The Women's Universal Index
One scale for women's club sport: the WNBA, the NWSL, Europe's leading football clubs, the PWHL, the WPL, The Hundred and college basketball. Each team is measured against its own league: 1500 is an average side, and every 100 points is one standard deviation above it.
The daily board
The top 50: every league scored against itself, then ranked together.
How this is measured
Universal = 1500 + 100 × z, where z is how exceptional a team's rating is within its own league that week. The ± column is the change in the Universal score in whole points, since 13 Oct 2026: green is up, red is down, “new” marks a team entering the board.
| # | Team | League | Index | ± |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NJ/NY Gotham FC | NWSL | 1721 | −3 |
| 2 | FC Barcelona Femeni | Club football (Europe) | 1700 | +1 |
| 3 | Kansas City Current | NWSL | 1642 | −1 |
| 4 | Olympique Lyonnais Féminin | Club football (Europe) | 1638 | 0 |
| 5 | Bayern Munich (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1631 | 0 |
| 6 | Golden State Valkyries | WNBA | 1630 | 0 |
| 7 | UCLA | NCAA | 1628 | 0 |
| 8 | Atlanta Dream | WNBA | 1624 | 0 |
| 9 | Connecticut | NCAA | 1612 | −1 |
| 10 | Washington Spirit | NWSL | 1609 | 0 |
| 11 | Chelsea Women | Club football (Europe) | 1609 | +1 |
| 12 | San Diego Wave FC | NWSL | 1607 | 0 |
| 13 | Manchester City Women | Club football (Europe) | 1595 | 0 |
| 14 | Angel City FC | NWSL | 1589 | 0 |
| 15 | South Carolina | NCAA | 1586 | 0 |
| 16 | Real Madrid Femenino | Club football (Europe) | 1584 | 0 |
| 17 | Minnesota Lynx | WNBA | 1582 | −1 |
| 18 | Arsenal Women | Club football (Europe) | 1581 | 0 |
| 19 | Texas | NCAA | 1580 | 0 |
| 20 | Paris Saint-Germain Féminines | Club football (Europe) | 1579 | 0 |
| 21 | Las Vegas Aces | WNBA | 1573 | 0 |
| 22 | Indiana Fever | WNBA | 1572 | 0 |
| 23 | Montréal Victoire | PWHL | 1571 | 0 |
| 24 | Trent Rockets | The Hundred | 1565 | −1 |
| 25 | New York Liberty | WNBA | 1561 | 0 |
| 26 | Paris FC (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1556 | 0 |
| 27 | LSU | NCAA | 1548 | 0 |
| 28 | BK Hacken (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1547 | 0 |
| 29 | Sunrisers Leeds | The Hundred | 1546 | 0 |
| 30 | Manchester United Women | Club football (Europe) | 1542 | 0 |
| 31 | Denver Summit FC | NWSL | 1542 | 0 |
| 32 | Juventus (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1540 | 0 |
| 33 | AS Roma (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1540 | 0 |
| 34 | Boston Fleet | PWHL | 1538 | 0 |
| 35 | North Carolina Courage | NWSL | 1535 | 0 |
| 36 | Dallas Wings | WNBA | 1533 | 0 |
| 37 | Internazionale (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1532 | 0 |
| 38 | Portland Thorns FC | NWSL | 1532 | 0 |
| 39 | Benfica (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1529 | 0 |
| 40 | Southern Brave | The Hundred | 1529 | 0 |
| 41 | Duke | NCAA | 1528 | 0 |
| 42 | Minnesota Frost | PWHL | 1523 | 0 |
| 43 | TCU | NCAA | 1520 | 0 |
| 44 | Utah Royals | NWSL | 1518 | 0 |
| 45 | Michigan | NCAA | 1518 | 0 |
| 46 | Washington Mystics | WNBA | 1517 | 0 |
| 47 | Oud Heverlee Leuven (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1515 | 0 |
| 48 | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | WPL | 1514 | 0 |
| 49 | Atlético de Madrid Femenino | Club football (Europe) | 1514 | 0 |
| 50 | Ottawa Charge | PWHL | 1513 | −1 |
WPL and The Hundred: Match data: Cricsheet (cricsheet.org), ODC-BY 1.0.
By league
The same board, five deep per league: overall position on the left, Universal on the right.
- 2FC Barcelona Femeni1700
- 4Olympique Lyonnais Féminin1638
- 5Bayern Munich (women)1631
- 11Chelsea Women1609
- 13Manchester City Women1595
- 1NJ/NY Gotham FC1721
- 3Kansas City Current1642
- 10Washington Spirit1609
- 12San Diego Wave FC1607
- 14Angel City FC1589
- 6Golden State Valkyries1630
- 8Atlanta Dream1624
- 17Minnesota Lynx1582
- 21Las Vegas Aces1573
- 22Indiana Fever1572
- 7UCLA1628
- 9Connecticut1612
- 15South Carolina1586
- 19Texas1580
- 27LSU1548
- 23Montréal Victoire1571
- 34Boston Fleet1538
- 42Minnesota Frost1523
- 50Ottawa Charge1513
- 73Vancouver Goldeneyes1481
- 48Royal Challengers Bengaluru1514
- 57Delhi Capitals1504
- 63Mumbai Indians1500
- 64Gujarat Giants1500
- 72UP Warriorz1482
- 24Trent Rockets1565
- 29Sunrisers Leeds1546
- 40Southern Brave1529
- 54Manchester Super Giants1507
- 71Welsh Fire1484
WPL and The Hundred: Match data: Cricsheet (cricsheet.org), ODC-BY 1.0.
