WNBA Players Should Have Picketed, Not Attended, the Met Gala |
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WNBA Players Should Have Picketed, Not Attended, the Met Gala
At the Bezos ball, WNBA stars chose celebrity over solidarity.
WNBA’s Angel Reese attending the Met Gala in New York City on May 4, 2026.
Twenty twenty was only six years ago, but it feels like 60. It was the height of the Covid-19 pandemic—which both political parties have decided to memory-hole despite over a million deaths in the United States. It was also the year of the largest demonstrations in US history: the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the police murder of George Floyd.
Athletes were at the heart of the 2020 fight, none more so than the brave coaches and athletes of the Women’s National Basketball Association. The players in the W had spent years claiming their place as the conscience of the sports world. In summer 2016, after the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, they protested police violence during the national anthem—months before Colin Kaepernick took his knee. They not only forced Georgia’s MAGA wannabe-Senator Kelly Loeffler out as owner of the Atlanta Dream but stymied her political future by supporting Loeffler’s opponent, the Rev. Raphael Warnock. In 2023, one the league’s brightest stars, Maya Moore, even retired early to fight the racial injustices in the criminal justice system. Others like Natasha Cloud took significant time off to join the struggle for the idea that Black lives do matter.
Today, the WNBA is in a far different place than in 2020. Ratings are way up, franchise values skyrocketing, and home games packed with devoted fans eager to watch a new generation of stars. A second-year expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries, just became the first women’s squad in any sport to surpass a $1 billion valuation. Players, thanks to their union’s fight for a new collective bargaining agreement, have seen their paychecks begin to reflect this growth with massive raises to both the minimum and maximum salaries. For a league that........