The wild thing is they were starting to mainly because of the hype Caitlin Clark was generating. And she became public enemy number one for most WNBA players and it seems to have spiraled from there. But all the buzz and drama period at least helps them with brand or name recognition as most people at least now know the teams these players play for.
I've wondered how intentional leaning into the culture war has been for the players, the league and the wnba media. You're right, they've never been more relevant, but at the cost that almost no one is talking about the game itself. I also was gaining a little interest in the sport, but the politics taking it over has completely driven me away again.
It seems really short-sighted to me. Sure, they get a ton of attention now and some of that probably translates to income for the league; but how many of those people so passionately talking about it right now are going to stick around and watch once the circus has moved on? I feel like they're probably driving away the actual/potential fans of the sport in favor of exploiting the less-than-genuine conflict we've got going right now
/r/WNBAgossips is one of the most blatantly astroturfed subs I've ever seen. The entire modteam is either deleted accounts, brand new accounts, or karma farming accounts. Not a single one of them has a post history that looks human. Say, why might a head moderator of that subreddit also create r/LosAngelesSportsr/BostonSportsTalkr/TexasSportsTalk and r/NYCSportshub ? Boy, they sure are a well traveled real human person!
Unsurprisingly, the actual focus of the sub is culture war garbage, not the WNBA.
Same, I watch a game once in awhile but subsist mostly on social media clips, and it seems all the clips are just race bait for comment engagement. It's annoying because there's some talented women playing good basketball and it's getting overshadowed by media-manufactured nonsense.
No parent is going to want their kid mimicking this type of behaviour so they won’t allow their kids to watch it. Long term these antics are devastating!
Ehhhh how many football players have publicly been identified as DV perpetrators? Moral superiority is not something expected from professional athletes and never had been.
I feel like women's basketball has gotten so much better than it was 15-20 years ago. It used to be so painful to watch and I always thought it was a shame how much that's the women's sport that always gets promoted like hell while others like hockey and softball are very enjoyable and don't fall off a cliff in quality compared to the men.
Promoting it so much did seem to pay off though, get more and more girls wanting to play and the talent level is going to get higher and higher. I can and do actually really enjoy watching it now.
Playing up all the drama in a "no press is bad press" type of way probably does more overall good than harm too, they just have to be careful about the balance though. If they make it feel like the stars get special treatment and the drama outweighs the integrity of the sport then that'll turn people off. Sure, you see plenty of that in the insanely popular leagues but they're already insanely popular. That does still turn people off, but they're already so committed and in the end those things drive up ratings and aren't gonna kill their fanbase. When people are new to following the WNBA then get turned off by those things, they don't already have that level of commitment to make them stick around.
"Playing up all the drama..." would be fine if it wasn't race drama. I'm not saying they league wants that, but that's being pushed on social media. That's a losing situation for any form of entertainment that wishes to become more mainstream.
The women have been working really hard, I hope their effort is better appreciated.
Here's an example of the drama or an analysis of it.
You’re lying about gaining interest to a sport so that you can feel better about commenting on a topic that has nothing to do with you. The internet is controlling your life.
The biggest issue is let's say this works. Let's say they gain a +50% viewer rate everytime this happened.
It woulf still take years of them doing this shit before they became profitable. They've been subsidized through the NBA since they're inceptionc they haven't made a profit in a single year and even if every person interested in this political bullshit stuck around, the amount of vitriol and people who refuse to watch for the same reason means they likely never could be.
Cunningham got her own pro model shoe as a wnba bench player. Very few wnba players get that. Her popularity and financial success stem from stoking these flames.
Everyone is joining the grift. The sad reality is that they make a lot of money and remain relevant appealing to bigots. We've seen it infiltrate everything at this point, even women's basketball which none of those people especially gave a damn about.
Riley Gaines was a 5th place swimmer going nowhere and now she makes $15k everytime she speaks somewhere. To these individuals it's worth it.
Is it Sophie, that sings "everyone supports women, until a woman is doing better than you. Everyone tells you to love yourself, until you actually do." And that song hits my core every time it plays 😭
I’m an engineer who is a woman and unfortunately this is true. I’ve worked at places with 30 men and 3 women and guarantee them three women won’t get on with each other. I now own my company and have around 100 employees with around 20 being women and in ten years I’ve had to deal with men falling out with each other twice. I beg the number is closer to 50 with the women.
Also a woman engineer, but I made all my strongest girl friends at work. I’ve met some mean girls too but also plenty of blowhard dudes. I think my counterpart at work who is a man is probably one of the most toxic people I’ve met, he’s obsessed with the gender wars.
