Los Angeles Sparks vs Golden State Valkyries

“Sunday afternoon downtown. The section used to be half empty.…”

An expansion team sold out an entire season before it had played a single game, which quietly settled an argument people had been having for decades: the appetite was never the question, only the access. Now the most-hyped new team in the league comes south to face a founding franchise in a rivalry that did not exist eighteen months ago and already feels permanent. This is the game the women's-basketball person in your life will not miss — the friend who has been going since the Lisa Leslie era, and the one who started watching last summer and has not stopped talking about it since. A Sunday afternoon downtown, two California teams, and a sport finally given the room it earned a long time ago. Bring the kid who plays travel ball. She will spend the whole drive home deciding who she wants to be.