I’m writing this column because, trust, no one else in this space will. ICYMI, or didn’t know because of a lack of acknowledgment that the event was upon us, there’s a WNBA Finals jumping off Sunday (2 p.m., ABC-7). A legendary one. Probably the biggest, most anticipated vs. ever in the history of the league. New York Liberty vs. Las Vegas Aces.
But don’t blame the WNBA, don’t blame the players, don’t blame the players for being women. Blame us, blame society, blame sports and the people who are in charge of making sure sports have become essential to our life’s existence. They say they love the game, love basketball, but that’s their lie. They only have true love for the part of the game that is gender-specific to their own controlling identity.
The duel of two superteams. Destined and spoken into a WNBA Finals existence since Day 1 of the season. “The Showdown.” “The Final Dance.” “The Pinnacle.” Any epic marketing tag or label you can put on it, should be put. On blast all week everywhere leading up to that A’ja Wilson-Jonquel Jones tipoff. But, no, never that. You’re taking that DEI thing too far, son. Play some James Brown, play some Ice Cube. Remember whose world this really is. The apathy of it all. Sad. Disrespectful. Typical.
Cultural relevancy. Still feels niche 30 seasons deep. Even when the underlying statement that will possibly coincide with the outcome of this Finals is the winner as “arguably the best team in WNBA history.” One of those teams and times all sports leagues crave.
“[It’s] the narrative everyone wanted at the start,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said after her team ended the Connecticut Sun’s season to reach the Finals vs. the defending champs. “I didn’t particularly like the superteam thing . . . [but] it’s going to be a great series, and it’s a promotion for the WNBA, isn’t it? It’s New York. We haven’t done it for so long, but we’re playing the champions from last year. I think it’s going to be a really competitive series, and, hopefully, more and more people turn their eyes to the game, and we can continue to grow it.”
And while the ratings will more than likely prove different in the end, it’s the cultural currency of the series that seems to be caught in the inescapable trap of America’s belittling psyche when it comes to women’s sports. Just wait eight months for this wrong to be proved: When the Bucks and Celtics meet in May in the Eastern Conference finals in the NBA. Wait for the elevated descriptions that will be attached to their series, wait for the attention that will be given and paid to it. The hype will be real. Best thing since sliced cornbread from Luella’s is the story that will be sold. Or at least the best since the Warriors played the Lakers in that ultra-publicized playoff “epic” (sic) last season.
Just the sub-minimal treatment played by the Big 3 (ESPN.com, FoxSports.com, Yahoosports.com) and how they continue to play it. Or how it’s treated across broadcast platforms. ESPN (who’s carrying the W Finals) paid $27 million in 2021 for WNBA TV rights, which included the All-Star Game and all postseason games. By 2025, the last year of the ESPN-WNBA deal, the annual payout is set at $33 million. But with very little front-forwarding presence on its biggest shows (‘‘Get Up,’’ ‘‘First Take,’’ ‘‘The Pat McAfee Show,’’ ‘‘Around the Horn,’’ ‘‘PTI,’’ etc.), it makes one wonder if the bag-strap holders in sports even give a bleep.
“We know that the more we invest, the more we grow the leagues [WNBA and NCAAW championships], the harder it’s going to be for us to renew,” ESPN president Jim Pitaro said in June while speaking about the company’s current rights deals with the WNBA and NCAAW sports. “From my perspective, that’s a high-class problem.”
Problem. A funny word choice. Usually in this business “problems” are never anything anyone wants to sustain. But more than that is the “tinge” of sexism that is dripping from the use of the word in the context of who it is being targeted against. And the bigger “problem” is we all know Pitaro is not the only one who feels that way.
Unfortunately, way too many lean in that same direction, into those same unsaid beliefs. Some of you who are reading this column. The obfuscation of it all. The fight for equality in sports is not simply about paychecks and payments, it’s — more than anything — about the mentality of a society seeing and treating female athletes the same as we do their male counterparts. I mean, just because Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu (yet) or Wilson and Chelsea Gray aren’t Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray doesn’t mean the media’s treatment of them and our following suit should be their forever reminder.
