- The WNBA is a black queer sport, totally different culture.

Yeah.

The WNBA does not look like the NCAA basketball.

Right.

It's a totally different thing.

And so now you, the WNBA is the perfect platform for a culture clash.

- Hey everyone from KQED in San Francisco, this is Political Breakdown.

I'm Marisa Lagos.

Today on The Breakdown, even as it explodes in popularity, the WNBA has a politics problem.

So does Major League Baseball.

Meanwhile, the White House seems intent on stoking the flames of the culture wars that have erupted over race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Like everything in our polarized nation, it feels like this is all the worst it's ever been.

But haven't sports always been political?

Today, I'm going to be joined by columnist and author Howard Bryant to talk about the latest dust ups, who's to blame, and whether it's on the athletes to push back.

Howard is sports correspondent for NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday.

Welcome to Political Breakdown.

- Thanks for having me.

- Well, I'm thrilled to have you.

I know that you think and write about all of this quite a bit.

And like I said, I mean, it feels like things have become suddenly or at least more political in what is, you know, admittedly a pretty fractured moment in the US.

But sports have always kind of come with a dash of politics, right?

Like do you see this moment as different?

- Well, I think that the moment is different in terms of who's driving the politics or what the politics are.

I think it's always very important to understand what we're talking about when we use the word politics.

Are we talking about, are we talking about politics or is politics a euphemism for race?

Is it a euphemism for something else?

Is it a euphemism for, for labor or for gender or for other things?

I think that it's always much more clear to get away from the terms and get into the material.

What are we actually talking about?

If we're talking about sport being a political vehicle in terms of public policy, yes, 100%.

When there are wars, when there are things happening, when there are pandemics, these sports is used as a way to, you know, not a lot of ways to be the good guy to be an extension of government.

When we're talking about race, absolutely, because the Black athlete has always needed sports as the, the, the one place of meritocracy.

And I think the same thing is happening now when you're adding culture war to it, when you're talking about who the government has decided to, to focus on.

And now the the, the political hay is being made over transgender rights and you know, and the WNBA is suddenly at the center of it.

So I always think it's important to simply be really specific.

What, let's - Yeah, let's do it.

We're all adults.

Let's have conversations about what we're actually talking about.

- Well, let's talk about the WNBA because this is where a lot of this is coming together.

And I, I, I got to just note, like, I'm sitting here in San Francisco where the Valkyries have really been embraced by this city, right?

I mean, that arena, if you have not been there yet, is on fire.

And they just won their bid to host the All-Star Game.

But in general, and in general, not but in general, we've seen the popularity of women's basketball really soar in recent years, and to your point, become this flashpoint.

Do you feel like prior to this recent rise and to Trump 2.0, was the league seen as political?

Were players seen as political?

- Of course it was.

My attitude, number one, is race, class, and gender are the three-third rails of American life.

There's very little that you can discuss in this country seriously without having to discuss each of those.

Even if you determine that they're not a factor in whatever you're talking about, they still have to be discussed.

You have to figure out whether or not there is a component here.

And obviously when we're talking about the WNBA, the, the politics of, of that league had been first highlighted in 2020 during the election when the Atlanta dream essentially got Raphael Warnock elected.

I mean, they got, they, they got involved against their own owner, against Kelly Loeffler.

And so there's no question that the, the league was political.

The league was actively political.

They didn't hide it.

They were very much there in terms of you know, all the players wearing t-shirts in support of you know, the victims of, you know, police violence and such.

And so they were very clearly taking a political stance just as the, as the other leagues were.

- Yeah.

I mean, recently, a lot of the kind of drama and conversation has focused around Indiana Fever.

I want to talk about Sophie Cunningham in a second, but before we even get there, you know, Caitlin Clark emerged as this, you know, huge star and quickly became sort of an avatar for the right.

Why, and like who embraced her?

What were they saying and why do you think that was?

- Well, I think that one, when we're talking about the world of social media, it is a world of avatars.

Our discourse is, is incredibly fractured.

It's, it, it is very rarely all about what we think it's about.

When you're talking about anything these days, it seems to be a, an avatar for something else.

And, and Caitlin Clark, if we think about it from a gender standpoint, Caitlin Clark represented something that we hadn't seen before, which was men getting involved in women's sports.

The rise of women's sports, not just coming from the importance of, of, of sports to women.

I think women have always been interested, especially you go back to Title IX, there was always an interest in, in the empowerment of women to play sports.

