In the pursuit of greatness, we all have dreams of stepping onto the grand stage. For many of us, the childhood question of “What do you want to be when you grow up?” often elicited the definitive answer: “Professional Soccer Player.” Now, for the newly drafted and signed athletes of the NWSL, that dream has become a reality. As a testament to their achievement, Parkside Collectibles has commemorated them with their very own Rookie Signature card–soon to be released!

We reached out to a few of these rising stars to reflect on the experience of having their own trading card and to summarize their inaugural NWSL season in three words. Join us as we dive into the experiences of these up-and-coming players and discover just how much this recognition means to them.

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#1 Ally Sentnor – Utah Royals FC (#9)

• Draft pick: #1 Overall
• College: UNC Chapel Hill
• Position: Forward
• Club: South Shore Select
• Hometown: Hanson, MA
• Position: Midfield/Forward

How it’s going:

The #1 overall draft pick is not disappointing, starting all four matches of her debut season and logging 90 minutes with the Royals. She then helped her team to their first win of the season with a solo effort that launched them past the NC Courage 2-1.

What it means to her: 

“I think it is a full circle…

The WNBA draft is over, and superstars like No. 1 pick Caitlin Clark are heading toward surefire pro careers.

Not all 36 selections from this year’s draft will have such assurances. The league has 144 coveted roster spots among 12 teams, and other options for pro careers in women’s basketball either in the U.S. or overseas are scarce.

It’s a sharp contrast from men’s prospects who don’t make NBA rosters. They have more opportunities, including more overseas opportunities and playing in the G League.

The NBA also has 30 teams with 15 players allowed on the regular season roster, so there are more spots available.

Why don’t all WNBA draft picks make team rosters?

There’s a simple reason why being among those 36 draft picks doesn’t ensure a roster spot: most of the spots will be taken by returning players.

Only 19 of the 2023 picks played at least one game in the WNBA last season. Since 2018, 142 of 216 draft picks (65.7%) have played in a WNBA game at some point in their career.

The high mark was 28 out of the 36 draftees in 2019.

Players have tried to carve out a WNBA chance by playing professionally overseas, but those jobs are also at a premium. Brittney Griner’s nine-month incarceration in Moscow along with the war in Ukraine have led to the elimination of dozens…

Naomi Osaka had a heartbreaking end to her Madrid Open run as she lost a thriller, while Coco Gauff impressively started her campaign at Caja Magica by registering her first double-bagel win.

After clinching her first clay win in two years on Wednesday, Osaka came close to beating No. 15 seed Liudmila Samsonova but fell just short as the Russian sealed a 6-2 4-6 7-5 win. The match lasted two hours and 22 minutes and, while it was encouraging for Osaka to have managed to get back in the match, it was certainly very disappointing to lose in the end. 

On the other side, No. 3 seed Gauff absolutely destroyed world No. 47 Arantxa Rus, claiming a 6-0 6-0 win. For Gauff, this was the first time in her career that she won a match without a single lost game and it took her 51 minutes. 

How Osaka lost a thriller to Samsonova?

Osaka got off to a very slow start to the match as she suffered back-to-back breaks and lost the opening four games of the match before Samsonova routinely closed out the set in the eighth game. 

At the start of the second set, Osaka’s poor display continued as Samsonova earned an early break and a 2-0 lead. Down by a set and a break, Osaka managed to get the break back but again dropped…

The 2024 National Women’s Soccer League season is five matchweeks old. Too early to start talking about contenders for Most Valuable Player, you say? Nonsense!

Welcome to the first edition of ESPN’s NWSL MVP Tracker. After every five rounds of matches of the season, we will check in on who’s in form and who should be in the conversation for the NWSL’s MVP award, the ultimate individual honor for a full season of work.

The 2024 season is still young and as you’ll see in our ranking below, several players who are new to the league or on new teams are off to flying starts. But you can expect to see plenty of changes to this list in our future MVP Tracker check-ins as our sample size of player performances grows.

There are several star players who aren’t on this list, but you’d bet on them improving (and helping their teams improve) over the course of the season enough to ultimately land on this list. That’s why we’ll be tracking the MVP race throughout the season.

• Stream on ESPN+: NWSL, LaLiga, FA Cup & more (U.S.)

