The NWSL’s Moneyball Moment

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1:25Congratulations, you made the varsity podcast. My name is John Orand and I'm Puck's sports correspondent and the host of this pod. And today we have a conversation with NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman on the eve of the start of her league's 14th season. But before Before we get to Jessica, today is Sunday, March 15th, and here's what I'm watching. My interest in the NFL's media rights negotiations knows no bounds, so I want to give you all an update on where things stand. The NFL has started negotiating with Paramount, which owns CBS. Paramount, as you know, was just bought by Skydance Media's David Ellison, and the NFL is hoping to set the market with him.

2:10The NFL's other Sunday afternoon partner, Fox Sports, would be up next. Now, Fox hasn't started anything formal yet, but the NFL really wants to start with the Sunday afternoon broadcasters to try and peel away some of the games that they can then use to create new packages for, say, YouTube or Netflix. Now, to that end, I broke some news in my private email on Thursday about the NFL putting its season-opening Australia game into a package rather than selling it on its own. Then there's the Thanksgiving Eve window that the NFL is considering for yet another game. Now, it's clear to me that the NFL wants to use these negotiations to create strong packages that will get those big streamers and, of course, their deep pockets much more interested in doing deals.

2:57Okay, now let's get to NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman. Jessica Berman, thank you so much for joining us again on The Varsity. You are about to, or your league is about to start its 14th season. The first season was back in 2013. And I think for a season preview, you're not a new league anymore. You're not an expansion league anymore. Where are you? How would you categorize the NWSL in terms of league growth right now? Yeah, I think we have a unique combination of being a challenger property that has startup elements where we are innovating and risk tolerant and how we think about growth. And at the same time, we have the benefit of not being a net new property.

3:54And so we have some reps under our belt. And so I think that gives confidence in what we are doing on and off the pitch to investors, brands and media partners. So we really try to balance the unique combination of all those factors and hopefully come up with all the ingredients that make us really capitalize on this incredible moment in time. Now, Major League Soccer, they've been talking a lot about it. They're getting into MLS 3.0, and it's sort of like the third phase of their growth. Is that how you view it internally at the NWSL as well? Take me through sort of a league that still is a new-ish league as it starts to grow.

4:42How do you measure your steps and where it grows and how it grows? Yeah, I would say we're in the second chapter of our growth. And I think the second chapter really began in 2022, not only because it was the beginning of my tenure. In fact, it was really the first year that the league was fully independent from U.S. soccer and began to develop a strategy for investing in the growth of our business. and everything that's happened as a result is really attributed to the decisions that were made by our owners before I was hired, which was we are going to build this league to compete with the best leagues in the world and we are going to invest in this like a business.

5:30That means we have to hire executives. That means we have to build training facilities so that our athletes can be treated like professional athletes and we're going to make sure that we're putting on a best in class product because the game itself has been the best in the world since candidly before the NWSL even began. So I think we've always had the best product in the world. It was really about all of the pieces around it that required investment so that it could show up externally as the best league in the world. I'm going to go to kind of an open-ended question here. But as you start this season, again, the 14th season of NWSL, what are some of the metrics that people should be looking at in terms of getting through this season that you're hoping to see either a lot of growth in or at least like maintaining where you are?

6:34Yeah. I mean, I'll start with the product itself, which is everyone should expect our league to be the most competitive league in the world. So that our games are exciting to watch, that there are close matchups, that even if the number one seed in a particular matchup or the number one ranked team in a particular matchup is playing team number 16 that it will not surprise you to see upsets, changes in leads, incredible goals, fun celebrations, incredible atmospheres. I think about tonight, the first game of our season where the Washington Spirit are hosting the Portland Thorns. And I have no doubt that Rowdy Audi is going to be pulsing around Trinity Rodman and hopefully Sophia Smith taking the field to her first match back after having a baby.

7:29And so I think the product on the field, I expect to be the best it's ever been in women's soccer. I think on the business metrics, I expect us to continue to break records. We know that attendance in our league is on the rise. And in fact, we are going to break the single game attendance record for any professional women's game in this country's history that is happening on march 28th in denver they've already sold more than 50 000 tickets and they're going for a sellout of empower field at 67 000. i expect us to break records in viewership on all of our broadcast partners i i expect us to continue to bring on new credible brand partners who will become sponsors of the league and lean into the momentum of the Men's World Cup, which is coming to this country this summer.

8:26And so I expect us to transcend the cultural zeitgeist and I expect us to continue to create those milestones that build the tailwinds to propel the league forward into this sort of piece of our growth history, which is, of course, leading into our next chapter of our media rights cycle, which will begin in 2028. I have to imagine you're going to be in Denver for that game, right? You're going to the game? I wouldn't miss that game for the world. So, yes, I will be there, and I will be in Boston this weekend when both of our expansion teams take the pitch for the first time. Well, at some point, I have to imagine if I owned an NWSL team, I would say, well, I'm going to put it in a football stadium, and I'm going to sell those tickets too.