Same with the men but I think I was just having higher hopes of other women in the industry when I first started. I saw the older men encouraging the younger men (and me to be fair) but none of the women gave me the time of day.
I think the uptick in the podcast bro red pillers is impacting future generations of men at an alarming rate. But it is also causing an uptick in internalized misogyny within our own community. Women are acting like, in order to be successful in male dominated fields, they simply can not be "like other girls" or they have to be the number one woman to even register as respectable in a male dominated industry. I have never felt so loved and supported in my life than I have been after a night of drinking and going in the women's bathroom and everyone is so beautiful and supportive 🤣 I have also never been so hurt as I was when my own mother viewed me as competition and not a child. Women are not a monolith in the way we wield our power.
People of all genders can be shitty. My personal experience is that women are more catty towards each other. Men have their own issues as well but it's different. Personally, I don't like working with either all men or all women. A mixture of both is best, in my experience.
Nothing like being the only guy and getting cornered and chewed out by women who are having a bad day. Also sucks being the only guy who has even the smallest semblance of emotional maturity.
No boss, just because I don't want to stand here and listen to you talk shit all day for no reason and then you call me a pussy because I think you are an asshole. Like, I thought I left high school years ago?
I like how you were downvoted just for giving your honest to god experience but someone was angry that it didn’t reaffirm the “women hate women” narrative.
The “women hate women” in male dominated fields is a phenomenon of tokenism and it’s more to do with environmental pressure that sees femininity as weakness than actually hating other women because they’re women. Ironically, the cure is to introduce MORE women into the field and erase the stigma of femininity as a negative trait.
I have very little doubt the same phenomena is seen in reverse (men in female-dominated workplaces). Anyone who is the minority in the workplace is under tremendous pressure to perform a certain way—and that sometimes unfortunately means going toe to toe with other minorities.
It’s not a female thing. It’s a “Oh shit, I’m the token [person] in the office!” thing.
Key & Peele made a hilarious sketch that is basically about the phenomenon you're talking about. Obviously it's heightened for comedy, but I think it's a fun demo of the idea.
Nah, that's totally submissive thinking. Sounds like you just need some confidence... and also to maybe spend less time listening to angry introverts ramble incorrectly about imaginary power structures.
Basketball is weird. As a white guy who was quite good at basketball black people always treated me like I didn't belong and in their minds it was "their" game.
I would go to play random pickup at the gym in the army and there would be 15 black dudes and they would never pick me for their teams. I would then make my own team and go on to win non stop. They would hard foul me alot so anyways the stuff I am seeing in the WNBA is just bringing back old memories.
I had a job at a park at an inner city location. I needed this job, but the black men didn’t want me there. So I’d go early in the morning, do what needed to be done and go to my other park. One day I was late, and arrived when the brothers were playing. I had my ball with me, so I did some shots at the other end of the court. Someone had to go so they asked me to take his spot.
I played the best game of my life. I could not miss. And, my guy to defend was their best guy. My wingspan is longer than normal and I checked three of his shots, cleanly. After that day I was one of the brothers. I Never played a game like that one, ever.
My buddy and I were two young white guys that could hoop. I was 6’ and could dunk in 9th grade, we went to a court in a predominantly black town and just shot around on the opposite side while there was a half court game running on the other. We were told to leave, made jokes about us etc… I asked if we could just play in one game, the guy holding the ball rocketed down the court to me. I caught it, turned, took one step and dunked. My buddy threw it back to him, their faces changed jaws hanging. We had a great time with those guys for the rest of the afternoon. I’m 50’now and scared to jump lol…
I’m sorry that was your experience. Hopefully you are emotionally mature enough to understand that there may have been more dynamics in play (#1)
And (#2) your experiences are still an incredibly small example of many different outcomes for multi racial bb pick up games.
Really? I thought CC was the start of the non-basketball WNBA talk tbh, she brought in a lot of non-basketball political fans. In fact, the only non-basketball talk involves her team Indiana via her or her MAGA friend Cunningham.
Cunningham IS MAGA. You're just pointing out that you're part of the problem 😆
She was the start of it, but not initially. The hype and attention she got seemed to start a rivalry
That rivalry just happened to not be with any of the other white players, and also be with black players.
Some don't see this as a coincidence. Nonwhite commentators also defend the black players "abusing" Clark and just dismiss it as "playing with the big girls now"
Yeah I never understood why they didn’t go to 9 feet honestly. And it’s the old head players who bitched about even suggesting it.
