Published July 25, 2026
The WNBA has never been bigger.
More people are watching. The number of people investing is also increasing. Many players’ salaries are higher than ever before. But this period of change, marked by groundbreaking collective bargaining agreements, league expansion, and skyrocketing player profile, was also accompanied by growing confusion and dissonance.
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Ahead of Saturday’s WNBA All-Star Game, the debate over race, gender and sexuality is making headlines and appears to have reached a new boil. Race-related conversations have resurfaced following the incident between Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas, while players continue to voice their frustration with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and leadership for not protecting them from harassment and divisive comments on social media.
“This is definitely a moment that should be celebrated,” said Ketra Armstrong, professor of sport management and director of the Center for Race and Ethnicity in Sport at the University of Michigan. “We want to celebrate the great things, but sometimes progress masks where the dangers lie.”
Issues of race, gender, and representation have been an undercurrent throughout the league’s history. With the explosive development of women’s sports, the debate surrounding these issues is expanding. And they continue to be issues that shape public and online discussions of the WNBA, and most other professional sports leagues for that matter.
“This is a sports league,” said David Berry, a sports economist and economics professor at Southern Utah University. He cited the NFL’s Rooney Rule as an example. “If sports leagues get attention, these things will get attention too.”
Growth expands broader cultural debates
The controversial conversation also expanded to issues of transgender athletes and harassment.
WNBA veteran Brianna Turner said on social media this week that her former team, the Fever, fired a male employee last season for sexual harassment. Turner, who was with Indiana last season but now plays in Las Vegas, also said Indiana players are encouraged not to discuss termination.
Turner’s comments come days after Indiana forward Sophie Cunningham spoke out in defense of transgender athletes in women’s sports.
“I’ve gotten a lot of negative feedback about how I hate trans people, and I’m like, ‘I never said that,'” Cunningham reportedly said in an article published by ESPN. “I think I’m here to spread love, but I also think that love is true and honest. And I want to protect the young girls in the locker room and the young girls in sports who don’t have to go against biological men.”
The WNBA’s racial debate is back in the spotlight after Toronto Tempo coach Sandy Brondello was suspended for one game for calling Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese a “protected species.”
The comment was brought up on air after Rees fouled Toronto player Nyara Sabally and quickly drew criticism.
Brondello is a former Australian player who won two WNBA titles. The phrase “protected species” is used in Australian sport to express frustration over the lack of call-ups for players. However, in the United States, the phrase suggests that someone is not human and can be considered derogatory towards black people. Mr. Brondello later apologized. Reese appreciated the league’s swift action and accepted it.
“The platform is much bigger now. Everything that happens is news,” Berri said. “There were hard fouls 10 years ago too. No one paid attention to them. After all, now everything is magnified because of the press…which is good. So this is what we wanted.”
‘There’s a lot to celebrate’ but race still matters
Despite Clark’s repeated attempts to downplay the noise around her, she has become a springboard for projection far beyond the game itself.
“This is basketball,” she said in a recent ESPN interview. “When you come out of the locker room, you shouldn’t be worried about what the conversation is going to be. It’s emotionally draining. It’s draining. You get tense in your shoulders because people don’t want to talk about basketball. They just want to hype up basketball and do something else.”
After Thomas made contact with Clark’s throat with his fist during a June 24 game, the WNBA retroactively assessed Thomas with an egregious foul and suspended him for one game.
The play, which Thomas said was an accident, drew widespread attention and sparked a debate over officiating, with coaches, experts and lawmakers weighing in on whether the league should take action on the physical play involving Clark.
Thomas, who is Black and in his 12th WNBA season, said he received death threats after the incident, which has contributed to the increase in online abuse players receive in recent years. Las Vegas Aces Chelsea Gray recently posted a message from a man that included a racial slur. And Engelbert met with a group of player committees this week to discuss what can be done to protect players from online harassment.
Since she entered the league, Clark and her WNBA colleagues have become proxies for long-standing American issues, from race, gender and sexual orientation to who gets attention and who doesn’t.
“There’s a lot to celebrate, but race still matters. Race always matters. It’s about how we make it matter,” Armstrong said.
