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      in Golf

      At the U.S. Women’s Open, Michelle Wie West Reflects on an ‘Amazing Journey’

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      The golfer announced last week that she would play her last tournament for the foreseeable future at Pine Needles. “This week, I’m just soaking it all in,” she said.Michelle Wie West, one of golf’s most celebrated players since she was 10, had breakfast Tuesday morning in the player dining area at the U.S. Women’s Open at the Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in North Carolina.“I had someone come up to me,” Wie West, 32, said, “saying that they were named after me.”She gently rolled her eyes and deadpanned: “So that made me feel really young. I’m at that phase in my life.”Last week, Wie West announced she was stepping away from competitive golf after this week’s championship. She has no plans to play another L.P.G.A. tournament in 2022. The only other event she expects to enter is the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links.She used the word “retire” only once when speaking with reporters on Tuesday and conceded that she could change her mind. But for Wie West, who contended for major championships shortly after her 16th birthday, won five L.P.G.A. events, including the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open, collected endorsements and prize-money earnings in the tens of millions of dollars and, notably, played eight times against men on the PGA Tour, there was the lilt of finality in her voice.“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Wie West said. “It’s been an amazing journey, and I’m very excited for what happens next.”The future, however, could wait for at least another 10 minutes as Wie West tried to summarize her career, which, because of her precocious introduction to elite golf, was lived under the obsessively bright lights of international stardom. Her career was also significantly disrupted by wrist injuries, which caused her to play intermittently or not at all for long stretches. In June 2020, along with her husband Jonnie West, she became a parent for the first time with the birth of the couple’s daughter, Makenna.“First off, I want to say I have zero regrets in my career,” she said. “There’s always that inkling of wishing I had done more. But no one is ever going to be 100 percent satisfied.“I have definitely had an up-and-down career, but I’m extremely proud for the resiliency that I’ve shown,” she said. “I’m extremely proud to have achieved the two biggest dreams that I’ve had — one being graduating from Stanford, and the other winning the U.S. Open.”Wie West was smiling, laughing and at ease. Among all the very public moments of her very public career, this seemed to be an easy one, and she was happy to be back in the setting of her signature on-the-course achievement.“I’m definitely giving myself some grace and enjoying this last week,” she said.For Wie West, whose presence, manifold skills and towering drives drew comparisons to Tiger Woods, what was left unsaid was her impact on women’s golf. She never addressed the topic directly nor did she acknowledge her own substantial influence on the sport’s popularity, but when asked what has changed in the women’s game in the last 20 years, Wie West was animated.“Oh, I mean, so much has changed,” she answered. “Huge kudos to the U.S.G.A. for really buying into the women’s sport and the L.P.G.A. for just growing and keep pushing the boundaries.“When doors get closed on us, we just keep pushing, and I’m just so proud of everyone on tour and the U.S.G.A. for really buying in and setting the level right,” she said.In January, the United States Golf Association nearly doubled the U.S. Women’s Open prize money to $10 million with the winner of this year’s championship earning $1.8 million, the richest single payout in women’s golf.A year ago, only three women on the L.P.G.A. tour earned more than $1.8 million. While the prize money for the men’s U.S. Open is $12.5 million, the U.S.G.A. chief executive Mike Whan has plans to bump the women’s purse to $12 million in a few years.The payouts of golf-industry sponsorship contracts awarded to top men’s golfers continue to overshadow most of those bestowed on women.But on that front, Wie West, who last year joined the L.P.G.A. board of directors and continues to serve in that capacity, had advice, from personal experience, for the golfers who will succeed her.Wie West playing from the 18th tee during the first round of the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, where she tied for 46th.Adam Hagy/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“As female athletes, a lot of times we get told, ‘Oh, your sponsorship is only worth this much; you should only ask for this much,’ ” Wie West said. “We’re kind of in that mind-set, and I would encourage female younger athletes coming up to say, ‘No, I know my worth. I know what I deserve.’ And ask for more.”Asked if that was what she had done — successfully — she answered: “Yes, for sure.”Wie West is also an investor in a company, LA Golf, that she said was pledging to start new initiatives for women golfers with hopes of financially altering the sponsorship landscape.In the short term, Wie West still has a tournament to compete in this week, one that, given her other priorities, she has not prepared for as she might have 10 or 20 years ago.“Definitely haven’t had the practice schedule that I usually do leading up to U.S. Open,” she said with a grin. “This week, I’m just soaking it all in. Just seeing all the fans, seeing all the players, walking the walk. It’s pretty cool.”Being a past champion of the event helps Wie West enjoy the experience, perhaps more meaningfully than anyone would have expected. In what was something of a surprise, she said that without claiming the U.S. Women’s Open trophy eight years ago, there would not now be an end in sight to her competitive career.“It’s the one tournament I wanted to win ever since I started playing golf,” Wie West said. She then insisted: “If I hadn’t won the 2014 U.S. Open, I would still — I definitely wouldn’t retire. And I would still be out here playing and chasing that win. That win means everything to me.” More

