Aliyah Boston, one of the most dominant and standout players in women’s college basketball, was selected with the top pick in Monday night’s WNBA draft.
It’s a big deal – a milestone for every player and a key day for building excitement as a new WNBA season is about to begin.
But leading up to the big event, much of the talk surrounding women’s hoops has revolved around two players returning to the college game — without heading to the pros.
Ever since Angel Reese made a taunting gesture to Caitlin Clark at the end of the NCAA Division I championship game between Louisiana State and Iowa nearly two weeks ago, players, fans and Internet rabble-rousers have weighed in on the racial double standards that exist in women. Gameplay: How ponytailed, high-scoring white players are praised for their sass while trash-talking black women are lambasted for it.
The issue of racial hypocrisy has become a bone of contention in the WNBA, a league where 80 percent of the players are women of color but which, players say, has struggled to promote its black stars. Nneka Ogwumike, president of the National Women’s Basketball Players Association and one of the league’s most exciting talents, lamented that the style, skills and personalities of black women are driving the league forward, but “in terms of perception, reception and marketing” of women’s professional basketball, “they don’t get the credit.”
White stars like Breanna Stewart, Sue Bird and Kelsey Plum have made similarly sharp observations.
Plum, a guard for the Las Vegas Aces, said that when she entered the league as the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2017, she felt she was given preferential treatment by the league’s marketing machinery because she is straight and white. “It’s absolutely a problem in our league. Just straight.”
Is there any hope the league will know what to do with Boston, which became a college basketball star last season during South Carolina’s run to a national title?
She emerged as the consensus national player of the year in 2022 for both her personality and ability. During national shows, Boston showed off her playfulness, her dancing and her honest thinking during interviews where she chose her words as carefully as she chooses the pink or orange or blue of her next set of braids.
In a perfect world, she’ll end up being embraced and promoted as much as her white counterparts in a league that’s still struggling to gain ground with the average sports fan.
I want to believe that the multitude of talented, young black basketball players who entered the WNBA draft will end up being embraced and promoted as much as their white counterparts.
But I can’t say they will.
Ogwumike, who won both the WNBA title and MVP award while starring for the Los Angeles Sparks in 2016, said at the start of each season, the league still stresses to players the importance of decorum.
“There’s this perception that they want our game to be family oriented and that means we don’t talk trash and there’s no real, like, real physical expression,” he said.
Ogwumike said each year she pushed back against the requirement, citing respect for the game, “because we’re not allowed to be wholeheartedly ourselves,” adding that her male peers in the NBA are “admired and sought after” for their antics.
Increasing the contribution of black talent to the WNBA is high on the list of ways players would like to see their league evolve.
Case in point: The league is increasingly touted as a cultural trendsetter. Pointing to off-field fashion as an example — think camera shots of players dressed in boundary-pushing, often gender-bending attire as they head to the arena locker room — Ogwumike said those who start trends often lack the their honorarium.
“There are a lot of black players at W who have been dressing fashionably for a long time and setting trends for a long time,” he said. “But they are not the ones who are recognized as trendsetters.”
The bias toward whiteness can be quantified.
A recent study of the WNBA’s media exposure on popular sites ESPN, CBS Sports and Sports Illustrated found a yawning gap in coverage between games. People like me, journalists who cover women’s basketball and care about the untapped potential of women’s sports, need to look in the mirror and think about who we’re focusing on and how we’re talking about them.
In 2020, a year when race was at the forefront of the American conversation, black players won 80 percent of the league’s postseason awards: MVP, Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, to name three. And yet, according to the study’s University of Massachusetts researchers, Risa Isard and Nicole Melton, black players received about 50 percent less focused attention than their white counterparts.
That same year, the WNBA invested more in marketing, pledging to spend $1 million annually to emphasize performance and diversity, which has directly impacted several black players such as A’ja Wilson, Betnijah Laney and Jonquel Jones. And as part of a $75 million investment built into 2022, the WNBA planned to prioritize marketing and improve its website and app.
Another nugget: Former South Carolina star Wilson, who has won two MVP awards since being drafted No. 1 overall in 2018 by the Aces, was the only black player in 2020 who received more media attention by Commissioner Kathy Engelbert.
In 2021, Wilson was the only black player to crack the top five in jersey sales, following Sabrina Ionescu, Bird and Diana Taurasi and ranking just ahead of Stewart.
No, I’m not saying the WNBA is full of extreme racism. Far from it, the WNBA is a model in many ways.
That said, the league is just a microcosm of a larger world that is struggling mightily with all the pesky issues surrounding race.
It is time to overcome the old dichotomies and expand the scope of what is possible for female athletes. The WNBA can help by fully embracing Boston’s stories and Stewart and Wilson, along with all the other players of all hues and identities who go about their business in their own unique ways.
Let’s see the league show that.
