![\"WNBA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AP26205727708759-1784977820.jpg\")
WNBA All-Star Caitlin Clark speaks to the media during practice at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago [Paul Beaty\/AP]<\/p>\nPublished On 25 Jul 202625 Jul 2026<\/p>\n
The WNBA has never been bigger.<\/p>\n
More people are watching. More are investing. Salaries for many players are higher than ever. But mounting turmoil and discord have been a part of this transformative period that has featured a landmark collective bargaining agreement, league expansion and skyrocketing player recognition.<\/p>\n
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It seems to have reached a new flashpoint, as discussions about race, gender and sexuality created headlines ahead of Saturday\u2019s WNBA All-Star Game. Race-driven conversations resurfaced after an incident between Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas, while players continue to voice frustrations with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and leadership over what they say is a lack of protection from social media harassment and divisive remarks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a moment to be celebrated without a doubt,\u201d said Ketra Armstrong, sport management professor and director of the Center for Race and Ethnicity in Sport at the University of Michigan. \u201cWe want to celebrate what\u2019s great. But sometimes, the progress can overshadow, still, where the perils are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Issues of race, gender and representation have been an undercurrent throughout the league\u2019s history. Debates over those issues have grown as women\u2019s sports have exploded. And they remain a challenge that shapes the WNBA\u2019s \u2013 and most other pro sports leagues, for that matter \u2013 public and online discourse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what a sports league\u201d is, said David Berri, sports economist and economics professor at Southern Utah University. He cited the NFL\u2019s Rooney Rule as an example. \u201cIf a sports league is going to get attention, you\u2019re going to get attention for these things as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growth has magnified broader cultural debates<\/p>\n
Contentious conversations also spread to issues of transgender athletes and harassment.<\/p>\n
WNBA veteran Brianna Turner said on social media this week that her former team, the Fever, fired a male employee last season for sexual harassment. Turner, who was with Indiana last season but now plays for Las Vegas, also said Indiana players were encouraged not to discuss the firing.<\/p>\n
Turner\u2019s comments came as she defended transgender athletes days after Indiana forward Sophie Cunningham spoke on transgender athletes competing in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I\u2019m like, \u2018I never once said that\u2019,\u201d Cunningham was quoted as saying in a story published by ESPN. \u201cI think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn\u2019t have to go against biological men.\u201d<\/p>\n
WNBA All-Star Caitlin Clark speaks to the media during practice at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago [Paul Beaty\/AP]<\/p>\n
The WNBA\u2019s conversations about race were thrust back into the spotlight after Toronto Tempo coach Sandy Brondello was suspended one game for referring to Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese as a \u201cprotected species\u201d.<\/p>\n
The comment, picked up by the broadcast after Reese drew a foul on Toronto player Nyara Sabally, quickly drew criticism.<\/p>\n
Brondello, a former player who has won two WNBA titles, is Australian. The \u201cprotected species\u201d phrase is used in Australian sports to express frustration over a lack of calls against a player. However, in the US, the phrase suggests that someone isn\u2019t human and could be seen as derogatory towards Black people. Brondello later apologised. Reese accepted it, saying she appreciated the league\u2019s swift action.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a much bigger platform now. Everything that happens is news,\u201d Berri said. \u201cThere were hard fouls 10 years ago. Nobody paid any attention to that. It ends up being because of the coverage now, everything gets magnified \u2026 which is good. I mean, this is what we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018A lot to celebrate\u2019 but race still matters<\/p>\n
Clark has repeatedly attempted to downplay the noise surrounding her, but she has become a springboard for projections far beyond the game itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s basketball,\u201d she said in a recent ESPN interview. \u201cWhen I walk out of the locker room, I shouldn\u2019t be fearful of what the conversation is going to be. It\u2019s emotionally exhausting. It\u2019s draining. It makes your shoulders tense because people don\u2019t want to talk about the basketball. They just want to stir it up and make something else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The WNBA retroactively assessed Thomas a flagrant foul and suspended her one game after the veteran made contact with her fist to Clark\u2019s throat in a June 24 matchup.<\/p>\n
The play, which Thomas has said was an accident, gained widespread attention and ignited debates over officiating, with coaches, pundits and lawmakers weighing in on whether the league needs to take action about physical play involving Clark.<\/p>\n
Thomas, who is Black and in her 12th WNBA season, said after the incident she had received death threats, part of increased online vitriol players have faced in recent years. Chelsea Gray of the Las Vegas Aces recently posted a message from a man that included a racial slur. And Engelbert this week met with a pair of player committees to discuss what more can be done to protect players from online harassment.<\/p>\n
Since she entered the league, Clark and her WNBA peers have become proxies for longstanding American issues \u2013 from race, gender and sexual orientation to who receives attention and who doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to celebrate,\u201d Armstrong said, \u201cbut race still matters. Race will always matter. It just depends on how we make it matter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published On 25 Jul 202625 Jul 2026 The WNBA has never been bigger. More people are watching. More…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,44,588,85,1055,6075],"class_list":["post-823111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}