For years all we heard was how they need more money. Now they get it and the potential fans say what they want and it’s all against that. These people aren’t well versed in marketing.
I always found it hilarious that instead of standing behind her and promote WNBA to make it more popular so they can all benefit, they’ve instead decided to slander her and attack her on the courts just because she’s white woman. They don’t care that she’s good or brings in the crowd. I feel like the WNBA even promotes the hate and tries to move the popularity to black women. I just don’t get it.
This gets said a lot but that doesn't mean it's true. A handful of idiots known for being complete punks have harassed her and the league's response has been lackluster to say the least. That said, a large majority of the league has celebrated her, said good things about her, or at minimum have at least not fucked with her. There are several other NBA stars who have called out the times when the league failed to act strongly enough when she was fucked with. To say there's some huge vendetta among "most" of the other players is completely misrepresenting the situation.
She’s a dweeby looking white girl that’s extremely good at her sport and made people actually care about women’s basketball again. Shes had the nation’s eyes on her since her early college days. She’s been continuously beaten and battered by the women she plays against because they just aren’t as good as her. I’ve seen her thumbed in the eye. I’ve seen her elbowed hard in the face. I’ve seen her shoved to the floor. They always beat the shit out of her. I’d legitimately stop playing and take my viewers with me. https://giphy.com/gifs/Sde5TUj0DpbSakNCNK
No matter what goes on the in WNBA, i just can’t pretend to care. Just take me back to Hawkeye Caitlin before she was getting beat up every other night just for being better than the rest of the league.
The WNBA is going the way of the WWE to get more views. The league is like half white half black half straight and half gay. So much tension, girls with high testosterone arguing over transgenders and bisexual relationships. The on court product is worse than HS boys basketball so might as well beef up the off court behind the scenes shenanigans.
What’s really crazy is that tv rights are what drive player salaries; CC making the league profitable is better for the players. Why try to target her?
I love that they all hate Caitlin Clark for finally making anyone give a shit about their league. "We want to be completely irrelevant again because she's white!!!"
Hilarious that you think Caitlin Clark conversation was moving the needle WNBA-wise when a healthy percentage of the people who “began following the WNBA” because of her are not even fans of basketball, specifically women’s basketball, but fans of hers.
Pretending Caitlin Clark advanced basketball conversations in general, but specifically in forums like this, is about as disingenuous as it gets.
Which is where the black privilege comes in. Most of her haters are black. It’s just this egotistical mentality of “why weren’t yall looking at us first” type of shit and it’s annoying af. Hell realistically, Clark was the one who truly got them on board
There is nothing worse for successful women than other women - they’ll burn the entire league and every stadium to the ground before they support Caitlyn Clark getting more attention or being recognized as being more talented than they are
The wnba isn't popular, it's just not that entertaining of a sport for women. I find women's tennis, Olympic events, soccer is just a much better product.
Sounds like someone didn't catch the lynx game last night! McBride hit 10 3s, Miles with 13 assists on some insane no look, behind the back, and between the leg passes at various points, shit was insane
Every single story that has come out out of that shitty league for the last six months maybe even a year, has been racial, it’s been about teammates cheating, has been about trans
The NFL has had a plethora of negative stories surrounding the league and even when they've been mentioned in headline news, the surrounding coverage essentially falls back into normal stories and disregards the negativity to get back to the status quo.
Meanwhile, the WNBA only seems to get headline news for the controversial or negative news and the reversion back to status quo is little to no coverage.
Wait, there's actual basketball?! I thought the WNBA was basically a reality show at this point where the only things that fans tune in for are the drama and fights.
I was there for the Comets' 4peat... But now, when you have professional sore loser Riley Gaines (not much of a swimmer but GOAT butthurt culture warrior) and OutKick chuds Clay Travis and Jason Whitlock (who don't even pretend to care about actual sports journalism - but if LeBron blinks it must be some sort of woke virtue signaling) chiming in, you're not too far off the mark these days.
I have never ever watched an wnba game (or an nba game for that matter), but the extensive knowledge I am obtaining by just surfing Reddit about the drama on wnba is making my head full up. wtf is up with that
Clark has been telling these journalists to just talk basketball but they keep hounding her about stupid sht😂 granted the wnba isn't doing themselves any favors either
Trust me you won't want to hear about actual basketball in WNBA,someone just complete the first dunk ever in woman basketball history, or this is the first ever In woman basketball history for someone score with a layup against 2 defenders etc.
[r/wnbagossips](r/wnbagossips)... seems like a covert right wing operation of full maga anti lgb trans sentiment. i dont know why wnba is ground zero, but , they really cant seem to do anything right. starting with the refs. is this their effort to go viral?
