The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Good Follow - WNBA All-Stars Announced, League Expanding to 18 Teams + Angel Named Player of the Week & More

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

This Week on Good Follow: Ros & Logan react to the WNBA announcing 3 new teams and expanding to 18 total by 2030, discuss All-Star voting results, and break down Angel Reese’s slow season start to being named this week’s Eastern Conference player of the week. Finally, Logan shares her quick hits of the week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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of Service Corporation International. You're listening to Draft Kings Network. I'm Roz Goldilngwade. That's Logan Hackett. And Logan. I knew it was coming. Is it bell time? It is 8 o'clock. It's time for the next episode of Draft Kings. I'm Roz Goldilngwade. I'm back with another episode of Draft Kings. I'm back with another episode of Draft Kings. I'm back with another episode of Draft Kings.

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I want to take this moment personally to say hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to all 3030 of our YouTube subscribers. If we happen to be at more than that number I'm speaking directly to the 3030 that are here with us right now because we finally made it to 3,000 followers on YouTube now we know people are digesting our podcasts all over the place and listening and we appreciate everybody

that's listening and tapping in and downloading but on YouTube in particular we appreciate it so much the The road to 4K begins now. We're so excited. Thank you for rocking with us. Okay guys, so we have a busy show for you today. There's so much happening right now. Let me take you through the menu for the show. Okay, the WNBA, it's expanding.

They're adding teams, 18 teams by 2030. We're gonna react to that. WNBA All-Star starters are revealed. Did they get it right? And what about the reserves? Angel Reese is player of the week. Paige Beckers is rolling and crushing it, the latest on the movers and the shakers of the league.

It has been such a crazy week, but y'all do not forget that you can catch new episodes twice a week, one on Tuesday and one on Thursday. And as always, thank y'all for subscribing, commenting, liking, clicking all the buttons, following our socials, but Roz, are you ready to get into it? Thursday and as always thank y'all for subscribing commenting liking liking all the buttons following our socials but Roz are you ready to get into it? So yesterday was a pretty chaotic day in the W but it all started when they announced three new expansion teams Cleveland Detroit Philadelphia

all coming to the league by 2030. So by 2030 there's going to be 18 WNBA teams and one of the parts that stood out to me is that the Valkyries paid $50 million as their expansion fee. And these teams are 250 million. That's a jump of what? Five times, five times the price, $200 million. That is crazy. But when I first saw it, I was shocked at how quickly this is all kind of happened. And it's odd because there have been calls for for expansion. And I feel like they've been heard. But at the same time, we're like, whoa, we got to slow this down. So my question to you is, is the W expanding too quickly or do you think it's kind of catching up to the demand?

You know, I totally understand where you're coming from with this concept of like, oof, these team prices are high. You know what that comes with? Pressure, expectations. However, what I see in the WNBA is a league that is striking while the iron is red hot and betting on itself. You know, if you're a commissioner, would you rather be seen as a commissioner

who sat on its hands when, you know, there was so much commotion for women's sports and women's basketball and, you know, you've got a monumental CBA coming up and TV rights deals and new teams you know like it's it's it's a time of would you rather be acting or sitting back and scared and so I think oftentimes we commend people for betting on itself and one thing I'll say about Kathy Engelbert sometimes she's tripped up in the PR battles with different types of slip ups and maybe things she said,

but overall, this is a very smart woman who has done big business her entire career, whether at Deloitte and now at the WNBA, probably one of our most accomplished commissioners for the league. When she was leading the league through the pandemic, right? And that bubble season, she was given consultation, like they spoke to consultants who predicted that

something like some crazy overwhelming percentage that the league would fail, would flop, would die. And she helped the league in that bubble season get out of that. She's a part of these CBA negotiations. And right now she's thought of some, you know, getting them through the TV rights deal, you know, thinking of different marketing campaigns.

