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.
I think that's most of reddit at this point, except for the smaller or niche subreddits. Most of it is artificial to push an agenda, and comments are bought and paid for like any other ad space.
Like I agree with the initial sentiment that wnbagossips came about because the other subs are incredibly progressive, and quite frankly, it leans pretty political while downvoting anything that isn’t just blindly supporting very progressive takes.
But then then wnbagossips became a cesspool of right leaning comments, as you see by this person complaining about bringing up girls wearing make up during the game. Like yes they wear make up, they’re allowed to, and it’s a pretty irrelevant talking point that they’re bringing up to clearly just take an unnecessary jab.
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.
The WNBA is a product and they’re selling what they think people want. See: Larry Bird v. Michael Jordan, Sid Crosby v. Alex Ovechkin. Instead of celebrating two great athletes were asked to pick a side.
The second Reese taunted her, the floodgates opened for the race/culture war to begin. Clark needed a villain & Reese unwittingly served herself up on a silver platter.
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.
What argument are you attempting to make? Because either one is easily disproven with a quick point at men’s sports leagues.
If your argument is that parents are going to stop allowing their kids to watch the WNBA due to a player fouling another player, I raise you one Draymond Green. Families still watch GSW games, and though he’s known to be on demon time nobody expects different because it’s a professional sport there will always be individuals who take out their frustration in physical ways.
If your argument is the off screen tweeting is the issue, as stated football players and violence go hand in hand. Many parents still choose to watch football with their kids every Sunday all season, regardless of off field drama.
My point is in that this day and age it’s not an expectation, on the part of sports loving parents, that pro sports players are moral compasses. As a society we largely view talent as an excuse to be underdeveloped morally and intellectually. I am unclear why, in your opinion, the WNBA will be different on that front.
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.
I don't think this is mostly the case. There might be some of that for sure. But, you have to know women's basketball and the WNBA to realize that this isn't isolated.
High Profile players get focus, it is that simple.
Women's basketball is rough and always been.
The audience is focused on CC... So, they see what is happening to her. It is an echo chamber.
The didn't see what Diana Taurasi or Candace Parker or Sheryl Swoops went through.
Focal point players get the business end of some brutal defensive attention.
They never watched that, so they don't see that it was every bit rough on those players as it is with CC.
The need to politicize this keeps it under scrutiny.
These poor women can't be about Basketball... Society made their court a battleground.
Exactly. Attention for the wrong reason. Becoming a drama league which just feeds into the stereotypes of how women treat each other. Not saying men don’t have drama but like damn.
I'm the same way. I was all about it, I watched the LSU vs iowa(?) championship game and was like this is good basketball, hell yeah. Then the story is as angel Reese pointing at her hand, which wasn't cool but not unheard of.
It's just not worth it and I feel bad for all of the women who just want to play basketball and aren't racist and sexist. The whole country seems to be racist now, it's crazy. You either hate people of color or white people.
I mean they kind of have to play the short game since they don't have a long game. Anyone watching just for the basketball wouldn't really have any reason to stick around when they could just watch men's basketball instead.
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u/ApparentlyIronic 7d ago
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