If the allure is wearing off of the WNBA, don’t blame the stars, coaches or refs – blame the fans!
It’s not Caitlin Clark‘s fault.
It’s not Angel Reese’s fault.
It’s not Alyssa Thomas, Sophie Cunningham, or Aja Wilson‘s fault.
And forget about the refs or any coach you love to hate these days.
They’re just doing what they grew up loving to do at the highest level, the only way they know how – competitively.
They’re not to blame if you believe any part of the WNBA’s allure is wearing off.
The vitriol being spewed in arenas or that is seen being sprayed across social media nightly – blame those keyboard warriors.
We can’t go a week without seeing ugliness from fans, and that’s the problem with all sports these days, realistically.
While I wouldn’t go as far as to call them true fans, it’s what they are, to some degree.
And they’re the problem.
PRAISE AND HATE
You can catch “fans” verbally assaulting the referees. They chastise Clark every time she flails her arms while looking for calls during games and there’s usually a big over-reaction to it. Some believe every time Clark is breathed upon, it’s a foul.
She’s not the only WNBA player who complains, though.
Paige Bueckers works over the referees every game. Kelsey Plum is masterful at it. Wilson has mastered her facial expressions, while many others should have prop bets posted for how many times they shake their heads after being called for fouls.
That’s sports, though. Happens everywhere. Pitchers looking for strikes, batters looking for balls, quarterbacks looking for roughing, hockey players looking for hooking.
But you WNBA fans, you’re special.
“It’s tough,” Clark said. “The refs are in a really difficult spot. It’s one of the hardest jobs in the world, in my opinion, is to make calls. All you do is get yelled at all the time by everybody. You’re never winning. I’ve been involved in a few of those calls, but there’s been plenty of others across the league that haven’t got called.
“We can treat the referees a little bit better, pay them like they’re full-time employees.”
Then there are the Clark fans who continue to bemoan Indiana coach Stephanie White, because they think she’s not a good fit for their favorite player.
We had the same types in Las Vegas calling for Becky Hammon‘s head when the Las Vegas Aces dropped to 14-14 and were fresh off a 53-point home loss to the Minnesota Lynx, saying her time had come and gone. I wish I had bookmarked some of those posts so I could return to see the same users’ timelines after the Aces won their third title in four years.
“If you’re gonna live by the praise, you’re gonna die by the hate,” Cunningham said. “There are people who are extreme, that kind of ruin it for everybody sometimes.”
THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN SPORTS
I’ve been engrossed with sports since 1976, I’d say. It was a time when all I could watch in person was UNLV football and basketball.
But on TV, I watched it all. Had my spiral notebook handy to keep my own scorebook for the MLB Game of the Week, or my own scoreboard for the NFL games. We didn’t get as much televised NBA in Las Vegas, at least that I could remember, but we did get plenty of college sports.
The first glance of turmoil I can remember was the 1978 Gator Bowl, when legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes punched Clemson nose guard Charlie Bauman after a play late in the game.
The game is still notoriously referred to as the “Woody Bowl.”
I can only imagine what would have taken place if we had social media back then.
And not for the people who would have ripped Hayes, but for those who would have justified the cross between an uppercut and a hook, which ended his coaching career the next day.
There were also the extremely hard hits in the NFL that came weekly, ones you don’t come close to seeing these days, but would draw the ire of fans blaming defensive backs for targeting their favorite players. I’d love to see what side fans would take if they watched Nolan Ryan and Robin Ventura’s 1993 fight in real time. Or the rough-and-tumble play of the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks.
Then again, maybe fans wouldn’t make such a big deal, because they’re male athletes.
Or, maybe, because they can’t accept that sports are sports, no matter who’s wearing the uniform.
Ask any WNBA historian, and they’ll tell you it’s been this way, players roughing up the younger ones with “welcome to the league elbows, hip checks and hard fouls.”
Diana Taurasi could have a highlight reel with how many young women she welcomed to the league with a gut punch.
“DT (is) one of the greatest of all time,” Plum said during her interview on the “Up In Smoke” podcast. “I love her swagger and her unapologetic demeanor.”
NO FREE PASSES
That’s right, Fever fans, your girl Caitlin doesn’t get a pass just because she is a generational talent that has drawn new eyes to the W.