And right now thinking about expansion. So these are tough decisions. And I think let's see how it works out. But to your point, there's a lot of pressure with it, Logan. Absolutely. I feel like one of the biggest things is that there's so much movement in the league. Even yesterday, we saw movement. Everyone was shocked about what's happening. There

is a huge difference between roster expansion and team expansion. But with this, it means that we're going to have five expansion drafts within six years and it'll be very, very hard for teams to build depth and stay consistent because everyone's going to be moving around. Another question comes up and if we will have enough talent. I know there's global talent and people coming in and we've seen how good women's basketball is, but could it get to a point where you have a lot of mid-level players on different teams widespread throughout one star, one A list, top of the ranks per team.

You have no clue how it's going to work out. Maybe we won't see any super teams anymore, but it is very much needed. And I think the markets that they put them in also are absolutely thriving. There are people on Twitter saying Atlanta and Dallas are the only teams in the south. But when you look at who the teams are, especially in the northern areas, there's a huge market for them. Yeah, yeah, I think that the talent question is very valid. I mean, right now we're sitting here with 13 teams and there's competitive drop-off.

Look at the Connecticut Sun. They are dramatically less competitive than the rest of the teams. So there is a question about that. And the expansion draft every single year, what does that look like? I think, you know, people have pointed out to your point international players, but and there have been so many stories where we've had a

heartache over look Julie Van Loo not making a roster or Deja Kelly people lamented that there's not enough spots for all the players who could technically be a WNBA player, but we're talking about lower tier or younger, less experienced players that are fighting for those last spots in the league. But what we don't have a surplus of is superstar talent. There's not a whole lot of Nafisa Colliers and Asia Wilson's out there, right?

And so what that means is we may end up having lopsided or top heavy rosters. And we could water down, it could be less competitive. One thing to consider though is that this is being staggered over the course of years. So there will be an oper, there's going to be a lot of player movement, full stop. And there's going to be an opportunity for new top collegiate talent to come into the league and get comfortable. I mean, there's five years from now

until we actually see a team in Philadelphia, but the competition level is a valid question. I mean, I've got other questions too. You know, you mentioned the pressure that it puts on the league. So the price point that some of these ownership groups are coming in and buying at, it's at 250 million minimum, pretty much. And some of these ownership groups are coming in and buying it. It's at 250 million, like minimum, pretty much.

And some of these valuations are including practice facilities, things like that. But it's hard to tell what's really real. Like, right, if you're Mark Davis, it's a party. Like, what does it even matter? You bought your team in 2021 for for two million dollars you are so up I don't even know if there's things that are more up than the aces in value the the sigh family got the Liberty for 15 million in in

2019 in 2023 the Valkyries bought were bought by the lake up group and the Warriors group over there for 50 million which mind you at The time people were like clutching over there for 50 million, which mind you at the time people were like clutching pearls over like 50 million. This was only two years ago. Now you've got teams that are being evaluated at half a billion dollars. Is that real?

Is it on paper real? Is it based on potential real? You know, it's kinda, it puts a lot of pressure. You know, the owners that buy in at 250 million, they're gonna be a lot easier to be disgruntled or have incredibly high expectations. You know what I mean? And pressure.

And the other thing I'm curious about too is CBA negotiations that are happening right now. They are happening now with so much coming in the years to come. I think it's going to I'm just curious how that affects discussions. Overall, the CBA is going to be very impactful, monumental. I expect we're going to see some some pretty solid jumps and pay for the players. But also the number of teams also splits the pot in more directions, too. So it's all very interesting. I mean, I ultimately I think we're all in a grants.

We're rooting for the W. We're rooting for the league. We're rooting for it. But boy, things are moving fast. Yeah. And the biggest thing is that the Valkyries have set the standard for expansion, whether it was it's their play on the court, their coaching staff, the people they have in Chase Center. I saw something yesterday. They're averaging just over 18,000 fans, which is on par for the average attendance of the NBA this whole last season, I guess.

But do you think other teams will struggle to make the same impact that the Valkyries are? I think it's hard to compare them to the Valkyries, which are part of the Golden State Warriors family. You know, that group is a machine. The Golden State Warriors, I worked for them as a sideline reporter with the Warriors. It's A1 from top. They literally win the NBA's award. They give out an award to all the different teams for their business operations. The Warriors have won that. This is a muscle machine. And they came out and did that with their women's team.

