Culture
Jerry West, as a player and exec, sustained excellence during a lifetime of emotional struggle
The night his Los Angeles Lakers, finally, would return to their place of glory atop the NBA, Jerry West would not be in attendance.
“Oh, I won’t be there,” he told me on the phone, referring to what was then called Staples Center.
Wait, what?
The 1999-2000 Lakers, the team West had, at the cost of his nerves and health, put together for this very purpose, winning L.A.’s first hoops title in more than a decade, were a game away from conquering the Indiana Pacers in the finals. They would be coronated on their home floor. It would be the franchise’s first championship since 1988. It would be the culmination of West’s singular quest, having moved heaven and earth and most of the existing roster to get both Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant on the same team, and having swallowed his own pride to bring Phil Jackson in to coach. It would be marvelous.
And it would be done without West’s presence.
This wasn’t new for West. Such moments, now that he no longer could bring his prodigious talents to the court and impact winning games as a player, drove him to severe distraction. During Lakers home games, he would often drive around town instead. Sometimes, he’d check in to Chick Hearn’s mellifluous voice to see how things were going. That night, though, he kept the car stereo silent. He drove up the Ventura Freeway to Santa Barbara, a hundred miles north of the city.
“I told my friend Bobby Freedman only to call me if there was good news,” West wrote in his searing autobiography, “West by West.”
It wasn’t because he didn’t care, of course. It was because he cared so very, very much.
West’s death Wednesday at 86 caused more than one person around the league to choke up.
“It’s a very sad day,” said West’s contemporary and fellow Hall of Famer, Oscar Robertson, on the phone Wednesday afternoon.
West was, for decades, the personification of the sport. Few people’s counsel was more courted, so synonymous was he with the dogged, relentless pursuit of excellence. He was part of a dynasty as a player that couldn’t solve the Celtics, and then built dynasties as an executive that finally did. He was a 14-time All-Star and 12-time All-NBA selection. Two Lakers behemoths were built on his watch as the team’s general manager: the Magic Johnson-led squad that captured five titles in the 1980s, then the O’Neal-Bryant squads that laid down a three-peat between 2000 and 2003.
As Red Auerbach did for the Celtics, 3,000 miles east, West constantly was at the center of teardowns and rebirths of the Lakers. Decade after decade, the Lakers continued to matter in the NBA, riding Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic and James Worthy through the ’80s, just as Boston continued to pile up the banners after the end of the Bill Russell Era, through John Havlicek, Jo Jo White and Dave Cowens in the 1970s, then Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Dennis Johnson. The Cs are currently hunting their 18th NBA title in their finals series this year with the Dallas Mavericks; the Lakers, their last title coming in the Orlando Bubble in 2020, are tied with the Celtics at 17.
I ranked Auerbach one and West two on my all-time list of NBA executives in 2017 for NBA.com. Nothing’s changed my mind in the intervening years. They were the ultimate architects, with Auerbach’s intimidating tactics and amazing motivational ability serving as the mechanical rabbit at a dog racing track, as West chased after the Celtics for a generation.
“I secretly liked and admire Red’s brazen ways, and he is one of the coaches I would have loved to compete for,” West wrote. “. … Red was the figure everyone loved to hate, and he didn’t mind it one bit. He didn’t mind being the villain. He would be anything you wanted him to be as long as it helped the Celtics win.”
But West doesn’t take a back seat to anyone when it comes to talent evaluation. He was the best ever. No former superstar as a player was in more gyms in more small towns and in more countries than West was, year after year, trying to find the next great talent. He didn’t get stuck in nostalgia; he still got excited about current players. He raved about Terance Mann when Mann was a little-known second-round pick playing for the Clippers in the Vegas Summer League in 2019.
He kept his own counsel about who, and what, he liked.
“It’s not so much trust,” he told me once. “I just think if you ask 10 people, you’re going to get more than one opinion. If you ask five people, you’re going to get more than one opinion. I’d rather not confuse myself by asking 10 people.”
Like Auerbach, West had eternal swag, the way Dr. J and Pat Riley and only a handful of aging luminaries still do. He was still in high demand after he left the Lakers in 2000, moving on to executive roles with the Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors and LA Clippers well into his 80s. It was West’s steadfast refusal to sign off on a proposed trade of Klay Thompson for Kevin Love in 2014 that kept Golden State’s ownership from pulling the trigger, and kept the Splash Brothers from being split up before they went on their franchise-changing championship run.
You still felt his crackling intensity in person, or on the phone. Well into middle age, I’d still get goose bumps when my phone would ring and the caller ID would identify who was on the other line. (He was “TLogo” in my contacts list, for obvious reasons.) He would always answer pleasantly: “David? Jerry West.”
