast radius. Episode 31 walks through the whole timeline: the FIFA Forward Enterprises pitch, UEFA's 55 member associations voting unanimously to boycott, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation following, and the resignations inside FIFA that made it look less like strategy and more like one person's project. We also get into what almost got canceled, including the U-20 Women's World Cup in Poland and 2027 Women's World Cup qualifying. Then it's WAFCON, a tightening NWSL playoff race, the WNBA trade deadline, and a Lynx-Fever game we watched from the Target Center stands. This week we dig into: - FIFA's $20 billion collapse: the FIFA Forward Enterprises proposal, UEFA's unanimous boycott vote, 143 of 211 member nations lined up against it, and the two women, UEFA vice president Laura McAllister and Norway's Lise Klaveness, who moved fastest - WAFCON in Morocco and the coverage problem: Malawi's Temwa and Tabitha Chawinga taking down record champions Nigeria, Barbra Banda's four-goal game in Zambia's 6-0 win over Egypt, and a tournament almost nobody in the U.S. can legally watch or even get live scores for - WNBA trade deadline and playoff math: Kelsey Plum from the Sparks to the Mercury, Aneesah Morrow to the Toronto Tempo, a five-game gap between the top eight and bottom seven, and why Minnesota has the toughest remaining strength of schedule - Lynx 108-100 over the Fever at Target Center: Kelsey Mitchell's 37 points, Olivia Miles' "welcome to the W" moment, Napheesa Collier at 4-0 since returning, and Cheryl Reeve handling the off-court noise the way you'd want a coach to - NWSL playoff race: seventh through tenth separated by a single point, Jess Fishlock scoring seconds into her return for the Reign, Sam Kerr on the board for Gotham, and Utah putting five past Portland Also in this one: the Women's Pro Baseball League's sold-out opening weekend, the Los Angeles Queens beating the New York Heights 10-8 and the San Francisco Firebells beating the Boston Hunters 11-3, the WNBA hitting 73 million unique viewers with a third of the season still to play, Netflix paying a reported $200 million for 2027 Women's World Cup rights, the NWSL terminating its Victory+ streaming deal, Athletes Unlimited pausing pro basketball and volleyball for 2027, Marina Mabrey's three-point contest raising $6,500 for the Black Women's Institute for Health, girls high school flag football drawing 1.12 million viewers, and Alex Eala becoming the first Filipina to win a WTA Tour title by beating Jessica Pegula at the DC Open. Follow Raising the Game for weekly women's sports coverage. Instagram/Threads/YouTube: @rtg_pod Website: rtgpod.com Substack: substack.com/@raisingthegamepodcast Email: raisingthegamepod@gmail.com

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