Call me (up) maybe
From The GIST (hi@thegistsports.com)
Leveling The Playing Field
Happy Tuesday!
Start today with this mic-drop moment from Michele Kang — the busiest woman in football called out inequalities at the youth soccer level, from facilities to parental treatment. Kang continues to set a standard for investing in women’s sports and can’t stop making headlines with her groundbreaking work with the London City Lionesses. More of this, please.
Women's basketball
🏀 Call me (up) maybe
The GIST: In case you needed a reminder, the Upshot League debuted in May in hopes of fulfilling a much-needed development gap for the WNBA. While the 5v5 league isn’t associated with the W like the G League is with the NBA, it allows more women to stay game-ready and offers professional scouts an easy way to track talent when roster spots open up from inevitable injuries.
- The four-team league reached unparalleled levels of success in its first season and has maintained steady momentum with acquisitions on and off the court in the three weeks since its championship. Let’s see what’s up with Upshot.
The players: Former University of North Carolina standout and Greensboro Groove center Maria Gakdeng became the fifth Upshot player called up to the W after signing a contract with the Toronto Tempo on Sunday. In fact, each of the four founding teams has had at least one player sign with an WNBA squad.
- This puts them on a similar pace as the National Basketball Development League (NBDL) who debuted in the early 2000s and eventually evolved into the G-League, where eight players from the original eight-team league were called up to the NBA in the first year. Hello, proof of concept.
The teams: In addition to the Groove, Upshot teams reside in Jacksonville, Charlotte, and Savannah — another strategic move that mirrors the NBDL where franchises were intentionally located in markets without an existing professional team. Women’s basketball fans in the southeastern U.S. showed up for their squads, resulting in multiple sellouts.
- In 2027, the Upshot League will continue this pattern when it expands to Tennessee and Maryland.
The leadership: This league already boasted a front office stacked with Hall of Famers including Tamika Catchings, Cheryl Miller, and Ann Meyers Drysdale, and its newest addition has the orange jacket to match: Chamique Holdsclaw joined the Upshot ownership group this week.
- The former No. 1 WNBA draft pick brings decades of professional experience and a commitment to growing professional opportunities for women in basketball. Upshot seems keen on utilizing the expertise of athletes who have been there, a strategy that could lead to longevity and maybe even an official W partnership in the future? Watch this space.
Unrivaled taps Houston as the sixth tour spot for its 2027 season
Space City was announced as the latest stop on Unrivaled’s forthcoming cross-country tour. The league will still be based in Miami but is building upon the record-breaking success of games in Philadelphia and New York last season by adding stops in all of the aforementioned cities as well as Boston, Detroit, and Minneapolis.
- Two more TBA cities will join the tour as Unrivaled continues its westward push with announcements scheduled for September 28th and October 1st. Keep an eye out for Big Mama.
UEFA Women’s Champions League (WCL) begins today with Disney+ as its official European streaming partner
Europe’s premier women’s club competition is looking to build upon an impressive 2025–2026 campaign by streaming on Disney+ in Europe for the second year. The tournament switched from free broadcasting to the paywalled streamer last season but was rewarded with unparalleled viewership growth.
- Fans in the U.S. and Canada can watch all the action for the 18-team pool on Paramount+ and OneSoccer, respectively.
Lisa Leslie teams up with Playa Society founder for exclusive digital sketch
WNBA royalty Lisa Leslie was honored with a statue unveiling outside of Crypto.com Arena on Sunday and as part of her celebration, the eight-time All-Star asked Esther Wallace to create a digital sketch to commemorate the moment. Although the statue depicts Leslie completing the first in-game dunk, Wallace’s design commemorates Leslie as an LA icon in partnership with Nike LA.
🤝 Paramount settled an antitrust suit, moving the media giant one big step closer to finally acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery in a multibillion dollar deal that would combine CBS Sports and TNT Sports.
📜 Did you read last Saturday’s Scroll about WNBA fashion? The Washington Mystics might have — the team, along with the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, just unveiled a new Capital Queens design collab with Round21 and creator Clarke Imani. Stylin’.
👠 Sports and fashion collided again when Chelsea FC striker Melvine Malard walked the runway for fashion label Labrum’s London Fashion Week show.
🔛 French soccer phenom Kylian Mbappé made waves last week when the former Nike athlete joined Swiss sports apparel company On, raising the profile of fellow On soccer athletes like Swiss women’s national team star Sydney Schertenleib.
🤺 USA Fencing will host influencers and content creators to compete in fencing-inspired challenges this week in NY in an effort to raise awareness of the sport. En garde.
👟 Team Britain distance runner and Olympic gold medalist Keely Hodgkinson debuted a striking full-body suit at Friday’s Athlos competition, which took her 12 months to design with Nike’s innovation labs.
👏 Each year, TSN and Canadian Tire collaborate to name five execs who receive Canada’s Sports Business Award — and this year, four of the five recipients are women.
🎨 New York’s Museum of Arts and Design will host an exhibit about Nike, the brand’s design history, and cultural impact in the U.S. and worldwide. Truly works of art.
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