It would be so easy to pile on Stephen A. Smith’s response this week to a profound shot across the bow from WNBA star Napheesa Collier — in which Smith called for commissioner Cathy Engelbert to step down — and blame him and ESPN for missing the moment.
After all, at a time when fans are hungry for more information about the growing league, ESPN is home to the largest collection of women’s hoops reporters and commentators anywhere in sports media. Rather than allow them to lead on this historic story, ESPN, through its social and digital feeds, allowed Smith’s outlandish, made-for-TV argument to dictate the news cycle.
It is a shame. In the aftermath of Smith’s take going viral, the online conversation took a frustrating shape. While Collier appeared to have near-universal support for taking a stand against management (punching up works great these days, after all), many also scoffed at the league for seemingly always facing some sort of controversy. That this was more of the same for the drama-filled WNBA.
Perhaps these detractors have a point, but it’s hard to listen when they exacerbate the issue. These incidents are the only ones that break through because, for as much as the sheer interest in a star like Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese can make it appear otherwise, there is a massive shortage of WNBA coverage and content. Compared with major men’s sports, fans rarely see highlights or day-to-day news around the WNBA. This WNBA season saw an expansion team make the playoffs and a hard-nosed perennial MVP candidate move to Phoenix, ultimately making the Finals. Clark’s team hired a new coach and bolstered its roster, nearly making the Finals without her. Last year’s champion fired its head coach.
As with any league, drama and tea break through more than anything else (see: Shedeur Sanders). But this perception reinforces itself because on-court altercations, suspensions, and infighting are the only WNBA news that the national media is covering. Not to let Smith and his ilk off the hook, but this could largely be solved if the machine pumping out news and coverage around the WNBA each day were larger and more finely tuned.
Look no further than NBA Today, where host Malika Andrews, who this year added WNBA anchoring duties to her job description, capably jumped around the league this week to cover the onslaught of news. Andrews riffed between Monica McNutt in the studio and reporters Kendra Andrews and Alexa Philippou, both on the ground covering the playoffs, to discuss Collier’s comments and put them into context alongside similar complaints about officiating and leadership across the WNBA. On Wednesday night, Scott Van Pelt put out a sharp recounting of the Collier saga on SportsCenter.
As anyone can see, then, ESPN cannot solve this problem on its own. There is no WNBA news pipeline. It cannot be overlooked that commentators like Smith or Colin Cowherd may simply be lazy when it comes to women’s sports, that their blind spots are selective and could easily be overcome through minimal homework (see: Scott Van Pelt). However, to give them partial cover and highlight the bigger picture, it can be difficult to find WNBA news and analysis.
Just four teams are covered by full-time, traveling beat reporters: Chloe Peterson at the Indianapolis Star, Alissa Hirsh at the Chicago Sun-Times, Madeline Kenney at the New York Post, and Kareem Copeland at the Washington Post. Beyond ESPN, there are only a handful of total reporters covering the league on a full-time basis at The Athletic, Yahoo, and Sports Illustrated. Podcasters at The Ringer and iHeart cover the league from a distance.
This is just the tip of the spear. When big NFL news breaks, dozens of aggregation websites and social media accounts shoot it across the internet, exponentially increasing its reach. Almost everyone who is a sports fan is likely to have seen that Lamar Jackson injured his hamstring or that Tarik Skubal struck out 14 batters this week in Cleveland. This is readily available to a Smith or Cowherd, and more importantly, to their producers.
On the other hand, in the WNBA, you wonder what base of knowledge the people working on these shows are pulling from. To understand who Collier is and the context behind her speaking out against the league this week, it would be helpful to know that she comes from the UConn dynasty, that she is usually a fairly quiet operator in public, that she missed a season due to pregnancy (a key WNBA labor issue) and came back even better, that she is yet to win her first WNBA championship.
Take another example. Earlier this summer, Phillies superstar Bryce Harper reportedly tried a more aggressive form of Collier’s call-out, shouting in MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s face about the possibility of a salary cap. Pat McAfee spent several segments on the topic, referencing the league’s work stoppage in 1994 and outlining the parameters of the labor strife between MLB and its players. The show instantly drew attention to Harper’s salary and how it would naturally be more depressed with a salary cap.
These are the details that go missing in WNBA debates. News stories are reduced to their bare essentials — salaries, gender, drama, Caitlin — to the point that they lose meaning. Everything is the same story, at least once national talking heads get to it.
Certainly, this happens with many other news cycles. The top of sports media today loves nothing more than to beat a dead horse and overcorrect toward the topics that get the most engagement (see again: Shedeur Sanders). And when it comes to the WNBA, chasing engagement means leaning into the shocking pay disparities between men’s and women’s basketball players and portraying WNBA stars as caricatures of how an average person might view a famous woman.
The only way to break through all of this is to keep building the infrastructure from the bottom up. Outlets like The IX Basketball, Togxther, and the iHeart Women’s Sports network are doing this work. Mainstream outlets are hiring and spending more on women’s sports coverage each year.
Eventually, it will be harder to miss the day-to-day details of the WNBA. Anyone at the national level who chooses to ignore obvious context will be laughed off our screens.
Until then, sports media will replay the same arguments and take the easy way out.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.