Category: Women in Sports

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Talkin’ trash

We see you, Angel Reese.

You were not the face of this NCAA Final Four. 

That distinction belonged to Caitlin Clark, the Iowa phenom whose prolific scoring in the women’s tournament has dominated the media coverage, from pre-game hype reels to post-game studio analysis. 

Clark was deserving of the accolades. She dropped a record 41 points on previously unbeaten and defending national champion South Carolina in an electrifying semifinal game that became an instant classic. Her game is an entertaining mix of three-point bombs and dime-dropping on pick and rolls. It’s not surprising she had the media swooning.

But you are a superstar of a different flavor. 

You are audacious. You trademarked the nickname, “Bayou Barbie.” You wear a crown for photos; play in false eyelashes with flowing hair and manicured nails. That swag is real. Your game is a spectacular mix of finesse and power. You put up 34 double-doubles this season, a feat never before accomplished. You were named MVP of the finals.

It’s easy to see how all you Tigers might have taken a little extra satisfaction in hanging an unheard-of 102 points on Iowa after being over-shadowed in the walk-up to the title game by Clark and the Hawkeyes. Who can blame you for handing back to Clark a little of the trash-talking she had been dishing out all tournament?

So, why was it such a big deal?

You nailed it in responding to media questions about the post-game flexing:

“I don’t fit the narrative. I don’t fit in the box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood, I’m too ghetto, y’all told me that all year. But when other people do it y’all don’t say nothin.”

The dog whistling was obvious, but the whole thing might have faded quickly if it didn’t cut so close to the bone.

Two days earlier South Carolina coach Dawn Staley called out the shade being thrown at her squad’s defense-minded, inside game after the Gamecocks lost to Iowa in the semi-finals.

Iowa coach Lisa Bluder in a post-game interview suggested rebounding against Carolina to “going to a bar fight.” She meant it as a compliment.

Staley took umbrage.

“The truth about our team? That’s a good question. We’re not bar fighters. We’re not thugs. We’re not monkeys. We’re not street fighters,” Staley told reporters at a news conference.

“If you really knew them, if you really knew them, like you really want to know other players that represent this game, you would think differently. So don’t judge us by the color of our skin. Judge us by how we approach the game.”

Many don’t want to see race in all of this.

Iowa is one of the whitest teams in D1 college basketball. Of nine players who took the floor in the final, seven are white. Compare that to LSU, where all eight players who got into the game are black. And South Carolina, where nine of the 10 in the semi-final are black. This in a sport where more than half of all D1 players are black.

But the prejudice isn’t in line-ups or any player’s or coach’s intentions. 

The racism is too often inherent in media coverage, and the words that are chosen to represent the athletes, coaches, fans, and their actions on the court.

Naming it and shaming such behavior should be encouraged.

We see you, Angel Reese.

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FIFA’s long path to equality

This week, FIFA announced it would triple the prize money it awards to teams competing in the women’s World Cup, from $50 million to $150 million.

“This year for FIFA is the year of women. It’s a women’s (year),” President Gianni Infantino said at the organization’s annual meeting in Rwanda. “As a father of four daughters, four beautiful daughters I should add, I know very well how much attention we need to give to women in our lives. FIFA is no different in that.”

Woohoo! Thanks, daddy.

For all the self-congratulatory trumpeting and wide-eyed media headlines, the increase is incremental progress and it’s driven by FIFA’s cynical attempt to deflect public criticism by reframing its own paternalism.

The decision — a few months ahead of the tournament in Australia and New Zealand — stems not from FIFA trying to do the right thing, but from public pressure exerted as the top women’s soccer teams in the world have demanded equal treatment from FIFA and their own federations. It also comes in the wake of a public backlash over FIFA taking a hefty fee from the misogynist government of Saudi Arabia to sponsor the women’s tournament.

It’s hard to believe, then, that the sudden boost in the women’s prize money is the result of a sincere effort by FIFA to do the right thing when it comes to gender equality.

The fact remains that the prize pool for women’s teams, even at its increased level, is a fraction of the prize pool for men’s teams.

The men’s prize pool in Qatar totaled $440 million. The cup winner, Argentina, took home $42 million. The sixteen teams that didn’t make it out of the group stage each received $9 million. In other words, the worst men’s team got a bigger prize than the best women’s team.

Infantino pledged to equalize the prize pools for men’s and women’s teams in the next World Cup tournaments, in 2026 and 2027. “Today, (we are) embarking on a historic journey for women’s football and for equality,” he told the meeting. “This will lead us on a path to equal pay.”

It was unclear why it will take four years to travel that path.

Infantino complained about TV networks, specifically those that are publicly financed, being unwilling to pay more for broadcast rights. (He also complained about their critical coverage of FIFA.) That’s unlikely to change in four years. It certainly won’t increase enough to cover the cost to “equalize the prize pools.” 

