Spirit partner with Fanatics Sportsbook, playoff scenarios and more: Friday Freedom Kicks
Happy Friday! I’m back from my conference, but it’s looking like a very busy weekend for me between the Spirit and DC Power’s first EVER home game. Here are just a few things to read and look at before this weekend’s many games.
Fanatics Sportsbook & Washington Spirit launch groundbreaking partnership For market access in Washington, D.C. (Washington Spirit)
The Spirit will be the first women’s team to be sponsored by Fanatics Sportsbook. I like to see more sponsors coming into women’s soccer, but I feel pretty conflicted about this one (and any gambling companies partnering with sports teams).
FC Cincinnati star Acosta set for USMNT eligibility by early 2025 (Pro Soccer Wire)
Lucho Acosta says he’s even more excited to be eligible to represent the US since the announcement of new head coach, Mauricio Pochettino. He expects to become a U.S. citizen in January or February of next year.
Michele Kang’s new company, Kynisca, has revealed some more information about what they plan to do (and presumably how they’ll fund it). They’re releasing an app “to allow active females to track, monitor, and visualize menstrual cycle, sleep, training, health, and wellness data all in one place.” Users will agree to participate in Kynisca’s study of women’s sports science.
Matchday 32: Who can clinch playoffs or be eliminated? (MLSsoccer.com)
Unfortunately, D.C. is not one of the teams for whom clinch scenarios are being formulated, but they might be able to play spoiler for a couple teams this weekend.
MLS terminates Felipe Hernandez contract (Sporting KC)
Hernandez has been fired for his second violation of MLS gambling rules.
Also looking ahead toward the playoffs (and playing into my love of a nice-looking graphic) is this chart of schedule difficulty for the remainder of the NWSL season. Basing it on current ranking doesn’t quite account for teams who’ve been slipping or surging post-Olympics, but it is interesting to think about how schedule difficulty will impact who’ll make the final eight.
Finally, the schedule of events for the weekend. In a rare occurrence, all of our local teams will be playing at home. And while D.C. United and Loudoun United play at about the same time, you could conceivably attend a match every night of the weekend! (Prayers up for Audi Field, though.)
| Teams | When | Where | Watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| DC Power FC vs. Fort Lauderdale United FC | Fri., Sep. 13 at 7:30 p.m. ET | Washington, DC | Peacock |
| Loudoun United FC vs. Birmingham Legion FC | Sat., Sep. 14 at 7 p.m. ET | Leesburg, VA | ESPN+ |
| D.C. United vs. New York City FC | Sat., Sep. 14 at 7:30 p.m. ET | Washington, DC | Apple TV |
| Washington Spirit vs. Houston Dash | Sun., Sep. 15 at 1 p.m. ET | Washington, DC | ESPN2, ESPN+ |
Have a good weekend!
I’ve said before that people who think Acosta has more technical ability than Pulisic and Reyna are off, but if the latter keeps having a lower body of jelly, we definitely could use him
I’ll gladly call myself out as one of those people who are off. The area I don’t know if he has the stuff is raw athleticism – not an issue in tight spaces on the ground, but when it simply comes to getting to the ball first or taking advantage of a fast break. Even then, he’d more likely be the one making the pass.
I don’t know about top speed, but he does have a certain amount of drive to him, probably more than Reyna, when space opens up to start a dribbling sequence. If I have a complaint about Reyna other than his ability to stay healthy, it’s that he’s a bit languid and passive at times. I don’t think Acosta makes as good of decisions all the time, but sometimes you need to take risks and run at people, and he’s proficient at doing that
The more competition the better when it comes to USMNT slots. And given the restrictions on foreign based talent (only available on official FIFA windows), it’s good to have some domestic talent that Pooch can call up. Because there will be plenty of nations seeking friendlies in the US–to acclimate to fields, scout locations, iron out details.
And Annie, I’m totally with you about a sports team aligning with a sports book. I know there’s money there. I’m not big on gambling anyway–it’s a regressive tax of sorts. And government supports it because it’s a way of getting funding without going to the people and making the case for a specific program.
I’d absolutely love the graphic on schedule difficulty (and think things like this are always underestimated when people project winning or losing schedules). But I can’t make sense out of it. Does the yellow mean “light schedule” and darker colors mean “schedule of death”?
Last of all, I hope the Conference went well.
I knew I should have included an explanation! The lighter the color, the higher ranked the opposing team. The key for that is down the right side of the image. So if a team has a darker horizontal line, their schedule will be easier, while a lighter line is a harder schedule
It’s also not coded by date, which threw me off for a second. I was wondering how Orlando was the final game for like seven different teams.
That is not an intuitive color scheme….therefore it fails its purpose if its not immediately obvious without explanation. Not your fault and sorry, but my color theory understanding from both being a theater light tech and cartographer (I have a BS in Geography) went off. Often times you want to go lighter to darker in terms of weighting as in something that is darker green has a heaver weighting than a lighter green.
Yeah I think its a combination of the color scheme and the way the data is presented in general. I took the color scheme to be more of a cool to hot spectrum as opposed to a light to dark. Cooler teams would be weaker ones, with hotter teams being stronger ones (i.e. being “hot” colloquially). I think a blue to red rainbow gradient would have fit better here, or even a blue to red with white in the middle. But the way that its shown, and even with how the legend is laid out, its bad. But that could just be me, as a scientist who has to plot a lot of data, I like my rainbow gradients lol
All this gambling stuff is gross. I just don’t like it.
I do like Kang’s direction on women’s physiology. A+ idea. I do not like her emphasis on “men” in her tweet. I don’t think any “man” has an issue with a focus on new developments for women’s health and well-being in sports. Give the guys a break, please…..just say men and leave it there, no emphasis needed.
(sorry if this rubs any of you the wrong way, it is not poorly intended).
https://mobile.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/SportsArchive/Kotoko-DC-United-game-in-limbo-as-US-Embassy-denies-26-individuals-visas-Reports-1950525