For many years, the WNBA has functioned as the NBA’s de facto charity. The league has relied on subsidies from the NBA to operate at a loss since its inception. Then-NBA Commissioner David Stern Even attention When the league was first formed, it said its goal was not to make money, but rather to broaden the NBA’s audience and “encourage more women to play basketball.”
For years, interest in the league was so low that owners literally encouraged fans to buy tickets to WNBA games out of a sense of civic duty, because interest in the on-court action was nonexistent.
Now, for the first time in its history, the WNBA is drawing attention in its own right. The league has benefited from the simultaneous inclusion of two of the biggest stars in women’s college basketball in recent memory, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, whose rivalry has seemingly continued from their college days through their professional years, breaking the league’s attendance and television ratings records.
It’s hard for younger sports fans to understand, but before 1980, the NBA itself was in pretty decline as a sports league, not far behind baseball and football. The fact that the upstart ABA was able to force a merger just four years ago shows that the league wasn’t all that powerful, at least not until the NBA was lucky enough to acquire two college stars in Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. The WNBA’s best hope is that Clark and Reese can replicate Bird and Johnson’s success and turn their product into a compelling nationally televised sport.
The WNBA has been craving attention for decades, and it’s finally gotten it. But the price of attention is scrutiny: The more people who pay attention to sports, the more people who watch, and the more people who pay for tickets, the more every word and little thing a star player says becomes scrutinized and becomes fodder for sports discourse.
This scrutiny can and should extend to everyone involved in the league. Players were probably alarmed when Chicago Sky forward Chennedy Carter’s hard foul on Kaitlyn Clark sparked a flurry of condemnation, perhaps unprecedented in WNBA history. At the height of its absurdity, an actual member of Congress wrote the WNBA a letter asking what the league was going to do about the incident. Not to be outdone, the Chicago Tribune editorial board immediately likened the shoulder check to assault.
The scrutiny has also extended to the league’s referees, who might be wise to turn to Bennett Salvatore for advice on how to handle sudden fame.WNBA referee Charles Watson suddenly became the talk of the sports world this week. Angel Reese was sent off She tried to wave him off.
Overall, the league’s response to this investigation so far has been pretty mixed. Watson’s second technical against Reese was ultimately overturned, which seems like the right choice, but that action only highlighted the absurd dichotomy that comes with showing leniency by refunding a fine that was reportedly just $400.
While the league has taken a fairly low-key stance on the shoulder check that has gone viral around the world, and maybe rightly so, it might be worth reminding sports fans that Carter’s foul on Clark was significantly less severe than, say, Dennis Rodman’s. Infamous foul The fouls committed against Scottie Pippen in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, or just about every foul committed by an NBA player in the 1980s.
But the biggest adjustment the WNBA needs to make has to do with players’ apparent frustration with the attention Clark is getting in ways that don’t help the league grow. The urge for jealousy is understandable, especially for career WNBA players who have long felt they haven’t received the recognition they deserve. But the degree to which that jealousy is expressed publicly, often coupled with frustration that the attention Clark receives is because of her race, only serves to pique the interest of fans tuning in to WNBA games for the first time to see Clark play.
Some might chime in and say that Michael Jordan was notoriously brutally treated by the Detroit Pistons, and Clark is no exception. But this history is a bit revisionist. The league (led by the Pistons) only took an overtly physical approach to Jordan when it became clear that doing so would not stop him from winning a championship. Jordan wasn’t put through the meat grinder until his team began having playoff success. And Clark’s Fever doesn’t seem in danger of winning a championship anytime soon.
To make matters worse, some of the players seem to handle any increased attention rather poorly. This morning, several of Angel Reese’s teammates loudly complained to X about a “harassment” incident that occurred at the team hotel. The “harassment” in question was: It appears to be configured One person with a camera calmly asks Chennedy Carter if he contacted Caitlin Clark after the shoulder-check incident.
Listen, I know it’s annoying for players to have people approach them in their hotels asking questions (in fact, this video appears to have been taken outside the hotel), and I’m sure they’re tired of hearing about the Caitlin Clark foul. But if you think what’s going on is a major invasion of privacy, I encourage you to watch ESPN’s excellent documentary, “The Final Dance,” and look at the massive crowds that surrounded Michael Jordan literally everywhere he went, including the lobbies of the hotels where his team stayed. This is not great, and I would prefer that fans just leave players to live their lives, but under any circumstances, what happened to the WNBA players doesn’t even come close to a fraction of the issues NBA stars face on a daily basis.
Anyone who has been famous knows that with good things come bad things, and you can’t have the bad without the good. Players will finally have to decide whether the increased money and fame they’ve long said they want is really what they want.
Either way, everyone in the WNBA, including owners, coaches, referees, players, and general managers, needs to prepare for this reality. As more people pay attention to what the WNBA does, more people will scrutinize every detail and action. Every word uttered in a press conference and facial expression on the court will mean something. This is the reality of being a celebrity in sports. And how the WNBA handles this pressure will determine whether this is the start of their ascension to independent status or a flash in the pan that no one will remember in five years.
The WNBA has always said it wanted more attention, and now we’ll see if the league was serious.
