Inside the growing women’s athletic shoe movement

ESPN recently released a report highlighting a few MLB spring training stats and numbers that could reveal this year’s unexpected stars. Some players poised to have breakout years, according to this way-too-early data:

• Kris Bryant: The average exit velo of the Rockies third baseman’s first two extra-base hits has been 110.7 mph, with both balls hit harder than any he has recorded since joining Colorado.
• Roki Sasaki: The average spin rate of the 18 splitters the newly signed Dodgers SP threw in his debut outing was 518 rpm; those pitches also had an induced vertical break of -4.3. No splitter in the big leagues last year averaged a spin rate that low or had that much sink.
• Clay Holmes: The closer-turned-starting pitcher signed by the Mets in the offseason has recorded 9⅔ consecutive scoreless innings and 13 strikeouts in his first three starts this spring.

Read the full report here.

–Peter & Kyle
On the clock: Today’s newsletter takes ~4.08 minutes to read (1,085 words).

🤾‍♀️ Women's Sports

Inside the growing women’s athletic shoe movement

After decades of selling designs initially engineered for men, the women’s athletic shoe industry has finally boiled over its pot and is gaining steam, according to a new report from Front Office Sports.

Background: A 2001 study, funded by made-for-women footwear brand Rykä, showed 11 “significant differences” between women’s and men’s feet and calves, including that women tend to have a higher arch and shorter measurements on the lateral side of the foot, the big toe, and the ankle.

But across sports, women’s shoes have historically been downsized versions of shoes engineered and molded to fit a man’s foot. And this poses a bit of a safety issue, since footwear – being where rubber literally (and forcefully) meets the road – can lead to injury if misengineered or ill-fitting.

Putting a shoe on the other foot

In recent years, startups with a sole focus on female footwear have been founded to be the change they want to see in the world. And they’re finding a receptive audience.

• Sales at Moolah Kicks, a company founded in 2020 that makes shoes exclusively for women basketball players, are in the seven figures and up ~40% year-over-year.
• IDA Sports, a women’s cleat company, tripled revenues year over year in 2023 and 2024, and recently secured $2 million in a seed funding round led by prolific women’s soccer investor Michele Kang.
• Even big-name behemoth brands are getting in on the trend: Puma and Nike made their first women’s cleats in 2023.

For many athletic brands, the future is female. Nike, in particular, is pushing for its products to be like a male sloth in heat – hanging on more women. Its recent marketing efforts include a Skims partnership and the company’s first Super Bowl commercial in nearly 30 years, a women-centric spot featuring star athletes like Jordan Chiles, Caitlin Clark, and Sha'Carri Richardson.

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⏱️ Catch Up Quick

Headlines de la semaine

March Madness is right around the corner. Most major women’s basketball conferences have already concluded their end-of-year tournaments ahead of Selection Sunday this weekend, including the ACC (won by Duke), Big 12 (TCU), Big Ten (UCLA), and SEC (South Carolina). On the men’s side, all major conferences are currently in the midst of tournament action. One thing to watch: the SEC could get as many as 14 of its 16 teams into the men’s March Madness bracket, which would shatter the previous single-conference record of 11.

Baseball has a pitching velocity problem – and it’s not slowing down. Yankees SP Gerrit Cole became the latest star to undergo Tommy John surgery this week, joining the ~35% of current MLB pitchers who have ever had the surgery (up from 26% in 2018). Overall, Tommy John surgeries have increased 170% since 2010 across the major and minor leagues – a trend experts widely agree is due to pitchers throwing harder than ever before. The speed of the average fastball has climbed from 90.5 MPH in 2008 to 94.2 MPH last year.

Shaun White’s new Snow League kicked off in Aspen. The new $1.6 million, four-stop halfpipe tour dreamed up by “The Flying Tomato” aims to help pro snowboarding ketchup catch up to other sports in terms of viewership and fan interest. The Snow League’s key differentiator from past snowboarding leagues is its head-to-head approach to finals. The eight male and female competitors who made it through qualifying in Aspen this weekend were placed in a one-on-one tournament, with each matchup featuring a best-two-of-three run contest.