9:11This has to be a template for teams moving forward, I would think. Listen, I think it's the benefit of expansion where you can come in on a clean slate and build a brand from scratch and redefine what's possible. And I think what we've seen in other professional sports leagues, and we're seeing it in our league as well, not surprisingly, it really resets the standard and raises the watermark for all of our teams to redefine what's possible. And that's what's definitely happening with this round of expansion. And I have no doubt in 2028 when Arthur Blank's team in Atlanta comes into the league, they're going to yet again do that when they take the pitch, although they've already done it with their announcement of AFLAC as a sponsor, which is the largest deal in women's sports history.

10:00So, yeah, expansion teams really serve as a proxy for redefining the historical norms of any professional sports league. And we've had the benefit of being able to do that in 22, in 24, in 26. And then again, we'll do it in 28. To me, the most amazing statistic that I've seen about your league is Sportico does their valuations of the different teams. And they had Angel City at$340 million or so, which is a big number, of course. But what they also pointed out is that that's up 77 % in 18 months just for that one franchise. And you're seeing it actually across all of sports, I think, but not just the NWSL, but in a lot of major sports, you're seeing these valuations go up so high.

10:54Why is that? Well, I think sports teams are a limited commodity. So there's high demand and limited supply and competitive tension around being able to acquire these assets early in their growth trajectory. So for the NWSL, yes, we're starting our 14th season. Many people would say, really, it's just our fourth season because we redefined our models for operation in just 2022. And so if you are an investor and you believe in sports as an asset class, which has been proven time and time again, there aren't that many places to invest your resources. And I think in particular around women's soccer, there are two things that are happening right now that are really driving interest in the NWSL.

11:49The first is there is incredible cultural momentum around soccer itself, particularly in the U.S. We have the Men's World Cup here in 2026. We have the Olympics here in 2028 and the Holy Grail of the Women's World Cup coming here in 2031. And so those three milestones are creating a tremendous amount of demand to get in at the early stage of women's soccer in the NWSL. But that brings me to the second thing that is happening, which is the incredible momentum around women's sports generally, not just in women's soccer. And of course, we see what's happening with our league and college sports and the WNBA and LPGA and women's hockey and volleyball.

12:34And it has really arrived as a sport of interest and highly entertaining that Americans are finally paying attention to and enjoying across all demographics. And so we feel like the NWSL is really at the intersection of those two cultural moments around the growth in soccer in the U.S. and then women's sports. The only thing that really sits at the intersection of those two things is the NWSL. And I think that is primarily what's driving the incremental and outsized growth in NWSL valuations. Jessica, I want to talk about the growth in women's sports, which is something I've been writing about now for what seems like a decade.

13:18You know, I did. You were ahead of your time, John. I wasn't. I was very unfortunately I was late on it. And you know that as well. But, you know, you're running one of, if not the most successful women's sports league. How much do you like work with the other women's leagues or talk with the other women's leagues versus just minding your knitting and just moving forward myopically about the NWSL? We have really great relationships across all of the women's properties. First of all, there are a lot of shared investors. So the profile of people who want to own or invest in an NWSL team, not surprisingly, tend to overlap with those who are investing in some of the other women's properties that are highly emerging and on an upward trajectory as well.

14:17But I think more broadly, you know, the posture for us, and I think is shared across all of those emerging leagues in women's sports is that we are not competing against each other. The slice of the pie that we collectively hold is still so small relative to the broader pie of professional sports. And we need to lift each other up and support each other. and I intend to attend games throughout the year as I have in the past for them. They all come to our matches. I think that cross-collaboration at the league level is incredibly important. We're also seeing this at the team level. One example that comes to mind is that Gotham in New York and the New York Liberty have a boots-on-the-ground partnership around community where the players on each of those teams come to each other's games.

15:13They do merch collabs because, in fact, people who love their league and our league and that team and the NWSL's teams tend to overlap. And so there's a lot of interesting marketing initiatives that are going on, both at a national level and a local level. And we really want to debunk this notion that there's a zero sum game between us because it is our belief that that is just simply not true. So who is your competitor? Who is the NWSL's competitor? Yeah, it's a good question. I think on the soccer side, you know, we compete with not leagues, but specific teams around the world who are also challenging us by trying to attract and retain elite talent.

16:03And soccer is unique in that we are in a global labor market for talent. So unlike the NFL or the NBA or the NHL or Major League Baseball, where if you are the best player in the world, there's one logical place where you're going to play. That is just not true in soccer. It's one of the reasons that soccer is incredible and the truly global game. It also makes the business challenging and exciting because we actually need to compete not just between and among the teams in our league, but in an open ecosystem for top talent. I think when we think about the business side of who we're competing with, we are competing with the entertainment dollar and time that exists in this country.

