They don’t hate them because they’re White.
A myriad of White fans have supported the WNBA since the league’s inception, and they’ve backed Black players like Maya Moore, Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes with the same enthusiasm as they have White players like Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, and Lauren Jackson.
They don’t hate them because they’re “new,” either. Players and media all want to see the league grow because it puts more money in their pockets or eyeballs on their stories.
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No, the reason there is such contempt for Indiana Fever fans — who seem to endure a new slight or attack every week — is for one reason: They’re viewed as conservative.
Former ESPN anchor Cari Champion put it about as plainly as possible in a podcast a couple weeks back when she said Fever star Caitlin Clark is “an avatar for middle America” and represents a fan base that “wants to spread hate.” Translation: People who live in live flyover states are likely to be as backward as they are bigoted.
A couple months earlier, CNN contributor Leah Asmelash wrote a column entitled: “How the right wing decided to care about women’s basketball in Indiana,” in which she zeroed in on conservatives’ support for Clark and fellow Fever guard Sophie Cunningham.
Before that, the Guardian’s Manny Fidel published a piece entitled “The right’s fury over Caitlin Clark is about everything except Caitlin Clark,” with Fidel noting how “politicians, pundits and fans from across the right decried the decision” of Clark being left off the Olympic team. How he knew that the fans upset with the snub were on the right is unclear. That has simply become the assumption.
First off, there is no way to know whether the majority of Fever fans are conservative or not. It’s likely that most of them have simply been lured in by the two most popular players in the WNBA. One is Clark, who built an unprecedented fan base during her time at Iowa, where she was half Magic Johnson and half Steph Curry — pulling up from 28 feet several times per game while leading the nation in scoring and assists three times. The other is Cunningham, who, in addition to having end-your-marriage looks, is as effervescent and engaging as anyone in the sport. Her devoted following preceded any political stances she took.
Nevertheless, these players’ fans have been labeled “right wing,” and that has predictable consequences in a league that overwhelmingly leans the other way.
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The most recent example, of course, is Aces forward A’ja Wilson furiously charging toward a Fever fan in the fourth quarter of Tuesday’s playoff game in Indiana after he (gasp!) pointed at her and said “that (foul) is on you. As OutKick’s Dan Zaksheske pointed out, none of the announcers or pundits on the Amazon Prime broadcast came to the fan’s defense, and it was Wilson who later said that she was disrespected.
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This seems to keep happening, evidence be damned. In August, Aces guard Jackie Young had two fans removed from their seats at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis for “chirping all game,” but an investigation determined that the fans hadn’t violated any code of conduct.
Last year, then-Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese claimed Fever fans hurled racist comments her way, but again, an investigation yielded no proof. And in 2024, then-Mercury center Brittney Griner said “I don’t appreciate the new fans that sit there and yell racial slurs at myself, my teammates and the people they play against.”
We know what “new” fans she was talking about, but there wasn’t a morsel of evidence backing up her words.
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Unsurprisingly, no player, coach or mainstream media member has challenged any of these narratives. Why? Because they desperately want these so-called right-wing fans to be the villains. And when the evidence doesn’t cooperate, it threatens their worldview and causes considerable consternation.
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It’s sort of like when the Mueller report failed to establish criminal collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. How many anti-Trumpers saw that and went “phew! The president isn’t conspiring with a hostile foreign power!”? Approximately zero. Because they were seeking affirmation, not information.
The WNBA is a league in which coaches, such as Cheryl Reeve, say that those who want to separate biological males and females in sports “don’t want transgender people to exist.” It’s an organization in which players such as Wilson and DiJonai Carrington decry “white privilege.” And a good chunk of the media who cover them walk in lockstep with their ideology.
In their minds, fans ignoring such politics aren’t everyday people who just want to watch hoops. They’re deplorables.
Perhaps the most egregious tweet regarding this matter came from USA Today writer Prince J. Grimes, who introduced his column Tuesday by writing “You can say A’ja Wilson overreacted, but in a split second of looking up, she perceived a fan’s forward movement as a threat. In the context of everything with that fanbase, I can’t blame her.”
No doubt there’s a great deal of hate surrounding Fever fans. But it’s not coming from them —it’s coming toward them.
