The WNBA might be the most toxic space in sports, and Mike Francesa is blaming leadership and the players for allowing it to happen.
As the WNBA experiences historic growth in popularity, it’s also learning about growing pains to success. Unfortunately, those growing pains have been piled on by people attempting to hijack the discourse around the WNBA. This season, the league has again been scrutinized over its treatment of Caitlin Clark, they’ve had a foul blamed on “white privilege,” calls for commissioner Cathy Engelbert to be replaced, and are being forced into a disingenuous debate around transgender athletes.
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Amid the mounting tensions around the WNBA, Francesa was asked about the league on his podcast this week, and the longtime sports host was quick to blame leadership and the players.
“They have turned their league into a bubbling, volcanic, political, chaotic situation where every nut is now getting involved politically in the WNBA on all different levels,” Francesa ranted. “It’s the worst thing that could have ever happened. I blame the people who run the league, I blame the players who didn’t have the long-range vision and didn’t have the smarts to realize what Caitlin Clark was going to do for their league, and instead, tried to hurt her and run her out of the league at every point.”
You’re asking professional athletes to roll out the red carpet and thank Caitlin Clark for joining their league. That goes against everything a competitor stands for. The problem is less about the way Clark was treated, and more about the way her treatment was embellished by the media.
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“There were revolts against Pete Maravich when he came to the NBA,” Francesa recalled. “He broke up a very good Atlanta Hawks team because there was insane jealousy and people felt he hadn’t earned anything and they felt he was just a self-promoting showboat. Caitlin Clark came to that league and energized it in a way that they had never seen possible. They had never been able to sell that league to anybody, and she sold it to everybody. And they’re all trying to ruin it. And now it’s become a political mess way past just the issues with Caitlin Clark. The league’s a disaster right now.”
It’s not the players trying to ruin the success Clark has brought with her to the WNBA, it’s the people who dislike the league but claim to be Clark supporters.
The league is as successful from a financial, talent, and entertainment standpoint as it’s ever been, but the discourse around the WNBA is a disaster. And the WNBA does deserve blame for doing an awful job of navigating a minefield. They’ve stepped on obvious red flags that could have easily been avoided. But the toxic discourse now has people who care about the WNBA seeking to avoid talking about it, and people who hate the league running to join the conversation.
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