Her Game Her Voice™

College Basketball Tip-off: Stanford, WNBA Free Agency, and Dan Rosensweig on Investing in Women’s Sports

• Kaari Peterson • Season 1 • Episode 17

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In this episode of Her Game Her Voice, Kaari Peterson kicks off the college basketball season by zooming in on the fast‑rising Stanford Cardinal women’s basketball team—after a rare down year they’re back baby! 10 experienced returners, three freshmen five‑star recruits, and one collective goal:  a winning season.

Then Kaari dives into a Listener's Question about the WNBA and free‑agency: What does it mean to be a restricted versus unrestricted free agent? Why do so many players have free agent status right now? And how will this affect WNBA team rosters for 2026?

There's also an update on the latest with the WNBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). The November 30th deadline looms with proposals on the table including a million-dollar max salary, and a higher salary floor. Are we getting closer to a deal?

And finally, a compelling conversation with Dan Rosensweig—tech CEO turned women’s sports investor. No spreadsheets. No old‑school ROI talk. Instead, a story of meeting Stanford athletes, recognizing gender-based disparities, and seizing an opportunity to invest not only in a league—but in real change.

Then it’s time for the awards:

🏆 Buzzer Beater Award: A high‑school girls’ team in Oklahoma that chose integrity over a trophy.

❌ Airball Award: “Project B”—a new global women’s pro league launching in 2026 (hello, placeholder name?).

🚨 Flagrant Foul Award: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, for missing the point when it comes to players asking for a stake in their own league’s future.

Yep — all of this goodness is in one little episode!

“Big stories, little episodes—amplifying the voices shaping the game on and off the court." - Her Game Her Voice Podcast by Kaari Peterson

Kaari:

Howdy hoop heads, and welcome to another episode of Her Game Her Voice, the podcast that delivers big stories about the world of women's basketball in little 15-minute or less episodes. I'm your host, Kari Peterson.

Kaari:

In this episode, I'm talking about investing in women's sports, specifically, you guessed it, basketball. And I have a list of question about WNBA players in free agency. Hmm. Last episode we talked about freedom of movement, and now we're talking about free agency. You guys have freedom on your mind, don't you? I wonder why.

Kaari:

And of course, I'll wrap it up with everybody's favorite, the awards section, featuring a shout out to a high school girls' basketball team in Oklahoma.

Kaari:

Let's tip it off.

Kaari:

The college basketball season is here. I'm back at Maples Pavilion and could not be more excited about Stanford Women's Basketball this year.

Kaari:

After a rare down season and missing the NCAA tournament for the first time in decades, this year's team is loaded with talent and hunger. We've got 10 returners bringing leadership and experience, plus five standout freshmen, including three five-star recruits. The team is bigger, deeper, and stronger.

Kaari:

With a year of ACC competition under their belt and new recruits dialing into the system, Stanford is poised for a championship contending season. Expect a fast-paced, up-tempo style built on depth, versatility, and a powerful sense of sisterhood. This squad has something to prove, and I, for one, cannot wait to watch it unfold.

Kaari:

And now it's time for our listener question. This week's question comes from Jen in Seattle. She asked, What does it mean to be a free agent? And what's restricted versus unrestricted?

Kaari:

Thanks for the questions, Jen.

Kaari:

Here's what I know. There are two main types of free agents: unrestricted and restricted.

Kaari:

An unrestricted free agent is a player who's free to sign up with any team without any restrictions from their previous team. So players can become UFAs after completing a contract, having a certain number of years of service, or if their previous team doesn't make them a qualifying offer.

Kaari:

A restricted free agent is a player who can talk to and sign with other teams, but their original team has the right of first refusal to match any offers. A restricted status most commonly applies to players with four years of service who just completed their rookie contract.

Kaari:

And why do we have so many free agents this time around?

Kaari:

Well, the current collective bargaining agreement is expiring on November 30th. With the current CBA set to expire, most veteran players opted to sign one-year contracts for the 2025 season.

Kaari:

So they set themselves up to be unrestricted free agents when the new CBA takes effect, and salaries hopefully are increased.

Kaari:

Oh, okay.

