This is a principle that doesn’t just apply to individuals. It applies to organizations too. Unearned fame and fortune are far more destructive than they might appear. And right now, there’s no organization on the planet that proves this point more than the WNBA. The league just posted its highest average game viewership in 24 years. They’re bringing in massive new sponsorships, at least by the league’s standards. They’re selling out arenas, which used to be unheard of. This should be a dream come true for everyone involved in the WNBA — from the executives to the players to the reporters who, for their sins in a past life, have been cursed with the job of covering a women’s basketball league. Everyone should be overjoyed.

But there’s a big problem. All of this success — every bit of it — is due to the presence of one player in the league: a generational talent named Caitlin Clark. She’s the reason the WNBA just won the lottery. Without Caitlin Clark, no one cares about any of these players or the league. With her, most people still don’t care. But a lot more people care than did before. And everyone knows that. Therefore, everyone in the league other than Caitlin Clark is doing exactly what so many lottery winners do. They’re allowing all of their worst personality traits to surface. They can’t help themselves.

Several months ago, I covered the many cheap shots that Clark has had to deal with on the court. Some of these cheap shots look a lot like criminal assault, but of course they weren’t prosecuted. I also talked about the many “champions of diversity” in the media who are strangely very unhappy about the diversity that Clark has brought to the WNBA, a league that’s mostly made up of black players. There’s been a lot of resentment in this league lately, in particular since this season began.

And the thing about resentment, as we all know, is that it tends to fester over time. It gets worse and worse. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing now that the season is winding down and the playoffs are underway. Over the past week, race hysteria in the WNBA has somehow reached yet another inflection point. The league is currently in the midst of the single most contrived racism scandal in any professional sport, at least since the fake noose in Bubba Wallace’s garage.

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Specifically, a bunch of WNBA players have come out claiming that they’ve been victimized by “racial slurs” and other racist attacks. In other words, they are now accusing the people who have started showing up to WNBA games — for the first time in more than two decades — of being horrible racists.

Now for the fine print. None of these “racial slurs” — some of which have supposedly occurred during games — have actually been caught on camera. There’s no visual or audio evidence that might substantiate any of this. There isn’t a single credible report. And that’s extremely unusual, obviously, given that there are cameras and smartphones at every WNBA game.

You’d think that, if a mob of racists were buying up WNBA tickets so they could heckle the players with racial slurs, then the video would be all over the internet. But those videos are not all over the internet. They aren’t anywhere on the internet. So instead we have to take the players’ word for it.

Here’s Brittney Griner, for example:

The question was about the massive growth of this league, which was dead in the water just a year ago. “What do you think of all the new fans,” asks the reporter. And instead of some gratitude — some appreciation for the people who saved the WNBA, who pay to come out to see bad players like Brittney Griner — we get resentment. The fans are racist, says Griner. They buy tickets just so they can yell racist things. And not only that — these racists happen to be magicians. They can shout racist things while also being completely invisible. You can hear what they say, but it’s impossible to record it or broadcast it anywhere. They’re like ghosts. They just appear in the stands, shout the N-word a few times, and then they disappear.

Put aside the fact that Griner is obviously lying. Let’s say, hypothetically, that someone did shout a slur at a WNBA game, and it really bothered Brittney Griner. Nothing about the answer makes sense, even in that context. Why would that be the first thing that Griner mentions when the reporter asks about the fans? Why not say, “The overwhelming majority of the fans are great people, and I’m so happy they’re paying money to see me playing basketball as badly as I do”? 

If anyone should be striking a note of gratitude, it’s Brittney Griner. Less than two years ago, the Biden administration traded away a Russian arms dealer — someone who conspired to murder American citizens — in order to get Griner out of a Russian prison. So Griner has every reason to be extremely grateful to this country — not just because of the paycheck for playing basketball poorly, but also because the United States is a lot nicer than a Siberian gulag. At the very least, you’d expect Griner to be happier than the usual WNBA player. But that’s obviously not the case.

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Of course the media — especially the sports media — is uncritically reporting on this phantom crisis of racism at WNBA games. Just search “WNBA racism” in google and you’ll get dozens and dozens of mainstream media articles frantically shouting about the racism crisis in the WNBA. Many other players have raised the alarm about this invented epidemic. Here’s another one:

"It's heartbreaking that … the excitement around the league is at its highest, but the racial slurs and the derogatory comments and the online bullying are also at their worst."

ESPN's Andraya Carter says there is "no space" for WNBA fans who dish hate: pic.twitter.com/5ggjUdk4Dk

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 26, 2024

Notice the sad music in the background. Law enforcement might have to get involved. WNBA games have become Klan rallies, from what we’re told. You won’t see any of that on video or hear any of it. But take the WNBA’s word for it. Take the media’s word for it. Yet some WNBA players are still upset that the media isn’t making an even bigger deal out of the fake racism scandal. Reading from USA Today:

“Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese says the media should have done more to combat the ongoing issue of racism in women’s basketball before it reached a boiling point. The WNBA on Wednesday condemned all ‘racist, derogatory or threatening comments’ that have been directed toward players after Connecticut Sun All-Star Alyssa Thomas called out “racial comments from the Indiana Fever fan base” following the Sun’s series-clinching 87-81 victory over the Fever. Reese said this has been a long-standing issue, noting that she’s been the subject of racially motivated hate for some time. Reese, however, said her pleas for accountability and action have been repeatedly ignored. ‘The media has benefited from my pain & me being villainized to create a narrative,’ she wrote on X. ‘They allowed this. This was beneficial to them… Y’all a little late to the party and could have tried to put out this fire way before it started.’”