They had a marketing campaign. They tapped in with local Bay influencers. There was a very captivating story around the name of the team, the color scheme, finding ambassadors. The team itself is not even the best team, but they're captivating, they're thrilling. You would think we were talking about

the defending champs or something. Can you imagine if the team's actually, you know, really a championship contender? It's very exciting. But I think that's why Kathy Engelbert has been focusing on NBA-led ownership and governorship groups, because they have the, like, machinery and muscle in place to roll this out. You're seeing

how much there's been some kind of struggles and mishaps with the Portland rollout. Seems like they're a little bit behind the ball. They're supposed to be here next season. They don't have a marketing campaign. They need to figure out the name, leadership. So it's a lot. And that's why I come back to the pressure that's on some of these organizations at a 250 million dollar price point. You really got to make sure that you understand how to operate a W team. And I think everyone can take a page out of the book out of the Golden State Valkyries and what they've done. Absolutely. And another big thing that came out yesterday was the All-Star players and starters. Everybody has officially been announced. The

starters are Kaitlyn Clark, Nafisa Collier, Aliyah Boston, Paige Becker, Alicia Grace, Sabrina Inescu, Neko Gwimike, Satu Sabli, Brianna Stewart, and Asia Wilson with Nafisa Collier and Kaitlyn Clark as the All-Star Game Captains. Do you have any surprises about this? I don't actually have any surprises in the starters. I think they're all deserving. For me maybe Satu or Alyssa, it was probably going to be one of the other Alyssa Thomas or Satu Sabli out of the Mercury for a starter, but I think for reserves we'll easily see Sky, Skyler Diggins, Ryan Howard, Brittany Sykes, Alyssa Thomas. I think Angel Reese, Kiki, Kiki Iriafin as reserves for me. But where I do see some interesting situations, Logan, if you want to get a little messy,

you want to get messy. Oh, I want to get messy. I know. Oh my gosh. I know exactly what's coming. Queue the fan vote and then cue the player vote. Ooh, the tea is hot. So 50% of the starters vote was fan, 25% media, 25% player vote.

Kaitlyn is your number one overall vote getter from the fans hands down, but she gets a nine ranking in the player vote. Gasp. Gasp. And also other ones that I thought were it was crazy. Angel or not crazy, but eyebrow raising Angel Reese got a 12 from the players. And what's up with Kelsey Plum at 16?

Yes. But that from the players, I do not in the league. I do not understand. I feel like maybe she might be flying under the radar. I mean, I don't know how much the other players watch. They know who Kelsey is. They do. She's big Kelsey. Like, I feel like she's likable.

What's going on with that? That was odd. You know, I couldn't even place nothing to it, maybe because the Sparks are, you know, not doing well. But she's balling. 16 is crazy for Kelsey Plum. That's the fourth leading scorer in the league. But Caitlin with a nine ranking,

maybe the players are annoyed for a few reasons. There's certainly, you know, she hasn't been having the most efficient season. She's only played nine games. The last three, she's certainly been in a slump. More turnovers at times than field goals made. Her percentages are down, high turnovers. But overall, she's still highly productive season.

She still has had iconic moments this season. She's still dominant. She still makes the fever go. Could it be more than just like basketball? Could it also be like, you know, is it that people think she flops? Is it that she's in too much commotion? What do you think that is about with Kaitlyn?

I don't know because she's such a flashy player, but also these are players who also know each other. If you look at the player ranks here of Asia Wilson as one, Fia is two. Who's three over here? Skylar Dickens at three. I might be a bit surprised to see that. Pagebreaker's at four. That's where it kind of gets into the discrepancy ranking her what five spots above Caitlin. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. Maybe it's that Caitlin has been a part of the, what's the word? Talking back to them. Maybe they don't like how she talks. Who knows? She be talking. She be talking. She's demonstrative. I'll

either say that you can either be on the boat that thinks like, hey, she is a floper or you can say she's demonstrative, but you know, she's in the mix. I'll take another thing that's interesting for me, staying with the fan vote total. Angel's fan vote was 10th overall, fifth for front court players. Angel got 506,000 votes.

Kaitlyn got 1.2, almost 1.3 million. Nafisa Collier got 1.1, almost 1.2 million. Aliyah Boston, 1.1 million. A lot of other players ahead of her were much closer to a million. Angel's fan vote total was 506,000. She's by far the most followed player in the league, not even close 5 million followers on Instagram. The next closest is Caitlin Clark with like 3.5.

