The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Sign a big deal today. Inside:
1️⃣ College football top 25{
Blueprints: How a new team has taken over the WOn the surface, everything about the WNBA’s business is exciting. Viewership is soaring. Expansion franchises keep popping up. A new collective bargaining agreement helped juice player salaries. The league’s profile has never been higher, and it’s truly entered the zeitgeist.But there’s something about a sudden popularity explosion that feels perilous. A new reality brings new lessons. More importantly, can said explosion actually translate into staying power? Or does it dwindle to its previous state?The Golden State Valkyries are a model of this new reality as a stable, mega-popular franchise. In just their second year of existence, the Valks are already the best pro sports team we aren’t talking enough about. In two years!It’s the focus of a great feature from Brian Hamilton this week. Two points I want to highlight:
You can look at most pro sports leagues (outside of the NFL) and find examples of expansion franchises bombing. You can blame league rules, bad market, whatever. But so many of these new teams fail to grab attention out the gate. The Valkyries have avoided all of that.
