Searching for a late snack outside Chase Center on Monday night after the Golden State Valkyries took care of the Atlanta Dream in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals, I found myself rather speechless.
A woman dressed in a lavender Valkyries jersey saw the media credential around my neck, and, as I stood at the counter of a restaurant trying to decide what to order, she offered to pay for my meal.
As we chatted, she said that she appreciates so much the media coverage that the WNBA gets because she is such a big fan. Buying a meal for a reporter, she explained, was the least she could do.
Speechless. How unexpectedly nice!
I politely declined, of course, and laughed to myself as it occurred to me that, while my newfound friend could see that I was wearing a media badge (I forgot to take it off as I exited the arena), she undoubtedly didn’t see what media organization I work for.
Most diehard WNBA fans probably don’t fully appreciate the coverage we give the WNBA here at Fox News Digital/OutKick.
To our credit, we have given the WNBA credit when credit is due. We have pointed out its rise in TV ratings and attendance numbers. We are all over Caitlin Clark’s mind-blowing impact on the league and on the sports world in general. We have fun keeping up with Sophie Cunningham and we have even written favorably on Angel Reese beyond just her “mebounds.”
Yet, unlike most media organizations that cover, strike that – coddle, the WNBA, we have also pointed out the lunacy that can be the WNBA, and rightfully so.
This league. Oh, this league. Lately, it too has left me speechless. If I could type the equivalent of the hand-palming-the-forehead emoji, I would.
Prior to coming here, I covered the WNBA for 24 years, starting in its first season. In the early days, players were humble, and genuinely grateful just to have a place in the United States to play. They were extremely conscious of their place as role models for kids, especially young girls.
The league, which represented a long-time-coming for professional women’s team sports, was easy to root for. I felt good taking my young kids to games, especially my daughter. I encouraged the girls on the grade school basketball teams I coached to dream big and aspire to be WNBA players someday.
I can’t say that I would give that same advice today.
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Many of the players today seem entitled and bratty, flat-out unlikable.
And over the last three to five years, the WNBA as a league has done so many stupid, self-sabotaging things that it’s hard to even keep track of them all. But I will attempt it.
** Somehow, this league that was created to empower and uplift women cannot define a woman. This is why we have the Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White dilemmas. Those two former NBA players may have generated a lot of headlines with their antics, but they don’t want to play in the WNBA. Obviously. Like many of us, I think they just got sick of the WNBA not using its platform as an advocate for female athletes to take the lead in the fight against men in women’s sports. That should have been a no-brainer for the WNBA. Remember, the W in WNBA does stand for women. Why does the WNBA seem to forget that?
** This league has been out to cook its golden goose from Day 1. It’s beyond comprehension. Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark brought fans and eyeballs and money and deals and interest to the WNBA that was unprecedented. And all she’s gotten in return is grief, both physical and verbal, from her colleagues. These other players have stuck her in the eye, pushed her, pulled her, knocked her down. They’ve disrespected her in awards voting, they’ve spoken of her with disdain. Call it jealousy, or sour grapes, or perhaps reverse racism. Whatever it is, it’s insane that the league hasn’t squashed this madness long ago. Whatever the opposite of smart business is, the WNBA is the poster child.
** The WNBA has alienated large swaths of fans by allowing players to issue damning accusations and engage in bad behavior. Angel Reese has accused Indiana Fever fans of being racist. Ditto for DiJonai Carrington and Alyssa Thomas. Meanwhile, Natasha Cloud, while she was playing in a game, got into a yelling match with Kanter Freedom, who was sitting in the stands. And league MVP A’Ja Wilson stepped towards the baseline seats and yelled at a fan, just because he was yelling something innocuous at her during the course of a game, as fans tend to do. All of this is bad behavior, and a bad, bad look.
** Not all messaging is OK in the WNBA. Only that of the preferred ideologies. Fans who wore XX-XY shirts in support of women’s sports to games in Atlanta and San Francisco were harassed, and in one case asked to cover those shirts. But Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve showed up to coach a nationally televised game in a “Trans Kids Belong” T-Shirt, seemingly in response to Sophie Cunningham speaking up for keeping boys out of girls sports. Back when it was en vogue, the WNBA also fully embraced “Black Lives Matter” with signage on its floors and uniforms.
** And then there’s the self-sabotage du jour, the anthem controversy. While in San Francisco, I covered the latest Finals game in which both teams ran off the court as soon as it was time for the national anthem, and then ran back on as soon as it was over. Five Finals games, five run-offs. Why is this a thing? The only “explanation” we’ve heard is that “it’s part of the pregame routine.” Really? Running off the court, disappearing for 60 to 90 seconds, only to run back onto the court to resume what you were doing right before you ran off? That’s a key part of the game prep? Please. This feels so wrong to me. It feels disrespectful, irreverent to skip out on the anthem. Part of our sports culture in this country is the playing of the national anthem prior to events. It’s a tradition, it’s an opportunity for people to come together under one flag and feel united as Americans. It’s an opportunity to honor our country and those who served and died for our freedoms. How can any of that be a bad thing? But for some reason, the WNBA has decided to stick a lightning rod in the national anthem, too.
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Without a doubt, the WNBA has gotten more attention than ever lately because of these dumpster fires that inevitably go viral. And while that attention is for, in my opinion, all the wrong reasons, maybe, just maybe, this is all a part of some genius and purposeful marketing plan by the league. A “let’s do and say the craziest things possible” because “there is no such thing as bad publicity.”
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And that leads me to what else left me speechless in San Francisco. I interviewed at least 20 fans prior to the Valkyries-Dream game on Monday and I couldn’t believe what most of them were saying. All but one of them seemed all that bothered by the national anthem issue.
And these were all very nice people, too, all seemingly very normal folks. Just very different in their thinking and their worldviews. They said things like: standing on the floor should be the players’ choice, that not everyone views the anthem the same. One said that the anthem shouldn’t be played before games in the first place.
See? Speechless.
Maybe this is why it seems like the WNBA is constantly doubling down on the madness. It’s not worried.
The league is drawing record crowds. Chase Center was packed to the rafters on Monday.
Within this very divided country of ours, the WNBA, no matter what insanity it unleashes next, might always have just enough fans of a certain persuasion to not only keep the lights on but to leave the rest of us…well, speechless.
Will the WNBA ever stop doing things that alienate half the country? Does it care, so to speak, that “Republicans buy sneakers, too?” Let me know your thoughts at: pbabcockmcgraw@outkick.com.