But specifically basketball, Caitlin Clark is extremely important because men have traditionally always found a way to dump all over women's basketball to find a way to attack it, to, to denigrate it, to make it seem like it's not quite basketball.

And what is the reason for that?

It's supposed to look a certain way.

And basketball, let's face it, if we're talking about professional basketball especially, how do, what is professional basketball supposed to look like?

It's Black guys leaping through the air, right?

It's an aerial game.

It's Black guys leaping through the air, dunking the basketball.

That's how we view that sport.

And it had always been that way.

And because women's basketball has always been a horizontal game, it's not a vertical game.

There was always a reason to, to dump all over it, to be like, "Oh, it's not really basketball.

It looks like intramural and guys would, would have nothing to do with it."

And then Steph Curry came along.

Right.

And then Steph Curry comes along and Steph Curry is shooting the ball from half court.

And Steph Curry is shooting 30 footers routinely.

And suddenly basketball is no longer just a vertical game.

Now it's a horizontal game.

And now that you've got basketball being accepted, men's basketball being accepted as a horizontal game, now Caitlin Clark comes along at Iowa and now women's basketball is a horizontal game because she's shooting from the same depths that Dame Lillard and Steph Curry and Clay Thompson are shooting from.

Right.

And now that gives men an entry into the sport.

Now it looks like something men can say, "Hey, this looks like something I'll watch."

And so instead of now making fun of the fact that women don't dunk, now we have somebody.

Now there's somebody that we can identify with that makes women's basketball accessible.

And when we talk about accessibility, what are we talking about?

Now we're talking about money.

Yeah.

And now suddenly we have somebody who can really blow this game up and make it lucrative.

Then you add the race piece of it.

And if we talk about, if we're just being honest about the different sports, women's college basketball, you could make a very good argument, is essentially ha- has a great component.

It's a, you know, it's a white girl ponytail sport, right?

So there's a lot, and especially at Iowa.

So you watch that game and that's the way that it looks.

The WNBA is a Black queer sport.

Totally different culture.

Yeah.

The WNBA does not look like the NCAA basketball.

Right.

- It's - A totally different thing.

And so now you, the WNBA is the perfect platform for a culture clash.

- And do you think Caitlin Clark like courted this or was this both sides really the political aisle projecting something onto her?

Well, - That's the avatar piece of it.

So Caitlin Clark is the avatar for the right.

Caitlin Clark is an avatar for a, for, for hostility.

And also the WNBA is the avatar for the, you know, for trans rights.

It's also the avatar for Black women.

It's also the avatar for, you know, for, in a lot of ways, progressive politics, especially if you look at the, the progressive politics from that 2020 election.

So you've got these two, you've got these two opposing forces who are in straight opposition to each other at a time when people are actually paying attention.

Right.

So yes, there's, there's no question that both I don't want to say both sides are because it's not, one is an established culture, the other is an emerging player entering the league.

So Caitlin Clark, does, did she court this?

Well, I think that the, the difficult piece of this is we're all part of this universe, right?

And in being part of it, when you're entering this game, it was very, very clear.

We, I don't think people understood exactly how much it was going to rat- ratchet up, but it was very, very clear that there were forces that were pushing Caitlin Clark in a, in the direction of some form of avatar, some form of leadership, some form of representation.

She was going to represent something.

And that's where class comes in.

And you saw a lot of the male players in the NBA talk about, and a lot of the male punditry and the, the entire male generated hetero sports machine that makes up the billion dollar sports industry.

What were they saying about Caitlin Clark?

She's going to be the one that drives the financial engine.

So now she is a part of this, whether she wants to be or not.

And she hadn't even played her first game yet.

Right.

So all of this has already been placed upon her in terms of what she's representing.

From a business standpoint, she's representing, she's representing money.

And let's not forget, you know, when you're representing money, you're representing, you know, the, a lot of the forces that are covering this industry, the rights holders, everyone else.

They have a vested interest in the success of this.

Yeah.

But she's also, because of the, the gender piece of it and the racial piece of it, she's also in some ways in direct opposition to the existing culture of the WNBA.

So you already are set up for conflict here.

And the question was going to be, okay, how is she going to handle this?

What's she going to do about it?

Can she just show up and play basketball?

Does she want to just show up and play basketball?

Is she going to represent, you know, is she going to come out in concert with Morgan Wallen, right?

