F.A.Q.s Concerning the W.N.B.A. | The New Yorker

The W.N.B.A.’s twenty-ninth season is in full swing, with the league having fun with its continued upturn in attendance, viewership, merchandise gross sales, and recognition. The “W” has at all times had a core base of diehard followers, however they’re now joined by tens of millions of recent followers. Should you’re among the many many tuning in for the primary time, right here’s the whole lot it’s essential to know concerning the W.N.B.A.

When was the W.N.B.A. established?

Most agree that the W.N.B.A.’s first sport was performed on June 21, 1997. Others, nonetheless, declare that the league didn’t exist till Might 14, 2024, when it sprang forth from the ether, a completely shaped metaphysical anomaly, on the exact second that Caitlin Clark performed her first skilled sport.

So, which date is appropriate?

The college of thought you subscribe to seemingly will depend on whether or not you like to supply your data from what’s true or from the worst remark thread you will have ever learn.

Why is the ball orange and white?

The orange stripes symbolize basketball, and the white stripes are a nod to Meg White, one other gifted, profitable, and intensely cool lady who is totally unaffected by the truth that you angrily and inexplicably consider that you can do her job higher than her, Declan.

What’s with the workforce names?

From the New York Liberty to the Atlanta Dream, one factor is definite: on the day in elementary college while you study {that a} noun could be a individual, place, factor, or concept, the individual chargeable for naming W.N.B.A. groups was zoning out and solely heard the final one.

How lots of the gamers are lesbians?

Sure.

In what methods has the W.N.B.A. been a trailblazing power for girls in sports activities?

Lisa Leslie, Tina Thompson, Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, Maya Moore, Caitlin Clark—from the nineties until as we speak, it’s clear that the W.N.B.A. has at all times been a proud advocate of alliteration.

I’m a person who loves Caitlin Clark. Nevertheless, rather more than that, I’m a person who hates girls, basketball, and ladies’s basketball, so it ought to go with out saying that I’m a season-ticket holder who’s loudly and violently rooting for the downfall of the W.N.B.A./girls on the whole. Is there a spot for me on this league’s fan group?

Bizarrely and sadly, sure.

Talking of—Angel Reese or Caitlin Clark?

Nope, subsequent query.

I like the thought behind the W.N.B.A.’s 2025 “No House for Hate” initiative. How can I present that I’m an ally?

There isn’t any room for discrimination within the W.N.B.A.—in any case, some girls are simply born straight. As an ally, the most effective factor you are able to do is do not forget that, on the finish of the day, love is love, and that’s true whether or not you’re a girl who loves different girls, or a girl who loves faux-cursive vinyl stickers that say issues like, “Messy hair don’t care!”

I preserve listening to announcers discuss gamers hitting three-pointers “from the emblem.” What does this imply?

A shot “from the emblem” is an unofficial time period for an ultra-long-distance three-pointer—the sort of jaw-dropping twenty-five-to-thirty-five-foot bomb that some gamers, just like the N.B.A.’s Stephen Curry, are identified for—taken up to now out from the basket that the participant is at or close to the center-court emblem. However the girls’s sport is just a little completely different than the boys’s, so remember that when folks discuss, for instance, Caitlin Clark’s taking pictures share “from the emblem,” they clearly don’t imply the center-court emblem. They imply any emblem, of something, actually anyplace on earth.

WOW. YET AGAIN SHOVING THIS ANGEL REESE NARRATIVE DOWN OUR THROATS. THIS LEAGUE LITERALLY WOULDN’T EXIST IF NOT FOR CAITLIN CLARK, AND YET NO ONE IN THE MEDIA EVEN MENTIONS HER. HMM, WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS?

I have to say from the underside of my coronary heart that nobody is aware of why you guys are like this.

One in every of my favourite issues about males’s basketball is how the announcers appear to have entry to an countless stream of the world’s most particular stats. Does the W.N.B.A. do that, too?

Ummm, is Paige Bueckers the primary rookie in W.N.B.A. historical past to common a Golden Ratio (1.618) when multiplying her scoring-efficiency score by her assist-to-turnover ratio minus double-doubles in her first seventeen video games? (Sure.)

Is it true that a variety of gamers within the W.N.B.A. discover themselves enjoying alongside, or towards, their exes?

Sure, it’s true that in sure circumstances, these world-class athletes are blocking one another within the paint whereas they’re additionally blocking one another on social media. And in the event you don’t assume that’s a categorically unbelievable factor to witness, then the W is probably not for you. That’s O.Okay.! You possibly can nonetheless discover group elsewhere, like in line on the L.E.D. Strip Lighting for Horrible Bedrooms Retailer or on the r/Lawns Subreddit.

However don’t these difficult relationship dynamics intervene with the gamers’ means to concentrate on the sport?

Anybody who is aware of basketball in any respect is aware of that groups stay and die by communication. And, to not put too wonderful some extent on it, however brother—have you ever met lesbians?

I genuinely don’t imply this as an insult, however isn’t it only a organic proven fact that, by way of pure physicality, there’s a giant distinction between what gamers within the N.B.A. and the W.N.B.A. are in a position to do?

It’s true that there are bodily feats that gamers in a single league can accomplish that gamers within the different league merely can’t. For instance, one league has gamers like DeWanna Bonner, who can carry and provides delivery to twins and return the following season to common 17.3 factors and seven.2 rebounds a sport, whereas the opposite league has a number of gamers like LeBron James, who can carry the ball.

As a person, I’ve observed that among the girls within the W.N.B.A. are getting plenty of consideration. However the factor is, I need consideration, and in addition, fairly frankly, I’m taller.

Is . . . did you will have a query?

Sure. Angel Reese or Caitlin Cla—

Shut up shut up oh my God shut upppppppp. ♦