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      in Tennis

      Even in Flush Tennis, Equal Pay is a Struggle

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      The top players make tens of millions. Others have trouble breaking even.Gaby Dabrowski is the sixth-best doubles player in women’s professional tennis. She has been an Australian and French Open mixed doubles champion, and she reached the final in women’s doubles at Wimbledon in 2019. She has won 11 career WTA titles and competed for Canada in the 2016 Rio Olympics.But Dabrowski has no endorsement contracts other than the free equipment she receives from the racket manufacturer Yonex. She said she could not afford a full-time coach, trainer or physio. She buys her tennis clothes online from sustainable companies and is grateful to the Women’s Tennis Association for a mental wellness program that allows her to tap into tour-sponsored psychologists.“Doubles specialists, even during regular times before the pandemic, earn about 10 percent of what singles players make,” said Dabrowski, who relies on spot coaching at home and at occasional tournaments. “Fortunately, I am quite frugal. My father taught me how to budget at a very young age, and I don’t live an extravagant lifestyle.”Over the course of her 11-year career, Dabrowski, 30, has earned nearly $3.5 million. At the recent Madrid tournament, which she won with her partner Giuliana Olmos, Dabrowski earned $198,133. The next week she and Olmos got to the final of the Italian Open and won $33,815 each. But with the cost of travel, hotels, food, clothing and coaching, Dabrowski says she comes out barely ahead.“The pandemic made things a lot harder,” said Dabrowski, who sits on the WTA Players’ Council and was instrumental in the reallocation of prize money in which players at the top of the game receive a smaller share for winning a tournament, and players who lose in the first round, those who are struggling or are trying to break through, are awarded a greater percentage.“If we learned anything, it’s that we have to be looking out for those lower-ranked players so they never say they have to quit because they can’t make a living playing tennis,” Dabrowski said. “We need to protect and sustain the game for them.”Tennis has historically been the most lucrative of all women’s professional sports. In 1970, Gladys Heldman, the publisher of World Tennis magazine, persuaded the Philip Morris brand Virginia Slims to put up $7,500 to sponsor the first women’s pro tournament in Houston.Heldman then persuaded Billie Jean King, Rosie Casals and seven other young women to sign $1 contracts to play professional tennis. The so-called Original Nine players did not earn as much collectively in their careers as Ashleigh Barty won for taking the singles title at the 2019 Shiseido WTA Finals in Shenzhen, China. The $4.42 million that Barty took home that day is more than double the $1,966,487 that King made over her 31-year career, which included 39 major championships in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.Billie Jean King, right, at a meeting in 1975 in London to discuss more equal prize money at Wimbledon.Daily Express/Archive Photos/Getty ImagesThat, of course, does not compare with the $94,518,971 that Serena Williams, the sport’s overall top earner, has amassed. She has more than doubled that figure in endorsements. Naomi Osaka, who has played in just nine WTA tournaments over the last year, tops Forbes’ list of highest-paid female athletes for 2022, generating some $58 million from more than 20 corporate sponsors. She ranked just behind LeBron James, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods, but ahead of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Tom Brady. Every year since 1990, when Forbes started listing highest paid female athletes, the leader has been a tennis player.“Tennis has always led the way because we are a global sport,” said King, who in 1971 became the first female athlete to earn $100,000 in prize money. “In 1970, we literally had to kill ourselves to get prize money and attention for women’s tennis,” King said. “Even now, we have to work to be No. 1. And the way we do that is by realizing that we are entertainers and there for our audience.”Over the last 52 years, the women’s tour has had nine presenting sponsors, including Colgate, Avon and Toyota. After 12 years without a title sponsor, the WTA recently partnered with Hologic, a women’s diagnostic and medical imaging company, which has pledged millions of dollars in a multiyear deal.Prize money in women’s tennis grew to a high of $179 million in 2019, shortly before the tour was halted for four months because of the pandemic. The WTA overall prize money is now at $157 million for 2022.“The past two years have been very challenging for the WTA, our members and for many businesses around the world,” Steve Simon, the organization’s chief executive wrote in an email. “We are proud of the fact that our tournaments and players did what was required to operate over this period.”For Simon, one of the great challenges has been the loss of revenue from Southeast Asia. In 2019, the tour entered into a $14 million agreement with the Japanese skin care company Shiseido to sponsor the WTA Finals in China. When Barty won the tournament, she took home the largest prize ever in the sport, for men or women.A year later, with the pandemic raging in China, that deal was dissolved. Then, when the Chinese player Peng Shuai suddenly disappeared from view after saying that she was sexually abused by a high-ranking member of the Chinese government, Simon announced that he was canceling all WTA events in China for this year. Last season’s year-end finals were moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, but the money offered was roughly a third of what it had been in Shenzhen.Another issue facing tennis is the rising profile of women’s team sports, especially soccer and the Women’s National Basketball Association. About two weeks ago, the U.S. women’s national soccer team entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the United States Soccer Federation in which the men’s and women’s teams will receive equal pay for equal work.“Equality in team sports is essential, especially in terms of equal prize money,” said King’s business partner, Ilana Kloss. “But women still have a long way to go. Forty percent of athletes are women, and they receive only 4 percent of the media coverage. So many of these big tennis tournaments are owned by conglomerates and investment groups. And those companies now have women at the top who are realizing that women’s sports are good for business. It isn’t just an old boys’ club anymore. We’re learning that the tide now affects all boats.”In tennis, women still lag significantly behind men in financial compensation at most tournaments except the majors. At Wimbledon and the Australian, French and United States Opens, prize money has been equal since 2007. At this year’s French Open, the winner of both the men’s and women’s singles will pocket 2.2 million euros, almost $2.4 million. Joint tour events in Indian Wells, Calif., and Miami also offer equal prize money. But that isn’t true everywhere.Iga Swiatek, winner of the women’s title at the Italian Open this month, earned less than half the prize money that Novak Djokovic received for winning the men’s singles title.Alex Pantling/Getty ImagesOn May 15, the world No. 1 Iga Swiatek won the Italian Open and was awarded €322,280. Hours later, Novak Djokovic beat Stefanos Tsitsipas for the men’s championship and won €836,355. Tsitsipas, the second-place finisher, earned more than €100,000 more than Swiatek.“Does that seem fair?” asked Pam Shriver, who won 79 women’s doubles titles with Martina Navratilova. Shriver suggested that the only way female players can get equal pay in Italy is if female entrepreneurs like King, Serena and Venus Williams, Navratilova and Chris Evert step in and buy the tournament.“We’ve come to learn that not all joint events are created equally,” Shriver said. “At some tournaments, it’s cultural not to pay women as much. But in tennis the pie keeps getting bigger. Now we just have to take a stance and make sure it is equal.”And then there is Tsitsipas, who, earlier this spring, waded into the topic by asking an old question in tennis: Should women receive the same prize money as men when they play two out of three sets at the majors and men play three out of five? Women argue that it’s about entertainment value and ticket sales, not solely about time spent on the court.“I don’t want to be controversial or anything,” Tsitsipas said. “There is the topic of women getting equal pay for playing best of three. There are a lot of scientists and statisticians out there. I’ve been told that women have better endurance than men. Maybe they can play best of five.” More