And then after that it's even lower. It's like 1 million or if for a couple of players where were her fans. They were not as active and as engaged to push to push her over the hump here. That is that is interesting. The activity of the fan group for Angel. While Caitlin's fans and the thesis fans, and I want to call this out too. This wasn't just the Caitlin Clark show, although certainly a lot of this action happens around Caitlin,

but Nafisa Collier got 1.1 million votes, 1.17, which I think is very impressive to say that she got recognition and respect at that level. She has recognition and respect and I wasn't always sure if Nafisa's recognition matched the level of respect that she deserved. So I thought that was cool and I think overall like we have to look at Caitlyn's large turnout and also the overall turnout. So a rising tide lifts all ships and this thing that this, this Caitlin thing is real, the attention and it is taking the W with them. Look at the fans that are turning out in 2023, the year before Caitlin Clark joined the league, Asia Wilson led the fan vote overall.

Guess how many votes? I have this stat written down. Angel had five times her, I think 100,000. I think a hundred thousand, maybe. Ninety five thousand votes was the top fan vote total in 2023. That's before Caitlin and Angel joined the league. Ninety five thousand votes. Now this year, Caitlin Clark alone has brought in 1.29, 1.3 million votes. So the turnout is crazy. Um, and I also think the attention votes. So the turnout is crazy. And I also think the attention

to the woman's game is exciting. Last thing I'll shout out about the all-star selections, Nekka, shout out to Nekka Ogumike who makes her 10th all-star selection. That puts her in a category with Subaru, Diana Tarassi and Tamika Catchings, just one of four players who have 10 or more All-Star selections. Salute to NECA.

To go with the number of fans voting, I was also really surprised to see that Aliyah Boston was only like 2000 maybe votes off of getting the second captain pretty much replacing Fee. And that says a lot about the Fever fans because they were going so hard for their players and Lexi Hall, I think she was ninth in fan voting but because she didn't really have the media or player votes there she wasn't able to make it. But someone like Aliyah Boston, especially

with how, I mean she's been in the league for a few years, but how new she is quote unquote to the league, that's saying a lot. I actually want to circle back on Angel. She was just named the WNBA player of the Week, and it's quite a turnaround from this low start that she had at the beginning of the season. She has been playing so well recently. So what do you make of her whole season so far? I think it's very impressive.

Her resilience, her heart, her resolve in the face of adversity and critique. And look, she admitted herself, it was not a good start to the season. And she's on a team that is not as competitive as others. So there's only so much that she can control, but what she can control, she is absolutely turned around. In particular, the last three games,

she's averaging nearly 20 points per game, 17 rebounds, or nearly 50% shooting four straight games of 15 plus rebounds. I mean, it's been incredible, but, but here's the issue. It's in the way people cover Angel Reese. Let's take a look at a clip that just got my attention. But you just said she's selfish and a selfish player won't win a ring. And I'm saying that everyone who has played with Angel Reese and coach Angel

Reese has called her an unselfish player and her style of play has translated into winning. So that. All I could say from my argument is I don't have facts, but we'll see. That's how a lot of these conversations go. And it's so frustrating because people be having no facts, but very strong opinions, especially on the play of Angel Reese. And here's the thing. I think it's very much the job of media to objectively cover the ups and downs of a player's season.

You gotta talk about when they're playing well and when they're not playing well. But I think there's too much media that's very good at discussing when Angel is not playing well and harping on that and jumping on that bandwagon, but not as comfortable, if at all, discussing when she's doing well. And I think the reason is because their analysis

in general was not based on facts. It was often based on emotions. It was lazy analysis. And honestly, a lot of these guys have not even watched her play. They have not. And they're just coming in for the headlines and the clicks and all the things.