As if it could have been someone else.
He was, given his pedigree, humble and deferential about his own successes. West was venerated for the 60-footer he hit at the end of regulation of Game 3 of the 1970 finals against New York to tie the game and send it into overtime. All West remembered, though, is that the Knicks won 111-108 in OT. He averaged an astounding 46.3 points per game in the Lakers’ Western Division series victory over Baltimore in 1965, which is still the record for highest average in a single postseason series.
He could be caustic and cutting about today’s players, the state of the game, David Stern and anyone else who didn’t measure up to his standards at a given moment. He could be withering about his own team. But if they weren’t winning doing it their way, he had very little patience for them. The portrayal of him in the HBO miniseries “Winning Time” was an ugly caricature of his manic intensity, one that made his friends and colleagues justifiably angry. He wasn’t someone who foamed at the mouth and spent his days trashing the offices at The Forum in some blinding rage. He didn’t big-time people.
And if anyone could have done so without argument, it was him.
But no one wanted to win more than Jerry West, and he spent his whole life proving it.
He won state titles in high school in West Virginia, at East Bank High School – which, every March 24, the day East Bank won the title in 1956, renames itself “West Bank” for a day in his honor. He won at West Virginia University, where he led the Mountaineers to the NCAA national championship game in 1959, which WVU lost by one point to the University of California, 71-70. He won on the celebrated 1960 U.S. Olympic team, a team just as dominant as the Dream Team would be 32 years later. The 1960 team won its eight games in Rome at the Summer Games by an average of 42.4 points per game. West, Robertson, Walt Bellamy, Jerry Lucas and coach Pete Newell all were inducted individually into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, as was the 1960 team itself as a unit, in 2010.
“We just melded right away,” Robertson said. “Pete Newell was the coach, and he put our starting five together. And we knew what was at stake, because we were all there to make the Olympic team. Jerry was a nice guy. Matter of fact, I knew him through Adrian Smith (who also played on the 1960 Olympic team). I met him through Adrian. He was there with the U.S. Army team. I’m sure our backgrounds sort of paralleled each other, because of where Jerry came from and I came from, we didn’t have anything except basketball.”
The word tortured is often used to describe West. Indeed. Demons, which took root during a difficult and lonely childhood in his native West Virginia, where his imagination was his best friend and he shot thousands of shots so that he wouldn’t have to return home, ate at him throughout his life. There was little love in the West home, and physical abuse of the children at the hand of their father. Jerry West was driven, in the best and worst sense of that word, to strive, to chase perfection, to be hollowed out by defeat and only briefly salved by victory.
“I am, if I may say so, an enigma (even to myself, especially to myself), and an obsessive, someone whose mind ranges far and wide and returns to the things that, for better or worse, hold me in their thrall,” West wrote in his book.
West played on the first great L.A. team, after its move from Minneapolis, in 1960, alongside fellow future Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor. They made pro basketball on the West Coast, setting a standard of excellence that was held off only by Auerbach, Bill Russell and the Celtics.
Six times during West’s playing career, the Lakers and Celtics met in the championship series. Six times, Boston defeated L.A. The last time, in 1969, West was named the finals MVP, becoming the only player to ever receive the award while on the losing team. The Lakers also played the Knicks in the finals three times between 1970 and 1973. Only in 1972 did West’s team win, giving him one NBA title in nine tries.
“It was great to compete against Jerry,” Robertson said. “Jerry was a tremendous athlete. I don’t know about other guys, but I love playing against great basketball players. Because you have to improve your basketball yourself. You don’t know where you are until you play against great basketball players. And Jerry was, no doubt about it, one of the best of all. I thought Jerry was a great basketball player, great shooter.”
But West could be as stubborn as he was talented.
When the NBA, with great fanfare and not insignificant calling in of decades-long chits, brought its 50 greatest players of all time to All-Star Weekend in Cleveland in 1997, 47 of the 49 living players attended. (Pete Maravich had died in 1988 while playing a pickup game, at age 40; O’Neal was recovering from knee surgery.) West was the only one who didn’t come. At the time, the reason given was that he had just undergone a recent surgery.
The surgery part was true. But that’s not why he didn’t show up. He didn’t show because he was angry with the Orlando Magic, who had accused him of tampering with O’Neal while he was still under contract with the Magic in order to secure Shaq as a free agent.
West was famously blown away by Bryant’s workout for the Lakers before the 1996 draft, and schemed with his close friend, Bryant’s agent, Arn Tellem, to get Bryant to the West Coast. When West was in your corner, you’d never have a fiercer advocate.