Or is she going to, to do some of these things and, and be a, a flashpoint?

And so on the one hand, you can say, okay, she's just a basketball player.

But on the other hand, when you're at her position, just like when you're at LeBron James' position or you're at any superstar's position, you're never just what you are because of what you represent to all of these other groups who may have your best interest at heart or may simply be using you to further their own agendas.

- Right.

Okay.

So I would say from where I sit, Caitlin Clark has at least outwardly tried not to like specifically engage in talking about politics, which stands in contrast to one of her teammates, Sophie Cunningham.

This is another Indiana Fevers player.

And she's emerged, I would say, even maybe more of a flashpoint in these culture wars.

And some of this is because of what you were talking about, which is like this narrative around essentially these white girls in this largely Black dominated league.

And, and it kind of started to grow before we saw Cunningham really courting controversy.

There was a June 2025 game against the Connecticut Sun where she pulled Jacy Sheldon down by the neck.

And then she made some comments about trans girls in sports and an ESPN profile.

Before we get to that, like what was the dust up about that flagrant foul in 2025?

And like what followed it for Cunningham?

- Well, I, I think it's important once again to recognize that there is a distinction between the race, class and gender construction and the individual personalities involved.

And whereas it is completely true that these forces are in play.

It's also true that this idea that the WNBA is some sort of avatar or canary in the coal mine for a coming sort of racial conflict in this, in these sports is sort of nonsense.

There are plenty of white women in the WNBA who are thriving, who are not part of these controversies.

If you look at Paige Bueckers, who's a great player for the Dallas Wings, you look at Sabrina Ionescu, you look at you know, Breanna Stewart, you look at all of these different players.

They're, you know, Kelsey Plum and Cameron Brink.

There's all kinds of different white women who are playing in this, in this game.

The question is the combination of sort of the, the Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham thing where they are sort of representing and a hostility toward the league.

And the choice has been.

I, I don't believe if, even if you're Caitlin Clark or especially if you're Caitlin Clark, you can't just play and say, "I just want everyone to get along because you are being used because there is..." The, the, the, the federal government right now is a hostile force against trans players.

Yeah.

Against this question.

Not even trans players because there's not a trans player in the league about this entire culture war question.

They, it is an aggressive thing.

And so in that aggression, if you ignore it, even though your name is being invoked, and if you ignore it even though you have legislators in Texas who are threatening your league and you do not address them specifically, keep my name out of your mouth, right?

Especially leave me out of this.

If you don't specifically say that, then you look suspect.

Maybe it's not fair to you, but when is life fair?

When you're a superstar?

When you're a, when you are a star, people are looking at you in all kinds of different ways for leadership.

They're looking at you for exploitation in terms of the, in terms of money, in terms of what you represent.

So there's a lot there that she can decide to handle however she wants to handle it, but you can't simply say, "I'm not part of it."

You are part of it.

- Well, she's, I mean, benefited from it.

Like even before the CSPN article and her kind of inserting herself into the trans issue, you saw her sponsorship deals, her sort of - Exactly.

Ability that we're talking about Cunningham here.

- Yes, but that Marisa is exactly what we're talking about in terms of having it both ways.

Right.

- Right?

- Because what.

There is something that's very clear on the table here, and that's money.

- Yeah.

- There, there's a lot of money here.

Right.

And the, and women's sports over the past, especially the WNBA, not women's sports, because Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka and female tennis players have been making huge bank for a lot of, a lot of years.

But in this specific case - But also facing - Some of the racial blowback you're talking about.

Oh - No, no, no.

They face it all.

I'm not, I'm not saying it's clean for them.

No, yeah.

I'm saying that, I'm saying that Caitlin Clark has been positioned as this person who is the one who brought all this money to these players.

And I'm saying that there has been money in other sports.

I mean, they're all still putting up with the same, you know you know, the, the, the same sexism and everything else.

I mean, look at what Jan Stephenson had to go through 40 years ago - Right.

When trying to build up the LPGA.

They put her in a bathtub full of golf balls to, you know, to sell calendars to dudes, right?

Do - You think though, like, I mean, I, I, what you're saying, yes, absolutely, whether you're, you know, just because you're a 25-year-old person who dribbles and shoots well doesn't mean you get to say, "Oh, I don't want to, you know, deal in politics."

But are the institutions also responsible here?

Like the individual teams, Indiana Fever, the WNBA itself, like how would you sort of assess how they've handled all this?

