Women's sports must strive for better than equality
Blueprints are fine. Customization is necessary.
Hi, friends. Women’s sports are, as you know, booming. The product is ready. The players are ready. The passion is growing by the minute. The leaders? Well, time and time again, they come up short by enabling a culture where the abuse of athletes is tolerated, even celebrated, and diehard fans are mistreated and left behind.
This toxicity, exploitation, and incompetence is often justified by pointing to similar environments and norms men’s sports.
But while it’s fine to use men’s sports as a blueprint, customizations should be encouraged. As women’s sports build, the leaders have a CHOICE about what kind of leagues they want to build and what king of fanbases and sponsorships they want to cultivate.
We’ve talked about this before here at Power Plays, but it’s a topic that’s always worth revisiting. And this month alone there have been multiple examples — from the WNBA commissioner failing to denounce racial abuse, to NWSL GMs complaining about player empowerment, to the LPGA turning the opening day of the Solheim Cup into a logistical catastrophe for fans — of people in positions of power in women’s sports showing that they’re not up the task.
Going forward, gender equality shouldn’t be the goal for women’s sports; they deserve better than that, particularly in the areas of inclusivity, player safety, and fan engagement.
Inclusivity
A couple of weeks ago, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert was asked by CNBC anchor Tyler Mathisen how the league planned to deal with the “darker … more menacing” social media attacks WNBA players are receiving from fans “where race has been introduced in the conversation, where sexuality is sometimes introduced into the conversation.”
It was a well-crafted question that gave Engelbert the opportunity to explicitly address and condemn the racist and sexist attacks that have come along with the increase in media attention the WNBA has received this year, and to affirm the league’s commitment to inclusivity.
Power Plays is sponsored by the Working Family Party’s “Basketball House,” an organization that seeks “to build political power for the multiracial working class by creating community in our fandoms and making collective civic engagement convenient, accessible, and fun.”
The WFP is collecting feedback from WNBA fans about fan experience, labor environment for players, and more, ahead of the upcoming collective bargaining agreement negotiations between the WNBA Players Association and WNBA. You can fill out their survey here to have your voice heard!
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Engelbert botched the layup. She stressed how good the rivalry between Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark has been for the league, and said that players should just ignore insults on social media.
“There's no more apathy. Everybody cares,” Engelbert said. “It is a little of that [Larry] Bird-Magic [Johnson] moment if you recall from 1979, when those two rookies came in from a big college rivalry, one white, one Black. And so we have that moment with these two. But the one thing I know about sports, you need rivalry. That's what makes people watch. They want to watch games of consequence between rivals. They don't want everybody being nice to one another.”
Now, look. Rivalries? They’re wonderful! Both Clark and Reese are bringing passionate eyeballs to the WNBA in droves, and so much good comes with that, for players, fans, and executives. But that wasn’t the question. Engelbert was explicitly asked about the dark side of this new era, a dark side that is blatantly apparent to anyone who is paying even a modicum of attention.
It took multiple days for the commissioner to apologize to players and admit her response “missed the mark.” But her inability to answer that question head-on highlighted how out of touch she is with the lives of her players, and wreaked of privilege and indifference.
It also completely downplayed and whitewashed how much racial tension was present in the Bird vs. Magic rivalry; failed to account for how much social media changes the game when it comes to athletes and harassment; and completely ignored the ways that gender and sexuality exacerbate the issue, something that Bird and Magic did not have to deal with.
WNBA players are struggling massively with the vitriol they’re being exposed to right now, from old and new fans alike. They’re crying out for help. They deserve to be heard.
“Here is the answer that the Commissioner should have provided to the very clear question regarding the racism, misogyny, and harassment experienced by the Players,” the WNBPA said in a statement.
“There is absolutely no place in sport — or in life — for the vile hate, racist language, homophobic comments, and the misogynistic attacks our players are facing on social media. This is not about rivalries or iconic personalities fueling a business model. This kind of toxic fandom should never be tolerated or left unchecked. It demands immediate action, and frankly, should have been addressed long ago.”
Nobody is expecting Cathy Engelbert to solve racism. Nobody believes that there is one thing she can say or do that will make players stop receiving hate on social media. But this is certainly a case where you have got to get caught trying. Instead of pointing to the abuse and harassment that men’s players also have to deal with and telling players to get thicker skin, be bold enough to say that there must be a better way, and then put significant resources towards making it happen.