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      in Soccer

      U.S. Soccer and Players Guarantee Equal Pay in New Contracts

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      Landmark labor agreements with members of the men’s and women’s national teams will include higher paychecks and shared World Cup prize money.As the women’s soccer stars stared at their laptop screens Monday night and the new labor deal was explained to them, the numbers just kept climbing. A few thousand dollars here. Tens of thousands of dollars there. Pretty soon, the figures had crossed into the millions.What they added up to, the players all knew, was something many of them had chased for most of their careers: equal pay.That reality arrived Wednesday in landmark contracts with the U.S. Soccer Federation that will guarantee, for the first time, that soccer players representing the United States men’s and women’s national teams will receive the same pay when competing in international matches and competitions.In addition to equal rates of pay for individual matches, the deals include a provision, believed to be the first of its kind, through which the teams will pool the unequal prize money payments U.S. Soccer receives from FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, for their participation in the quadrennial World Cup. Starting with the 2022 men’s tournament and the 2023 Women’s World Cup, that money will be shared equally among the members of both teams.“No other country has ever done this,” U.S. Soccer’s president, Cindy Cone, said of the deal to equalize World Cup payments. “I think everyone should be really proud of what we’ve accomplished here. It really, truly, is historic.”U.S. Soccer’s president, Cindy Parlow Cone, a former national team player who helped guide the national teams to a deal, with President Biden at an Equal Pay Day event in March.Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe agreements were reached just over six years after a group of stars from the World Cup-winning U.S. women’s national team began a campaign to overcome what they said was years of wage discrimination by U.S. Soccer against its female players. The players argued that they had been paid less than their male counterparts for decades even as they won world championships and Olympic gold medals.The fight over per diems and paychecks eventually morphed into a federal lawsuit in which the women accused U.S. Soccer of “institutionalized gender discrimination.” While the women lost in federal court in 2020, when a judge ruled against their core claims, they eventually won their equal pay victory at the negotiating table, with a final assist from the men’s team.It was the men’s team’s players, in fact, who opened a pathway to a deal late last year when they privately agreed to share some of the millions of dollars in World Cup bonus money that they have traditionally received by pooling it with the smaller payments the women receive from their own championship.That split could see the two teams pool, and share, $20 million or more as soon as next year. That will be in addition to match payments that are expected to average $450,000 a year — and double that, or more, in years when World Cup bonus money is added.For the women’s team’s players, Wednesday’s agreements were as much a relief as a triumph. Becky Sauerbrunn, one of the five players who signed the original complaint in 2016, admitted, “It’s hard to get so, so excited about something we should have had all along.”Through the years, as the sides battled in courtrooms and negotiating sessions, the dispute produced sometimes caustic — and personal — disagreements about personal privacy, workplace equality and basic fairness, and drew support (and second-guessing) from a disparate chorus of presidential candidates, star athletes and Hollywood celebrities — not all of them supportive of the women’s campaign for pay equity.The difference in compensation for men and women has been one of the most contentious issues in soccer in recent years, particularly after the American women won consecutive World Cup championships, in 2015 and 2019, and the men failed to qualify for the 2018 tournament. Over the years, the women’s team, which includes some of the world’s most recognizable athletes, had escalated and amplified its fight in court filings, news media interviews and on the sport’s grandest stages.The dispute had always been a complex issue, with differing contracts, unequal prize money and other financial quirks muddying the distinctions in pay between the men’s and women’s teams and complicating the ability of national governing bodies like U.S. Soccer to resolve the differences.Yet the federation ultimately committed to a fairer system. To achieve it, U.S. Soccer will distribute millions of extra dollars to its best players through a complicated calculus of increased match bonuses, pooled prize money and new revenue-sharing agreements. These agreements will give each team a slice of the tens of millions of dollars in commercial revenues that U.S. Soccer receives each year from sponsors, broadcasters and other partners.The U.S. women’s soccer team amplified its equal pay message on the way to winning the 2019 Women’s World Cup.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesLabor peace will be expensive: U.S. Soccer has committed to single-game payments for most matches of $18,000 per player for games won, and as much as $24,000 per game for wins at certain major tournaments — cementing the status of the U.S. men and women as two of the highest-paid national teams in the world. And the federation will surrender to the men and women on those teams 90 percent of the money it receives from FIFA for sending teams to the next two World Cups.The split of prize money, then, is a notable concession by the American men, who have previously been awarded the bulk of those multimillion-dollar payments by U.S. Soccer, and a potential seven-figure windfall for the women. The 24 teams at the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, for example, competed for a prize pool of $30 million; the 32 men’s teams that will compete in Qatar in November will split $450 million.Timeline: U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s Fight for Equal PayCard 1 of 11A six-year legal battle. More