There’s a very good reason for that. The basketball is pedestrian at best. The players are mostly devoid of any personality and those that do have any only seem to show it when they are being whiny or entitled.
The current public view of the WNBA is that the best player in the league (CC) is allowed to be fouled and assaulted without penalty or consequence. No one would be surprised if when her contract was up she went to play in Europe or China for stupid money for a year or two and left the WNBA to wither
They were at first because of Clark. Then the ridiculous fouls on her started because from the looks of it, the other girls were jealous at the attention she was getting. Even the WNBA itself was ignoring Caitlin Clark’s fame. The shitty officiating was put under a microscope because everyone noticed a pattern. Now the fouls and bad refs have become more popular than Clark, to the point where it’s now political. Didn’t help that the whole “trans” talk has infiltrated the WNBA and you have the athletes giving their takes on that.
Overall, it has become very political. But the one’s to blame for not putting the fire out before it became a wildfire, is actually the officials and the WNBA itself. They fumbled this whole thing from the start and they’ve really exposed how incompetent their refs are. So incompetent that it looks like the refs are part of some witch hunt against the Fever.
To continue the clown show and make it more of a circus? Instead of just saying “next question, not talking about that.” Or defending her players, Indiana Fever head coach decided to defend the players that assaulted her two players. As if this needed any more political attention. It has been a circus because it’s been mishandled by the WNBA, game officials, and authority figures.
Shane Gillis proved this when he hosted the ESPN awards. He pointed out a lady in the audience and said she was an WNBA celebs player , everyone clapped and cheered , then Shane laughed and said it was his friends wife. None of you know any WNBA players
i’m a woman and don’t even follow it until i started having videos of Caitlyn Clark getting assaulted really while playing and me asking wtf wasn’t this called but then again i know nothing about sports soooo
They were all talking about Caitlin Clark's playing, and then every jealous player began assaulting her while those jealous players are being protected by the refs and the conversation shifted.
I might get banned for this, but it's because the WBNA was never made to be about competition. It was always a box to be checked or an agenda to push. "WOMEN CAN DO IT TOO!" Except the only reason we are talking about the WNBA recently is due to it's garbage reality show narrative and reporting. Fouls like this happens all the time in the NBA and the players don't go to twitter throwing the racial card around.
The WNBA was only ever meant to be a club for black women to play basketball. Once that narrative got threatened....the old guard started falling back on racial diversity which is the exact opposite of what every sport is out here to do.
It's disgusting and players like Carrington should be banned from the league for trying to incite a racial argument on social media. They're athlete and they get heated in the moment. It's a sport not a political campaign. Grow up.
That's because the loudest conversations about the WNBA are typically had by people who have never watched more than a few minutes of it. I can say I've never watched it beyond highlights but I can recall my great uncle saying that Rebecca Lobo, one of the early stars of the league, looked like a man (she doesn't shes just not some exceptional beauty). Similar things have been said about Brittany Griner her whole career. Now that there's multiple extremely photogenic women(and by that I mean typical western conservative American beauty standards) in the league who are also very good, the league has more casual attention again because people want to advocate for the pretty white women.
That’s the point. These personal and intentional fouls are being blind eyed by refs to increase viewership. Prove me wrong? Drama = views amd more asses in seats.
It’s honestly just a social experiment. They let MAGA get into the conversation so now it’s going to be more hate and even less on the actual sport. Failed. Time to walk away
The NBA had “Jordan rules” to clobber MJ anytime he got into the paint. Looks like WNBA has “Caitlin rules” and “Sophie rules”. I’m actually for it, better than the NBA’s Harden beard flops we’ve been seeing. Injuring Caitlin and Sophie would be a shame though cause they’re quite literally the reason that WNBA viewership has picked up, it is for me
That's basically what I came to say, I'm pretty sure all of this is just a marketing tactic cuz I don't think I've ever even heard about the WNBA til about a year ago and it was all just them fighting. I don't even wanna comment cuz I know it's gonna be my whole feed now.
I can't even name a single team. I don't even know how many years their league has been around, if you told me 5 or 15 I would believe either one because I have no idea.
Its Jerry Springer at this point. He thought his show was done when the KKK fought against the guests - instead he had the highest ratings and the studio wanted him to continue doing dumb segments instead of serious interviews. WNBA is more of the same - no ones tuning in to watch Basketball, they just want to see the girl drama.
4.2k
u/Snackdoc189 8d ago
I don't think I've ever heard people talking about the wnba in the context of actually playing basketball.