There was the famous story, that Lakers executive Mitch Kupchak re-told many years later, of how the Lakers took Vlade Divac in the 1989 draft, with West the single, lone voice opting for the Serbian center over the objections of everyone else in the front office.
“We all picked the other guy,” Kupchak said. “I think it was (Missouri center) Gary Leonard. We all agree. Then (West) leans down into the mic, which was hooked up to New York so that we can announce our choice. Our guy up there was Hampton Mears. And Jerry says, ‘Hampton’ – he’s looking at us when he says this – he says, ‘Hampton, the Lakers take Divac.’ The three of us were like, ‘Why are we even here?’ And he says, ‘He’s just too damned talented to pass on.’ And he walked out of the room.”
As ever, the Logo was alone, with his thoughts, his doggedness and imagination, once again, having served him well.
Required reading
• What was Jerry West really like? On the phone with him, the NBA universe opened up
• Reactions to Jerry West’s death pour in: ‘A basketball genius’
• NBA75: West was ‘Mr. Clutch’ and forever will be brutally honest about himself
(Photo of Jerry West and Oscar Robertson: Vernon Biever / NBAE via Getty Images)
This article is part of the “Beyond the Track” series, a dive on the surrounding scene, glamour and culture that makes a Grand Prix.
LAS VEGAS — A dash of dancing fountains, a sprinkle of star power supplied by a collection of celebrity chefs, and even something to chase it all down with champagne. Welcome to the Bellagio Fountain Club, a perfect recipe of the trappings the Las Vegas Grand Prix offers that makes it the most unique race on the Formula One calendar.
At first taste, a who’s who of chefs coming together just hours before qualifying might be hard to swallow. Ah, not so, says Wolfgang Puck, explaining there are parallels between performing at a high level on the track and concocting a gourmet meal in the kitchen.
“A restaurant is exactly the same as a Formula One team. Both are like an orchestra,” Puck told The Athletic. “It’s exactly the same. Because everybody has to work together and everybody has to help each other. You have to really bring it on because it is also all about timing. In a restaurant, if you have three or four different stations and one order has this or that and you have five different dishes coming out for one table, you can’t have them all coming at the same time. So it’s organization and a lot of training.”
Puck is no F1 novice; he closely followed the European-centric sport as a boy in Austria. Naturally, his favorite driver was fellow Austrian Niki Lauda, who later became a good friend. The mere mention of the three-time world champion’s name causes Puck to smile, with him immediately reminiscing about watching Lauda race whenever F1 visited the street circuit in Long Beach, Calif.
Back then, Puck was a rising chef, on the precipice of becoming one of the first chefs to crossover into the mainstream culture, while Lauda was already recognized as an F1 legend. A friendship was formed, and each time Puck attends a grand prix, it brings back a flood of memories of watching races around the globe.
“A restaurant is exactly the same as a Formula One team. Both are like an orchestra,” celebrity chef and F1 fan Wolfgang Puck says. (Christopher Trim / Cal Sport Media via AP Images)
Puck was also here a year ago attending the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix, and he is wowed by how this race became an event, a word he emphasizes because how can a setting like this — the famed Bellagio fountains behind him, and a purposely constructed street circuit that winds through Las Vegas’ famous landmarks — be a mere race.
“I think (the grand prix) shows Las Vegas really in a good way because they race at night,” Puck said. “I really think it’s really an amazing thing to finally have it here. People can come from all over the world. There are more hotel rooms so close by, like I go to the Formula One in Budapest and they have very few hotel rooms, you have to stay 50 miles away in a little donkey hotel. Then, you need to get out of the parking lot. Like this year, we waited two-and-a-half hours to get out of the parking lot. That doesn’t happen here.”
Although champagne toasts and caviar dishes have always been synonymous with the globetrotting sport that races in exotic locales, there is no denying that F1 is presented much differently than it was even five years ago.
Propelled by the “Drive to Survive” effect, the boost in U.S. interest in the sport often credited to the Netflix docuseries, races have become such a spectacle that a gathering like this one featuring nearly 20 name chefs doesn’t feel out of place on a grand prix weekend.
And just as Puck is an example of a more traditional F1 fan, another attendee here represents the other side of the spectrum.
“My daughter. All my daughter,” Mark Wahlberg said, explaining how he discovered F1.
Like so many, “Drive to Survive” was the entry point for Grace Wahlberg becoming infatuated with the sport. In particular, she was drawn to McLaren teammates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Before too long, her newfound interest piqued her father’s own curiosity, eventually leading to Mark, the famed actor, pulling some strings so that Grace could get the chance to sit inside one of Norris’ older cars.
