This week: Quick reminder that I’m a fan. I’m not a sports journalist. I’m not a stat head. Or some combo of both. I’m a women’s sports fan turned evangelist, meaning that when you become my friend, I will ask you if you are into women’s sports. If not, I will start to tell you why you should join the Church of Billie Jean King. I will take you to games and tell you who to cheer for. Then one day you’ll realize you are cheering on your own.
When I conceived of this newsletter, I wanted to create an informed fan outlet. Heck, even one that advocates on behalf of fans. Especially us OG fans who helped build what we know as *waving hands* today’s women’s sports community, but find ourselves being priced out or alienated from the games we love. Are all sports just weird toxic relationships?
— Veronica
Does the Sky math add up to all forgiven?
What a few weeks Sky fans have had!
On April 6th, the Sky traded beloved two-time All-Star Angel Reese. A few days later the Sky signed or traded for Skylar Diggins, DiJonai Carrington, Rickea Jackson, Azurá Stevens, Courtney Vandersloot, and others.
On socials I’ve seen a lot of Sky fans breathe a sigh of relief. Which I get. After the Reese trade, we looked dead in the water. Destined for last place…again. But the front office showed us that they can actually do their job. Which, is exactly what Angel was asking them to do.
So are we good?
I say no.
The Sky front office (Jeff & Michael) still have a lot of work to do to make things right.
Michael, who is a Clinical Professor at the University of Chicago and has an MBA from Harvard (say with the accent, y’all), has proven over the 20 years that he is a shrewd business man by keeping overhead low. But the team keeps hitting its head on that ceiling. The past few years, a lot of women’s sports figures have said that women’s sports isn’t a charity and we need to stop treating it like it is.
What they mean is that we need to start investing in the game like a successful business.
Michael & his investment team have a history of treating the Sky like a business where the workers get paid crap, the customers are hooked on nostalgia, and the market keeps us coming back for more. I’m a Cubs fan, I know this game well.
The Tribune did this with fans. Selling us on sunny days in the bleachers (good gawd, the best drug) and lovable losers. And it worked. It worked because Cubs fans had great teams and players to look back on. We grew up watching WGN indoctrinating us as Cubs fans, if our parents didn’t. Wrigley Field is gorgeous - even when there is a threat of concrete falling near your head. The Sky doesn’t have tradition or a beautiful arena of its own.
We play in an arena that was built on taxpayer TIF* money for a university on the other side of town. This is why Sky players can’t have their own lockers. They share with college students.
We practiced in a rec center on the North shore. I am sure it is better than the ‘rec center’ vibe people think, but it is still semi-private. Most teams did this until just after the explosion of women’s sports. There is one team that had their practice interrupted by someone’s birthday party. The Sky are currently practicing at another university, closer to the arena. For the record, the university where I am a double alum and used to work at. It’s a state university, so it might actually be a downgrade from the North shore rec center. I don’t have an actual comparison.
The front office feels like it is run by people who are in love with the idea of owning a sports franchise, of giving Chicago a WNBA franchise, but not in love of the reality of what it means to ante up and treat the franchise like a real sports team.
If everyone stays pretty healthy, we should be a contender. And the early calls for a boycott season will be tested. The idea of ticket prices plummeting is likely out the window. So what’s a fan to do to hold this front office accountable?
If you can’t bring yourself to boycott the actual game, don’t buy new merch. No Skylar jerseys. No $150 sweaters from the merch store (OMG, do I want that sweater so bad.).
Eat before you get to the game.
“Sell the team” needs to be an ongoing chant. I know, I know, I too am scared that if Michael sells the team, new owners will talk about moving the team elsewhere. But this is Chicago. We are a huge market. Where else are they gonna take the team?
Related, do we start a draft Melody Hobson movement? Cause her money plus Star Wars money would be an easy move to buy the team. The Sky is valued at $240 million with revenue at $16 million - further proving that money is not real. Melody is worth $100 million and George Lucas is worth around $5-10 billion. Let’s go! Princess Leia night! Maybe Baby Yoda and Pedro shows up at halftime?
Stay mad. We can walk & chew gum at the same time. We can enjoy what the players throw down while advocating for better owners. It’s what the USWNT fans had to do for almost our entire history.
We can also hope the lawsuit brings some changes. Whether Michael sells or has to sell more of his shares to people invested in really building this franchise, either works for me. Cause while he can ignore fans cries, he shouldn’t be able to ignore his shareholders. That’s how capitalism works, right?
So what do we do if we win it all, V? Great question. We fucking celebrate. And we still boo at the parade and rally. There is a grand tradition of this. See 2019 USWNT victory rally in NYC.
Maybe one lesson women’s sport fans may still need to learn is to stay petty.
And I’m here to teach that lesson.
* For those who don’t know, TIF money is when the city says a certain area is blighted, so it squirrels away a part or all of the property taxes in the area explicitly for development. It’s a racket and steals money from actual public entities that need the funding.
Chicago sports lore: The Chicago Condors
Sometimes the universe provides. Just a few weeks ago I was looking for a Chicago Condors tee on Ebay. I found none. Then this fabulous woman walked into the coffee shop I had stopped at. I asked her for a few minutes and she was happy to sit down with me.
You may be asking, “Who are the Chicago Condors?” Well let me tell you. They were a team in the short-lived American Basketball League, ABL, that was founded a year prior to the start of the WNBA. Sadly the Condors only played 12 games in 1998 before the league folded.
The Condors were fun to watch. While I can’t find my tee, I did recently find a giveaway cup. Someone from my high school played on the team as well. When the team was announced, I tried to plan an office outing to watch. Yes, I’ve been this way for a long time.
Rosalind L., who lives in a northwest suburb a solid 60-90 minutes away from where we met, decided to pull out her Condors tee that morning as she got ready to visit her niece at a nearby university. When I asked her about what she remembers of that short period of Chicago women’s sports history she is quick to say, “It was so much fun! The stadium was nice. My girl friend and I would go to the games. We would make friends. It was just exciting to have a team to cheer on.”
While she follows the Sky, Rosalind feels like the team is too far from her home to make the trip. So Rosalind watches and cheers on the team on TV. So of course I had to ask her about all the moves the Sky had made in the previous week.
“We need to be patient. I am good at giving my sports teams time to work it out. I grew up in Cleveland. We had to be patient. I also went to Northwestern, so I learned to be patient about sports there too.”
Rosalind grew up a baseball fan, as did her niece, I shared that while Chicago does not have a women’s team, the Women’s Pro Baseball League will be playing their entire inaugural season in Springfield, Illinois. She immediately started to plan a road trip with her girlfriends.
Rosalind is a semi-retired engineer and ready to hit the road to collect more t-shirts from women’s teams. And sharing her excitement with not just her niece, but random strangers at coffee shops.
This weekend
The Chicago Winds are in Texas on Saturday. Watch on Victory+.
The Stars are still off due to the international window. Friday the USWNT beat Japan 3-0. Naomi Girma scored the first goal (her third international goal) that was the spark the team needed. Kennedy Wesley scored her first international goal. Rose Lavelle scored her 29th.
While this newsletter and the larger project of supporting women’s sports is my passion project, I still need to pay bills and buy nachos at games.
An additional way to support this newsletter is to subscribe, share on socials, and forward to your friend who keeps inviting you to women’s sporting events.