And it’s not like the men’s prize pool hasn’t ballooned in the last generation.

Over the last 20 years, the top men’s prize has grown fivefold, from $8 million in 2002. Even accounting for inflation, the increase has been exponential.

The men’s teams have been awarded prize money for years. FIFA didn’t pay prize money to women’s teams until 2007 when cup winner Germany received $1 million out of a $5.6 million pool. In 2019, the women’s prize pool totaled $30 million. The men’s winner in 2018, France, was awarded $38 million.

How paltry was the women’s prize pool?

The $50 million was about equal to the $48 million budgeted by FIFA to cover training and travel expenses for the men’s team, apart from the prize money.

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BG is back. Where’s the joy?

Nothing was triumphant in Brittney Griner’s return to the United States.

It was, to be sure, a relief and a joy, to her family and friends. But it came at a cost.

In order to persuade Russia to free Griner following a drug conviction, U.S. negotiators agreed to cut short by six years the prison term of the notorious Russian arms deal, Viktor Bout, whom the media regularly aggrandizes as the Merchant of Death.

Some, especially conservatives, are infuriated that Bout was released at all.

Others are aggrieved that Russia refused to release Paul Whelan, a former Marine working as the head of global security for BorgWarner, which has no offices in Russia but vouched for Whelan’s work visa, the Detroit Free Press reported. Whelan, arrested in 2018, was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in a labor camp.

The implication in both complaints is that the U.S. made a bad deal — that Griner’s freedom was less important than Whelan’s or Bout’s freedom. 

It’s more than that, though.

Griner is a 6-foot-nine black woman who identifies as queer. She wears long dreadlocks and a multitude of tattoos. She moves with an athletic swagger and she was arrested on drug charges.

In the mainstream view, those details are strikes against her.

Griner is an exceptional athlete. She’s twice won Olympic gold medals; a college national championship and a WNBA title. She was a college All America and a six-time  WNBA all-star. She was in Russia to play in a professional league on a contract that more than doubles her “supermax” WNBA salary.

She was detained while going through Russian customs in early March. Authorities said they found two cannabis vape cartridges and less than a gram “hashish” oil. Griner was charged with smuggling drugs and sentenced in August to nine years in prison. 

Griner’s detainment came shortly after Russia’s invaded Ukraine and amid widespread condemnation from European and American leaders. At one point President Biden ad-libbed a line in his speech to say of Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” The White House later denied the president was calling for regime change.

It’s not inconceivable that Putin saw Griner as a bargaining chit.

Beyond the geo-political intrigue, Griner’s “crime” in Russia is something that is legal in many places in the U.S. Griner says she uses prescription cannabinoids for pain management.

For many political opportunists, Griner represents a perfect storm of race, drugs, gender, and sexuality tinged with anti-Americanism.

It makes it easy — almost sensible — for them to complain that sparing Griner nine years in prison on trumped up charges was too high a price to pay. If she had been white, or male, or straight, or patriotic — like the accused spy Paul Whelan, perhaps —then it might have been worth the deal.

Which is why Griner’s return to the US has seemed — publicly at least— as less than a triumph.

It’s too bad the questions about her release have over-taken support (or even joy) for her return.

At a White House news conference, Cherelle Griner recognized the bittersweet event. 

“Today, my family is whole. But as you all are aware, there are so many other families who are not whole,” she said.

“BG is not here to say this, but I will gladly speak on her behalf and say that BG and I will remain committed to the work of getting every American home, including Paul, whose family is in our hearts today. As we celebrate BG being home, we do understand that there are still people out here who are enduring what I endured the last nine months of missing tremendously their loved ones.”

Griner has been through an ordeal. She was a political prisoner, not a criminal. She cut her braids while in prison, according to reports, because the prison was so cold they would freeze before they could dry after she washed them.

The first thing she did in a gym at the military base in Texas after her return was to dunk a basketball.

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Led by a woman, UC men win DIII title

University of Chicago men’s soccer NCAA DIII champion. Credit: University of Chicago

The University of Chicago men’s soccer team won the NCAA Division III national championship on Saturday, led by first-year coach Julie Sitch.

Sitch is the first woman to lead an NCAA men’s soccer team to a national championship.

Why is that a big deal?

In winning the title, Sitch’s success helps dismantle the fallacy that women can’t lead (or that men won’t follow a woman). The Maroons beat Williams College 2-0 to win the title, completing a historic, undefeated season, 22-0-1.

There are women who coach men’s teams, though not very many. According to the NCAA’s 45 Years of Title IX report, women hold just 4.6% of head coaching positions across all divisions of men’s teams in the NCAA.

