The One Downside of Gender Equality in Sports

As a female journalist who has covered women’s sports for years, I have long dreamed of the day that female athletes would demand the level of media attention traditionally reserved for men.

Now that day is finally here—and it’s a lot less satisfying than I imagined.

The arrival of a dynamite WNBA rookie class, headlined by the sensational Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, has prompted an explosion of coverage of women’s basketball. But—and perhaps I should have anticipated this—the surge in popularity has come at a cost. Ill-informed male sports analysts are suddenly chiming in about the league and its players, offering narratives untethered to facts and occasionally making me long for the days when the WNBA largely flew under the radar.

Much of the discourse revolves around Clark, the former University of Iowa star who became the all-time college scoring leader this season and is one of the most remarkable players the sport has WNBA players of being “petty” and declared, “Y’all should be thanking that girl for getting y’all ass private charters, all the money and visibility she’s bringing to the WNBA.”