Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
A better name for the current Women’s National Basketball League (WNBA) might be Women’s Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), given the growing performance-art violence that is now endemic in the league.
Prior to the 2024 arrival of then-22-year-old Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark, very few people watched the WNBA.
Team franchises were worth less than $20 million. The league ran chronic deficits and was subsidized by the men’s professional basketball league, the National Basketball Association (NBA).
An unspoken subtext of the WNBA was that the owners and coaches were left-wing and made little effort to hide their political biases.
Despite talk of diversity, the league was—and remains—about 83 percent nonwhite and about 70 percent black.
Some media outlets have suggested that about 50 percent of the players are gay.
By Clark’s third year, her level of play had revolutionized the WNBA—or rather, saved it from financial collapse and cultural obscurity.
Economists have concluded that she has already infused $1 billion into the league through increased attendance, new media contracts, endorsements and sponsorships, and sports tourism.
Once-obscure players are now pampered and highly compensated.
Team franchises are now more than 20 times as valuable. In Caitlin Clark’s mere three years, the average team market value has soared to nearly $500 million.
Caitlin Clark did not revolutionize the WNBA by belonging to a white and heterosexual minority. Indeed, there are plenty of such players in the league.
Rather, in less than three years, she has proven to be arguably the greatest and most exciting female basketball player in history—hence the strange envy and hatred of her competitors.
Clark herself has already recorded more 30-point, 10-assist games than all other players in the league’s entire history.
What has been the players’ reaction to Clark’s brilliance and the cash she has infused into the league?
She seems headed for permanent injury.
In almost every game, opposing players are given freedom to gratuitously flatten, scratch, slap, poke, punch, and trip her—or use threats of violence to intimidate her.
The once-loud and politically activist league owners, coaches, and referees are not merely silent about this suicidal travesty. They instead often make their DEI/LGBTQ advocacy clear by directly harassing Clark’s fans.
They apply silly, made-up, ad hoc rules to expel fans who loudly champion players like Clark’s teammate Sophie Cunningham, who went on record suggesting that biological men should not play women’s sports.
There are three explanations for the unhinged and nihilistic behavior of WNBA players, staff, and owners.
One, in racist and sexist fashion, these left-wing actors deeply resent being saved by a white, heterosexual player who towers over others in skill—and to such a degree that they are willing to metaphorically strangle the very goose that lays their golden eggs.
Or, two, they feel the more violence and controversy they can spark in trying to neuter and hurt Clark, the more attention—money—they will attract.
Or both.
The more they gin up racial and sexual-orientation frenzy in World Wrestling Entertainment-style, the more they can inflate profits and gain popular attention.
But these gladiator-like women seem clueless about this possibility: if the battered Clark is permanently injured, quits, or joins another league, the WNBA temple of riches she built could come crashing down upon them.
The league currently has no “transgender women”—that is, biologically male—players and no publicly stated policy specifically addressing transgender players. Yet its officials and players virtue-signaled their embrace of them anyway, pledging support for “trans rights.”
Two ex-NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, took the WNBA at its word, nobly identifying as women and declaring themselves for the WNBA draft. Yet their declaration of their preferred gender identities—which are usually affirmed as brave and stunning by the WNBA and other forms of officialdom—only elicited furor from the league.
But if the WNBA insists that gender is simply based on a declaration of identity or a preference—that is, that sexuality is merely constructed—then the men claimed they could “psychologically” transition, at least momentarily, from game to game.
Their bids were promptly squashed.
Apparently, the WNBA hierarchy assumes that had the two taken the effort to put on skirts and lipstick and wear wigs and high heels now and then, they might pass—and thus be accepted.
The public remembers that blond, very white, and stylishly dressed Sen. Elizabeth Warren was once mocked for cynically fabricating a phony Native American ancestry to leverage a Harvard professorship.
In contrast, the late University of Colorado professor and Native American faker Ward Churchill profited for years from his own fabricated Native American identity by at least making the effort to dress up in buckskins, moccasins, beads, and headbands.
Why did Freedom and White seek to embarrass the league? Because they knew it was no longer really a basketball league at all but rather had transitioned to a World Women’s Entertainment money-making show.
The WWE is getting rich not so much by just playing basketball as by waging a veritable physical and cultural war on Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham.
In sum, the WWE has turned into a Roman Colosseum blood sport. Thousands now watch it nightly, in anger or glee that their popular heroes are bloodied—or may soon be even maimed or killed.
Discussion (26)
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Yea, (to Robert below) bring back the Roller Derby!