To be fair, I’d go as far as to say that YOU are the reason she’s getting roughed up. You’ve put this young woman on such a pedestal and knighted her with WNBA royalty before she’s won her first championship and maybe, just maybe, the other players are tired of your unwarranted social media attacks. While it’s true she’s helped sell out seats, I hate to break it to you, the Aces have been doing that since Wilson breathed life into the organization and brought a title here. Clark had nothing to do with the allure of the Aces, a team like the Los Angeles Sparks with its history, or the Minnesota Lynx and New York Liberty.
Clark is a baller, there’s no denying that. A tough Midwesterner who can shoot the rock and is going to back up her trash talk with long-range jumpers. Somewhere in Des Moines, Iowa, a little girl was raised to do what she’s doing now, just like Larry Bird was raised in French Lick, Indiana, and turned out to be one of the biggest trash talkers of his era. Ask Magic or Michael, they’ll tell you.
Can you imagine if we had social media platforms in the 1980s? Would it have been the same? Someone in New York, Boston or Chicago finding a way to call out Bill Laimbeer and the rest of the Bad Boys, while those from Motown bringing their venom to the platform.
These days, you want to blame Reese for pointing her finger when LSU beat Iowa for the national championship or waving her hand in front of her face – even though Clark did the same thing in other games – or you want to blame whoever you can find in the WNBA for putting a target in the center of 22’s back.
Her opponents don’t need to. You’re doing a fine job all by yourselves.
“It’s all of our jobs to help refocus the narratives a lot of the times, and we could do better at that,” Clark said. “The amount of people that are passionate and love the game and respect the other team and the young girls and the young boys that show up, we can’t lose sight of that.”
Chelsea Gray shares racial abuse she received following the Aces’ Sunday night loss to the Indiana Fever.
This comes after Alyssa Thomas also spoke out about the issue.
(Via cgray209/IG, I’ve censored the slur) pic.twitter.com/V2IKtP9QCX
— Callie Fin (@Callie__Fin) July 14, 2026
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS?
What I’m more curious about is the whereabouts of those offended by such hostility toward some players, when New York Liberty’s Betnijah Laney-Hamilton and Toronto Tempo’s Marina Mabrey got into it this past week. A shoe and a backhand were thrown at Mabrey, but I don’t remember any political clowns writing to headquarters in Manhattan to put the league on notice.
Did any of you stand up for one of the classiest acts the league has ever seen, Chelsea Gray, who shared a screenshot of the message to her Instagram story.
“You suck a– ugly a– n—–.”
To which the future Hall of Fame point guard replied to her followers: “People act like we just make this sh-t up. And the audacity to tell us as athletes to ‘shut up and dribble.'”
She received the message after the Fever defeated the Aces in Las Vegas.
It didn’t stop, though, as in true gadfly fashion, those coming to defend Gray turned around and dragged Clark into it.
It was neither Clark nor the Fever’s fault that ignorant pond scum felt the need to muddy Gray’s inbox.
Yeah, I’ll admit it. I’ll be the first media member in line to come to Gray’s defense, as she’s been beyond professional with me and others in the media since arriving from Los Angeles. She’s been an incredible mentor and teammate, a wonderful wife and mother, and she didn’t deserve that.
Nobody in the league does, to be clear. That includes Thomas, after her incident with Clark. Death threats and racial epithets? Come on, people.
“The harassment, the hate, none of that is okay,” Clark said. “That goes for the opposing team we play, that goes for my teammates, that goes for my coaches. There should never be a question of character. I’ve always stood up here and said that, and that’s surely what I believe; that’s how I was raised. None of that is okay, and I don’t want anyone to ever experience that.”
I get it, it’s impossible to escape passionate fans. But it’s the ones who bring the right passion.
It’s the throngs of fans who scurry down the stairs at every arena, hoping to get an autograph or selfie with both the home and visiting teams. The adoration and respect most fans have is the brighter side of the narrative.
When the Fever were in Las Vegas for the first meeting, Cunningham took her time going from one end of Section 14 to the opposite end of Section 15, making sure she got to everyone in reach. She even stopped by a section behind the baseline.
That’s the good side of fandom in the WNBA and its interaction with the players.
It’s what ignites arenas and can fuel a home team to come-from-behind wins.
But it’s those keyboard warriors whose toughness grows with each ridiculous comment or accusation that ruin it for nearly everyone.
“I think we’re all here just to play basketball and not have all the extraness that comes along with it,” Aces forward NaLyssa Smith said. “We don’t get paid enough to listen to that all damn day.”
Amen.
W.G. Ramirez is a veteran sports writer from Las Vegas and a Senior Staff Writer at Ballislife.com. Follow him on X at @WillieGRamirez.
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