WHY NOT BARACK OBAMA? AS WNBA BOSS, HE CAN EXAMINE RACIAL PROBLEMS
With $200 million a year in new rights, the league can’t continue with Cathy Engelbert as commissioner — so why not the ex-President, who has little to do while appreciating women’s hoops and Clark
She cannot miss “the mark,” a failure that came with her Friday apology. Cathy Engelbert is in charge of a remarkable media rights deal — $200 million a year — and if she is the WNBA commissioner, it’s time to find another. The rise of women’s basketball in this country, when the sport once was ignored, is jolted by continuing hostility involving Black players and, I must go here, Caitlin Clark.
The rancor began early in the season, when the league’s best player, A’ja Wilson, was asked about race and how it helped Clark’s ascent. Her response was dangerous. Not once did I see Engelbert comment on it when a deep-thinking boss would have demanded immediate meetings and tried to calm tensions.
“I think a lot of people may say it’s not about black and white, but to me, it is. It really is because you can be top-notch at what you are as a black woman, but yet maybe that’s something that people don’t want to see,” Wilson said. “They don’t see it as marketable, so it doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter what we all do as black women, we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug. That’s why it boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is.”
From that point on, regular-season games were watched not for fresh action but to see if players harassed Clark — or vice versa. Between incidents on the court and disgusting abuse by social-media creeps, Engelbert has lost control of the WNBA. Even the other night, when Clark received her sixth technical foul and finds herself one away from a game suspension, she pushed Las Vegas’ Tiffany Hayes in the facial area and hit the basket stanchion in frustration. Said Clark: That's crazy. Well, I mean, they're never going to overturn that. It's just one of the rules, I guess.”
What, a rough foul that suspiciously is turned into a stanchion assault? No, Clark is wired in ways we’ve never seen. She has been brutalized so often — Chennedy Carter shoved her to the floor, and Angel Reese hit her on the head, among other episodes — that Clark is firing back as the postseason nears. The anger stems from her massive endorsement contracts, including $28 million from Nike for eight years. Does Wilson deserve more money? Absolutely, along with other Black stars. But she didn’t play for Iowa and turn on the nation with three-point bombs and passes. So Clark gets the goods, which should have sent sirens and alarms through Engelbert’s office.
It did not, for months. Last week, she appeared on CNBC and was asked about Clark and Reese and online slurs that “have taken a darker turn, a more menacing turn, where race has been introduced into the conversation, where sexuality is sometimes introduced into the conversation.” Where’s the commissioner? Engelbert repeated safe words once stated by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, her boss. He was wrong to interject Magic Johnson and Larry Bird way back when. She is wrong, too.
“The one thing that’s great about the league right now, we do sit at this intersection of culture and sports and fashion and music,” Engelbert said. “Like, the WNBA players are really looked at now as kind of cultural icons. And when you have that, you have a lot of attention on you. … It is a little bit of that Bird-Magic moment if you recall, from 1979. When those two rookies came in from a big college rivalry, one White, one Black. And so we have that moment with these two.
“But the one thing I know about sports, you need rivalry. That’s what makes people watch. They want to watch games of consequence between rivals. They don’t want everybody being nice to one another.”
If the players were livid, now they’re ready for warfare. A rivalry? Terri Jackson, executive director of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, was stunned Engelbert didn’t denounce “racism, misogyny and harassment” that they’ve seen online and have faced inside arenas. Reese has received death threats.
“We find it unacceptable to encourage the players to market this league and to engage and/or post on social media to promote this league and then leave the players unprotected in the manner in which they have,” Jackson said. “We expected the league to recognize the negative impact it was having on the players as well as its business and to have proactively addressed this situation earlier in the season. Maybe you cannot control what is said or posted on social media, but you can send a message that demonstrates that you are paying attention, that states that racism, bias, hate are unacceptable and not welcomed, that shows that you stand in solidarity with players.”
Tweeted Reese, the young star of the Chicago Sky: “I LOVE ME SOME MS. TERRI CARMICHAEL JACKSON.”
Said Seattle Storm forward Nneka Ogwumike, president of the players’ association: “Players have had to shut down their (social-media) accounts. Players have had to be escorted away from certain high-concentrated fan environments.”
Said Connecticut’s DiJonai Carrington, who took an in-game swipe at Clark: “Kind of a fumble. There was a silver platter to just address it. Or to just say, this is not the type of behavior that we endorse as the league. And as the commissioner who has what, probably 90 percent Black people or people who identify as Black in some way shape or form in the league, I think it was kind of eye-opening because the things that we have all experienced this season have been pretty sickening.”
Finally, Engelbert followed with regret. She wrote a letter to all WNBA players, with ESPN publishing a copy.
“I was asked a question about WNBA rivalries and the dark side of social media and race, and simply put, my answer missed the mark and I'm sorry," Engelbert wrote. “I regret that I didn't express, in a clear and definitive way, condemnation of the hateful speech that is all too often directed at WNBA players on social media.
“I should have stated directly and unequivocally that hate speech is harmful. This is a teachable moment and one I embrace with humility. There is absolutely no room for racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of hate in the WNBA or anywhere. I know many of you have been dealing with it for a long time. I want us as a league to do our part to change the too often toxic and abusive nature of social media discourse.”
Jackson read the letter and asked that “the WNBPA and the WNBA, their corporate partners and other relevant stakeholders can come together and consider potential solutions and maybe even lead on this issue.” Such an attempt won’t work. I have a better idea, which Silver should accept.
Barack Obama loves basketball. Beyond Donald Trump, he appeared in a five-part Netflix docuseries about the world’s national parks. He narrated the movement of a Chilean Patagonia, but at 63, might he want to resolve the WNBA’s racial animosity? Maybe he wouldn’t be interested. Couldn’t Silver try?
The former President sent a memorable tweet to Clark in a historic moment, writing, “Congrats to @CaitlinClark22, the greatest scorer in women’s college basketball! It’s been fun watching you and the @IowaWBB team this season.” So he enjoys her.
And he loves the WNBA, welcoming champions to the White House.
So, when the league can’t proceed with Engelbert’s dawdling and passivity, why not Obama? He knows what’s ahead for the sport, where TV ratings have skyrocketed 170 percent to 1.2 million per game. The playoffs begin next weekend and will be watched. A league leader is required to bring together Black players, White players, coaches, executives and social-media watchdogs. There must be a better way. Won’t Wilson and Black stars earn their own sizable endorsements with much larger media rights? The issues go far beyond.
The most important official cannot fail on unity. This one was too alarming, a wicked and inevitable set of skirmishes from May to October.
Barack Obama? Why not? The Sumatran tigers will be fine in Indonesia.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.