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      in Basket

      Why Brittney Griner Could Be the Last American Basketball Star in Russia

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      The atrocities of the war in Ukraine and Griner’s detention in Russia on drug charges could cut off a lucrative pipeline for women’s basketball players.Mike Cound had decided on a figure — a reasonable salary request, he said — for a client who wanted to play for UMMC Yekaterinburg, a professional women’s basketball team in Russia. As an experienced sports agent, that was what he was supposed to do.But when he doubled the request on a whim, the team accepted without hesitation. And when another client injured her knee and could not play, the team paid her anyway. For yet another client, UMMC Yekaterinburg offered more than triple the amount she could make in the W.N.B.A. in the United States — if she would agree to play only in Russia.None of that was normal. But UMMC Yekaterinburg was not like any other team.“There’s nothing like it in sports,” Cound said. “The Yankees, maybe, in the old days with George Steinbrenner, when they would pay four times as much as somebody else.”That type of spending and largess, fed by the Russian oligarchs who own teams for pride and political reasons, has drawn many W.N.B.A. players over the years to a country they barely know, thousands of miles from home, for a financial bounty generally unavailable in the United States.But those days may be over. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, Russia’s detention of the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner on drug charges and increasing pressure from the W.N.B.A. to limit overseas play have forced an overdue reconsideration of the ethical and financial implications of playing basketball in Russia.Griner, a center for the Phoenix Mercury who was in Russia to play for UMMC Yekaterinburg when she was detained in February, was reportedly earning at least $1 million from the team — far more than the W.N.B.A.’s maximum base salary of about $230,000. Similar paydays have lured other big-name stars, like Diana Taurasi and Breanna Stewart.UMMC Yekaterinburg celebrated winning the EuroLeague Women in 2021.Murad Sezer/ReutersBut Griner’s detention, the atrocities of the war and related economic sanctions have heightened the scrutiny of associating with Russian businesses — including its basketball teams. The State Department on Tuesday said that Griner had been “wrongfully detained” and that its officials were working to have her released. Griner could be the last American basketball star to play professionally in Russia, fracturing a lucrative pipeline that a list of renowned players has tapped for a generation.“If you’ve got your daughter you’re entrusting with me and listening to my counsel,” Cound said, “I do not see where I can look you in the face and say, ‘Yeah, this is a good idea,’ if Vladimir Putin is still in charge.”‘We can get the best’As the Mercury prepare for the 2022 W.N.B.A. season, which begins Friday, Griner remains in custody with other women in Russia, where she has gone to play basketball since 2015.In February, Russian customs officials accused Griner of carrying vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. If Griner is convicted, she can face up to 10 years in prison. American officials have long accused Russia of detaining people on trumped-up charges.In March, a Russian court extended Griner’s time in custody until at least May 19. That hearing did not deal with the merits of the case. The State Department has not explained why or how its officials determined that her detention was wrongful.In March, Lisa Leslie, the Hall of Fame player, said on the “I Am Athlete” podcast that she and others in the W.N.B.A. community were told not to make a “big fuss” over Griner’s detention for fear of inflaming tensions with Russia. The State Department’s statement on Tuesday was the most significant public acknowledgment of Griner’s situation by the U.S. government.Some W.N.B.A. players and fans have been vocal, using a #FreeBrittney hashtag on social media to plead for intervention. But most, like Taurasi, Griner’s Mercury teammate, have said little as part of a strategy of quiet diplomacy.A fan showed his support for Griner during a men’s basketball game between Iowa State and Baylor in March. (Griner won a national title with Baylor in 2012.)LM Otero/Associated Press“I spent 10 years there, so I know the way things work,” said Taurasi, who has played for Russian teams and is the leading scorer in W.N.B.A. history. “It’s delicate.”UMMC Yekaterinburg paid Taurasi a reported $1.5 million to skip the 2015 W.N.B.A. season and play only in Russia.“It was a very personal choice,” Taurasi told The New York Times at the time. “My agent said it would be financially irresponsible not to do it.”UMMC Yekaterinburg, based in the city of the same name and roughly a two-hour flight from Moscow, is controlled by the oligarch Iskander Makhmudov and his business partner, Andrei Kozitsyn. Makhmudov and Kozitsyn head Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, which mines commodities like copper, zinc, coal, gold and silver, and is one of Russia’s top producers.They were part of a wave of oligarchs who amassed their wealth after the collapse of the Soviet Union by investing in industries like gas, oil and precious metals. Following Putin’s ascent, oligarchs like Roman Abramovich, Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Prokhorov bought into prominent sports franchises, like the soccer teams Chelsea and Arsenal F.C. and the N.B.A.’s Nets.While some owners had legitimate reasons for investing in sports, others who funded or purchased teams were doing so at least in part to seem more legitimate to American and British authorities, according to Karen Greenaway, a retired F.B.I. agent who investigated international corruption and spent a part of her career in the former Soviet Union. Makhmudov has been linked to criminal activity and has business associations with other oligarchs tied to organized crime in Russia, according to civil suits lodged in the United States and the United Kingdom by competitors and law enforcement officials.Makhmudov was accused of being involved in a scheme to take over the Russian aluminum industry, according to a civil case filed in New York in 2000. In it, Makhmudov and two other oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska and Michael Cherney, were accused of a racketeering scheme which involved fraud, bribery and attempted murder. They contested the allegations, and the case was dismissed in the United States because the judge consented to move it to Russia.“Organized crime was making the money, and Makhmudov and Deripaska were investing the money,” Greenaway said. Several attempts to reach Makhmudov and Kozitsyn for this article were unsuccessful.Proceeds from mining helped Makhmudov and Kozitsyn invest in women’s basketball and other sports in Russia, like martial arts and table tennis.Andrei Kozitsyn at a news conference in 2014.Maxim Shemetov/ReutersAnother former F.B.I. agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his current employer had barred him from speaking publicly, said oligarchs want to be associated with high-profile legitimate businesses like sports teams to make it more difficult for Putin to severely punish them without anyone noticing. Making too much money outside Russia could upset Putin, the agent said, as could seeming to interfere with his political agenda. “When oligarchs have stepped into the fray, then he comes after you full guns ablazing,” the agent said.Brendan Dwyer, an associate professor and a director at the Center for Sport Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, said interest in Russian women’s basketball is related to Putin’s desire that Russia be viewed as a worldwide sports powerhouse.“Really, it’s an opportunity for the oligarchs to draw the best international talent to the country and raise awareness for the sport,” Dwyer said, noting Putin’s background in judo. “But I think the ultimate goal is to showcase: ‘Listen, we have the best athletes in the world. We are the best country in the world. We can get the best to come here.’”‘More than the whole budget of the next team’Yekaterinburg sits on an eastern slope of the Ural Mountains, close to Russia’s border with Kazakhstan, and is a city where the profits of the country’s mining and metallurgical industries pool. The city gained infamy in 1918 when Czar Nicholas II, Russia’s last czar, was killed along with his family by Bolshevik revolutionaries during the Russian Revolution.The Russian Basketball Federation governs several men’s and women’s basketball leagues, including the women’s Premier League with about a dozen teams. UMMC Yekaterinburg has dominated the Premier League, where most of the teams are bankrolled by government municipalities. Makhmudov lists the team on his website among his charitable endeavors.“There’s this vision that this is happening all over Russia,” Cound said. “No, no. It’s this team. You probably have three players on Yekat that’s more than the whole budget of the next team down.”Right before UMMC Yekaterinburg’s run of sustained dominance began in 2008, Taurasi and Sue Bird, two of the world’s most famous women’s basketball players, won several EuroLeague championships for Spartak Moscow. In 2006, the average W.N.B.A. salary was only $47,000 a year, with the league maximum at $91,000 for veterans.In Russia, Bird and Taurasi were treated like celebrities. Shabtai Kalmanovich, Spartak Moscow’s owner, lavished players with high salaries, cash bonuses and gifts.Iskander Makhmudov, the president of Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, in 2014.Dmitry Dukhanin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKalmanovich once told ESPN that he lost millions every season. The team paid to have its games broadcast in Russia and did not charge fans to attend, hoping to first get spectators invested in the sport before charging admission.He told Sports Illustrated in 2008 that “you need to have a big heart” and to “be something between a fanatic and a patriot” to invest in women’s basketball. But for the very rich, like Kalmanovich, that was often enough incentive.“If you understand that you can’t eat breakfast twice, and you can wear only one tie at a time, there might as well be something else,” he said.What to Know About Brittney Griner’s Detention in RussiaCard 1 of 5What happened? More