Julie Sitch
Credit: University of Chicago

“The more we can see it, the more we can envision women in these (coaching) positions,” Sitch told Medill Reports earlier this year

Opening opportunities to women will help prove that coaching is about coaching, not gender. “For me, it doesn’t make a difference if it’s men or women,” she said. “I just want to get the best out of these athletes, help them pursue their dreams and goals, and my culture for that doesn’t change.”

Sitch is a home-grown talent

At suburban Oswego High School, she was Illinois Gatorade Women’s High School Soccer Player of the Year in 2002. At DePaul University, she broke the school’s career records in goals and assists. She was the 2003 Conference USA Player of the Year and was a 2005 All-Big East first-team selection. She made the Under-21 U.S. National Team and played professionally until 2015.

She took up coaching in 2015 as an assistant on the University of Chicago women’s team, which reached the NCAA semifinals in 2016 and the national championship game in 2017. She took over as the University of Illinois-Chicago head coach from 2018-19 and in 2020 joined the Chicago Red Stars in the NWSL as an assistant coach.

In April, she was named head coach of the University of Chicago men’s team.

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FIFA: Women, officially

A glass ceiling will be shattered today in Qatar, of all places.

An all-female crew will officiate a FIFA men’s World Cup match for the first time ever when Germany takes on Costa Rica at Al-Bayt Stadium.

UPDATE: In testimony to the competence of the all-female crew, the match was played without any controversy over the on-field decision-making amid intense competition. Germany beat Costa Rica 4-2 but failed to advance on goal differential versus Spain.

The crew will be led on the pitch by head referee Stephanie Frappart of France. She will be assisted by Neuza Back of Brazil and Karen Diaz Medina of Mexico

This is no low-stakes, back-of-the-desert, inconsequential appearance. It is an important match on a big stage where an upstart Costa Rican side takes on traditional powerhouse Germany with both teams looking to win and advance out of group play. 

The effect of the decision reaches beyond the field of play. 

The officiating assignment could be taken as subtle imprinting by FIFA on the tournament in a nation where women are relegated to second-class citizenship — they need a male guardian’s permission to marry, work, travel, and even study.

The tournament has been roiled by controversy over social issues, starting with the treatment and deaths of of immigrant workers who constructed the stadiums to Qatar i officials surprising FIFA two days before the tournament by banning the sale of beer inside stadiums, even after it took $75 million from Budweiser as a tournament sponsor. Qatar, a Muslim nation, strictly regulates alcohol. Beer and liquor sales in the stadium were limited to VIP areas.

Qatar also cracked down on demonstrations of support for human rights, specifically refusing to allow the German team to wear “One Love” armbands and preventing ticket holders from carrying rainbow flags in a country where same-sex relationships are outlawed. A social media video showed police refusing entry to a fan wearing a T-shirt that read “Women. Life. Freedom.” in support of anti-government protests in Iran.

But the assignment also could be taken as a sign that FIFA is coming to grips with its own unequal treatment of women in a sport where, according to estimates by Statista, 37% of football fans worldwide are women, and the women’s World Cup in 2019 drew a total television audience exceeding 1.1 billion viewers.

In May, FIFA announced the officials selected for the World Cup matches, the head referee pool of 36 included three women: Frappart, Yoshimi Yamashita of Japan, and Salima Mukasanga of Brazil.  The pool of 69 assistant referees also included three women: Back, Díaz, and Kathryn Nesbitt of the United States.

FIFA said at the time it wants to make the appointment of women referees in men’s competitions more commonplace, and has been deploying women in men’s senior and junior tournaments as a sort of proving ground.

“In this way, we clearly emphasize that it is quality that counts for us and not gender,” said Pierluigi Collina, chair of the FIFA Referees Committee. “I would hope that in the future, the selection of elite women’s match officials for important men’s competitions will be perceived as something normal and no longer as sensational.”

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Legendary

I am not a tennis fan.

Still, I was transfixed by the US Open and the farewell to Serena Williams.

Serena Williams sending love to the US Open crowd.
Photo credit: US Open

I could have done without the Oprah voice-over tribute (though I loved the hype video with Queen Latifah) as well as some of the cheesy post-match, on-court interviews/toasts/statements.

But, my, Serena did sparkle.

She has completely co-opted what Billie Jean King once characterized as one of the “good clothes sports” — tennis, golf, skating — where female athletes were encouraged to compete. Her flowing black entry cape and her tennis/evening wear court apparel were perfect for her primetime turn at sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium.

More captivating, underneath all of that high style, was the pure, once-in-a-generation athletic greatness.

Williams, 40, had played only a few matches in total the previous year. She was thick and strong and confident. Her shot-making was brilliant. She was resilient; remarkable. Every shot drew the crowd’s applause.

