WNBA Fever: Come For The Rumbles, Stay For The Racism!

Women's sport has traditionally occupied about two seconds worth of the non-Woke population's attention. The Olympics. World championships. In Canada, the annual grudge match in hockey with the Yanquistadores. Then, oops, where did they go?

The media keep trying to hype them, however. The instant the World Cup of soccer ended, Canadian sports networks dropped soccer to show WNBA hilites. Huh? What you should know is that the WNBA (and most major women's sports) has been a loss leader for NBA teams, networks and DEI infected corporations. They've never turned a profit in 30 years. Papering the house is an art form they've perfected.

But if they lack general support, these folks sure know how to work the news-media pump. Where women's sport was once the earnest, underpaid domain of tom boys and vertically challenged ladies women's sport in America, at least, has evolved into a firecracker 500 of radical politics and racial disharmony. Players wear T shirts on court demanding equal pay to NBA stars. And still the cultural elites protect them.

Take this weekend's WNBA All Star Game in Chicago, Please. It comes on the heels of another show trial of the sport's most popular player, Caitlin Clark, for the crime of being white in a predominately black league. The dynamic Clark, who has been the target of resentful black and lesbian players since she left college for the pros, had the afrontery to vigorously argue referee's calls in a game. And complain about bias against her.

Like soccer players doing the dying swan, arguing referee's calls in basketball is a time-honoured tradition. But with Clark, a straight white Christian, there is no tradition. When it comes to the Left, she's an outsider, an infidel. Her demise is the antidote to slavery.

Or so white writer Nancy Armour is suggesting in a USA Today column. Armour, who has the patented Elizabeth Warren hair bob and the AOC world view of radical feminists, suggests that when Clark berates referees' calls it's deeply, deeply problematic for the black and lesbian majority in the WNBA. According to Armour, Clark's "victim" pose is going to incite violence — not against Clark but against the blacks and lesbians who started the WNBA.

(Apparently the WNBA agrees with Clark about refereeing. Just before the All-Star game on Saturday night, commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced that the league will be introducing a centralized replay centre beginning with the 2027 season.)

Armour the Race Warrior was not done there with her blackface fantasy. She then goes on to note that the All Star game was in Chicago, home of Emmet Till, who was lynched in Mississippi in 1952 for allegedly coming on to a white woman. Clark's demand for equality from referees — we kid you not — reminds whites of Till and is likely to stir up those old KKK sentiments, says the obsessed Armour.

Armour then says that Clark should realize her actions in yelling at refs have wider consequences for minorities. Armour typifies the state of overeducated gender-wobbly women on the American Left who get their virtue from assuming America's long history of racial strife on behalf of blacks or lesbians or trans. Makes them feel virtuous. Even if trans people represent 0.004 percent of Americans, their struggle is universal for Armour, warranting blanket coverage.

As proof, their high priest, the ubiquitous former president Barack Obama invited the WNBA All Stars to his new ChiTown mausoleum to play a little pickup hoops and avoid the building's creditors — to whom he owes millions. And to chase the perfect photo op. While the black and lesbian women swarmed him Obama sought out Clark for a photo op. And offered soothing words about keeping on/keeping on.

Which should only double the intensity of her opponents' furore. But you have to hand it to the WNBA. Outside Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the anthem in San Fran or NHL players refusing to use Pride symbols the legacy sports leagues generally stick to their knitting. But the political narratives around the NBA and women's sports in general are a constant storyline.

While Nancy Armour was fitting Clark for a white hood, Clark's teammate Sophie Cunningham, another white straight Christian, remarked that men don't belong in women's sports. Cunningham doesn't take crap from nobody in the WNBA. She didn't mince words: "They just don't like white girls dominating their game… Let's just call it what it is, Racism." This was a blast at the mentally unstable trans lobby that promotes dysphoric behaviours. "I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men."

Cunningham's succinct request brought annoying soccer diva Megan Rapinoe into the fray. Now wearing pink hair since her divorce, the ever-so-empathetic activist told The View, "I'm sickened that trans women can't compete in women's sports. Trans women are women. The Supreme Court got it wrong."

Denial being the surest sign of psychotic vanity. Nonplussed, Cunningham replied, "I said what I said. I think it's kind of common sense. … I think it's really important to protect children… I don't dislike anyone. … I'm there to love, but I'm also there to love biological women. …"

The Left loons then tried to cancel her support for biological women. Instead her Adidas sneakers sold out in under 24 hours. Then they tried burning her jerseys. That was another big pay day for Cunningham. Hopes that the indulged bullies on the Left will ever see the wisdom of this stunt — let alone follow it — are scarce.

For now Clark is ignoring the noise. "I'm all about growing the women's game, and I'm glad I've given something that little girls can scream about at the top of their lungs. I can imagine when I was younger, I was doing the exact same thing: watching TV. It's pretty fun."

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his 2023 book Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History was voted a Top 20 greatest professional hockey books of all time by bookauthority.org. His previous book with his son Evan, Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is available on Amazon.