Aaliyah Boston, one of the most decorated players and medalists in women’s college basketball, was named the top pick in the WNBA draft Monday night.
It’s a big deal – a milestone for any player and an essential day for building excitement as the new WNBA season begins soon.
But in the lead-up to the big event, a lot of the talk about women’s hoops has revolved around two players returning to the college game — not heading to the pros.
Ever since Angel Reese made a sarcastic nod 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 bums have taken stock of the racial double standards that exist in the ladies. The Game: How ponytailed and high-scoring white players are lauded for their shouting while trash-talking black women are vilified for it.
The issue of racial hypocrisy has been a bone of contention in the WNBA, where 80 percent of players are women of color, but that, players say, has struggled to promote its black stars. Nica Ogomik, president of the National Women’s Basketball Association and one of the league’s most compelling talents, lamented that it’s the style, skill, and personalities of black women that drive the league forward, but that “when it comes to the perceptions, reception, and marketing of ‘women’s professional basketball,’ they” They don’t get credit.”
White stars like Breanna Stewart, Sue Bird, and Kelsey Plum have made similarly sharp remarks.
Plame, a guard with the Las Vegas Aces, said that when she entered the league as the first draft pick in 2017, she felt like she was getting preferential treatment One of the league’s marketing machines because it’s straight and white. “It’s definitely a problem in our league. Just straight up.”
Is there any hope that the league will know what to do with Boston, which became the star of college basketball last season during South Carolina’s run to the national title?
She emerged as the National Consensus Player of the Year in 2022 due to her personality and skills. During the national broadcast, Boston showed off her fun, dancing, and straight-forward thinking during interviews, choosing her words carefully as she chose pink, orange, or blue hues for her next set of braids.
In a perfect world, they would end up being embraced and promoted like their white counterparts in the league who are still struggling to get a foothold with the average sports fan.
I want to believe that a large number of talented black basketball players who are selected in the WNBA draft will end up being embraced and promoted just as much as their white counterparts.
But I can’t say they will.
Ogwumike, who won a WNBA title and Most Valuable Player award while starring for the Los Angeles Sparks in 2016, said that at the start of every season, the league still stresses to players the importance of fitness.
“There’s a perception that they want our game to be family-oriented and that means no trash talking and no real natural expression, like, yeah,” she said.
Each year she retracted the request, coined out of respect for the game, Ogwumike said, “because we’re not allowed to be our full selves within reason,” adding that her male NBA peers “admire and look up to” for their antics.
Raising the contributions of black talent to the WNBA is high on the list of ways players want to advance their league.
Case in point: The League is increasingly marketing itself as a cultural leader. Pointing to off-the-field fashion as one example — think of camera shots of players dressed as boundary-pushing, often gender-bending outfits as they head into arena locker rooms — Ogomek said those who start trends often don’t get what they deserve.
“There are a lot of black guys in W who have been dressing trendy for a long time and setting trends for a long time,” she said. “But they are not the ones to be recognized as trendsetters.”
The tendency toward albedo can be measured.
A recent study of the WNBA’s media exposure on popular websites ESPN, CBS Sports, and Sports Illustrated found that there was a Big coverage gap between races. 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 focus on and how we talk about it.
In 2020, a year when racing was at the forefront of American conversations, black players won 80 percent of the league’s postseason awards: Player of the Year, Player of the Year, and Defensive Player of the Year, for example. Not limited to. However, according to University of Massachusetts researchers Reza Izzard and Nicole Melton, black players received nearly 50 percent less attention than their white counterparts.
In the same year, the WNBA invested more in marketing, committed to spending $1 million annually to highlight performance and diversity, which directly affected many black players such as A’ja Wilson, Betnijah Laney, and Jonquel Jones. And as part of a $75 million investment raised in 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 the Aces drafted him first overall in 2018, was the only black player in 2020 to receive more media attention than commissioner Kathy Engelbert.
In 2021, Wilson was the only black player breaking the top five in jersey sales, trailing behind Sabrina Ionescu, Byrd, and Diana Taurasi, and ranking ahead of Stewart.
No, I’m not saying the WNBA is riddled with extreme racism. Apart from that, the WNBA is exemplary in many ways.
However, the league is just a microcosm of a broader world that struggles mightily with all the troubling issues of race.
It’s time to move beyond the old divisions and broaden the scope of what’s possible for mathematics. The WNBA can help by fully embracing Boston stories And Stewart And Wilson, along with all the other guys of every color and identity who flaunt their stuff in their own idiosyncratic ways.
Let’s see the league display that.