CHICAGO — Benita Harrison-Diggs traveled from Virginia Beach to make the WNBA All-Star Game a weekend with friends. She recalled the excitement surrounding the league’s “extraordinary” inaugural season in 1997 and hoped 2022 would match it.
Harrison-Diggs, 63, was among hundreds of fans outside Wintrust Arena who turned out to cheer on the best women basketball players in the country. “The atmosphere is electric,” she said, smiling.
But as excited as Harrison-Diggs was to be in Chicago for All-Star Weekend, she also felt let down.
“I’m a little disappointed that these women, as hard as they play, don’t get the same recognition that the NBA does,” she said. “They don’t get the same attention, coverage and most importantly not the same money.”
Harrison-Diggs came to the arena with friends for the WNBA Skill Tournament and 3-Point Tournament only to find they were closed to the public and being held at a convention center next door. Instead, she and her friends sat in a nearby courtyard and watched the action as people would at home: on a television screen. The competitions were supposed to be broadcast on ESPN but were moved to ESPNU at the last minute while ESPN showed the end of the men’s doubles tournament at Wimbledon. Many fans do not have access to the lesser-known ESPNU channel, and some have complained on social media. ESPN later announced it would re-broadcast the Skills competition.
“You wouldn’t have hit the men,” Harrison-Diggs said.
There’s a surge of commitment and enthusiasm for the WNBA as it enters its 26th season, but the league’s growing fanbase has a critical eye. Much of the league’s goodwill is built around a core group of stars including Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Sylvia Fowles and Candace Parker. But as it begins to retire, the WNBA is entering a new era of younger, social media-savvy talent and a fanbase that demands more from the league.
“I would have liked to see that actually feel like they had thought, some foresight of what a weekend is actually supposed to be like,” said Anraya Palmer, who traveled from Atlanta for the All-Star Game.
Palmer, who is black, was 6 years old when the WNBA made its debut. She was immediately enthusiastic. “It was the first time I’d seen female basketball players, especially female athletes, who looked like me, ‘Oh, I can actually grow up and do this,'” Palmer said.
Palmer grew up teaching, but she’s also an Atlanta Dream fan. She said the league has changed for the better in many ways, but All-Star Weekend is a prime example of an area for improvement. “It kind of feels like some things might have been thrown together at the last second,” she said. “But the die-hard fans will still come out and have a good time.”
The WNBA said it will not have access to the Wintrust Arena until Saturday night because it is being used by a cookware convention. The league held invitation-only outdoor fan events and concerts, but commissioner Cathy Engelbert said security concerns over mass shootings contributed to the league’s decision to close the concerts to the public. City and Chicago Police Department spokesmen declined to comment on the recordings.
On Sunday, 9,572 fans attended the All-Star Game at the Wintrust Arena, which seats approximately 10,400. A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces and Fowles of Minnesota captained Team Wilson while Breanna Stewart and her Seattle teammate Bird led Team Stewart. Team Wilson defeated Team Stewart, 134-112.
Brittney Griner, the seven-time All-Star center for the Phoenix Mercury, was named an honorary starter. She has been jailed in Russia for drug offenses since February. Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, sat at court. All 22 All-Stars wore jerseys with Griner’s name and #42 for the second half.
Aaron Brown of Chicago, a longtime Fowles fan, said he would not have missed the All-Star Game “for anything.” Brown said most men find women’s basketball “boring” but for him women’s football is “purer and more entertaining”.
“The beauty of women’s basketball is the fundamentals — they play with an IQ and a skill level that even the men don’t have,” he said. “You actually have to use not only your body but also your mind. Most of the time men can get by with sports but lack the basics.”
His favorite player is Aces guard Kelsey Plum. She equaled Maya Moore’s record for points in an All-Star Game with 30 points and was named Most Valuable Player. Brown said Plum, like many other players, doesn’t get the same level of attention as the league’s bigger names.
“They kind of just hit the same five or six,” he said. “There are so many other good players who are here now and won’t be leaving in two years. You deserve to shine.”
Detroit-area Patrick Schmidt agreed, saying he would like to see the league “showcase more of its black superstars in addition to the legends it’s making.”
Some fans also spoke about the difference in pay between WNBA and NBA players.
In 2022, the salary cap for any WNBA team is about $1.4 million, and the maximum player salary is just under $230,000. In the NBA, the salary cap for teams for the 2022-23 season will be more than $123 million, and the top players earn nearly $50 million a year.
“It doesn’t make sense that a star basketball player would make less than a bencher in the NBA,” said Sterling Hightower, a Chicago fan. “I’m a big NBA fan. There are people in the NBA I don’t even know who make more than Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird.”
Cynthia Smith, a 24-year Liberty season ticket holder, put it bluntly, “Out of sight is out of mind,” adding, “I don’t know if we’re going to get fair pay, but we need fair pay in exposition.”
Over the weekend, many players, like Mercury guard Skylar Diggins-Smith, echoed the sentiments from fans: “Get us more on TV,” she said.
Fans have long complained about how difficult it can be to watch games such as B. Switching between multiple platforms like ESPN, Twitter, Facebook and a buggy WNBA app.
“You tell me I have to go through three apps, I don’t look at that. Let’s be honest here,” Wilson said. “I think that’s just key to how the league can grow.”
Plum agreed, saying she’d like to see the league make it easier to watch games. “We understand the product is great and when we get people to watch the game, they love it,” she said. “But the hardest part is getting people there.”
Bird, who is retiring this year after 21 seasons in the league, said the key is renegotiating television rights over the next few years.
“This is the moment,” Bird said. “That could really break things up and change the whole course of our league.”
Nneka Ogwumike, a Los Angeles Sparks forward and WNBA Players’ Union president, said the league is “on the brink of something that can really grow into something big.”
Ogwumike said, “The magic word is expansion.”
There are 12 teams with 12 squad places each. Engelbert said the league is analyzing demographics, women’s basketball “fandom,” and viewership data for 100 cities, and new teams could be on the horizon by 2025. She also said finding the right media package is her “top business priority” for this year.
One of the biggest areas of growth for the league has been social justice activism. The next wave of activism could revolve around abortion rights after Supreme Court Roe v. Wade fell. Stewart called the decision “disgusting” and “heartbreaking” and said she expects there will soon be discussions about how to deal with events in states that ban abortion.
“As we continue to fight these social issues and injustices based on race, gender, sexual orientation and all of those things, the league has to have our back in every way,” she said.
Bird said the shift toward addressing social and political issues represented a tremendous transformation among gamers.
“Thinking back on my career, I was definitely part of a generation that shut up and dribbles where we did that – we didn’t complain too much or talk too much about things because we were scared of it.” She said. “We found our strength in our voice and I’m just proud that I got to be a small part of it at the end of my career.”