The right for women to pursue athletics—whether recreationally or competitively—has long been an inherently political journey, going back to the passage of Title IX in 1972, which prohibited gender-based discrimination in American sports programs. That inextricable connection between law and sport serves as the foundation of every major institutional accomplishment in women’s athletics.

The Women’s National Basketball Association especially stands out. The league is just over 25 years old , but in that brief tenure, the organization—which is made up of mostly Black women and has a visible queer demographic—has fused principles and athleticism at an astonishing level. “When I think of the WNBA, I think of activism by default,” says Katie Lever, a freelance sportswriter for Awful Announcing and former Division I college athlete. “I can’t say that about any other sports league.” At nearly every juncture, the women of the WNBA have set a precedent by being active participants in their communities and using their platforms to serve as ambassadors for their political and social realities, despite potential social or financial consequences—even though their max contracts, absent major sponsorships, leave them far from millionaires. Fans are responding: The WNBA playoffs (as well as women’s college basketball) are seeing some of their best ratings and attendance numbers ever. Last month, game three of the WNBA finals at the Barclays Center drew the biggest crowd in league history.

“Our league is made up of the people that require more rights in this world and our society.” —Nneka Ogwumike, Los Angeles Sparks

“Our league is made up of the people that require more rights in this world and our society,” explains Nneka Ogwumike, power forward for the Los Angeles Sparks and president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, the trade union for the league and the first-ever trade union for female pro athletes. “Because we understand our platform—and honestly, I think too, because of the narrative around how quickly it can disappear—I think that we take those moments to take advantage of, you know, the platforms that we do have and us being able to speak out and reach more than people would normally expect.”

In 2016, players from the Indiana Fever, New York Liberty, and Phoenix Mercury were fined for wearing unsanctioned black warm-up shirts to protest a string of police-involved shootings of Black men. The fines were eventually reversed, but not before then-Mercury forward Mistie Bass tweeted: “Don’t say we have a voice and then fine us because we use it. #notpuppets #cutthestrings.”

Standard-bearer is a significant torch to carry: Protests are always risky in professional sports, an industry that strives not to offend anyone’s political disposition, in pursuit of the almighty American dollar. And women’s pro basketball is still leagues behind men’s in terms of funding, support, and average compensation. This means that women athletes take bigger individual risks when they break convention and make their political convictions apparent. Yet over the years, the women of the WNBA have consistently banded together to lead displays of collective activism addressing racism, policing, gender pay equity, LGBTQ+ issues, voting, and reproductive rights. “WNBA teams also led anthem protests before Colin Kaepernick did,” Lever points out. “Hardly anyone remembers it, because women’s sports get less than 5 percent of airtime on major sports networks.”

In an unexpected move in 2020, players for the Atlanta Dream took a public stance against the team’s ownership. They spoke out against U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler, then a co-owner of the Dream, as she ran for reelection. Loeffler, a Republican, publicly derided the Black Lives Matter movement in a letter to the league.

“I adamantly oppose the Black Lives Matter political movement, which has advocated for the defunding of police, called for the removal of Jesus from churches and the disruption of the nuclear family structure, harbored anti-Semitic views, and promoted violence and destruction across the country,” wrote Loeffler, a long-standing ally of former President Donald Trump, in a letter to the league commissioner. “I believe we should put an American flag on every jersey. Include it in our licensed apparel for players, coaches and fans.” The WNBA Players Association publicly rebuffed the statement, tweeting, “E-N-O-U-G-H! O-U-T!” The WNBA affirmed the players in an official response, stating that “[t]he WNBA is based on the principle of equal and fair treatment of all people and we, along with the teams and players, will continue to use our platforms to vigorously advocate for social justice.”

At the next nationally televised game, Dream players wore black T-shirts reading “VOTE WARNOCK” in bright white letters. It was a boon for Loeffler’s Democratic opponent, the Reverend Raphael Warnock, who at the time was polling at just 9 percent. The idea was the brainchild of Elizabeth Williams of the Dream and former Seattle Storm player Sue Bird. Not only did Warnock go on to win the election in a runoff, but also, the Atlanta Dream was ultimately sold to an investment group that includes former Dream player Renee Montgomery, the first retired WNBA athlete to become both an owner and a WNBA executive.

“We’ve always been in a position to advocate for our own rights and resources within our own existence in our league,” says Ogwumike. “I think that really energizes us to do that as the people of the community as well.” There was never an explicit “agenda” to execute many of these moments—they are natural extensions of the players’ lived realities and the communities they participate in, live in, and play for. “We understand what it’s like to have to band together and fight for respect,” Bird said in an interview with NPR.

This persistent activism has not only paid off in both public visibility and increased fan support, but also slowly transitioned from a third-rail issue on a corporate level to an increasingly distinct part of the WNBA brand. In 2016, WNBA president Lisa Borders initially reproached players for stirring the pot: “We are proud of WNBA players’ engagement and passionate advocacy for nonviolent solutions to difficult social issues, but expect them to comply with the league’s uniform guidelines.” That same year, Maya Moore—one of the greatest WNBA players in the history of the game and a two-time Olympic gold medalist—publicly took a sabbatical to help her longtime friend-turned-partner Jonathan Irons, who was wrongfully incarcerated as a teenager, get his conviction overturned; he is now her husband.

