Hey everyone, it's Robert Mace.

The NFL playoffs are here, and we've got you covered on the athletic football show.

For Wild Card weekend, all the way through Super Bowl 59, my co-host, Derek Claston, and I

will guide you through every game, matchup, and big-time performance on the way to one team lifting the Lombardi trophy in New Orleans.

Catch the athletic football show wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm joined by three players from Houston on the pod that makes that a new record for our segments. But Rachel

Daly, Christy Mewis, and Chey Groom have survived the bubble. They've survived the Challenge

Cup and they have survived the celebrations. Then co-executive director of the NWSL Players

Association, Brooke Elby, is on to discuss the success of the tournament as a whole.

We're recording this episode on Tuesday, July 28th, so let's get into the news this week.

There's some more good numbers on the Challenge Cup front.

The ratings from the final are in, and there's another bump up from the opener back in June.

The game between the Dash and the Chicago Red Stars averaged 653,000 viewers on CBS, which

is a 14% rise from the 572,000 viewers for the opener, and now stands as the new record

for NWSL viewership.

The Challenge Cup also concluded without a single positive

COVID-19 test for a player. Before the final, the league honored all of the people behind the scenes

who helped ensure that result from their medical task force to the cleaning crews in Utah.

Finally, we still don't exactly know what's next for the NWSL in 2020, but in an email to the

players sent by Commissioner Lisa Baird, she gave the players a date to return to their home

markets and also said that any post-challenge Cup season would conclude by October 17th.

You can read more about that story at The Athletic.

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