16:48So whether you, when it's Saturday, March 28th, and we are in Denver, want to go for a hike or come to an NWSL game, or maybe there is another sporting event or a concert, people have limited time and resources to spend. and when we look at how people spend their time, we really think about it much more broadly. And then of course, there are isolated moments where unfortunately it is a zero-sum game. There is a NFL game on at the same time that we have a game on TV and someone's gonna have to choose unless they're flipping back and forth or have a second screen. But at the end of the day, there are moments where we have to go head-to-head with other properties, but it really is dependent on the circumstances And we really do try to think about it more broadly, which is how do people spend their time when they have free time?

17:41And we want to provide such an incredible, entertaining experience for folks, whether they're watching at home or on their phone and they're out and about or they're in the stadiums that they choose to spend their time with the NWSL. Jessica, I want to lob one more question about the growth of your league before we move on. You referenced, I found this interesting, you know, NWSL is somewhat in its fourth season, you said, and also like the second phase of growth. How long does this second phase take? You know, it's a good question. And it's something that we're thinking a lot about as we build out our longer range plan.

18:23I think I see us building towards the 2031 Women's World Cup. And this chapter of growth is going to define the future of the league. And so everything that we are doing today is in service of building the foundation so that in 2031, when the Women's World Cup is in America, just like it was in 1999, the NWSL is here to capitalize on that historic moment. And I've often said, you've probably heard me say this, John, I was graduating college in 1999. And I remember exactly where I was when the US Women's National Team won the Women's World Cup at the Rose Bowl. And I did not pay attention when the games concluded because there was nowhere for those players to continue to play.

19:19And we are going to make sure that the NWSL is here, is strong, is sustainable, is competing with other big leagues so that when that moment happens, we are prepared and ready to meet the moment.

19:41Hey, everyone, it's John Arand here back in the studio. As you probably know by now, the Varsity this month is presented by Major League Baseball. So we got my friend, Pucks Alex Bigler, to sit down with MLB's Jeremiah Yolkut to discuss the World Baseball Classic. We'll be back with the rest of the show right after this, so stick around. Hi, everybody. I'm Pucks Alex Bigler. And as you know, Major League Baseball is the presenting sponsor of the varsity this month. And I am very excited to be speaking today with Jeremiah Yolcutt, the Senior Vice President of Global Operations and Events for Major League Baseball.

20:19I have made a very solemn vow that I will not redirect the conversation at every turn to talk about my beloved St. Louis Cardinals. And so instead, I'm really excited that Jeremiah and I are going to be talking about the World Baseball Classic. So we just came off of a very popular Winter Olympics. I became curious about your perspective on the parallels between the Olympics and the WBC, the World Baseball Classic. What is playing for or rooting for a country versus a franchise mean for the players and the fans? You know, I think when it comes to sport, there's a passion that exists in all sports.

20:58But particularly when you think about baseball and the history of the game and also the familial connection that the game often has, the roots of a lot of these players that will be on the field over the next several weeks will hearken back to family members, whether that is in the country that they're representing directly or that a grandparent may have been from that country that they're representing. I think that it's more than just the sport, but it's actually about the roots of who the person is and how they got to where they got to. And it's almost the perfect storytelling about their passion today, but also their history of how they got to that most passionate and highest level of the sport that they're participating in.

21:40And I think you'll see that over the next couple of weeks as some of the best players in the world get the opportunity to represent their countries and likely represent a connection to how they became who they are. So that's such a great perspective about the players. What's the experience on the ground like for the fans getting to root on for their countries? Yeah, I think fandom is something that has so many different facets to it. And there is sort of the inherited fandom that you get from the team that maybe is a major league team that you participate in. But when you get to the point of the energy and the passion and the pride of one's country, however they define that country, it could be their home country or like I said, it could be a country that they're rooting for because they loved visiting there.

22:26There is just these unique things that come out in the traditions that are on the field from the players and wrapping themselves in the flag at the end of a big game. It's some of the instruments that people bring to the games that they can enjoy. Those are just the parts of it that are so unique. And I think offer fans a special experience every few years to tie that into baseball and really connect back to what is sort of in their roots and part of their home. Much like the way that baseball is throughout the world, we're really going to show up in places that there's great connectivity toward the game and history toward the game.

23:07Everything you're describing sounds like it must take an insane amount of collaboration, way more than I even realize. Can you talk a little bit about who else is involved and what goes into making this global event happen? It's one of the best parts of the World Baseball Classic is the partnerships that we have, whether it's the Players Association, it's the WBSC, which is the world governing body of baseball. It's the NPB or the KBO, which also partner with us on it. And it's all the federations that join us in making this happen. And it's everyone coming together with one goal, which is to develop and grow baseball, which this event has done, that they love it through the lens that I think they see it in.

