This summer, the WNBA celebrates its thirtieth birthday. The league has never been more popular. Television ratings and attendance have never been higher, merchandise sales have never been hotter, and the sport’s place in our public conversations has never been more prominent.
And yet, for all that, the WNBA is still losing money. It has lost money, in fact, over the course of each of its previous twenty-nine seasons. Someone has been covering the losses and paying the bills. That somebody is the NBA. (The “men’s” basketball league, if you prefer.) And despite being the recipients of all that patience and largesse, many of the players and fans in the WNBA are far from grateful. They’re demanding more – and as we’ve all seen this summer, demanding it happen entirely on their terms.
The WNBA’s loudest voices are convinced that they’ll get that “more.” And that reason is because they’ve spent decades helping to turn the levers of the Political Vise.
Regular readers of this column – and of my book -- know that machine well. The Political Vise, originally designed to ensure that government remained responsive to the people, has long since become a device through which the left manufactures and enforces a consensus. And as far as the WNBA and its most ardent cheerleaders are concerned, the consensus ought to be that misogyny is the sole cause of the league’s enduring financial precariousness. The women who play are woefully underpaid, the consensus says, and the reason is that they play in a country that does not value women.
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