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      in Soccer

      Angel City F.C. and the N.W.S.L.’s Ongoing Search for Itself

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      LOS ANGELES — Angel City F.C., one of two new franchises in the National Women’s Soccer League, arrived for its first season equipped with dozens of celebrity investors, sleek branding, copious media coverage and a well-choreographed social media campaign.What it did not have, at least consistently, was a place to play soccer.Early this year, just as Angel City’s players began arriving in Los Angeles for the team’s inaugural season, an agreement the team had made to use the Los Angeles Rams’ practice fields at California Lutheran University was put on hold. The issue? The N.F.L. team was on a Super Bowl run and still using them.Adjusting on the fly, Angel City arranged to spend the first few weeks of its preseason at Pepperdine University. But just as the players were to return to Cal Lutheran, team officials decided the school’s turf football field they had been given wasn’t adequate. They canceled training, and the players were offered a spa day instead.“Every start-up has to adjust and pivot: I’m comfortable with those last-minute changes. Having said that, we have 24 players and a coaching staff of 20, and it’s not as easy for them,” said Julie Uhrman, Angel City’s president and one of its founders, adding, “Sometimes we fall short of delivering for the players, and it’s devastating.”Missteps for a new team aren’t surprising. But to veterans of the N.W.S.L., Angel City’s early problems — not only its field issues, but also the idea that professional athletes would prefer a spa day to a rigorous practice only weeks before their first game — were concerning signs of how far even the league’s best-funded teams still need to go.Katie Johnson of the San Diego Wave, left, and Jasmyne Spencer of Angel City F.C. Both teams are new to the N.W.S.L. this season.Meg Oliphant/Getty Images“That’s exactly what I mean when I talk about operational rigor,” Jessica Berman, the new N.W.S.L. commissioner, said when asked about her immediate priorities. “It is the sort of stuff behind the curtain — how the sausage gets made — that really paves the way for the league’s growth. The commercialization and the revenue will flow from creating an infrastructure within the league that is consistent, professionalized, credible, reliable.”Yet as the league opens its 10th regular season this weekend, Angel City’s stumbles on the basics, after a year in which the N.W.S.L. was rocked by claims of player mistreatment, have many around the league once again asking:What is the N.W.S.L.? And what does it want to be?A player-led push for change“Enough is enough,” one veteran player said of the mind-set that saw N.W.S.L. pros take a more active role in the direction of their league.Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe arrival of Angel City, along with a second new franchise in San Diego, was expected to offer a fresh start for the N.W.S.L. after a very public reckoning last year. In a matter of months, five of the league’s 10 head coaches were fired or resigned for off-field conduct, including one who was accused of coercing a player to have sex with him. (Yet another coach, James Clarkson of the Houston Dash, was suspended on Tuesday over unspecified findings in a continuing review of “current and historic complaints of discrimination, harassment and abuse.”)The scandals were an existential moment for the league. Its commissioner, criticized for mishandling reports of coaches abusing and bullying players, resigned. Team owners faced hard questions about their own failings. Even some of the league’s most devoted fans turned on their teams, demanding answers and accountability.The players took it a step further: For one remarkable week, they refused to play at all.Veteran players said the show of player power was not new. Things had been changing, they said, since the league’s early years, when sponsors came in the form of family-run meatpacking businesses, broadcast deals were next to nonexistent and players were reluctant to ask for more.“Keeping everything quiet, dealing with it, sucking it up because we just need to make progress and we don’t want to do anything that could hurt the league,” Yael Averbuch West, the general manager of Gotham F.C. and a former player, said of the mind-set in the early years of the league. More