23:47But what you see with the WBC is that it is everyone coming together to develop the sport around the world. Not only the games that are happening at the stadiums over the next few weeks, but also those countries that had an opportunity to play in the qualifiers last year. and all of the different resources that are provided to those teams as they make their way through the tournament, because a lot of the funding for development across the world comes from these opportunities to play in these big tournaments. And what we've seen over the last 20 years of the tournament is really the ability to grow those development opportunities and, you know, in the range of$250 million of government funding across all these countries participating to develop baseball.

24:29And so it really comes from partnership. And I think this is the best example in all of baseball, of all those partners coming together to grow the game. I'm going to dig in a little bit more here because, you know, as a fan, I think of it as being known for being incredible celebration of baseball and incredible entertainment. But you're talking about like the actual tangible impact beyond the games themselves that the WBC has. So do you mean like young people who are watching the game and getting interested in baseball or is there more to that? No, I think it's a combination of things. You definitely want to be mindful of the future of our game.

25:07And the WBC is really the future of our game. But I also think it's the people that are watching at home. Remember, most people will consume WBC by watching in some form of media. And it's that kid who's a 10-year-old who just comes back in from playing baseball outside and then gets to watch their favorite player from whichever country you want to name. And to me, that is where the development piece really comes into play. Whether or not that kid ends up to go and play professional baseball is not really the point. Because the lasting memory of them connecting to the game, both at that outdoor experience they had and then watching it on tv that next moment is a fan forever and i think that is where these world tournaments really feed into it because it becomes much more real in that they can see themselves they can see someone from their country playing the game with the country name across the chest and and that just makes fandom that much greater so um it's a variety of those things and you know i think the other thing alex I would point out is that obviously, as I mentioned, the event also just brings shine to the sport amongst a very crowded landscape of sports in general.

26:21And I think to have a global tournament of this nature to start the season is a great opportunity for us to get people re-engaged with baseball. And everyone's excited. And this is sort of the appetizer to what's ahead for, you know, baseball in 2026. Yeah, I'm excited for baseball, too. And I love what you were saying about the young people being able to see themselves. And I imagine from what we've talked about, some of the investment that some countries are receiving by virtue of the world baseball class, it kind of feeds into building the fields that these young people might be playing on as they grow to love the game of baseball even further.

27:00Yeah, and there's so many intangibles. You know, we believe that, you know, there's been over 30 plus fields built within the last 15 years. How much having the sport in this arena gives, you know, the ability for areas that are developing the sport to be able to make the case to get the resources needed to bring those things to life. And that's an important part of this for sure. Like I mentioned earlier, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars going into development generally. But putting bats in kids' hands, letting them get out there is definitely spurned by having this kind of event every few years for people to be able to see the greatness of baseball.

27:39So it's so great that hearing you talk about it and the passion that you have and being able to put on these events that mean a lot to a lot of people and create these lifetime moments. They're really special. So I'm really excited for the World Baseball Classic. I'm really excited for the season this year. And I thank you so much for joining us and talking about this. Yeah, I think we'll be making even more memories for people over the next few weeks. It's funny, as I sit here today and I think about if you and I talk in three weeks, there'll probably be five or six moments that we could, you know, go on and on about about what happened in this year's WBC.

28:15And that's really what it's all about. Thanks so much, Jeremiah. And good luck with everything. It is not hard to destroy a college. Last season, the podcast Campus Files brought you stories of fraternity drug rings, stolen body parts, campus cults and more. And now Campus Files is back for another season. There's a guy screaming into his phone. He's like, I just saw Charlie Kirk get assassinated right in front of me. Every week is a new episode and a new story. It was so chaotic. It's almost like a university on a siege. Listen to and follow Campus Files. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

28:55Jessica, the last time I saw you, it was at Audi Field for the semifinal. shout out to the Washington Spirit, a thrilling victory for them. DC, as anybody listening to this, is my hometown and is very gratified to see Trinity Rodman re-sign to stay in the league. I can just talk about the DC market. She is an athlete that has really broken through and hit just the general sports fans and general consumers as well. You started the high-impact player, what do you call it, a clause or a way to keep somebody like Trinity Rodman in the NWSL instead of going and getting more money internationally where some of the clubs in France or England are spending so much on star players.

29:57how did the idea for the high impact player come about? Yeah, it's a great question. First, I want to say that as a challenger property, we've been constantly analyzing and challenging ourselves to think about our rules and our policies and to decide whether they need to evolve. Because when you are in a high growth league or a high growth business, there is almost nothing that's constant. And so the high impact player rule is where we landed, but we have been thinking about this for years, including when we were negotiating our collective bargaining agreement back in 2024, because we knew that we need to be a league that maintains a salary cap.