“She has a big crush on two of the guys, Oscar and Lando, and so she wanted to meet them,” Mark Wahlberg told The Athletic. “So me being a dad who likes to make things happen for my kids, I figured out how I could track Lando down and get a car sent to the house. It was cool for us to be able to spend some time together and enjoy something.”
How did actor Mark Wahlberg get into F1? “All my daughter,” he says. Daughter Grace is a fan of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. (Christopher Trim / Cal Sport Media via AP Images)
Donnie Wahlberg nods his head and smiles as his younger brother describes how he got into F1. It’s the kind of nod that implies, “I told you so,” because Donnie has long been a fan, discovering the sport and learning its intricacies when they toured Europe during the heyday of the boy band New Kids on the Block.
Donnie has lots of opinions on F1 but little time now to express them all. He has to jet to meet his wife. But before he departs, he wants to make one thing known: He loves Michael Schumacher. And while the debate among fans of who is better often centers on Schumacher, Ayrton Senna or Lewis Hamilton, Donnie leans in a different direction. His vote: Max Verstappen is the GOAT.
Mark gives his own smile as Donnie makes his point, though he prefers not to wade into the debate. Maybe Mark’s devotion to McLaren isn’t quite yet to the level of Grace’s or Donnie’s, though it doesn’t appear far off. Nor is his support mere lip service, instead it comes from a genuine place. He may be here at the Bellagio supporting his other brother Paul, a chef who’s worked in the restaurant industry since he was a teenager, but he’s also here because he’s a fan happy to be immersing himself in the event.
And here on a Friday afternoon atop a structure purposely built so fans could watch cars speed down Las Vegas Boulevard, F1 fans old and new intermingle. The event is all anyone is talking about.
“It’s a global event now,” Puck said. “Back then, Americans didn’t know Formula One. It wasn’t that popular. It’s not like today.”
The Beyond the Track series is part of a partnership with Chanel.
The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
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(Top photo: Jordan Bianchi / The Athletic)
Culture
NFL Week 12 roundtable: Giants’ QB plan post-Jones, NFC West race, is Bo Nix legit OROY contender?
You can officially count the New York Giants among the teams whose offseason will be built around finding its next franchise quarterback.
Daniel Jones’ being benched and then released is just one development highlighting league happenings leading up to Sunday’s Week 12 action. The Giants host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with fan favorite Tommy DeVito in line to start.
Elsewhere in this week’s roundtable, our NFL writers Mike Sando, Zak Keefer and Jeff Howe discuss the NFC West. Could it be the league’s most fascinating division title race?
What about the Offensive Rookie of the Year race? Is the Denver Broncos’ Bo Nix (or another rookie quarterback) closing in on the Washington Commanders’ Jayden Daniels? Though Anthony Richardson has redeemed himself in Indianapolis, how will he and the Colts fare against the buzz saw that is the Detroit Lions? The 11-point favorite Kansas City Chiefs — sans Taylor Swift — visit Charlotte and the Carolina Panthers for the first time in eight years. The Harbaugh Bowl caps off Week 12 on Monday night, too.
Read more on what’s catching our writers’ attention this week.
The Daniel Jones era is over as the Giants host the Bucs. What’s next for Jones? What does the Giants’ plan at quarterback look like this offseason?
Howe: They tried to move up for a top QB in April, and I’d expect a similar effort — if not a more concerted one — this spring. The Giants are still in contention for the No. 1 pick, so they might get their choice of QBs, but the race has primarily been focusing on Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders. There isn’t a marquee prospect in this class, though, and there are personnel executives who have already said they wouldn’t rank any of the 2025 QBs ahead of the six first-rounders from April. The Giants, like every QB-desperate team, should be aggressive, but they can’t force it. As for Jones, he’ll enter the camp competition vortex for teams that aren’t able to find a starting-caliber QB in the draft. It’s recently worked for the likes of Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold and Russell Wilson, so I’d highly recommend a friendly offensive system.
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Sando: Jones projects as a backup somewhere, possibly with a team that has playoff aspirations and could stand to upgrade behind its starter. The Miami Dolphins are only 4-6, but they could use an upgrade behind Tua Tagovailoa. The Arizona Cardinals have Clayton Tune. Tampa Bay has Kyle Trask. The Minnesota Vikings have Nick Mullens. Maybe those teams love their backups, but I could see teams in their situations considering Jones.
As for the Giants, who will be making the decisions there? How high will their draft choice be? Which veterans might be available? It’s just way too early to know what the Giants are going to do, based on all the important unknown variables. They need to find a veteran able to start and possibly develop so they aren’t too dependent on their next drafted QB — especially in 2025, which doesn’t look like the best year for drafting at the position.