It should not be radical for a sport that is built on the backs of the labor of Black women, many of them queer, to have a zero-tolerance policy for sexism, racism, homophobia, and transphobia. It should be the bare minimum.
Safety
Of course, the WNBA isn’t the only league struggling to create, or even envision, a safe space for its players. And unfortunately, the danger isn’t always coming from fans, and the abuse isn’t just happening virtually.
The NWSL is still in the process of rebuilding trust with its players in the wake of the abuse scandal that rocked it back in 2021 when the Sally Yates report found that emotional abuse and sexual misconduct were systemic issues across the league. Among the specific revelations, former Chicago Red Stars head coach Rory Dames was accused by youth players and national-team players of 14 accounts of sexual, verbal, and emotional abuse; former Racing Louisville head coach Christy Holly was accused of showing pornography and sexually assaulting a player during private film sessions; and former North Carolina Courage head coach Paul Riley was found to have sexually coerced and harassed multiple players. These were deeply traumatic instances that were covered up for decades in some cases.
In many ways, the NWSL has done a good job of paving a better path forward — the new CBA revealed earlier this month is an example of how much the relationship between players and management has improved. But behind the scenes, it seems everyone isn’t on the same page.
Last week, ESPN’s Jeff Kassouf published an anonymous survey about the state of the league from all 14 general managers. It was a great peek behind the curtain, and revealed, among other things, that GMs agree on the importance of parity in the league, and disagree about the rate of spending. But the most damning part of the report was the section on how the NWSL has changed since the abuse scandal. According to Kassouf, multiple GMs believe that the reforms to ensure the safety of players have “gone too far.”
“I think it's still a very stressful place for staff,” one anonymous GM said. “I think you have to be very calculated in every conversation, every interaction that you have with athletes. We have to err on the side of extremely positive or conservative policies that I think in any other professional or corporate environment wouldn't really necessarily exist.”
When I read that quote, I was absolutely stunned. We are not even four years removed from the Yates report. Stories about abuse in women’s soccer still drop on a weekly basis. Coaches and GMs and owners should lead with caution in every single interaction they have with players. They should second guess their instincts when it comes to management and leadership, because they grew up in the abusive system, too, and likely internalized some bad habits along the way.
It’s not that I think all of these GMs are predators-in-waiting. But the model of sports management that involves perpetually-angry and hard-nosed coaches and analytical GMs who see players as a number on a stat sheet, rather than as a full-fledged human being, has been down-right romanticized in men’s sports over the year. Women athletes are standing in their power and demanding an end to business as usual. Apparently, for some, that’s a lot to ask.
“It is disingenuous to simultaneously agree that the league has been completely transformed and we've created a healthier, better work environment and culture, and to simultaneously claim that players have too much power, because you can't have one without the other,” NWSLPA president Meghann Burke told ESPN.
“The players did the work of transforming this league. There was no savior — no league, no team, no one else who was going to come in and transform NWSL. It was the players themselves.”
Fan appreciation
This newsletter is already longer than I set out for it to be, but I want to take a minute to talk about the relationship between fans and women’s sports, and my concerns about the future of said relationship.
Earlier this month the LPGA hosted the Solheim Cup, a biannual team competition in women’s golf that pits Europeans vs. Americans. The event, held in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., was expected to be a breakthrough moment for women’s golf in the United States, a chance for it to capture a piece of the momentum that has engulfed women’s sport over the past two years. While the event ended in triumph, with the U.S. winning the cup for the first time since 2017, it started as poorly as possible, with fans waiting literal hours in a mile-long line in a parking lot to catch official busses to the golf course. When play opened up, the stands at the first tee, one of the most raucous sites in golf, was only fractionally full.
The LPGA apologized and fixed the issue for the rest of the weekend, but there is truly no excuse for botching such basic logistics so badly on such a marquee stage. It failed players and fans.
Women’s sports has, historically, been more accessible, affordable, and friendly for fans to appreciate in person. Organizations like the WNBA and LPGA have expressly marketed themselves as such.
But now, especially in the WNBA, prices for tickets are surging. This usually generates positive headlines, evoking awe at how in-demand the league is these days, especially when Caitlin Clark plays. But there’s a down side.