Four years later, in July 2020, players from across the league began wearing warm-up shirts in memory of Breonna Taylor, an unarmed Black woman killed by the police that May, with “Black Lives Matter” on the front and “Say Her Name” emblazoned on the back. Then, in August, the Washington Mystics postponed a scheduled game and held a candlelight vigil after Jacob Blake was shot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, donning white T-shirts with seven bullet holes on the back. That time, the league was publicly supportive of the protest: “I just want to say how proud I am of all of you, what you’ve displayed over the course of a very difficult season, what you’ve displayed tonight,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said, addressing the players that evening. In the months to come, the league would construct a “social justice council,” with civil rights advocates Kimberlé Crenshaw and Alicia Garza serving as external advisors. By early 2022, the WNBA would complete a historic $75 million capital fundraising effort. Engelbert’s press release left no ambiguities as to the direction of the WNBA on the corporate level: “Our strategy is to deploy this capital to continue to drive the league’s brand as a bold, progressive entertainment and media property that embodies diversity, promotes equity, advocates for social justice, and stands for the power of women.”

“I always try to remind people that women have only been able to play sports for 50 years, not that long,” says Danette Leighton, CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation. Prior to taking the executive position in 2022, Leighton had worked in the NCAA Pac-12 conference as chief marketing officer, and as vice president of business operations for the now-defunct WNBA Monarchs, one of the league’s original franchises. She points out: “What we’re finally seeing is not just a moment, but a tipping point, generationally, where both boys and girls have seen women play sports for 50 years.”

When Leighton was a WNBA front-office executive, she viewed advocating for WNBA support from investors as like pushing a boulder up a hill. “[Players] had the beginnings of shoe deals and things like that, but they didn’t have, like, the media exposure that you’re starting to see now, and the building of a lot of those individual athletes’ personalities,” she says. “We’re finally at a place where you’re starting to see that interest level for consumers to want those types of products and to be associated with those athletes.” This investment is critical, as more of a cash flow available to WNBA players decreases their need to play year-round and join European leagues during the off-season to make up for the income differential—the exact reason Brittney Griner was in Russia, where she was wrongfully detained for 10 months on cannabis-related charges in 2022.

“It really fills the heart,” says Ogwumike of the increased investment, adding that she noticed a real shift over her 12-year career once she started receiving ESPN alerts over WNBA draft picks. “We’ve always been made to believe ‘Hey, you need to be grateful for what’s going on. You need to be grateful, because this could all disappear one day’—and that’s contradictory to the investment that we’re seeing.” Between the dedicated fans who continue to support the league, and the vast infrastructure of former players who continue to help deepen the WNBA’s roots—from coaching, to working in the front office, to helping recruit and build up players in the NCAA—the talent pool is not only deeper than ever, the reach of the sport is also expanding quickly. “I do think it is not a fad,” Leighton says. “I think it’s actually this competition, that investment level in women’s sports, the interest in women’s sports, the fan base of women’s sports has grown exponentially.” Take Aces head coach and 2023 Hall of Fame inductee Becky Hammon, who coached her team, led by MVP contender A’ja Wilson, on a back-to-back championship run in a finals matchup against the New York Liberty, headed up by Sabrina Ionescu and WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart. It is the sort of storytelling that ratings are made for and that fans live for, showing that the WNBA can make noise both on and off the court.

“When people question the power of the WNBA, I ask them when was the last time a men’s team flipped the Senate.” —Katie Lever, sportswriter

Dr. Robert Sroka, a professor of sports at Georgia State University, points to various factors behind the recent surge in interest in women’s basketball. “In some respect, ESPN’s financial struggles have been a boon for the WNBA,” he says. “Compared to the NFL or college football, the WNBA is cost-effective programming that ESPN is naturally positioned and financially incentivized to elevate.” Such steady, high-profile attention, particularly through larger platforms such as ESPN, is key to increasing the appeal of the sport. This has led to moments such as the overdue recognition of Liberty star Ionescu, who made history by breaking the WNBA and NBA record (previously held by Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry) at the league’s 2023 three-point shooting contest in July, with 37 baskets. “There’s an ever-broadening range of players that are known quantities, part through coverage of their play, part through coverage of their community activism, and part through strategic marketing initiatives at the player or league level,” Sroka says.

As the league grows in visibility and popularity, players continue to remain unbowed, using their platform to demand that fans, owners, and the rest of the public see all facets of their identities as athletes, activists, and individuals with passions, struggles, and concerns—whether that be through op-eds in The Player’s Tribune advocating for equity through the WNBPA, speaking up about maternity needs, or continuing to discuss issues affecting their communities. One upcoming issue in the union’s upcoming collective bargaining agreement is guaranteed charter flights, which Ogwumike points out is about player health and safety.

This focus on activism showcases a level of a command that has long been noted in the sports world. “I keep all of this in mind when people say that nobody cares about women’s sports,” Lever says. “Enough people cared enough about women’s sports to pass a federal law guaranteeing women’s right to sports, and now that women have that access, people still deny female athletes and women’s leagues the resources and exposure they need to thrive … When people question the power of the WNBA, I ask them [when was] the last time a men’s team flipped the Senate.”