Our methodology here is a mix of advanced data and the eye test. Through TruMedia and Stats…

The Olympics are just three months away and time is ticking for U.S. women’s national team players to make their case for the 18-player roster. Players will now get a chance to work directly with incoming manager Emma Hayes, who has plenty of roster decisions to make. She will officially be on the sidelines with the USWNT in June before the Olympic send-off games in July, while former interim head coach Twila Kilgore pivots into a full-time USWNT assistant. 

Kilgore led the team as interim for nine months, she earned a 10-1-3 record in 14 games with the team, and her lone loss came against Mexico during the USWNT’s victorious Concacaf W Gold Cup run. The squad also won its seventh SheBelieves Cup, sending off Kilgore with two titles during her head coaching stint. Several players made their debuts through Kilgore’s reign, including Jaedyn Shaw and Olivia Moultrie, and she deepened the player pool ahead of the Paris Olympics. 

The USWNT were recently drawn into Group B and will face Germany, Australia, and Zambia in France this summer. With the summer games set to begin July 25 for the USWNT, and domestic leagues in full swing, spots on an Olympic roster are only listed in pencil at the moment. 

Anne Keothavong thinks Emma Raducanu could have absolutely done some things better in her Madrid first-round loss as the British Billie Jean King Cup team captain criticized the 21-year-old over “emotionally checking out” late in the match.

On Wednesday, Raducanu crashed out of the Madrid Open in a pretty stunning way after qualifier Maria Lourdes Carle saw off the Briton 6-2 6-2. The outcome of the match was pretty shocking in many ways as Raducanu arrived in Madrid in great form and she also entered the match as the clear favorite against 82nd-ranked Carle, who had never before registered a WTA 1000 win. 

After suffering five breaks of serve against Carle during a brutal two-set defeat and overall delivering a pretty poor display, Raducanu said all the demands of the Billie Jean King Cup and Stuttgart, and then traveling to Madrid, left her feeling very tired and exhausted – which directly impacted her Madrid performance. 

Keothavong to Raducanu: You can’t emotionally check out

Reflecting on Raducanu’s loss, Keothavong told the 21-year-old that if she plays she must be prepared to leave it all out there and that “emotionally checking out” is something she can never allow herself to happen.

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The Big 12, like many other conferences, is going through enormous changes ahead of the 2024-25 season. The conference will feature a whopping 16 teams, including the entrance of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah from the now-defunct Pac-12.

We have a lot of time before the women’s college basketball season begins, but here are some things to keep an eye on.

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How good will the Four Corner programs be?

The arrival of the Pac-12’s Four Corner teams—Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State—will add some interest and intrigue to the Big 12. But how good will they be? Colorado and Utah were juggernauts last year, and their programs have been trending upwards, so they’ll likely have a say in the Big 12 hierarchy in the 2024-25 season. Arizona and Arizona State may struggle a bit more, but the Pac-12 was just as competitive as the Big 12 last year, so it shouldn’t be a jarring change.

It’ll be interesting to see what new rivalries emerge from these conference realignments and what unknown consequences such drastic changes have, both good and bad. This aspect of the women’s college basketball season will be one of the more exciting storylines.

Out with the old, in with the new

Oklahoma won the Big 12 regular season title and Texas won the Big 12 Tournament, but…

It’s not surprising that corporations are lining up like fans along arena railings to get Caitlin Clark’s autograph. The former Iowa star is a transcendent talent who has proven she is as proficient at breaking viewership records as scoring marks, drawing capacity crowds at home and on the road and even attracting 17,000 spectators to an open practice during Final Four weekend. Her WNBA jersey sold out within hours of her being drafted No. 1 overall by the Indiana Fever, and multiple teams have moved upcoming games to larger venues to accommodate “unprecedented demand” for Fever games.

So, it makes perfect sense that she has been hired to pitch everything from home and auto insurance to performance drinks, from trading cards to supermarket chains, from automobiles to financial investment firms. She’s not only deserving of every opportunity but also has earned every endorsement deal that’s been placed before her, including a $28 million Nike pact that includes her own signature shoe line, as reported by The Athletic.

GO DEEPER

Caitlin Clark’s whirlwind WNBA Draft week just the start for the in-demand rookie

That being said, we should not delude ourselves into believing her appeal as an influencer is based solely on basketball, because it’s not. Arguing otherwise is…