I don't even watch the NBA, so I'm not about to start watching the WNBA. But really, the WNBA seems determined to give us more reasons not to watch it, not to support it, and frankly to return to our lives like it never existed. And we could, easily. The WNBA is subsidized by the NBA, for crying out loud. All these years it's been a thing, and it can’t support itself yet. So, why is it deliberately trying to turn us off from it?
In the past week, reporters asked three WNBA head coaches a simple, direct question about who belongs in women's sports. Not one of them could answer it. What does that tell you about a league that is literally for women?
Take the treatment of Caitlin Clark. She's arguably the best thing to happen to the WNBA… perhaps in its history. She fills arenas the league couldn't fill before she arrived. She draws in casual fans who otherwise wouldn't know a WNBA team existed. Instead of protecting that asset, the league has let opposing players shove, elbow, and target her on the court while doing next to nothing about it.
If that's how the WNBA treats the player who saved it, it's hard to argue the league deserves anyone's support.
But the Clark situation isn't even the worst of it. You'd think, of all leagues, this one would be willing to stand up for what a woman actually is.
It isn't.
Reporters separately asked three WNBA head coaches this week whether biological men should be allowed to compete in women's sports. None of them gave a straight answer. None of them could even define the word "woman."
A reporter asked Stephanie White, head coach of the Indiana Fever, directly. "I don't know that I would say I'm educated enough from a scientific standpoint," White said. She added that she wasn't "educated enough at the different levels" to weigh in any further.
Who is she, Kentanj Brown Jackson?
About an hour before White answered, a reporter asked Portland Fire head coach Alex Sarama a similar question. "To be completely honest, I don't think I've ever had to think about that," Sarama said.
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Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve called the framing of the question "problematic" and full of "innuendo."
To my knowledge, one person in the WNBA actually gave an honest answer. Sophie Cunningham has become the rare voice in the league willing to speak with any common sense on this issue. "I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I'm like, 'I never once said that.' I 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't have to go against biological men," Cunningham told ESPN.
Cunningham understands. And, let’s be honest, the aforementioned coaches do too. Trust me, they understand the difference between men and women perfectly well. They coach in a league that exists specifically because women wanted a professional league of their own. There's a reason you don't see women playing in the NBA, and every one of these coaches knows exactly what that reason is.
They’re just too afraid to say the truth.
Think about it for a second. Their careers, salaries, and professional identities depend entirely on the WNBA being defined as a women's league. Yet when given the chance to define what a woman is, all three chose vagueness over clarity.
If you want to support the WNBA to support women’s sports, and they can’t define what a woman is, why are you going to support the WNBA? If the coaches of a women's league won't stand up for their own sex, there isn't much of a case left for why anyone else should stand up for their league.