I love you, Victor. You are spot on about the WNBA, but I prefer to think of it as the new Roller Derby. Sophie Cunningham could be the new Blonde Bombshell!
It reminds me of Jordan/Byrd era. Tackle Basketball was the moniker I used. Nonetheless we are talking about it so capitalism wins. NFL football is something that pains me to watch with injuries in every game. Youth is wasted on the young. Their bodies will torture them later. Our prayers may help with the inevitable injuries. The Romans loved their blood sports. Are we so much different?
The WNClusterBA
Wow ! Right to the “point” !
Victor you gave five books that were the best on the Marines in the Pacific during World War Two. I have read the following Goodbye Darkness- Manchester Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb - Feifer and With the Old Breed Sledge. Can you tell me the other two? Thank you Steve Gilliland USMC
I CALL BULL... LEFT WING? OOO NOOOO.
Can your subscribers guess as to which color the next marital aid thrown onto the will be? Asking for a friend.
If it weren't so dangerous, it would be funny. I just pray that no serious harm comes to Clark or Cunningham. It is a perfect example of the insanity of the Left. They truly do cut off their nose to spite their face!
If it weren't so dangerous, the situation would be funny. It certainly is the
I had thought for a while that the WNBA players were trying for a hockey vibe, but WWE makes perfect sense.
Thank you VDH! 2 Timothy 3:1-5 — But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. Matthew 24:12: “And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”
It’s kind of VDH to take the time to summarize all that is wrong with the WNBA wrestling team. To go after a “Michael Jordan” type superstar that has rescued your league from bankruptcy and oblivion is racist and tinged with jealousy. How sad.
Very true Prof. Hanson. Living in Iowa, I am a Clark fan. I went to many of her games at Iowa and saw how revolutionary she was then and now. However I cannot hardly watch what the WNBA calls basketball.
I'm reminded of the 1970s movie "Rollerball."
The WNBA is a disgrace. A disgrace to the game,our culture. It is morally bankrupt and should be ingnored. Why even waste a moment on the league.
There IS a trans in the WNBA, but its a woman pretending to be male - true diversity.
So, let me ask the numbskulls in the 'W'NBA, what would happen to your League if Caitlin left the League or got injured enough to hang it up? Would you still have Charter airlines? Would you still have large crowds? Would still have enough income to pay huge salaries? Who would step up to bring in Fans? Reese? Or anybody else? Most players are nothing but thugs in a uniform, shooting percentage was dismal until Caitlin came along, proven by all the records she has set since she joined the League. Do you think you would be playing in major arenas if not for her?
Dr Hanson, Grateful & Delighted to see you looking well after your health ordeal. As regards this subject…you are, per usual, spot on in the analysis. Perfect name for the women’s gladiator league….WWE…love it. The absurd and bizarre wokeness of the league is stunning. Right out of Thomas Sowell’s book, The Vision of the Anointed. They lectured us ad nauseum during the Covid pandemic to ‘follow the science’ and look where they are now….Denying biological gender plus ignoring women on women violence on the basketball court, etc. As you alluded to, this will not end well for the league. Couldn’t happen to more deserving crowd. Thank you always for putting today’s social/political issues in historical context. Kindest Regards
Roller Derby!!
As a former college level, basketball player, I can only shudder with amazement at the skill of Caitlin Clark and some of the other players in the WNBA. Caitlin has given us a new sport that we can enjoy differently than the athletic pros of men’s basketball. Let’s try to enjoy it for as long as we can and stop the bashing of Caitlin Clark. She is too valuable to our country to let discontinue.
Nah, Victor, the WNBA is the 2026 version of Women's Roller Derby from the 70's. You had teams in big cities and backwater towns, your heroes and your villains, each with a cult following, stars who said outrageous things just for attention, referees who turned their backs on the hair-pulling and punching, and league officials who just shrugged when confronted by detractors who said the league was getting out of hand. Today's Phoenix Mercury is the same as yesterday's Bay Area Bombers.
Since they think there is no distinction between women and men there is no need for a separate league. They should try out for the nba and see how they do.
The Splash Girls are ballers and oh so lovely.
Caitlin Clark won't quit the WNBA because she's tough, highly competitive & making too much money from product endorsements. There's not enough competition in Europe or elsewhere, and it's difficult to start another women's professional league here without the NBA owners' subsidies. Because the value of these franchises has skyrocketed, these owners will want to protect their investments, rather than back another women's league.
Remove the profit motive, hand over day to day operations to crazed, angry racists and then be surprised with the end result? I think not