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      in Golf

      For a Few Days at Augusta National, the Spotlight Shines on the Women

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      When the club held its first national women’s amateur tournament in 2019, it hoped to benefit women’s golf, especially the junior circuit. It seems to be working.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Anna Davis had just turned 12 when Augusta National Golf Club, in a surprise, announced it would create a new national women’s amateur championship. On Saturday, now 16 years old, Davis won the tournament.Annika Sorenstam, who won 10 L.P.G.A. major championships, attended the club’s news conference in 2018, when Augusta National officials said it wanted the 54-hole tournament to benefit women’s golf at all levels.“This is a dream come true,” Sorenstam said at the time. “It will be an exciting carrot for these young amateurs.”Sorenstam sat behind the first tee on Saturday as Rachel Kuehn, who was 16 when the tournament was created, teed off in the final round.“I turned around and Annika Sorenstam was there and I thought, Oh my gosh, I have to hit the fairway,” Kuehn, who would finish seventh, said later. “I didn’t hit the fairway but it was really cool to see her and so many people out supporting women’s golf. It’s what this tournament was meant to do.”Amari Avery was 14 when Augusta National announced the event, which included the news that the national women’s amateur championship would be broadcast live on NBC on the weekend before the start of the Masters Tournament.“The very first year they played it I saw how electric it was and I made it a goal for myself to be a part of that atmosphere that very second,” Avery said Saturday after she finished tied for fourth.Amari Avery after a missed putt on No. 18.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf Augusta National’s intent was to benefit women’s golf, especially the junior circuit, Kuehn, whose mother, Brenda, was a top amateur who would have loved playing competitive golf at Augusta National, and Avery, whose father is Black and mother is Filipino, each insisted the club’s relatively new amateur championship is achieving its objective.“It’s just been incredible,” Kuehn said. “It’s a testament to what Augusta National is doing here.”Avery, whose appearance nine years ago in a Netflix documentary about elite grade school golfers earned her comparisons to Tiger Woods, said the Augusta National tournament was “huge.”“It’s hard to find words for how much this has impacted amateur women’s golf,” she said. “Seeing all these people lined up and clapping and cheering for us, it’s how it should be and it’s a step in the right direction, for sure.”Andre Avery, Amari’s father, saw the symbolism.“For my daughter to turn on the TV years ago and see young women playing on the golf course where the Masters is played, I mean that was a turning point for her,” Avery said. “And today, for African American kids to be watching TV and see someone that looks like them on the same course, that’s a really big deal, too. It’s important for them to see that.”The first Augusta National Women’s Amateur was held in 2019 and the 2020 event was canceled by the pandemic, which inhibited attendance at the 2021 tournament as well. But on Saturday, the crowds at Augusta National, which began admitting women members in 2012, were hearty, with the galleries around the closing holes 10 deep with fans. (Augusta National does not release attendance figures.)“I’ve never played in front of such big crowds,” Davis said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”Girls watching the trophy presentation at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBrenda Kuehn could not help but notice how many women were in attendance — and how many had brought their grade school and preteen daughters, who surged around the golfers as they finished their rounds, clamoring for autographs.“I gave my golf ball to a little girl as I came off the 18th green today and I’m not sure if she understood what was going on, but the look and smile on her face was a beautiful thing,” Ingrid Lindblad of Sweden, who finished tied for second, said.Lindblad, a junior on the golf team at Louisiana State, said that one of her professors even knew she would be competing at the storied golf club.“Not many people normally talk to me about one of our college tournaments,” Lindblad said. “Only family and close friends go to those. But that’s how this tournament is different. There’s no question it’s raised the profile of women’s golf. And that will continue to have positive effects.”Kuehn’s coach at Wake Forest University, Kim Lewellen, said she has seen a rise in participation at junior girls’ camps and in the number of women recruits who have contacted her since the tournament’s inception. She credits the appeal of seeing women at a renowned golf course and the fact that it is contested the weekend before the Masters is played.Anna Davis, winner of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, on No. 18 after missing a birdie putt.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThere are other prominent American women’s amateur championships, like the U.S. Women’s Amateur, first played in 1895, but Augusta National seems to have captured a distinctive foothold.“It’s the platform,” said Avery’s golf coach at Southern California, Justin Silverstein. “Arguably, everyone in golf has heard of Augusta National and even most casual sports fans have heard of the Masters. It’s the most recognizable golf course in the world.“Young women golfers turn on NBC, and that’s another huge platform, and they see people that look like them — or people not that far removed from them — and they think: Maybe I can do that too.”Sometimes, that is all it takes.Davis, who shares her March 17 birthday with Bobby Jones, one of the founders of Augusta National who died in 1971, said on Saturday that she had not heard of the event until last year — when she watched it on television.“It made me very excited to try and compete in this event,” she said. “Then I was excited when I learned I was going to play here.”Now she is the tournament champion. More