- Everybody has a piece of this.

Yeah.

Everybody has - A - Piece of it.

And how do you think they've - Handled it?

- And I, and I think that they've probably handled it pretty poorly.

Yeah.

But at the same time, at the same time, you can't, when you try to appease hostile situations, you can't win.

I think that one of the biggest mistakes that the WNBA has made is not being out, you know, not being more forceful and protecting themselves and protecting itself, protecting the league, protecting the players.

Because everyone's afraid of the president.

Everyone's afraid of the White House.

Everyone's afraid of the power of the federal government, and rightfully so.

And so you try to, you know, you sort of try to massage your way through it by standing your ground a bit, but not trying to come out and say it out loud.

And, and, and that doesn't work.

Yeah.

So you get sort of caught up in the middle by saying, thinking you're saying something while actually saying nothing.

And one of the important pieces of this is when you are in a hostile environment, it's nonstop.

Every single play is scrutinized.

Every single, you know, a common foul to have the government get involved to say if the fouls against Caitlin Clark, which we believe may be racially motivated, is, I mean, it's an attack on your league.

And if you're Caitlin Clark, you should be embarrassed by this.

But - You're talking about the Trump administration has actually made these threats.

And I think it's important for maybe our listeners who don't follow sports as closely as you do.

Like this is sort of the narrative that Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham, who's come to her, you know, defense as her enforcer, are essentially being fouled because of their race, that they're being attacked in this league.

In what is, if anybody's been to a WNBA or NBA game or a rec league game, a very physical sport to begin with.

Yeah.

A basketball's - Tough game.

Yeah.

And also, I think what it's important, the reason why I brought this up, why I, I, I don't think that this is.

I think it's very, very important to understand that one of the pieces of this that doesn't get discussed nearly enough is that Caitlin Clark is not a likable player.

I mean, her on-court antics are, she's not a friendly player.

She's an in your face combative, difficult player who plays to the refs in a lot of ways.

She's a flopper.

She does.

She's a great player.

Very, very good player.

There's no question about that.

But I mean, there's.

You don't look at her and think that she's not inciting a lot of the hostilities that come her way.

Yeah.

I mean, she's one of those types of players.

Cunningham as well.

The way.

In Cunningham as well, the way they used to talk about Danny Ainge with the Boston Celtics.

She's got a punchable face, right?

I mean, that's what some of those players.

Whenever you looked at Danny Ainge, it was like punchable face, right?

Well, thinking about our own - Draymond Green here in the Bay Area.

- In Draymond.

Well, he's the puncher.

Yeah, well, but you know - He knocked out George.

You love him - If you're rooting for them, but - Yeah.

Exactly.

When he's on your team, you love him.

Exactly.

And I think that this piece of it gets undermined because we're so caught up in this culture war.

It's a personality thing.

Right.

You know?

And also, let's face it, when you are in any.

Go look at Larry Bird's career.

When you are.

It's one of the few industries where white employees have to adapt to a Black culture.

And any white player, whether it's Jason Sehorn, who was a cornerback for the New York Giants who played, you know, in, in the Black League of the NFL, or whether it's Larry Bird or Danny Ainge, Kevin McHale, when they play, you know, in an 80% Black league of the NBA, they're going to test you.

Right.

The same way that Black players had been tested for forever to make sure, you know, see if they could make it.

So it's all just part of competition.

But when you add the politics to it and you add the extra noise to it, it becomes more than that because of that avatar element that you spoke of earlier.

Yeah.

- Okay.

I want to switch gears briefly because we had a big dust up in the Major League Baseball here over a June 12th Giants game.

Four Giants pitchers refused to wear their Pride Night hats.

One didn't wear it at all.

Three were, wrote a Bible verse next to the rainbow logo.

And it, it became this big thing in part because of what you have really characterized as a poor response by the team itself and Major League Baseball.

Can you just talk about like how you view that dust up and how it fits into what we're talking about here?

Well, - It's another example.

It's like, before we get into that, I was also going to say that when you were talking about the lucrative nature of this, there, you know, when you have a face of this and someone like Sophie Cunningham is a face of it you're going to be used for those purposes.

And in baseball, let's face it, I think that piece of baseball that is another element of this is the federal government has essentially used it whatever is left of its civil rights division or whatever it's left of its, of, you know, equal opportunity, EEOC, whatever is left of that, to take the position that it is the white, the male, the hetero, the Christian who is actually the one being discriminated against.

