The Web: Summer Edition Vol. 1

Hello Webheads! In this little corner of the web, we connect the dots behind last week’s headlines and explore the world’s connectedness.

Jun 25, 2025

Hey Webheads, I hope you like your new name ;)
Summertime is ablaze, and I figured we could all use a cool, sweet treat, good news only, served sunny-side up.

The Cool Kids Watch Women’s Sports:

All over my feeds? Clip after clip of WNBA games. Between Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers, and Angel Reese, jerseys are practically levitating off the shelves. Fanatics reports league-wide merch sales up 500 percent year-over-year, with player-specific pieces up 1,000 percent.

And the, the Paige-and-Azzi content?.. okay fanfic..

Women’s sports have been creeping toward center stage for years. At the Tokyo 2020 Games, women comprised 48.8 percent of all athletes; and at the Paris achieved a true 50/50 split, the first perfectly gender-balanced Olympics in history.

OBS CEO Yiannis Exarchos says the network “has to set an example for the industry at large,” and Paris is backed that up, and hired 35 women for its on-air booth, an 80 percent jump from Tokyo.

And these trends are hitting middle America. As many of you know exciting news is brewing right in your backyard—Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse is the odds-on favorite to land the WNBA’s 16th franchise in 2028, with Dan Gilbert’s $250 million bid giving Cleveland roughly a 90 % shot.

Let’s get into some light. math using rough estimates.

Fan spend: ~10 k fans × $75 all-in = $750 k per game → $15 million per regular season! Right into Pay-back horizon $250 M ÷ $15 M ≈ 17 seasons to recycle into the local economy (before taxes & playoff bumps).

Nothing is confirmed officially, but that didn’t stop Mayor Justin Bibbs from tweeting: “THE CLEVELAND ROCKERS ARE BACK!!!"

Beyond the hardwood, the momentum keeps building: every year, more young girls sign up for sports, and between the 2019 and 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cups, nearly one million additional fans filled the stands.

“Women’s soccer shined on an international stage in 2023, and as attendance, viewership, and investment figures continue to explode, our league has never been better positioned to capitalize on the momentum the game is experiencing”

— Jessica Berman, NWSL Commissioner.

Environmental Efforts Making Waves

It’s hot outside—you’ve noticed.
Yes, lather up the SPF (the UV index is hitting double digits), but also savor the cocktails and those extra-long summer nights. And divas, I bring receipts to prove our eco-efforts aren’t pointless, no matter how often someone mutters, “Recycling is a scam.”

Plastic bags have become an endangered species along the East Coast, and the wave has rolled inland. Pittsburgh’s city council banned single-use plastic bags in most circumstances.

The implementation of fees and bans on plastic bags has resulted in a 47% decrease in litter along coastlines and beaches. Researchers from the University of Delaware and Columbia University “looked at tens of thousands of shoreline clean-ups and hundreds of local policies to determine how the legislation worked in terms of reducing plastic litter in the environment.”

Tiny Habits That Pay Off

1. Cold Water 2. Reusable Bottles 3. Compost Fairies

To recap, those who compost are not bombers. Those who don’t compost are bombers.

(jokes, guys, jokes)

Quick Note On The Energy Sector:

Speaking of bombs, the United States dropped fourteen of them… oh wait, sorry ~good-vibes only~ conditions near the Strait of Hormuz have turned wobbly. Oil and gas supplies? Precarious. Every twelve hours, the picture shifts, and every twenty-four, one-fifth of the planet’s crude still squeezes through that single choke-point.

“While concerns over Middle-East supply have diminished for now, they have not entirely disappeared, and there remains a stronger demand for immediate barrels,” ING analysts warned in a fresh client note.

How does this relate to the environment, you ask? I’m getting there, I promise.

I don’t know about you, but all this Nuclear chatter has me thinking about clean energy. And the good news is that Clean Energy finally has an edge after years of gum smacking, “we’re moving towards it.”

⚡ Enter Clean Energy, Stage Left ⚡