The FIFA World Cup has concluded with Spain as the World Champions. And while it certainly delivered its own share of drama, for WNBA analyst Rachel Demitta it was still a breath of fresh air and a welcome escape from the exhausting environment she had been navigating while covering the WNBA.

“Sometimes covering the WNBA can be really draining,” Demitta said on her Courtside Club podcast. “It can be really draining just because of the drama and negativity that surrounds it. And so this opportunity to cover the World Cup gave me a vehicle to cover sports with joy again. And it’s sometimes hard to do that with the W stuff.”

“Unfortunately, this league has this cloud. It can’t get out of its own way in a way that we can just cover the sport with joy and positivity and celebrating the game and celebrating the athletes. It always gets hijacked by so many different things. And I kind of been keeping my eye a little bit on what was going on in the W during the time that I was at the World Cup. I can’t believe like stuff is still happening, and it really sucks,” Demitta added.

As Demitta said, the controversies surrounding the WNBA refused to die down so far this season. The most significant of them all was the Caitlin Clark and Alyssa Thomas situation. Thomas’s fist-to-the-throat foul against Clark spiralled unnecessarily into a wave of negative discourse around racial discrimination, bullying, hate, and targeted harassment.

And even beyond that, other instances added to the debate. Barely two weeks after Thomas, Chelsea Gray faced similar harassment after being involved in a foul call that went against Caitlin Clark. She even publicly shared one of the texts she received on Instagram. Then came Toronto Tempo coach Sandy Brondello’s “protected species” comment.

Brondello made the comment following a hard contact involving Reese and Tempo player Nyara Sabally. The contact sent Sabally to the locker room with a rib injury.

Even when things appeared to have calmed down, fresh issues surrounding the WNBA All-Star Game began emerging. Most notably, major players including Caitlin Clark, Sabrina Ionescu, and Kayla McBride reportedly declined invitations to participate in the three-point contest.

It’s this string of controversies that has TV anchors agreeing with Demitta. “This is why I don’t partake in the WNBA. And I think that you can’t take this league seriously… It is like, and I’m saying it, like some soap opera,” Rob Parker said on ‘The Odd Couple’ on Fox Sports Radio.

So it’s not surprising that Rachel Demitta found covering the FIFA World Cup so fulfilling.