That they are the victims now of what is happening in this culture and that they need federal protection.

That is the ethos of this federal government right now.

I mean, - We saw actual fallout from this.

The DOJ said they would investigate whether the discriminates.

Senator Josh Hawley wrote this letter demanding info.

I mean, is that, do they just see this as politically advantageous, do you think?

It - Is politically advantageous 1000%.

But it's also, when you think about it from a polling standpoint, it's also where the, where the country is right now.

I think a lot of, a lot of whites actually believe that, that they are discriminated against.

And I think that the Republican Party has chosen that this is a great, this is, this is really fertile political material.

And what better place to extract concessions?

Because we know that whether we're talking about universities or whether we're talking about, whether we're talking about a basketball league or a sports league, that this, this government is, is very much involved in gaining concessions from, from institutions.

And so in, in baseball's case, especially in the Giants case, it was really, to me, it was very difficult.

I thought it was a slap in the face the way that the Giants responded, especially Buster Posey, the general manager, who's a legend in San Francisco.

The, I thought he came up very, very small.

Considering the history, if you go back to 1993, you go back to the, you know, until there's a cure, you know, and, and all these things.

The Giants were the pioneers of this.

The Giants were, of all places, the Giants.

And, and not just the, not just the organization and the city, of course, but the players.

Rod Beck, the late closer.

He was, he and his wife, Stacey, raised tons of money and for, and, and tons of awareness in terms of pediatric aids and everything else.

And so for, for that fan base to have to be at the center of this, I thought the, the, the team itself did not do right by its paying customers.

Yeah.

And- - And - They're mad.

- And they're probably madder because they're doing so poorly also.

And - You combine the fact that you're no good in the standings.

- Those are the best pictures.

Yeah.

I wonder, like, that brings up a really interesting point, which like I have been thinking about when we think about these, you know, pictures coming out with these Christian messages that are essentially seen as anti - LGBT.

They, they claim not.

You know, Indiana Fever being where they're located.

Like how much do athletes have a responsibility to reflect the team that they play for and the, and the region they play for and the politics of that place?

How much - Of a responsibility?

Yeah.

- Like is that something they should think about?

- Well, that's, those are two different questions.

Is it something they should think about?

Yes.

Do they have a responsibility?

No.

However, there's a price for that response for, for not being cognizant of it.

And let's not forget, it's not just the players.

It's also the owner.

The owner of the Giants is the owner of the San Francisco Giants, but he's one of the most, you know, Charles Johnson, one of the most conservative men in the country.

And donors.

Yeah.

And exactly.

And so should you be aware of your surroundings of where you play?

Yes, you say you're part of the community.

You have the team, the city's name on your, on your business.

You should be aware of it.

The players are employees.

The players are independent contractors, right?

They show up and they play.

But you have to recognize also two things.

One, baseball is an extremely conservative sport as a membership for the most part.

And the second thing to remember is, is that the public is not helpless here.

The public has one very powerful weapon to get everyone's attention.

And that is, we don't have to pay for this.

We don't have to pay for it.

We don't have to watch it.

And if you're not going to represent the values that we hold dear, you're not going to get our money.

And if you keep going to the games, and if you keep saying that, okay, well, you know, I love baseball and the ownership and the players don't represent me, but I do love the game, then you're undermining a little bit of that power, if not all of that power.

So it, it's the, the argument.

We had the same thing in, in, in New York with the N - you know, with the NBA during the finals.

Right.

When President Trump was going to the Knicks games and the Knicks fans were like, "What are you bringing him here for?"

Yeah.

So the players, I mean, the fans are just as selfish as the players, and the fans are just as selfish as the owners because they want what they want when they want it.

But they do have power.

They're not helpless here.

All - Right.

We are going to have to leave it there.

We didn't even get to the Lakers sale to Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

There's been some speculation that the majority owner, Mark Walter, is selling to avoid an investigation into his financial dealings by the Trump administration.

We'll have to do that another day.

Howard Bryant, thank you so much though for being here and for this great discussion.

Oh, - My pleasure.

Thank you.

And - That is a wrap for today's political breakdown.

We're a production of KQED.

Our engineer today is Christopher Beale.

Our producer is Emiko Oda.

Our video team includes Jim McKee, Rick Santangelo, Derek Lartaud, Kate Lowpensky, and Vivian Morales.

I'm Marisa Lagos.

See you next time.