{"id":16713,"date":"2025-07-17T15:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T15:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/16713\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T15:53:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T15:53:10","slug":"the-wnba-is-bigger-than-ever-its-race-problem-is-only-growing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/16713\/","title":{"rendered":"The WNBA Is Bigger Than Ever. Its Race Problem Is Only Growing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn June 30, WNBA<\/a> Commissioner Cathy Engelbert held a press conference announcing the league would expand into three more cities in the next five years \u2014 bringing the WNBA team count to a league record of 18. \u201cThis historic expansion is a powerful reflection of our league\u2019s extraordinary momentum, the depth of talent across the game, and the surging demand for investment in women\u2019s professional basketball<\/a>,\u201d Engelbert said<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe move \u2014 adding teams in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia \u2014\u00a0marks a new step in the past three years of growth for the women\u2019s basketball league. According to StubHub data, tickets sales for the 2024 season went up 93 percent <\/a>from the year before, viewership quadrupled, multiple franchise teams sold out season tickets, and some of the biggest WNBA stars received national recognition. \u201cIf you would\u2019ve told me we would eventually have sold out arenas, I would\u2019ve probably laughed,\u201d Aces star A\u2019ja Wilson told Rolling Stone in June 2024<\/a>. But as the league\u2019s growth continues to skyrocket, experts and fans alike are noticing that racism<\/a>\u00a0 that has followed women\u2019s basketball since its start are only growing stronger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s impossible to talk about women\u2019s basketball in 2025 without discussing Indiana Fever star player Caitlin Clark and Chicago Sky baller Angel Reese<\/a>. Interest in the two\u2019s rivalry dates back to their 2020-2021 college season, when they played for the University of Iowa and Louisiana State University, respectively. But what\u2019s followed their moves to the league \u2014 and the national spotlight \u2014\u00a0 the ongoing disparity in how fans treat Clark and Reese because of their race.\u00a0 Social media coverage is filled to the brim with recaps of WNBA games, but behind playful debates of who\u2019s the better players is a growing characterization of Black players as violent, aggressive, and dangerous to their white counterparts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tIndiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) is guarded by Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese (5) <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBrian Spurlock\/Icon Sportswire\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tElizabeth Taylor, an associate professor at Temple University, has spent years studying the intersection of gender and sports<\/a>. She tells Rolling Stone that the WNBA has always been one of the most progressive sports leagues in the U.S., most likely because of their players\u2019 intersecting identities and vocal statements on gender discrimination. This has made the league somewhat synonymous in recent years with liberal ideas of activism and racial equality. But as the sport has grown, she notes that an influx of new fans has significantly changed the makeup of the average WNBA supporter. \u201cWith the televising of games and increase in fan attendance, we are seeing a growth in fans who may not be as left leaning,\u201d Taylor says. \u201cThat absolutely plays a role in what we\u2019re seeing from fans, in terms of how they engage with the players.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the biggest focuses in the past few months has been on viral flagrant fouls between WNBA players. What started as discourse surrounding Clark and arguments that she\u2019s been targeted on the court because of her outsized group of fans has quickly spiraled into thinly veiled racism toward Black WNBA players in general. During a June game between the Connecticut Sun and Chicago Sky, Reese got into an on-court argument with several Suns after Bria Hartley pulled her braids. Hartley, Olivia Nelson-Ododa, Tina Charles, and Reese argued, with Reese shoving the group before it was resolved. Videos of the clip were filled with comments calling all of the Black women involved \u201cclassless,\u201d or \u201cdirty\u201d players \u2014 even though Reese and Charles embraced on camera after the clash.\u00a0When Black Washington Mystics player Okikiola Iriafen got a flagrant foul call during a matchup between the Mystics and Indiana Fever, she was called \u201cviolent\u201d by internet pundits for days. But that same treatment wasn\u2019t applied when Indiana Fever player Sophie Cunningham fought Connecticut Sun player Jacy Sheldon. Sheldon had fouled Clark with eye poke earlier in the game and on a later play, Cunningham slammed Sheldon in the back of the head as she went up for a layup, grabbing Sheldon\u2019s ponytail and continuing to shake her as refs and her teammates tried to break up the melee. Cunningham was ejected, but the viral clip turned her into a star. In three days, the white and blonde basketball player went from 300,000 TikTok<\/a> followers to 1.4 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cResearch shows that mainstream media overrepresents white players,\u201d Taylor says. \u201cBlack WNBA players receive less media attention, despite winning more end of season awards. And Black athletes who are non feminine or present in traditionally non feminine ways receive the least amount of media attention.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s also the difficulty with addressing in-game racism. In 2024, Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner said that many players were subjected to racial slurs from fans during games \u2014 attributing the attack to new WNBA viewers. \u201cI don\u2019t appreciate the new fans that sit there and yell racial slurs at myself, my teammates, and the people that I play against because, yeah, those might be opponents but those are friends, too,\u201d Griner said<\/a>. \u201cThey don\u2019t deserve that, so I don\u2019t appreciate the new fans that think it\u2019s OK to do that.\u201d Retired WNBA legend Sue Bird, who is white,\u00a0also noted the league\u2019s problem with racism, but pushed back against assumptions that it started with Clark\u2019s fame. \u201cCaitlin didn\u2019t bring racism to the WNBA. This has been happening,\u201d Bird said in a 2024 podcast episode.<\/a> \u201cThat, I think, has been a shock for all of us. That other people are surprised by this. We\u2019ve been trying to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a real life cause-and-effect to this kind of language. Fourteen-year-old WNBA superfan and sports commentator Selah Viana has been obsessed with the league since she was six. But she tells Rolling Stone that as she\u2019s started to consider a career reporting on women\u2019s sports, a lot of the racist coverage has left her feeling frustrated. The WNBA growing feels like an amazing development. But is there a way to change the prejudice that\u2019s growing with it? \u201cRacism is really steeped into sports culture. And the WNBA is a sensitive topic for Americans because it\u2019s mainly Black women, the two groups that society tends to put their troubles on,\u201d Viana says. \u201cI\u2019m a young Black sports journalist, and seeing those stereotypes being put on professional women at the top of their level? It\u2019s kind of discouraging.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On June 30, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert held a press conference announcing the league would expand into three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[402,15754,99,1153,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-16713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-racism","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tiktok","12":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}