Hard News is Predictable. Basketball? Not so much.
Lately, the news feels like déjà vu in all caps.
Same arguments, different names. Another contentious Supreme Court ruling, another storm, another pundit panel shouting past each other.
Whatever happened to the immigrants eating our cats, eating our dogs, eating our pets? Are there still childless cat ladies?
I used to keep up, used to feel responsible for knowing it all, but shortly after election day 2024. I started reaching for something else, not to escape, but to breathe.
The remote.
I didn’t stop paying attention to the world. I just started watching it differently.
The news had become reruns with new names, new antics, and new weirdness.
I used to think I was a hard news guy. Politics, international crises, the usual grim tumble of headlines.
Another bombing – who were randomly slaughtered this time?- Another tornado – what trailer park was wiped out this time?
- Another political gaffe – what disruption was caused this time?
I hit saturation starting on January 21, 2025. Then, public servants lost their jobs, marginalized citizens lost their healthcare benefits, and immigrants were lost in prisons.
Most of the time, I don’t understand the language spoken by the new regime members. I realized that was because they weren’t talking to me but to their like minded peeps. Those incoherent messages happen regardless of which political persuasion wins.
There were no subtitles that translated dogma, only English and Spanish.
Out of frustration, I grabbed the remote and started clicking. Reruns of the Twilight Zone – I’ve seen that episode with William Shatner, freaked out by a monster on an airplane wing. Vegas Vacation – I lingered and watched until Rusty got his fake Mr. Papageorgio ID.
Down at the bottom of the TV guide, I found solace in the Women’s National Basketball Association.
The WNBA.
The W.
I seldom watched women’s basketball. My closest exposure to the sport occurred in 2012, when I covered the NCAA women’s Final Four in Denver. While at Tourney Town at the Convention Center, I met Rebecca Lobo, who was hosting activities for fans.
By this time, Lobo was an ESPN basketball analyst. She led the Connecticut Huskies to an undefeated 1995 championship season.
I watched Notre Dame beat Baylor in the championship game at the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena). Since then, I’ve attended a few CU women’s b-ball games.
When I came across the WNBA game while channel surfing, there was something about the contest that drew me in to watch.
Maybe it was the pace, the fans, or the way joy and purpose shone through on the court, but mainly, no doom-and-gloom headline crawl was running across the bottom of the screen.
When the WNBA tipped off in 1997, even its fans didn’t know how long it would last. Women’s professional leagues had come and gone before, often forgotten before the uniforms were laundered.
The WNBA was born with backing from the National Basketball Association (NBA). The WNBA game is slightly different.
- The ball is smaller and lighter.
- The three-point line is closer to the basket
- The four quarters are two minutes shorter.
The Beginning: The league launched with eight teams and a summer schedule, marketed with the tagline: We Got Next. Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, Rebecca Lobo, and Cynthia Cooper became the faces of a new era, many fresh off Olympic gold. The Houston Comets, led by Cooper, dominated the early years, winning the first four championships.
The Middle Years: The league expanded and contracted during the 2000s. Teams like the Charlotte Sting and Sacramento Monarchs folded, while new ones, such as the Chicago Sky and Atlanta Dream, emerged. In this era, the WNBA saw legends rise, with Diana Taurasi, Tamika Catchings, Sue Bird, and Maya Moore bringing stability and stardom. Still, it fought for attention. The games aired on obscure networks, salaries lagged, and sports talk radio barely noticed.
A New Era: Then came a cultural shift in the 2020s. The players led social justice campaigns. They wore “Say Her Name” shirts and challenged the league’s own stakeholders. It wasn’t just a sports league anymore. It was a movement.
Meanwhile, TV ratings began creeping up. Breanna Stewart, A’ja Wilson, and Sabrina Ionescu became household names (in some homes). The league introduced new uniforms, prioritized charter flights and childcare, and started drawing serious investment.
Then Came Caitlin Clark: In 2024, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark electrified college basketball with deep threes, record-breaking stats, and a sold-out Final Four. The rivalry between Angel Reese from LSU, the team that bested Iowa in the 2023 championship game, splashed over to their pro-hoops lives when the Indiana Fever drafted her #1. Reese went to Chicago.
Why the fever? It sounds like the flu. It’s basketball fever: on your feet the entire game, paint-your-face, shout-at-the-TV kind of passion that runs deep in Indiana.