And so that is something that I think is worth fighting for in the objectivity and integrity of journalism. Call me old fashioned. No, you're 100 percent correct. A lot of times when people have opinions about Angel, my first question is, how many games have you watched her play? And I feel like it's just the opposite of rose colored glasses. They just look for whatever is negative, even her triple double. They're not going to talk about that. But then you see a low light or she only has 10 rebounds or she's

rebound me bounding. That's what they'll jump on. And it is so incredibly annoying. Also shout out to Mariah because she absolutely killed that video. If y'all haven't gone to watch it, watch it, but she is so amazing. Angel even quote tweeted her, I believe. So good. Anyways, y'all coming up, we have some quick hits for you. We'll be right back. Nothing says summer like long days, clutch plays and firing off a few bets on the game. All with DraftKings Sportsbook. Never bet on baseball before? It's easy! Just pick a guy to go yard, hammer some live arts mid game or just ride with your squad and hope for the best. No

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For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash audio. This episode is brought to you by Dzone. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup.

The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on DAZN starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at dazon.com slash FIFA. That's D-A-Z-n dot com slash FIFA. ["The Crown Is Yours"] Welcome back to Good Followed, presented by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours. Logan, the crown is yours, my girl. You know we're at the end of the show. The crown is ours.

It's ours, and it's yours. Everybody who's watching with us, make sure you tap in with DraftKings. But it's the time of the show where we're running out of time, but we got to get to the biggest, quickest news headlines and quick hits that you got for us. Yeah. So starting off with an event that I was so blessed to be a part of last week, probably the most special I've ever been to. Olympic gold medalist Faith Capiago went for the four minute mile. Though she didn't get it,

she still made history running the fastest mile by a woman with 406.42. She was on pace to break four until the very last straight and it just kind of went to prove how incredibly hard doing something like this is, especially given that Nike had a ton of technology behind it. Actually, the shirt, I've got Faith, it's one of my favorite things ever. But when asked at the end if a woman will break four minutes, she said absolutely there'll be a woman running a mile in under four minutes and I think it will take less than ten years. If it doesn't come my way then it'll be someone else doing it. And her whole vibe and mindset about the whole thing was just so positive. I love to see it. Yeah. And I love to see you right in the mix being brought out there

by Nike to cover this historic moment. And obviously the inspiration factor, whether it happened or not was super high. What else you got for us? Well, actually, first thing I saw this morning was an iconic picture from last night. Candace Parker's number three jersey was retired by the Sparks and she joins Lisa Leslie and Penny told her is the only players to have their jerseys retired by the Sparks. But in the picture, it's Candace and she's a bit blurred. And in the focus is Lisa Leslie just looking at her with so much proudness on her face. And it was amazing. Yeah, it's really cool to see the generational,

just like greatness that was on display for Candice and also the respect and love, you know, like Lisa's in so many great players ears and now Candice Parker has been passing the torch to other players as well. Nothing but respect for Candice who famously said one of the lines that stand out to me that I think about in life often is, time will tell story. And time has certainly told Candace Parker's story. She's

one of the greats. I love that. I feel like by the time I'm like 80, I'm going to just have quotes of all these athletes down my arm. Coming up next is that Sophie Cunningham has a new brando with Ring. This was also all over my feed and an enforcer on the court to keep Caitlin safe and Ring keeps her safe. So they kind of played into that. We love the marketing. She rode that momentum into her brand deal.

I guess so, you know, being Caitlin's bodyguard and stepping up for Caitlin pays. Yep. Those are the, that's the days that we live in now. You just do one little thing and you never know who's watching. You just get a brand deal. Love it. It's an attention economy. We're in an attention economy. Absolutely. Michelle Kang has been a huge tycoon in women's football. She's one of the only ones, but she is now taking over men's football, named as the president of the men's O'well team. On top of that, she's the majority owner of the spirit, a well feminine and London

city lionesses. So she is getting her way up there and to stay in Europe. The euros kick off on Wednesday. Spain is eyeing their first title and it is going to be so insane. I'm so excited. Yes, yes. And I'm so excited to be here with you, Logan. I'm welcoming you back to the U S and to all of you who joined us. We hit three K we're on the road to 4k subscribers on YouTube and of course wherever else you get your podcast we're crushing it for all the listeners out there thank you for rocking with us that'll do it for this episode of good follow presented by DraftKings we're on Tuesdays and Thursdays we appreciate you and we'll

see you next week. Bye, y'all. Woo!