“We Got Next”: The Struggle to Make the WNBA

Abstract

2021 marks the 25th season of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), making it easily the longest running women’s professional league in the United States and defying the predictions of those who doubted that a women’s basketball league could succeed. Though the WNBA constantly faces the pessimistic voices of those who view it as on the brink of collapse, it has matured into a stable, growing league, and the players’ prominent role within social justice movements has sparked a new wave of optimism about the WNBA’s future. Despite this, the WNBA still faces questions about how best to grow the league, and perhaps more broadly, what it means for women to play basketball in the professional yet beleaguered WNBA. This thesis examines the way in which WNBA players perceive themselves and the league, and consequently how their demands for change and respect have grown. It draws upon my ethnographic research with a WNBA team—pseudonymously called the Ravens—as well as my examination of a variety of sources, including news articles, advertising and commercials, and most prominently, the players own construction of their mediated self, particularly through the use of sporting autobiographies and other autobiographical texts. I examine the intersecting forces of race, gender, class, sexuality, and religion to demonstrate the way in which the WNBA’s initial marketing emphasis on heterosexual, respectable femininity was gradually challenged over time by players, who instead pushed for alternative models of female athleticism. I argue that these gendered discourses have constructed a way of playing basketball “like a girl,” which can serve to limit players’ embodied possibilities. Furthermore, I explore what it means to play in a professional league that lacks the resources of other, male sports leagues, and the way in which WNBA players have pushed higher pay and better conditions. Through this examination of WNBA players’ experiences, I argue that it is players’ dedication and commitment to ensuring a sustainable league that has enabled the WNBA to survive in spite of an American sporting landscape hostile to women.