Keefer: Jones is going to make a lot of money in this league as a capable backup somewhere, removed from the expectations that come with being a franchise guy. I can’t see a team — barring an unforeseen injury — rolling with him as the starter in Week 1 next season. Not after what he’s put on tape the last two seasons. And the Giants will find themselves this spring backed into one of the worst corners in football: needing a quarterback in a draft that doesn’t feature a lot of quarterback talent. That’s caused teams to reach in the past, and it’s burned them for decades. New York would be wise to go the veteran route before the draft just to be safe. I wonder whether the prospect of Justin Fields taking over would get Giants fans excited.
Daniel Jones was benched Monday after the New York Giants’ 2-8 start to the season, during which he completed 63.3 percent of his passes for 2,070 yards, eight touchdowns and seven interceptions through 10 games. (Mario Hommes / DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
The Broncos, on the road against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, are in the thick of the AFC playoff hunt. Is Bo Nix (or another rookie QB) a legitimate Offensive Rookie of the Year contender or is it still Jayden Daniels’ award to lose?
Howe: It’s Daniels’ award to lose, and Drake Maye is playing better than Nix. If Daniels and the Commanders tumble while the Broncos snag a playoff spot, there’s absolutely an avenue for Nix to claim the award, but I would still take Daniels over the field.
Sando: It’s Daniels’ award to lose, but there is some uncertainty about how strongly he and that offense will finish. Nix is definitely gaining on him from a production standpoint. We can see that in the table below, which shows production for Daniels, Nix and Maye over their past six games. That’s a big change from early in the season.
Rookie QB comp: Last six games
| QB | Daniels | Nix | Maye |
|---|---|---|---|
|
W-L |
3-3 |
3-3 |
2-4 |
|
Cmp-Att |
101-163 |
132-192 |
122-181 |
|
Cmp% |
62.0% |
68.8% |
67.4% |
|
Yards |
1,203 |
1,409 |
1,214 |
|
Yds/Att |
7.4 |
7.3 |
6.7 |
|
TD-INT |
6-1 |
11-2 |
9-6 |
|
Rating |
94.2 |
104.7 |
89.0 |
|
Sacked |
11 |
11 |
15 |
|
QB EPA |
13.0 |
31.2 |
10.4 |
|
EPA/Pass Play |
+0.11 |
+0.13 |
+0.05 |
Keefer: Mike is right — it’s not only Bo Nix entering the conversation but Drake Maye as well, although he won’t be able to boast the relative team success Daniels is enjoying in Washington and Nix is enjoying in Denver. Voters for these types of awards often lean on turnaround stories, and for a while this season, Daniels was scripting the best one in football. He’s still in front, but how he responds to consecutive losses might very well end up deciding this award.
The Chiefs are 11-point favorites on the road against the Panthers and, presumably, they’ll bounce back Sunday. Does the loss in Buffalo combined with the Lions’ continued rise change how you feel about Kansas City?
Howe: A bit, yes. If the Chiefs managed to beat the Buffalo Bills with a subpar performance, that might have been a wrap, but the Lions and Bills are decisively better right now. And though everyone is waiting for the Chiefs to get significantly better as Patrick Mahomes gains experience with his skill players, we shouldn’t overlook the fact Josh Allen and the Bills will do the same. No one who has watched the playoffs for the past half-decade is ever going to write off the Chiefs, but they’re objectively behind Detroit and Buffalo entering the most pivotal stretch of the season.
Sando: The way the Bills offense handled the Chiefs defense should be concerning for Kansas City. Kansas City can improve as the season progresses because it is well coached and it will be developing key players as Isaiah Pacheco returns, Xavier Worthy gains experience, etc. But it feels like a good year to be Detroit or Buffalo, all things considered. The Chiefs are very good but less dominant than their record indicates.
Keefer: I learned my lesson last year. The regular season simply does not matter for the Chiefs. They’ve come to transcend football norms during their dynastic run. It doesn’t matter that plenty of their wins this season have been unconvincing. Doesn’t matter that Travis Kelce has taken a step back. Doesn’t matter that Patrick Mahomes has looked mediocre — or worse — for stretches. Doesn’t matter that they couldn’t close out the Bills last week. They absolutely remain a legitimate Super Bowl contender and can beat anyone in the playoffs. Remember, as Kansas City proved last year, it’s not the team that looks the best in November and December, it’s the one that gets hot in January. More than any team out there, it knows how to do that.
The Harbaugh Bowl takes place Monday night. The Baltimore Ravens trail in the AFC North title race. The 7-3 Los Angeles Chargers escaped the Cincinnati Bengals last week. There are plenty of storylines in this one. Which one intrigues you the most?