Kaari:

So now we have this huge pool of free agents, and we also have the 2026 expansion draft for the two new WMBA teams to consider.

Kaari:

So we're going to see a lot of players moving on to different teams during this offseason. WMBA team rosters could look very different in 2026.

Kaari:

Thanks for reaching out, Jen.

Kaari:

Do you have a question for me? You can send it to HGHV@ gmail.com.

Kaari:

And now a quick update on the WNBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement, aka C B A.

Kaari:

The WNBA Player Association's executive committee agreed to a 30-day extension of the current agreement that expired on October 30th. That gives both sides until November 30th to lock in a deal.

Kaari:

I've read a few reports that refer to the negotiations as, quote, "tense".

Kaari:

Well, that doesn't sound like fun now, does it?

Kaari:

But other than that, nothing new to report until this week. On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that the league's latest proposal includes revenue sharing with a maximum salary of more than $1.1 million.

Kaari:

This would start in 2026. The league's minimum salary would be more than $220,000, and the average salary would be more than $460K.

Kaari:

We don't know what the players think of this proposal yet and whether it will move the needle. But the two parties were supposed to meet for another bargaining session on Wednesday.

Kaari:

Hopefully, this latest update means that we're very close to finalizing a new CBA before the November 30th deadline.

Kaari:

All right, so we've talked about free agency and CBA negotiations.

Kaari:

And here's the thing: at the end of the day, these conversations aren't just about contracts and revenue. They're about value, how the game values women.

Kaari:

And this is where I want to introduce my first Her Game Her Voice podcast guest, someone who has been a committed and supportive ally in my professional life, Dan Rosensweig.

Kaari:

I briefly worked with Dan at Yahoo and then at Chegg for more than 12 years. Dan was Chegg's CEO.

Kaari:

I've experienced Dan in countless business contexts, all hands meetings, product reviews, the occasional crisis, and even those moments where he'd say, Do you have five more minutes? Which we all know is code for cancel your lunch plans.

Kaari:

As a woman working in tech, Dan was always one of my biggest champions.

Kaari:

And Dan has receipts. Throughout his corporate career, he promoted women, supported women, and invested in women.

Kaari:

And now he's specifically investing in women athletes. So when I sat down with him, I wanted to understand exactly how a tech CEO became one of the early believers and investors in the unrivaled women's basketball league.

Kaari:

The story he shared wasn't what I expected. It wasn't about spreadsheets, return on investment, or any of those usual business-related mumbo jumbo things. Dan's motivation to start investing in women's sports was sparked by a personal experience with, wait for it, Stanford athletes.

Kaari:

Here's Dan.

Dan Rosensweig:

You know, as we both lived on the West Coast, and I lived uh not far from Stanford, I got to meet a lot of Stanford athletes, men and women. You know, the Andrew Lux, Zach Ertz, Coby Fleener, Sam Schwarzstein, um era of great players, Chase Thomas. They all had incredibly strong, significant others. Lila who worked at Chegg as you know, uh, but then got a chance to have internships with Andrew Luck, girlfriend at the time, now wife, who was captain of the gymnastics teams, and Jenna, who was on the softball team. And so, you know, I always saw the lens through these incredible D1 athletes, men and women. And um, and so I just you know got enthusiastic about it, just as them as people, and them as employees in some cases, and them as athletes, and as they try to navigate their life, you really begin to understand the disparity in the professional opportunities, despite being such an incredible athlete at Stanford.

Kaari:

I love that story because it's so personal. An example of how someone's lived experience can really shape a new chapter in their life.

Kaari:

Before Dan saw a business opportunity, he saw people, women who were every bit as athletic, talented, and dedicated as men, but with a huge deficit in the number of opportunities available to them at the end of their time in college.

Kaari:

Why do women with this level of talent have fewer opportunities than men?

Kaari:

It wasn't a market analysis, it was a gut punch. Dan's initial interest wasn't because he was thinking about the revenue potential of women's sports, he was thinking about the gender-based inequities, and he wanted to do something about it.

Kaari:

And the best part?

Kaari:

It was just the beginning of a journey that will eventually take us to NAL deals, Unrivaled, Page, Cameron, Innovation, and the wild world of women's professional basketball, which we're going to get into.