🤝 Sports Business

Steph Curry took a front-office job

Steph Curry just got a new side hustle. The four-time NBA champion and current Golden State Warriors superstar has accepted an assistant general manager position at his alma mater, Davidson College, the school announced this week, making him the first active pro player in a major sport to also take on a collegiate administrative role.

• His duties involve creating a $10M+ fund to support Davidson’s men’s and women’s teams, joining other NBA stars like James Harden who are helping to fuel the NIL arms race.

Speaking of other athletes…Retired players and sports figures are increasingly taking on NCAA administrative roles. Former NFL QB great Andrew Luck in November joined his alma mater Stanford in a “hands-on” general manager position, while former NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski in September retired from ESPN to become the general manager of the basketball program at his alma mater, St. Bonaventure.

College sports is in its pro-ification era

Over the past couple of years, dozens of college football programs, including Alabama and Clemson, have also hired a general manager to build their team’s rosters, a task previously reserved for the head coach. In many cases, it was the first time the title had ever been used by the school.

GM tasks include: Scouting and evaluating players, searching the open market to attract the best free agents transfers, and managing an increasingly complicated payroll – basically everything Draft Day-Kevin Costner does except fleece opposing teams in trades.

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💬 Word on the Street

Overheard

“The Houston AsHos”

The clothing industry is no stranger to inappropriate slogans. But they typically don’t come bearing the MLB’s official logo and seal of approval.

New Era this week rolled out its new "Overlap" MLB hats for the 2025 season – which, as the name suggests, features each team’s logo overlapping its name.

However…some of the overlapping designs created new words, and some of those new words had NSFW implications. A few days after the release, New Era ended up pulling their designs for the Rangers (which spelled “TeTas,” or Spanish slang for breasts), Astros (“AsHos”), and Angels (“AnAels”).

Arbitrage time: Some hats that were already sold have become hot-ticket items on secondary markets. The inadvertently vulgar Rangers cap – retail value: $45 – is currently going for $200-$1,000.

📰 News

What else is happening

• Oh no…oh no…oh no no no: West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez banned his players from posting dancing videos to TikTok.
• The F1 season kicks off this weekend in Australia; here are five storylines to watch.
• Tiger Woods underwent surgery to repair a ruptured left Achilles; he’ll miss the upcoming Masters.
• Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad was suspended 20 games after failing a random drug test; he's the first player in almost seven years to be suspended under the NHL's performance enhancing drugs policy.
• The UEFA Champions League knockout stage second leg kicked off yesterday; see the full schedule and storylines.

👀 This Week’s Top Plays

🏀 Haliburton’s crazy 4-point play wins the game
🥊 Mauricio Ruffy submits entry for KO of the year
⚾ Mets’ Clay Holmes has some nasty stuff (8 Ks in 3.2 IP)
⚽ 17-y.o. Lamine Yamal’s epic run leads to Barcelona goal
🏀 Buzzer beater lifts #7 ‘Bama over #1 Auburn

🌐 Web Gems

Cool things to click

⚾ Fantasy baseball prep: See the top rookie prospects to consider in drafts.
🥽 If you want to waste $10: Cop the new goggles Buffalo Wild Wings rolled out for March Madness. They have four arms and five mirrors so “fans [can] catch even more action than two eyeballs will allow.”
🏌️ Explore: Why all the best drivers cost $1,000+.
🏀 Read: How the SEC became college basketball's most dominant conference

🤔 Trivia

Over/under: March Madness edition

How it works: We provide a stat + number. Your job is to tell us whether the real number is over or under the stated value.

For example, if we said: “The number of NCAA D1 schools called the Duke Blue Devils: 2” – the correct answer would be under, since only 1 school exists with that name. Capiche?

• Odds of picking a perfect bracket (including play-in games): One in 902 trillion
• Number of times a 16-seed has upset a 1-seed: 3
• The weakest-seeded team to ever win a tournament: #9

🤔 Answer

Over: One in 147.6 quintillion
Under: 2
Under: Villanova, the weakest-seeded team to ever win March Madness, was an 8-seed in its 1985 national championship season