Howe: Before the season, coaches and executives around the league predicted Justin Herbert would make a jump with Jim Harbaugh, who would prioritize the ground game and a high-level defense to complement his quarterback. Harbaugh proceeded to run a conservative offense, but he’s given Herbert more of a chance to let it rip as of late. If Herbert topples the Ravens, he’s going to earn serious MVP consideration.
Sando: I’m interested in seeing whether the Chargers’ much-improved defense can slow Lamar Jackson with the benefit of whatever inside info they have from coordinators Jesse Minter and Greg Roman, who spent significant time on the Ravens’ staff. Is this a game the Chargers can play on their terms? What happens if this game picks up where Chargers-Bengals left off? Will Justin Herbert keep pace with Jackson in that case?
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Keefer: The Chargers-Bengals game was one of the best of the season — Herbert went wild in the first half, then Joe Burrow put together some of the best football I’ve ever seen him play in the second. The intriguing layer of the Harbaugh matchup Monday night is how Lamar Jackson bounces back from last week’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers (his -0.21 EPA per dropback and 66.1 passer rating were season lows). Jackson typically torches teams outside the AFC North, and a statement win Monday against an elite defense — the Chargers lead the league in scoring defense at 14.2 allowed per game — would push him right back in front of the MVP race.
It’s time for the biweekly NFC West temperature check. The Los Angeles Rams (5-5) host a hot Philadelphia Eagles team Sunday night. The San Francisco 49ers (5-5) are on the road against the Green Bay Packers. The Cardinals (6-4) and Seattle Seahawks (5-5) meet. Which team is in the best position to win the division?
Howe: I liked the Cardinals as a fun surprise team this season, but I didn’t anticipate they’d be a serious division threat, even if injuries among their opponents are a big reason. I’ll stick with the Cardinals because they’re playing the best and continue to get better. I do like the Seahawks and think they’re neck and neck with Arizona, so their two meetings in the next three weeks could very well tell the story in this division race. Seattle needs to focus more on the run game, though, and the O-line injuries have been problematic. The Niners still have the highest ceiling in the division, but they’ve been giving away too many games and I’m not ready to assume that pattern is about to magically break. The Rams have been too inconsistent, although I can’t rule out Matthew Stafford’s flipping a switch and keeping them in the mix.
Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals could be one of the league’s surprise teams at 6-4 and atop the NFC West. (Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
Sando: The Athletic’s model gives the Cardinals a 58 percent chance of winning the division, followed by the Rams (23 percent), the 49ers (12 percent) and the Seahawks (8 percent). Is it really that lopsided? I see this division coming down to the final week, when San Francisco visits Arizona and the Rams visit Seattle. All four teams could have a shot at 9-8. Any team getting to 10-7 probably will win the division. I don’t see any team with a big advantage, but I question whether the 49ers can stay healthy enough to prevail.
Keefer: The Cardinals are playing the best of any team in the division, and as Jeff noted, these two meetings with the Seahawks could end up deciding the NFC West title. (San Francisco and L.A. have been too inconsistent.) But critical this time of year are the teams that are showing tangible signs of improvement, and the Cardinals fit the bill: Arizona has won four straight, including its last two by a combined 45 points. In three of those wins the defense allowed less than 16 points. On offense, Kyler Murray has been lighting it up. By mid-January, I like the Cardinals to win their first division title since 2015.
(Top photo of Bo Nix: Dustin Bradford / Getty Images)
Culture
NWSL infrastructure is the ‘hardest problem to solve’. Here’s how things stand around the league
All eyes will be on Kansas City, Missouri this weekend when the Orlando Pride and the Washington Spirit face off in the NWSL championship on Sunday. In a way, it will bring the season full circle with CPKC Stadium hosting an action-packed finale.
The stadium’s opening in March marked a historic moment for the NWSL, raising the standard for a club’s stadium experience. With its 11,500-seat capacity, the Current became the first NWSL club to sell out every home game in the regular season.
Although privately financing a stadium might be an unrealistic goal for some clubs, or even an unnecessary one, what the Current has accomplished with CPKC Stadium makes room for a larger conversation about infrastructure in the NWSL. Last year, league commissioner Jessica Berman described that as “probably the hardest problem to solve long-term, and one of the most important problems for us to solve as soon as possible”.
That being the case, The Athletic has taken stock of some of the biggest infrastructure-related wins and losses of the 2024 season.
Most teams are using shared facilities
Nine NWSL clubs in the 2024 season shared a venue with an MLS club. That will increase to 10 teams next year as a new MLS team comes to San Diego. Four teams share training facilities, too. Some teams also share space with a lower-division men’s team, from MLS Next Pro or USL for example.