This is the state that gave us Larry Bird from French Lick, Hoosiers, the Gene Hackman movie about tiny Hickory High School defeating the biggest and best team in Indiana.
When the WNBA expanded to Indianapolis in 2000, they wanted a name that matched that intensity. Basketball isn’t just a sport in Indiana, it’s a condition, a fever.
Thanks to Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever is a pandemic. Ticket sales spiked across the league. WNBA highlights showed up on SportsCenter.
Here it is, 2025. The league has expanded to 13 teams, with the Golden State Valkyries joining and teams approved for Cleveland, Motown, and Philly. Arenas are sold out. Merch is moving. The WNBA is no longer asking for attention.
I’m not the type who carries doom and gloom on my shoulders. Sure, wars are bad, people killing each other doesn’t make any sense to me, racism is rampant, and political corruption is nothing new. I’m tired of hearing about it all.
I tuned into an Indiana Fever game. Not for a think piece, not for a cause. I just wanted to watch. The talent was, well, good. There’s no play above the rim, but that’s an NBA thing during the winter.
Speed, yes.
Passing, yes.
So good, I watched two, which, as Larry David once said in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode when accused of being a misogynist, “I’m an amiable fellow who’s seen two WNBA games!”
Then three.
I follow the Golden State Valkyries, the expansion team, when they picked Kate Martin, Caitlin Clark’s former Iowa Hawkeye teammate, from the Las Vegas Aces. The newest team is scrappy and surprisingly good.
You can’t tell the team mascots without a program. What’s a Valkyrie, anyway? The name comes from Norse mythology. A Valkyrie is a fierce female warrior who rides into battle wearing a helmet, brandishing a sword with purpose and power. They choose who lives and who dies. Valkyries is a tough name to spell. I type in a bunch of consonants and let spell check take over from there.
Valkyries are a fitting counterpart to the NBA Warriors, bringing mythic energy, more edge, and better uniforms. It’s a name that says: “We’re not just here to play. We’re here to conquer.”
Aside from the players and the branding that sounds like a Norse battle cry, I follow Golden State because of their Japanese American coach, Natalie Nakase. She represents a kind of quiet leadership I respect. Plus, she’s the first Asian American head coach in WNBA history.
The WNBA is my reprieve from doomscrolling. Sports politics can be exhausting, just like the real thing.
Brittney Griner and Geopolitics: The game got real in 2022 when WNBA star Brittney Griner played for the Phoenix Mercury at the time. Griner was arrested in Russia when security officials rummaged around a suitcase and found cannabis oil. The 6’9″ center was detained for nearly 10 months, essentially becoming a political pawn during rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia.
Suddenly, fans, players, and the public were thrust into an international crisis that had nothing to do with layups off the pick-and-roll or offensive rebounds. Griner’s story brought visibility to the risks athletes take overseas. Because salaries are so low, many players join international teams during the off-season.
Griner’s eventual release in a high-profile prisoner swap made headlines on every news outlet. It was the moment the WNBA shifted from a sports curiosity to a league shaped by politics, economics, and power, on and off the court.
Maybe being a casual WNBA fan is a phase. Maybe I just needed something unpredictable again. I’ve drifted from hard news but not from what matters.
The world is serious. Headlines still carry weight. Brittney Griner’s arrest reminded me that sports aren’t separate from politics but often right at the center. The U.S. didn’t participate in the 1980 Moscow Olympics when Russia invaded Afghanistan. Sprinters Peter Noonan from Australia and Americans John Carlos and Tommie Smith protested racism during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Noonan provided the black gloves.
We can’t turn away from injustice, climate collapse, or the rise of strongmen. That’s all real.
There’s a difference between being aware and being consumed.
Watching the Valkyries rally from behind or Paige Bueckers hitting a deep three from the parking lot reminds me that enjoyment, intensity, and political absurdity can coexist. Caring about something doesn’t have to feel like I’m carrying all the world’s problems on my back.
Maybe the news isn’t where I go for meaning anymore. For now, it’s a well-executed fast break.
My latest shero is Natalie Nakase.
I want to correctly spell Valkyries on the first try.
If you’re tired of the news cycle eating its own tail, check out a fourth-quarter comeback. Watch the Fever and the Valkyries. You might just see something new, not based on spin.
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