Please, the last thing the WNBA (and the world) needs now is drama
NOTE: Candice Wiggins truly may have had a bad experience in the WNBA, I can’t discuss her feelings, but she should’ve been more careful about her words…
If you’re not in the few percentage of the world population that follows women’s basketball news on a daily (even hourly) basis, you probably only know the WNBA because you saw somewhere that one of the players is hot or the media spread one of its very few polemic episodes.
This is sad.
For years and years, when I mention the WNBA I have had to describe it as the “NBA for women”. And that is because if I say it is a professional women’s basketball league, people just won’t take it serious. But, somehow, if the men’s league is put as a comparison bar, then I hear the “oooooh, nice”.
I’m 25 and I’m Brazilian. In the country where I was born and raised, women’ sports is not cool. I was told to stop playing basketball and football as a teenager and young adult because I would become a lesbian. And I was good at them.
My passion for sports and women’s right grew much bigger than I expected and even though I didn’t pursue a career as an athlete, I became a journalist. Actually, I became a journalist, PR, photographer and videomaker. At 23 years old I was the most requested press professional in my country regarding women’s basketball and still, I didn’t make one cent out of it.
It was then that I understood Diana Taurasi’s reason to sit down the 2015 WNBA season. She was offered a huge amount of money in Russia to do what she loves the most and is the best at. Finally, she was being recognized in a way that she would have a safe future for herself and family.
There is an unspoken pressure on professional players life that for them to really be considered good athletes they need to play in the WNBA. And, somehow, that’s right. It’s where they will have more visibility and be known by fans other than from their origin country.
However, that’s a paradoxal reality. A veteran player in the WNBA can make not much more than 100k a season. It doesn’t matter how many rings she’s won, how much time she has on that team, nor if she has four gold medals at Olympic Games (#RESPECT Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Tamika Catchings, Teresa Edwards and Lisa Leslie). That’s what the Collective Bargaining Agreement says.
That being said, a top player who makes a decent amount of money in Turkey and Spain has to low part of her income to have game time in the USA. It means a year round of games, hard gym times and long trips. And the same happens for American players. They go from a top college career that has media coverage and sold out games to a professional life that barely has coverage from the press and games that are hard to sell tickets.
This reality has caused an amount of unexpected and too soon retirements. The hardest one to take lately was probably Lauren Jackson, in 2016.
I’ve heard all kinds of arguments that try to justify the low amount of money WNBA players make in the USA. “Their season lasts shorter”. “It has less TV time”. “There’s no income from the public”. But all these arguments really are summoned into two that reveal the misogyny behind all of that: “they get pregnant” and “they are women”.
The last two ones are used to justify less income for women in any kind of job. Actually, a Brazilian representative who is set to run for President in 2018 has publicly said that it is fair that women don’t make as much money as men because they get pregnant. A politician. A representative in the house. One of the top candidates for the next elections. HOW. SCARY. IS. THAT?
In the past days one piece of news has sorrounded the WNBA world. Players, media, fans and even the players association have spoken up about it. Candice Wiggins, another player who retired still young because of the crazy reality women’s basketball have to go through — at least that what she had said in her retirement letter — suddenly decide to speak about he “sad days in the WNBA”.
According to the former guard, she was bullied in the league because she was straight and didn’t agree to fit in the lifestyle of the other “98% gay players in the WNBA”. She told the San Diego Union Tribune that what was supposed to be her dream became the total opposite.
One day later, she spoke to the same newspaper again and declared that she doesn’t take back any of the words that she said because they are based on HER experience. She aldo said that her intention is not to break the dreams of those who want to play in the WNBA and her desire is that everyone can agree to their differences and contribute to a better world. But, hasn’t she just taken a big step backwards towards this goal?
The WNBA has been one of the major platforms for the support of LGBTQ rights in the past years. The league has taken actions to speak loudly about its desire to include people of whichever gender identity and not in a passive way. Advances were made. Players spoke out. Who didn’t have chills when that 2016 Playoffs “Watch Me” commercial was released and in the “love who I want” line Seimone Augustus was shown with her wife and family?
It is just beautiful!
The LGBTQ matter has gotten a higher visibility in the WNBA since the 2013 draft class. Brittney Griner meant much more to the league than just a great player who can dunk. She spoke out UNAFRAID. And her braveness allowed girls who were scared of what the world would think of them to finally get out and be themselves. More players “came out” (which is an expression that I hate because it brings the reality that people are hidden because of, what, who they love?).
The next season, in 2014, the WNBA launched the Pride month. Another huge step, something that no other professional league had ever made. Even though it is impossible not to recognize it also as a marketing action, there is no denying it is like a sign saying “you are welcome to be who you are here, don’t be afraid”.
Truth is, yes, the WNBA has a large fan basis made of people who identify themselves as gay. But how important that actually is? I mean, when people talk about LeBron James, Steph Curry, Dwight Howard, Kawhi Leonard, do people care if they like men or women? Do people ask how many girls they sleep with? When Kobe scored 81 points on the Toronto Raptors, guys didn’t say “oh, but that’s the Raptors”. So, why does Elena Delle Donne get a “yea, but nodoby was watching” and a “where’s the oven” when she scores 45 points on the Atlanta Dream (by the way, how amazing was Elena reading those mean tweets?)?
It all comes to the big picture. The WNBA suffers unders prejudice because it is a league made of women, a minority that all along history has been diminished because… well, basically because we are born with a vagina instead of a penis. The world claims it has evolved, but still, the country that is the center culture of the planet got to elect a man who says “grab them by the pussy. You can have anything”; Russia plans on descriminalising domestic violence agains wifes; in lots of places girls can’t have the option to abort even if the child was from a violence situation.
The words said by Candice Wiggins hurt a whole league, but, moreover, it has hurt a movement that has taken larger and larger scales. It’s not only a matter of LGBTQ rights. It’s a matter of women’s rights. It’s about bringing attention to what those amazing women who play amazing basketball do on the court, not a contest to know who are the 2% straight. And, honestly, what difference does it make?
That’s the kind of drama the WNBA doesn’t need.