Long-time season-ticket holders for teams such as the Chicago Sky, New York Liberty, and Phoenix Mercury have seen prices for their seats double, even triple, with little in the way of communication, transparency, and consideration from the teams. Some price increases are inevitable, of course; I’m not expecting owners to run their teams like a charity, that doesn’t help anyone.
But is it possible for women’s sports flourish without the greed that has overtaken men’s sports? Can the leaders purposefully decide to include long-time fans and grassroots supporters in their growth strategies? It’s notable that the Las Vegas Aces, who this year became the first WNBA team in history to sell out of season ticket memberships, and who have already sold out of all their season ticket memberships for the 2025 season, made a conscious effort not to raise prices too much from 2024 to 2025. And before announcing price increases this summer, team owner Mark Davis sat down with reporters and addressed them directly. (Ultimately, the most expensive court-side packages went from $10,000 to $13,200, just a $100 increase per game; and upper-bowl season tickets remained $20 per game.)
Intentionality matters.
Thanks for the info on the Aces: that is exactly what I think WNBA teams should be doing to strike a balance between generating (limited) revenue and retaining the fans that helped make this growth possible. Biggest increases on the highest-priced seats, no increases in the upper bowl (aside from having two extra home games). Folks with the most expensive seats are almost always best positioned to absorb an increase, but the bulk of the crowd is in the upper bowl, and keeping that affordable helps long-time fans continue to attend games (and, in some cases, maybe keeps them coming until they have a bigger budget and can afford to try to get better seats).
My general feeling about men's major-league sporting events is that they're very corporate, that many of the better seats go to companies instead of fans, that those companies use the tickets as a writeoff to hide profits and generally give the tickets away to folks who aren't necessarily that interested in the games (to be fair I should mention that I have attended a few Colts and Pacers games on my company's dime). At some point, owners seem to have decided that they needed to make as much money as possible from ticket sales, and so regular fans have been constantly pushed upwards and outwards.
As a Fever STH, I'm still waiting to find out our ticket prices for next year, which is unusual - in previous seasons, we'd usually have had those prices by now. Our seats are good ones, and I don't mind paying more for them; I'd certainly prefer that our tickets go up more rather than increasing tickets a lesser amount across the board. But I fear that a franchise that averaged about 1800 fans per game just two seasons ago - and didn't even bother to report attendance three years ago, for reasons you can guess - is going to decide that the people who should benefit the most from the arrival of Caitlin Clark and the substantial increase in quality of her team's play are not the fans who stuck with the team all these years (there are folks who've been watching the team 6 times as long as I have), and not even a group of people, but a single person - the billionaire whose biggest contribution to the franchise seems to have been voting against anything that might help them get a better environment to play in, until it became obvious that if Caitlin had to fly commercial then he would be seen as part of the reason that was happening.
It's a shame, because there's been a good bit of recent investment in the league that's seemed to tip it toward explosive growth rather than status quo ... and yet two of the ownership groups that are part of the "let's build this thing" faction are also folks who are ratcheting up prices beyond reason. The environment at the WNBA games I've attended is a welcome change from many men's sporting events, and I'd love it if WNBA owners, including Herb Simon, were making active efforts to keep it that way.
I was a Sky season ticket holder the first few years of the franchise's existence. When I moved, I was too far to attend every game, but I still went to a handful of games every year. I moved again last year. Yes, I know, I move too much! HAHA But, tickets doubled what I paid the previous season. I am too far away to go to a night game and I have to admit, the cost was a bit of a deterrent to travel 90 miles one way to go to a rare day game.
A friend had some Sunday late afternoon tickets she couldn't use, so I went to one game this past season. The lines were so long to get in. It was super crowded walking around. I loved it because the WNBA is such a great product. I'm glad more people are finding it. But, the crowds are different. The W was known as family friendly and everyone knew the game. There weren't too many casual fans. At the game I went to last season, not as many people were mumbling about the intricate details of what we were watching. I'm glad the fan base is growing. It's unfortunate that people who have money are just now finding the game because it's a trend or popular and driving up the prices. The league can't be marketed as family friendly/a good value any more.
I get the owners need to make money. They should be doing better things with the money they are making. Speaking of which, the Sky owner doesn't seem to want to invest in the team and should sell.