Kaari:

But first, let's zoom out and talk about the league at the center of that journey, Unrivaled. Let's do a quick overview for anyone who is hearing about the Unrivaled League for the first time.

Kaari:

Unrivaled is a new player-founded women's basketball league created by Breanna Stewart and Nepheesa Collier.

Kaari:

Its inaugural season was earlier this year. It runs in the WNBA offseason. It's played in one location, Miami, and it's built around a format that is faster, louder, and way more TV friendly.

Kaari:

Think three-on-three basketball with some twists, and every game ends with a buzzer beater. Innovative, right?

Kaari:

But the real innovation? The business model.

Kaari:

The players basically own the league. They get equity in it. There are no team owners taking a share of revenue. The money flows into the league and back to the athletes. And this matters because historically, and we've talked about this on the podcast, women's basketball players have been forced to play overseas during the WNBA offseason just to make a living.

Kaari:

Ouch!

Kaari:

Unrivaled gives them a safer, more lucrative, more visible alternative. And the early response has been huge.

Kaari:

And now here's Dan talking about what drew him to Unrivaled.

Dan Rosensweig:

The more you meet with the athletes and the more you meet with Breanna, and the more you meet with Napheesa, and the more you meet Alex and Luke, you're like, shoot, this can work. I got deep into the business model and I was understood they in a modern world, having a single location makes the league have a chance to be more profitable. Not having team owners means you can share more money with the players. So you remove a lot of the stuff of value creation that wasn't going to the athletes.

Kaari:

Good stuff, right?

Kaari:

I'm happy to share that Dan Rosensweig will be back in the next episode to go deeper on Unrivaled, the innovation, the strategy, and what investing in women's sports looks like in real time.

Kaari:

And now, on to this week's awards.

Kaari:

This week's Buzzerbeater Award goes to a high school girls' basketball team in Oklahoma.

Kaari:

The team from the Academy of Classical Christian Studies, hey, mouthful, thought they'd win a tournament championship on a buzzer beater, but a scoreboard error later revealed they'd actually lost the game by one point to the girls from Apache High School.

Kaari:

After reviewing the footage of the game, the Academy's coach confirmed the mistake. Without hesitation, the Academy players voted to give the trophy to Apache High School.

Kaari:

These young athletes showed remarkable sportsmanship or sports-personship. They chose integrity over hardware.

Kaari:

Their decision reminds us that doing the right thing is always the real way to win.

Kaari:

Congrats to the Academy of Classical Christian Studies girls' basketball team for winning this week's Buzzer Beater Award.

Kaari:

This week's Airball Award goes to a new Global Women's Pro Basketball League launching in November 2026 called Project B.

Kaari:

Yes, you heard me, Project B.

Kaari:

That name sounds less like a basketball league and more like a backup plan.

Kaari:

WNBAPA President Nneke Ogwumike signed on. That's big. Attaching Nneke to the league makes it seem legit.

Kaari:

Even if the Project B name is a placeholder name while the league is under construction, wouldn't it be better to choose something that's a little more exciting and dare I say provocative than Project B?

Kaari:

Project B's branding is a big miss, and that's why they win this week's Airball Award.

Kaari:

This week's flagrant foul award goes to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.

Kaari:

S ilver's been all over the news lately, weighing in on the WNBA's tense CBA negotiations, and he keeps pushing for controlled salary increases, which the players see as a totally separate issue from the revenue sharing model they're asking for.

Kaari:

He even said that share isn't the "right way to look at it because the NBA brings in so much more money."

Kaari:

Okay, Adam, but that's the whole point.

Kaari:

WNBA players aren't asking to copy-paste the NBA's model. They're asking for a structure that gives them a stake in their own league's growth, a model that reflects the momentum they're creating.

Kaari:

So for missing the forest for the revenue trees, Adam Silver, congratulations. You've earned this week's Flagrant Foul Award.

Kaari:

I'm Kaari Peterson and you've been listening to Her Game Her Voice. Want more? Hit follow or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you do that, you won't miss an episode.

Kaari:

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Kaari:

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Kaari:

Thanks for listening and happy hoopin'!

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Kaari Peterson

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