This is an Angel Reese stan account, and I just want to see her play basketball
OPINION: The WNBA needs to do a better job of making all games — including preseason — available for viewing in it app.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
The WNBA preseason is on and popping, and already we have drama.
Both Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark made their WNBA debuts this weekend, but only one of the games was televised.
I think you can guess which one.
Although the WNBA app showed that all preseason games would be available for viewing this weekend, that turned out to not be the case, and fans were upset — especially those who were hoping to see Angel Reese make her debut.
Because the game wasn’t available to be viewed on television or the WNBA app, a fan who was in attendance streamed the entire thing live, and while gauging social media views is not an exact science, on Saturday the video showed about 434,000 views.
Imagine if those views were actually being counted by the league.
Does the league realize the star power it has right now? As Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said in a tweet Friday morning encouraging people to watch the Lynx/Sky matchup, the league is more than one player.
It’s still unclear to me if this was the fault of the WNBA itself or a broadcast network that holds the rights to the Chicago Sky or Minnesota Lynx games, but this was yet another example of fumbling an opportunity to take advantage of all the current excitement around women’s basketball.
We keep being told we need to do more to support the WNBA, and judging from the social media responses of people who couldn’t see that game Friday (you only need to search the WNBA to see people angrily yelling at them), there are plenty of people who put up $35 to support the league.
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Why can’t they see all the games?
If there are weird bureaucratic structures in place that prevent certain games from being on League Pass, then everyone involved needs to come together and figure it out so that the fans – the people who want to support the league by watching — can get a return on their investment.
I said it in the headline, and I’ll say it again: This is an Angel Reese stan account. I just want to see her play.
The WNBA wanted all this attention, and now it has it, but it seems as though they don’t have the horses in place to be able to capitalize on all the attention, and at the end of the day, if they don’t get it together, the players are going to suffer.
Monday was Angel Reese’s 22nd birthday. She spent the evening attending the Met Gala.
Tuesday night, she will play her second WNBA game as her team faces off against the New York Liberty, and because everyone raised such a ruckus on Friday night, the WNBA has found a way to make the game available for viewing on League Pass.
I hope everyone tunes in to watch our girl do her thing.
In the grand scheme of things, a preseason game not being available may not seem like that big of a deal, and maybe in the NBA that may be the case, but for the WNBA, every game matters because the more eyes we can get on these ladies, the more support we are building for the league, and the more support we build for the league, the more likely we can enact change that spills over into things like them not having to fly commercial for games and getting more money for the women who play.
The fanbase is there. The support is there. The people are ready, willing, and hungry for women’s basketball.
WNBA, the ball is in your court now.
The growth you have been asking for is well within your reach. Are you prepared to handle it? Once you get it, what are you going to do with it?
Monique Judge is a storyteller, content creator and writer living in Los Angeles. She is a word nerd who is a fan of the Oxford comma, spends way too much time on Twitter, and has more graphic t-shirts than you. Follow her on Twitter @thejournalista or check her out at moniquejudge.com.
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