The No. 1 overall pick to the Dallas Wings last month, Paige Bueckers is gearing up for her first season in the WNBA. She’s the hottest name in this year’s rookie class and will look to help the league capitalize on its newfound popularity sparked by Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark last season.
Bueckers has been in the public eye for some time. She was the most highly-touted women’s basketball recruit the year she joined a UConn Huskies dynasty that has produced more championships than you can count on two hands. And she finally broke through just last month to win a championship in her final year at the program.
But the star guard has occasionally found herself in the headlines for other reasons. Most notably, Bueckers drew attention for comments she made at the 2021 ESPY Awards while accepting the Best Female College Athlete honor. Then, Bueckers took time to highlight Black women in her sport “who don’t get the media coverage they deserve.”
Those comments drew praise from some and criticism from others. But four years later, Bueckers is standing by what she said on that night in 2021.
In a recent interview with Time Magazine, Bueckers reaffirmed her stance that Black women are undercovered in the media. “It’s still an issue, every single day. There’s not ever equal coverage,” she told Time. “There’s white privilege every single day that I see. I feel like I’ve worked extremely hard, blessed by God. But I do think there’s more opportunities for me. I feel like even just marketability, people tend to favor white people, white males, white women. I think it should be equal opportunity. I feel like there is privilege to what I have, and to what all white people have. I recognize that, I want to counteract that with the way I go about my business.”
The WNBA is a predominantly Black league, so it’s certainly notable when arguably two of its biggest stars, Clark and Bueckers, are white women. And for Bueckers, that’s something that needs to be addressed now, just as it did in 2021.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.