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      in Tennis

      Strong Stance on China and Peng Shuai Helps Land WTA a New Title Sponsor

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      The women’s tennis tour has been without a title sponsor since 2010, but the medical diagnostics company Hologic has agreed to a multiyear deal with the WTA.After more than a decade without a title sponsor, the Women’s Tennis Association confirmed that it has agreed to a multiyear deal with Hologic, a leading global medical device and diagnostics company focused on women’s health.It is the first major sports sponsorship for Hologic, whose headquarters are in Marlborough, Mass., and it comes at a crucial moment for the WTA, which has suspended all of its tournaments in China and faced significant financial headwinds during the coronavirus pandemic because of tournament cancellations and reduced attendance and revenue at many events.“This comes at a very, very good time,” said Micky Lawler, the president of the WTA. “For us it’s the most important sponsorship of the WTA’s history and probably the biggest in women’s sports.”Lawler, citing a confidentiality agreement with Hologic, declined to state the precise terms of the deal, but it is significantly larger on an annual basis than the tour’s previous title sponsorship with the cellphone manufacturer Sony Ericsson, which ended in 2010. That six-year agreement, signed in 2005, was for $88 million — an average of $14.7 million annually.“I think we’re all very grateful after the last couple of years, with the challenges with the pandemic and everything going on in the world right now, to be able to have this kind of support from a company that cares so much about women’s health, wellness and equality,” said Danielle Collins, a finalist at this year’s Australian Open.Lisa Hellmann, a senior vice president for global human resources and corporate communication at Hologic, said the WTA’s strong stance in support of the Chinese player Peng Shuai was a factor in sparking Hologic’s interest.“I would consider it more a catalyst to the conversation than the deciding factor,” Hellmann said in a phone interview.What to Know About Peng ShuaiThe Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai disappeared from public view for weeks after she accused a top Chinese leader of sexual assault.What Happened: The athlete’s vanishing and subsequent reappearance in several videos prompted global concern over her well-being.A Silencing Operation: China turned to a tested playbook to stamp out discussion and shift the narrative. The effort didn’t always succeed.Eluding the Censors: Supporters of the tennis star found creative ways to voice their frustration online.A Sudden Reversal: Ms. Peng retracted her accusation in an interview in December. But her words seemed unlikely to quell fears for her safety.Peng disappeared from the public eye for more than two weeks in November after publishing a social media post in which she accused Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier of China, of pressuring her into sex. That post was quickly deleted and online conversation about her and her allegations was censored. The WTA, unable to make contact with Peng, called on Chinese authorities to make a “full and transparent” investigation into Peng’s allegations and end censorship on the subject.When those demands were not met, the WTA suspended all its tournaments in China, which has become one of the financial pillars of the women’s tour with 10 events that accounted for approximately one-third of the WTA’s annual revenue in 2019. The most lucrative and prestigious of those events was the WTA Finals, the tour’s year-end championship in Shenzhen, China, which offered record prize money of $14 million in 2019, including $4.42 million to the winner, Ashleigh Barty.The WTA has been an outlier in its approach to China. The ATP, which operates the men’s tennis tour, has not suspended its Chinese tournaments, and other professional leagues, including the N.B.A., have been reticent to confront Chinese authorities directly.Peng has reappeared in recent weeks and given some controlled interviews, claiming that she deleted the social media post herself and that she had been misunderstood and had not made sexual assault allegations. But the WTA, still lacking direct contact with Peng, has maintained its position.“We’ve been watching very closely some of the brave and really high-integrity moves that the WTA has made almost by themselves,” Hellmann said. “And that brought to our attention both the potential need they may have for title sponsorship, as well as really wanting to stand with and support the stance they are taking despite really negative impact on their business.”Hellmann added: “It put their calendar at risk. It put a huge audience at risk, but they stood up for what they believed to be right and stood up for their players and therefore, by extension, the voice of women throughout the world.”According to Lawler, the contact with Hologic began with a game of golf in December in San Diego, where Hologic has a major manufacturing facility, that involved Stephen MacMillan, Hologic’s chairman, and Kyle Filippelli, the boyfriend of the American tennis player CoCo Vandeweghe.Lawler said MacMillan mentioned the WTA’s “moral stance” on Peng and expressed interest to Filippelli in opening discussions with the WTA. MacMillan was put in contact with Alastair Garland, who is on the WTA’s board of directors, is the vice president at the management company Octagon and is married to Lawler’s daughter Charlotte.“We had two calls, one before Christmas, one right after,” Lawler said. “And then we went out to San Diego and we met with them, and that’s how it started. It clicked right away.”Hellmann said Hologic was, above all, interested in a partnership because of the WTA’s “global reach” and because her company’s goals matched up particularly well with the WTA’s.“We’re committed to improving the lives of women, to improving issues of equity and health, so that sort of fundamental DNA, if you will, is so aligned,” she said. “It made it an easy place to start.”Hellmann said that, as part of the sponsorship, current and former WTA players would share personal stories that underscore the importance of preventive testing and screening for diseases like breast and cervical cancer. The company also plans to work with the tour to create Hologic WTA Labs, which will be focused on research specific to female athletes.Collins, who has risen to No. 11 in the rankings after recovering from endometriosis last year, said that partnership resonated with her.“Having been someone that has dealt firsthand with women’s health issues, I really appreciate the research and them being a medical technology company that’s focused on creating things like mammogram machines and bone density and cervical cancer screening,” she said. “These are things that are so important to women’s health.”Lawler said Hologic’s name will be featured on the nets at all WTA events, beginning with next week’s BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif. The company’s name will also be used on virtual signs on courts outside the double alleys at WTA 1000 and 500 tournaments.This is the longest the tour has gone without a title sponsor since its founding in 1973. Virginia Slims, the cigarette maker, was the first sponsor, making use of the slogan “You’ve come a long way baby,” before eventually being phased out because of health concerns. Kraft General Food, Corel, Sanex and Sony Ericsson followed as title sponsors.“We’re working on a series called ‘You’ve come a long way,’” Lawler said.She added: “We’ve learned a lot about the disastrous consequences of smoking, but at the time that was also a game changer,” she said of the Virginia Slims sponsorship. “With Hologic, it sort of is a full-circle story.”Lawler said part of the challenge of securing a title sponsor since Sony Ericsson’s contract ended in 2010 has been finding a company whose brand does not conflict with other tour and individual event sponsors.“You often find competing brands in the same industry,” she said. “This alignment is perfect, because there is no competition.”Lawler said the title sponsorship revenue would allow the tour to keep prize money equal with the men at its top-tier premier mandatory events and boost prize money at other tournaments.Shenzhen has not hosted the WTA Finals since 2019 because of pandemic restrictions, and with the suspension of Chinese tournaments, the tour is again exploring options elsewhere for this year’s event in November. It staged the tournament last year in Guadalajara, Mexico, albeit with much lower prize money of $5 million. Lawler said the tour hoped to have clarity on the finals by the end of March and would consult with Hologic and other sponsors if it does choose a new site.Hellmann said that China was a “growing market” for Hologic but expressed confidence that sponsoring the WTA would not affect that business.“In conversations with our international leadership, we do not anticipate there to be problems or conflicts with that,” she said. More