Yes, it’s a fire raging. You won’t see the fire. But it’s there. Trust Angel Reese on this one. This shaming obviously had the desired effect on some in the media. Which led to this line of questioning:

“NaLyssa, how did you personally deal with the hate, the racism, the attention, the scrutiny?” If you listen to these press conferences, you’d think that skinheads are rushing the court and assaulting the players in the middle of the games. At the very least, you’d expect that this player would’ve been subjected to some kind of horrible racist chant from one of the WNBA’s racist ghost fans.

Here’s what actually happened. NaLyssa’s has a girlfriend named DiJonai Carrington who also plays in the WNBA. And recently, Carrington nearly took Caitlin Clark’s eye out on the court just a few minutes into a game. This is one of many flagrant fouls against Clark that have occurred since she started in the league, and this one wasn’t even called. Watch:

After this foul, as you’d expect, there were a lot of angry fans on social media. To a lot of people, this looked intentional. So in response, a USA Today reporter named Christine Brennan did what any reasonable “sports journalist” would do. She asked Carrington if the hit was intentional. Watch:

These are obviously reasonable questions from Christine Brennan. They’re not “racist.” They’re not offensive. They’re the bare minimum you’d expect under the circumstances. But Carrington immediately gets snippy and obnoxious in response. And then, just for asking these questions, Brennan — who, incidentally, is one of the biggest champions of women’s sports in the industry — is now getting dogpiled.

In particular, the WNBA Players’ Association just put out one of the most demented statements imaginable. They wrote:

We call B.S. … To unprofessional members of the media like Christine Brennan: You are not fooling anyone. That so-called interview in the name of journalism was a blatant attempt to bait a professional athlete into participating in a narrative that is false and designed to fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic vitriol on social media. You cannot hide behind your tenure.

The statement then said Brennan was guilty of “abusing” her “privileges,” and charged that she does not “deserve” her “credentials.” It continues: 

We call on USA Today Network to review its Principles of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms and address what we believe is a violation of several core principles, including seeking and reporting the truth. USA Today Sports should explain why a reporter with clear bias and ulterior motives was assigned to cover the league. We also urge the league to review its policies and take measures to prevent such issues, protecting the integrity of the game and its players.

So we’re at the point now that journalists can’t even ask black players about fouls they commit against Caitlin Clark without being accused of racism for asking the question. That’s how much racism there is in the WNBA. Even asking questions is now racist. Obviously there’s no reason to take any of these people seriously.

But, just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, I went looking to see if I could find the most egregious examples of racism in the WNBA. And I came across this monologue from a sports commentator named Nick Wright. It’s from a couple of days ago and it’s about as unhinged as you’d expect. Watch:

His grand example proving the WNBA is racist is that a woman mocked the player who gave Caitlin Clark a black eye with her nails. Apparently that’s racist because some black people have long nails. That’s it. That’s why this podcast host is invoking the Civil War. Mockery of WNBA players is a threat to the entire country, apparently — at least if those WNBA players are black. If they’re white, you can mock them all you want. You can assault them on the court, in fact.

What this fake outrage tells you is that “racism” isn’t really what they’re upset about. This is just too manufactured and overblown to take seriously. They’re reaching — to a degree that’s comical and delusional at the same time. This scandal has been invented, out of whole cloth, by WNBA players for one reason, and one reason only: They are wracked with envy and resentment that the most popular player in the league is white. What they’re really claiming is that Caitlin Clark, by bringing a bunch of white fans to the league, has naturally also brought racism. Basically they’re complaining that too many white people are watching women’s basketball now. And for her part, Caitlin Clark has basically gone along with this narrative. She made a statement denouncing all of the made up racism.

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI

The racial hysteria reminds me of the summer of 2020, just playing out on a much, much, much smaller stage. A white woman playing basketball has become the WNBA’s George Floyd moment. And just like we saw with the George Floyd situation, before long, people are going to start pushing back. No normal person wants to pay money to support a team, only to be told they’re racist and horrible. That’s a big part of why the DEI grift has begun to collapse.

And it’s why the WNBA’s brief resurgence isn’t going to last very long either. Very soon, the league will be back on the path to irrelevance and bankruptcy. It’s clear that none of these players or executives or “sports journalists” really want the league to succeed, anyway. To borrow an adage from the world of sports commentary, you might even say the WNBA is like a rubber band — one that’s been stretched to the limit by pathological narcissists who only know how to complain and demean their own fans on the basis of their skin color. And one deranged sports podcast and self-pitying press conference at a time, that rubber band is about to break.