The only team not to share its venue was the Kansas City Current, which largely used private financing to build its own stadium and training facilities.
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While sharing resources has its upsides, there can also be friction between teams. Take the disagreement between DC United and the Spirit over their long-term deal in 2021, forcing the Spirit to train at a local high school while the matter was resolved.
Three years later, the Spirit is now in a very different place, heading to another NWSL championship after winning its first title in 2021. It now has American businesswoman Michele Kang as majority owner, and Audi Field is its full-time home venue after splitting time between multiple stadiums in previous seasons. This year the Spirit sold out three matches, with its semi-final win against NJ/NY Gotham drawing 19,365 fans.
Rodman celebrates during the 2024 NWSL Playoffs semi-final match at a sold-out Audi Field (Amber Searls / Imagn Images)
Kang has not been shy about expressing her goal of Spirit one day having its own facility. This seems especially pressing now, given that USL Super League’s DC Power, partly owned by DC United, also calls Audi Field home.
In other instances, as for Racing Louisville and USL club Louisville City, having a shared facility means also sharing ownership, which makes it easier to make last-minute decisions, like when deciding to offer your venue as an alternate with only a few days’ notice.
Issues of being a tenant, and not an owner
Earlier this month, San Diego Wave FC was forced to move its final home match of the regular season across the U.S. to the aforementioned Louisville at Lynn Family Stadium because of poor playing conditions at its home, Snapdragon Stadium.
“The safety and wellbeing of all players is our top priority, and the current field conditions at Snapdragon Stadium, which are the responsibility of a third party, have not met the standards required for a safe playing environment,” the club said in a statement.
The Wave had a series of planned celebrations, including a fan appreciation night, a ceremony for Emily Van Egmond’s 100th NWSL appearance and a ceremony for Alex Morgan’s retirement. All of which had to be moved following the venue switch. Morgan’s celebration will happen next year. The venue also will host two games in the SheBelieves Cup in February.
Megan Rapinoe sustained an ACL injury during the first half of the 2023 NWSL Championship match at Snapdragon Stadium (Orlando Ramirez / Imagn Images)
Field issues in San Diego are not new, with multiple season-ending injuries for NWSL players happening at Snapdragon last year, including Megan Rapinoe’s injury in the early moments of the 2023 NWSL championship. These issues extended into the 2024 season, with former interim coach Landon Donovan saying that “outside of replacing the whole field” there was little to be done to remedy the issue.
Because the Wave is only a tenant, it has limited say over what San Diego State University does and soon cedes next priority to MLS expansion team San Diego FC.
The MLS team will have priority in scheduling, despite the Wave having a loyal fanbase and averaging 19,575 fans per game. Only one other women’s team in the world averages higher attendance, according to the club: Arsenal Women in the Women’s Super League. The university’s contract with the MLS club, though, specifies there will be an annual meeting at the start of each contract year to discuss topics such as “stadium maintenance and capital improvement plans” and “field of play quality”.
The crowding at Snapdragon has led at least one team, the professional rugby team San Diego Legion, to relocate in the new year. The team announced Tuesday it would move to the 6,000-seat Torero Stadium to make way for more weekend home matches.
Public land and public funds – or private financing?
A similar availability snafu happened in Chicago, when the punk rock festival Riot Fest announced it would be held at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Illinois, on the same day as a home game for the Chicago Red Stars. The stadium is publicly owned by the Village of Bridgeview, and the hope was that both events would happen concurrently.
“It is unfair and unfortunate to have our club put in this situation, shining a light on the vast discrepancies in the treatment of women’s professional sports versus men’s professional sports,” Red Stars president Karen Leetzow said at the time.
The problem resolved when Riot Fest announced the festival would be relocating to Chicago proper, bringing an anticlimactic end to the months-long drama. The timing of this dilemma unraveled just after the Red Stars had packed Wrigley Field in a historic game against Bay FC on June 8.
Chicago hosted Bay FC at Wrigley Field in front of a record-breaking crowd. (Daniel Bartel / Imagn Images)
While the Red Stars have been tenants of SeatGeek Stadium since 2016, and are contracted through the 2025 season, club leadership has been outspoken about wanting to find a home closer to Chicago.
“Every week, we’re meeting with influential people here in the city who can help us get this done,” Leetzow said in August. “I have a whole series of talking points I’ve been refining and honing throughout the summer and into the fall as the (state) legislators go back into session.”
The hope is for city officials to commit public funding to a women’s soccer stadium like they did to renovate Soldier Field, where MLS side Chicago Fire FC currently competes. That might be a tall ask, though, as the Chicago Bears and White Sox are also bidding for public funding for stadium projects.