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      in Basket

      Women’s Basketball Players Get a New Lifeline, Close to Home

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      The five-week Athletes Unlimited season has given some players an alternative to playing overseas during the W.N.B.A. off-season and a way to earn extra money.Lauren Manis was drafted, and waived, by the Las Vegas Aces before the 2020 W.N.B.A. season. She then signed with a team in Belgium, where intermittent lockdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic left her stuck in her apartment.She was unable to enter the gym, touch a basketball or return to her hometown, Franklin, Mass. But the time she eventually did get to spend on the court in Belgium proved fruitful: Manis averaged nearly a double-double in points and rebounds for the 16-game season and, in 2021, was invited back to the Aces’ training camp. Waived a second time, Manis signed to play for a team in Hungary. It didn’t go well.“I was living in a campground for three months,” Manis said. “The team was not honest with the living arrangements.”Under mental strain, she told her agent to prepare a termination agreement to get her out of the contract. Her agent told her about an opportunity to compete in Athletes Unlimited, a network of player-driven sports with a new basketball league based in Las Vegas. The next day, Manis boarded a flight out of Hungary. One Zoom call was all it took to persuade her to sign on to play in the inaugural A.U. basketball season.“I was very, very down after Hungary,” Manis said. “I thank God, because a few months ago I would have never imagined a situation like this coming up.”For Manis, the league is an opportunity to course-correct a career beleaguered by bumps and false starts. She is joined by women at various stages of their basketball careers, many focused on redemptive arcs of their own. Some see the league as a chance to compete in front of family and friends, some for their first time in their professional careers, rather than in obscurity overseas. It can also be the rare paycheck, and playing time, for professional women’s basketball players in the United States during the W.N.B.A.’s off-season.Lauren Manis, center, agreed to join the league after one Zoom call.Four weeks into the inaugural five-week A.U. season, many people have found reason to want success for this newest venture in a long line of upstart basketball leagues that have come and gone. On-court competition has been thrilling because of its intensity, but A.U. is judging the success of its first basketball season by player experience. “Track how the players are doing and how much they’re enjoying the experience, and the feedback has been incredibly positive,” said Jon Patricof, A.U.’s chief executive and co-founder.Athletes Unlimited started in March 2020 with softball, volleyball and lacrosse leagues. The first A.U. basketball season tipped off on Jan. 23 at Athletes Unlimited Arena at the Sport Center of Las Vegas, with recruiting help and oversight by its player executive committee: the veteran W.N.B.A. players Natasha Cloud, Sydney Colson, Tianna Hawkins, Jantel Lavender and Ty Young. The season ends Saturday.It’s probably not what most fans would expect: There are no general managers, coaches or set teams, and four teams of 11 players are redrafted each week. Their captains are the top four players on a leaderboard for points accrued by on-court actions like scoring, drawing fouls and stealing the ball, and by votes from fans and players. Opposite actions, like turnovers and missed shots, cost points. Teams win games by collecting the most points through outscoring the other team each quarter (50 win points per quarter) and in the overall game (100 points).Fans are given sheets explaining the point system at each game.The league has focused on engaging fans through social media and TV broadcasts for every game rather than in-person attendance. The arena can hold just 740 fans.“From the beginning, we really wanted to build a global national audience,” Patricof said.That was welcome news to Imani McGee-Stafford, who is competing in A.U. and last played in the W.N.B.A. in 2019, for the Dallas Wings. “Even in the W, we don’t have every game televised,” McGee-Stafford said. “I send my grandmother the schedule every week and tell her what channel to turn to, or what’s the link, and she texts me after every game. It’s really dope, and it’s also not very common in the women’s basketball world yet.”McGee-Stafford, a 6-foot-7 center, stepped away from the court in 2020 to begin law school, but now finds her professional career mired in uncertainty.“I just want to play basketball,” she said.Imani McGee-Stafford balances playing time with law school studies.To accommodate law school and the W.N.B.A., she chose a three-year, semesters-based program. But after four W.N.B.A. seasons and international stints in Israel, China and Turkey, McGee-Stafford, 27, hadn’t played professionally for three years before A.U. came along. In 2019, she signed to play in Australia, with the Perth Lynx, but she said she “got cut because I was taking the L.S.A.T. and showed up late to something.”In A.U., she is able to battle hard on the court, and retreat to a private room afterward to complete her coursework. “They’ve made it possible for players to do it all,” she said. “I’m taking three courses this semester, a lighter course load, because I knew I was going to be doing this.”Tianna Hawkins and her son Emanuel after a recent game.For Tianna Hawkins, a 6-foot-3 forward who won a championship with the Washington Mystics in 2019, A.U. has allowed her to rediscover the joy of playing. In 2021, she played for the 8-24 Atlanta Dream, who suspended a player for conduct detrimental to the team and lost their coach to another job just weeks before the season.“It’s been a great opportunity for me to regain my confidence because I’m coming off, maybe, the worst professional season I’ve ever had,” Hawkins said.She continued: “I’m able to work on the things that I’ve been working on this off-season. And, also, if I make one mistake, I’m not getting snatched out of the game. I’m able to play through my mistakes, and also learn different perspectives of the game.”Hawkins said being a captain in A.U. had given her more respect for coaches.“They go through a lot, and they’re not even playing,” she said. “So, imagine if you had to coach while playing, too. I have a newfound grace for coaches.”A key challenge for W.N.B.A. coaches is the effect of off-season overseas games on their players, who may arrive for the W.N.B.A. season late, tired or injured from competing year-round. For many players, the grind is necessary to supplement low W.N.B.A. pay and limited domestic opportunities.Courtney Williams celebrated with teammates after a recent win.But will Athletes Unlimited quell this need?For Hawkins, it’s a matter of weighing the options: money, location and the needs of her first-grade son. McGee-Stafford is all in for as long as A.U. will have her. She finds the base salary of $8,000 “just for showing up” to be attractive, she said, and she can simultaneously pursue her law degree. Plus, players who finish in the top 10 on the leaderboard can expect bonuses upward of $10,000, making the full take-home pay for five weeks of basketball potentially more than $20,000, according to Patricof. The minimum salary for the four-month W.N.B.A. season is about $60,000, with a max of around $230,000.David Berri, a professor at Southern Utah University who has studied sports economics and gender issues, sees long-term potential for A.U., so long as the league maintains low operating costs.“Athletes Unlimited is definitely doing much to save money,” Berri said, citing its focus on TV and social media instead of in-person audience. And by centering individual players over teams, Berri said, A.U. could build an audience faster than what the traditional league model allows.Sheryl Swoopes provides color commentary to the games, and advice to the players.At the start of the A.U. season, Sheryl Swoopes, who provides color commentary for games, spoke to players about her Hall of Fame career in professional basketball. Her words resonated with Manis. “I think playing basketball for a living is really difficult because you never know when it’s going to come to a sudden end,” Manis said. “And she had some really wild things to say about being able to manage your money, and having a plan to fall back on.”Swoopes said in an interview that had A.U. existed during her playing days, she would have seized the chance to play.“Some players love going overseas, some players don’t,” she said. “It’s not for everybody.”Manis, who has dazzled with her gritty play on both sides of the ball, has become one of this season’s stars and captured Swoopes’s attention during broadcasts. Her redemption seems to be underway.“It’s unreal,” Manis said. “It’s great when you hear people praise your game and love to watch it, but when it comes from someone as influential as Sheryl Swoopes, it’s a pretty big deal.” More