According to Geno Auriemma, the WNBA has finally arrived at the moment women’s basketball spent decades waiting for. With better visibility and more viewership than ever, and the league commanding more attention than ever before, women’s basketball is finally receiving the spotlight it has always deserved. Unfortunately, the way Auriemma sees it, that spotlight appears to be shining on everything except the actual basketball.
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“It’s a shame. Yeah. It’s a shame because for years we’ve wanted more attention, paid to women’s sports, craved the attention, wanted it, deserved it,” Auriemma said, speaking on TODAY with Jenna & Sheinelle.
“And now the attention, unfortunately, is on the wrong things. So they need to figure out a way to bring the attention back to the incredible young players that have come into the league, the incredible teams that are in the league, the level of play, how much has changed.”
“Like, let’s talk about the game instead of these hypothetical things that may or may not happen down the road. Let’s get back to the game. You know, I have a thing in Connecticut. If it doesn’t impact winning, I don’t want to talk about it. So what’s, what’s this have to do with winning?” Auriemma added.
Some of the most dominant discourses surrounding the WNBA at the moment have little to do with what is happening between the lines. One of the earliest issues that cropped up this season was about inconsistent officiating. In fact, things started getting out of hand when officials missed a flagrant foul call after Alyssa Thomas made hard contact with Caitlin Clark on June 24.
Since then, there have been extensive conversations around the issue of online harassment and discrimination after Thomas faced extreme online backlash and personal threats. Even external voices, including 11 members of the Republican Study Committee, officially addressed the issue in a letter to the WNBA.
Yet, the issue barely had time to cool down before the officiating once again came under the microscope, and then Sophie Cunningham’s July 21 ESPN interview caused even more controversy.
In the report by ESPN’s Hallie Grossman, Cunningham opposed trans athletes participating in women’s sports. That statement divided the fanbase in two, even triggering rallies in support of Cunningham, which spawned counter-rallies from those on the other side of the argument.
So Geno Auriemma feels there is a need to find a way to redirect fans’ attention back to the basketball on display across the WNBA. And Auriemma is not the only one who has been making this call.
Most recently, Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White delivered quite a passionate message during her pregame media availability ahead of the Fever’s matchup against the New York Liberty.
“The hate, the fear-mongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that’s trying to hijack our league will not win. It won’t win. We are united, we are connected, we will not be divided,” she said in an animated speech.
Before that, Sophie Cunningham explicitly called out the WNBA media for covering “everything except basketball” and publicly stated that the standard of play is being entirely overshadowed.
The question at this moment would be: With whom does the responsibility lie to redirect attention towards the game? Is it the players on the court, the league leadership, or the media covering the league?