The Chicago Fire said last month they are considering building a privately financed, soccer-specific stadium in the city, and had already toured three sites for the project. The MLS team left SeatGeek Stadium, which is 30 minutes outside the city, by paying $60.5 million to get the Fire out of its lease with the venue early in 2019 after Joe Mansueto acquired a controlling stake in the team.
What about training facilities?
Investing in better infrastructure also means investing in training facilities that will help develop and prepare players.
Last year, the Utah Royals unveiled multi-million-dollar expansion and remodelling plans for an NWSL-specific training site at their Zions Bank Real Academy, a 42-acre campus with several grass and indoor fields that houses the franchise’s clubs, including Real Salt Lake in MLS. The Pride and Houston Dash have similar, dedicated spaces with their MLS counterparts.
NWSL expansion club Bay FC announced in September plans to build a training facility in San Francisco’s Treasure Island neighborhood, slated to open in 2027.
“Having a permanent dedicated space that is built specifically for our players and football operations staff will allow us to continue to attract the best national and international talent and continue our Club’s mission of being a catalyst for innovation and change for our athletes and the community,” Bay FC chief executive Brady Stewart said at the time.
The news drew criticism, though, for the decision to develop an area with a history of hazardous waste.
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More recently, Angel City Football Club unveiled plans to relocate to a nine-acre site on the campus of California Lutheran University, where they plan to upgrade and remodel a 50,000-square-foot training center. The center was previously home of the Los Angeles Rams and will undergo a multimillion-dollar remodel entirely financed by the club, serving as the team’s home for up to four years.
“The size of this performance center is incredibly important, because not only can we provide the resources and staffing and tools that they need today, but we have enough room to grow and evolve,” Julie Uhrman, president and co-founder of Angel City told The Athletic. “So, if we extend beyond from a first team to a second team to Academy, we have the ability to grow.”
The new facility will be exclusively for Angel City and feature custom lockers for players, coaches and staff. Other custom features include a dedicated locker room for players under 18, a children’s playroom to support players and staff, an onsite studio for content creation, a custom boot wall and a private outdoor relaxation lounge.
“Our commitment is that we are going to build a permanent Performance Center for our players, and we’ve actively been working on that since 2020,” Uhrman said. “Wanting something that’s 10-plus acres is challenging and takes time, and while we’re doing that, we wanted to build the best temporary training facility that we could.”
That search for a permanent home remains a “work in progress”, she added. So far, the club has “identified a couple of locations that we’re really excited about.”
Where do things stand for expansion clubs?
The NWSL is growing, with plans to announce a 16th team before the end of the year. The latest expansion club is expected to begin playing in 2026 alongside Boston. While the league isn’t hinting at which direction it will go, it’s safe to assume that having a concrete plan for a team’s facilities and infrastructure could be a deciding factor.
The ownership group in Boston proposed renovating George R. White Stadium in Franklin Park for the team’s home venue, where BOS Nation FC will play. This would be secured through equity and involve a public-private partnership with Boston Public Schools, which would retain ownership of the stadium for its own use.
As for a potential 16th expansion team, one ownership group in Cleveland recently announced the joint purchase of 13.6 acres of state land to build a $150 million, 12,500-seat stadium on what is currently undeveloped land in the city’s downtown. Cleveland Soccer Group (CSG) plans to pursue a public-private partnership, similar to Boston’s thinking.
GO DEEPER
NWSL expansion: Where things stand as the league looks to add a 16th team
“I think it’s really important because most stadiums in this country have had some public financing element to them,” Murphy said. “If you look back in the state of Ohio even, maybe over the past 30 years, there’s been about $2 billion spent in this state across Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, (and) other cities on men’s professional (sports), and over the same periods it’s been $0 for women.”
Big step forward for soccer in The Land! ⚽️
The Cleveland Metroparks just approved a 13.6-acre land deal for a proposed stadium, part of Cleveland Soccer Group’s efforts to secure an NWSL expansion team.
Team bid results expected later this year! pic.twitter.com/h5ukBVHtQI
— I’m From Cleveland (@ImFromCle) September 19, 2024
Cleveland Metroparks purchased the roughly $4.2 million state-owned property, where the stadium will sit, from the Ohio Department of Transportation. CSG will fund the purchase, with the stadium remaining publicly owned. The purchase of this property, though, is contingent on CSG being awarded the NWSL expansion bid.
Some other potential expansion groups, such as a campaign that launched in Nashville last month, have not shared specific details on their own facilities plans. The local MLS club, Nashville SC, has however expressed interest in potentially sharing their stadium, Geodis Park.
(Top photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
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