She came in unseeded and cruised in her first-round match 6-3, 6-3. She stepped up in the next round as a clear underdog against World #2 Anett Kontaveit, who was three when Williams won her first US Open title. Williams provided an epic coda to her career with a two-and-half-hour exhibition of guts and glamor, winning narrowly 7-6, 2-6, 6-2. Williams would lose in a three-hour, three-set, third-round thriller.

Some suggest that had she not played doubles with her sister, Venus Williams, between her second- and third-round singles matches, she might have had a shot at a 24h Grand Slam singles title.

She brooked no such talk. In her farewell, it was important for her to honor a legacy that is completely intertwined, she said. “Without Venus, there would be no Serena.”

Ahead of the Open, in (another) cover story for Vogue magazine, Williams said she will “evolve away from tennis.” She said it was a transition rather than a retirement, which seems wise for a 40-year-old who’s at the midpoint of her life.

At her post-match news conference, Williams was less definitive. Asked if this is definitely her last tournament, she smiled. “Yeah, I’ve been pretty vague about it, right?” she said. “I’m going to stay vague because you never know.”

Whether she returns or not, her turn at the US Open leaves no doubt about her legendary status as the greatest women’s tennis player of all time.

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Oh, Baby

Congrats to USWNT star Alex Morgan and LA Galaxy midfielder Servando Carrasco, who announced yesterday they are expecting their first child in April.

Screen shot of @alexmorgan13 Twitter post
Alex Morgan announces her pregnancy via Twitter

The timing is remarkable. Morgan is due ten months after leading the US Women to a fourth World Cup (That’s some way to celebrate!) and three months before the opening of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Morgan reportedly is planning on being a part of the Olympic team, but just the question of whether she would play highlights one of the unique issues female athletes face: How and when to have children. At 30, Morgan is in her athletic prime, and at a point where many women have started or have decided to start families. She and Carrasco met as first-year students at the University of California-Berkeley in 2007 and have been married five years, so wanting to start a family seems, well, not so surprising.

The inherent unfairness is that while the decision has little affect on Carrasco’s athletic career, it could (will) profoundly affect Morgan’s.

For example, Serena Williams took a year off competitive tennis when she had a child. Her return, at age 37, was somewhat fraught. She made the finals in three major tournaments but didn’t win them, and she has dropped in the rankings to 9th in the world. On the other hand, Kerry Walsh Jennings was five weeks pregnant when she won her third beach volleyball gold medal at the 2010 Olympics in London and Scottish golfer Catriona Matthew won the British Open less than three months after delivering her second daughter.

Closer to home, one-time USWNT player Sydney Leroux rejoined the Orlando Pride in September, three months after she gave birth. (That’s about the same time Morgan stepped away from, citing a nagging knee injury sustained in the World Cup.)

Some things transcend sport. Family lives are a prime case.

But, even so, here’s hoping we see Morgan on the pitch in Tokyo, and maybe Carrasco in the stands with their healthy baby in his arms.

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The WNBA’s minimal wage

WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne. (Photo from cnn.com)

After celebrating the Washington Mystics and their remarkable run to the WNBA championship, it’s important to take a minute to think about how we treat these athletes the rest of the year, especially whether or not they are fairly compensated.

Consider that the Sacramento Kings pay Dewayne Dedmon $13.3 million a year, which barely allows him to crack the top 100 among all NBA players, according to data compiled by ESPN.com.

That’s enough money to cover the WNBA’s entire payroll this season.

It’s outrageous that the total compensation for the 200 women on WNBA rosters doesn’t even add up to what a mediocre NBA team is willing to pay a journeyman center. The top salary in the WNBA is capped at $117,500. The median salary is closer to $55,000.

If you think that’s simply a reflection of their value, it is not. If you think it’s because the WNBA is losing money, it’s not. If you think it’s because nobody attends games, it’s not.

The NBA spends about 50% of league revenues on payroll, according to an analysis by Forbes magazine. On the other hand, the WNBA spends about 25% of league revenues on payroll.

The sports giant ESPN paid the WNBA $25 million a year for broadcast rights in 2018. This year, the league also cut a deal with CBS sports to televise 40 live primetime and weekend games. The league realizes at least $27 million a year in ticket revenue, with ticket sales this year again topping 1.5 million. That, by the way, is just about where the NBA was at its 23-year-mark. The WNBA also receives support, as a subsidiary partner, from the NBA. And there are other revenue streams such as concessions, merchandise, betting sites, etc. Exact numbers are difficult to come by in most cases because the leagues finances aren’t public. But even using the artificially low $52 million a year as a baseline revenue, the WNBA payroll is remarkably low by any objective business standard.

The economics don’t argue that the WNBA players should be paid on par with NBA players, but it does suggest that the players are undervalued by at least half, and probably more.