All-time peaks
Each team's best Tuesday since 6 Sept 2016, highest first.
How this is measured
One row per team, its highest Universal on any Tuesday of the weekly history, no floor and no minimum tenure. The daily board never feeds the peaks.
| # | Team | League | Peak | Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kansas City Current | NWSL | 1848 | 14 Oct 2025 |
| 2 | Olympique Lyonnais Féminin | Club football (Europe) | 1783 | 6 Feb 2018 |
| 3 | Portland Thorns FC | NWSL | 1782 | 19 Sept 2023 |
| 4 | VfL Wolfsburg (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1766 | 4 Dec 2018 |
| 5 | NJ/NY Gotham FC | NWSL | 1758 | 18 Aug 2026 |
| 6 | North Carolina Courage | NWSL | 1754 | 6 Jul 2021 |
| 7 | Las Vegas Aces | WNBA | 1748 | 1 Aug 2023 |
| 8 | FC Barcelona Femeni | Club football (Europe) | 1747 | 5 Apr 2022 |
| 9 | Minnesota Lynx | WNBA | 1745 | 13 Jun 2017 |
| 10 | New York Liberty | WNBA | 1741 | 3 Jun 2025 |
| 11 | Orlando Pride | NWSL | 1741 | 3 Sept 2024 |
| 12 | Seattle Storm | WNBA | 1727 | 22 Jun 2021 |
| 13 | Washington Spirit | NWSL | 1710 | 28 Jul 2026 |
| 14 | San Diego Wave FC | NWSL | 1705 | 2 Apr 2024 |
| 15 | Washington Mystics | WNBA | 1703 | 10 Sept 2019 |
| 16 | Bayern Munich (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1701 | 6 Apr 2021 |
| 17 | Paris Saint-Germain Féminines | Club football (Europe) | 1694 | 18 Dec 2018 |
| 18 | Atlético de Madrid Femenino | Club football (Europe) | 1685 | 16 Oct 2018 |
| 19 | Los Angeles Sparks | WNBA | 1679 | 26 Sept 2017 |
| 20 | Chelsea Women | Club football (Europe) | 1674 | 6 Apr 2021 |
| 21 | South Carolina | NCAA | 1661 | 16 Apr 2024 |
| 22 | Montpellier HSC (women) | Club football (Europe) | 1660 | 6 Feb 2018 |
| 23 | Arsenal Women | Club football (Europe) | 1660 | 14 Jan 2020 |
| 24 | Manchester City Women | Club football (Europe) | 1659 | 6 Feb 2018 |
| 25 | Connecticut | NCAA | 1659 | 31 Mar 2026 |
How it works
The method of the men's index, league by league, with two extra dampers.
Each league scored against itself
Every league is rated by its own Elo from match results. A team's z is how far its rating stands above its league's average that week, divided by that league's own spread of ratings, so a basketball side is never measured against a football club's yardstick. Each league's z is then mapped through its own history so that a one-in-a-thousand week counts the same in every sport, and Universal = 1500 + 100 × z: 1500 is an average side, and every 100 points is one standard deviation above it. Out of season a team's score fades toward the value its league will start it at next season.
Damping for the small leagues and for college
The PWHL, the WPL and The Hundred have so few teams and games that much of the gap between their ratings is luck. Their z is multiplied by its reliability (Kelley's formula: the share of the spread that is real rather than noise), which pulls their scores toward the middle: 0.32 for the PWHL, 0.179 for the WPL and 0.368 for The Hundred. College basketball is damped too, by 0.541, a feeder-tier transfer factor: its best teams never play the professionals, so how far a college standing carries onto a professional scale is an estimate, set deliberately low.
Who is on the board
Every franchise in the WNBA, the NWSL, the PWHL, the WPL and The Hundred. European club football covers every club in the WSL and Liga F, plus the clubs in the Women's Champions League proper. College basketball covers the 25 best teams by Elo that week. The board starts with the 2016-17 season; the European clubs join in January 2017, once their ratings have had half a season to settle. Unlike the men's board before 1959, nothing here is an estimate, so no row carries an est. mark. The history is kept every Tuesday; the board at the top is rebuilt every morning. The men's Universal Index uses the same scale, but the two boards are kept apart.
Sources
ESPN (WNBA, college basketball, NWSL 2013-18), API-Football (club football, NWSL), Wikipedia (PWHL results). Cricket: Cricsheet, used under the Open Data Commons Attribution License. Match data: Cricsheet (cricsheet.org), ODC-BY 1.0.