i think it's just that this league is softer than baby shit and used to being a niche sport that only superfans knew anything about. they're going from literally 100% of commentary about and around the league being obnoxiously fake positive to the mix that other mainstream sports get.
like i hate to break it to stewie and co. but welcome to the big leagues ladies, this is the price you have to pay to get that $200M/year TV money. this is gonna get much, much worse, it's never gonna stop, and there's nothing the league or anybody else on god's green earth can do about it. as long as 14 year olds, deranged weirdo stans and sports gambling addicts have access to the internet, you're gonna hear shit like this.
it's time to turn off the comments and stop reading the spam, breanna. it's never going back to the rose garden it was before, but don't worry, you're gonna have millions of reasons not to care very soon.
I think it's pretty funny how much the media is pushing the WNBA on people. If you went to espn com and didn't know anything you'd think it was the most popular sport in the country.
I just went there out of curiosity and there's a half page of stuff about the WNBA finals game before they get to an NFl game between 2 iconic franchises and an NLCS baseball elimination game featuring a global superstar. Funny
Ethan makes a great point (as usual) but the Wall Street Journal Magazine’s cover story reinforces the agenda-driven angle ESPN pushes. I’m not a Caitlin Clark fan but there’s no explanation for the story’s direction other than politics.
I appreciate Ethan's POV on this, but I would really like to stop hearing about the WNBA. I don't follow any basketball teams or players on the ESPN app and yet somehow I still received numerous updates on the recent WNBA finals and other "Breaking News" notifications about the league.
WNBA players are almost all upper middle class kids who have been manufacturing grievance their whole lives (which to be fair is a lot of athletes, a lot).
That being said, online gambling has made things so shitty for everyone, with apparently no benefits.
I saw a graph recently of professional athletes and their primary youth second sport, and it was amazing how common golf/tennis were. Makes you think they generally come from pretty upper class backgrounds.
I think golf was #1 after like age 10 (before that it is soccer).
"WNBA players are almost all upper middle class kids". Are they? I could see that in a sport like Hockey or Golf or Gymnastics or NASCAR (especially) because they take parental investment, but how much parenting help do women's basketball players need to be great?
It is the travel teams and the top level coaching/clinics. Those matter a lot.
natural talent will get you somewhere, but honestly not very far (except height which is the great equalizer in BBball).
You can have a super talented kid, but if they are starting from a low level, and so don't get top flight coaching, then their less talented classmate maybe does a few camps.
And pretty soon the skill gap is so wide the talent gap in the other direction doesn't matter. And the more skilled less talent guy makes the "A" team and gets better coaching and more serious committed teammates, and the less skill more talented guy makes the B team and languishes or even gives up.
There are a lot of birth order effects too at young ages.
Two of my cousins are in college right now at Power 5 conference and it is crazy how sports gambling has just taken over campuses. They are following the same marketing strategy of cigarette companies by spending every dollar on trying to be the first sports betting app freshman frat bros sign up for because then they have a customer for life to milk.
This feels related to the psychos sending death threats to meteorologists warning about the hurricane, lot of people in this country have lost their damn minds.
I think there is a similar number of crazy people as always, jsut more ability for them to reach out directly to people. Lower level of effort required.
I disagree I think the internet has made it way easier for the crazy people to find each other and build communities where they make each other crazier and crazier while bringing more people into their craziness. If there used to be one crazy person per town, they would be isolated and hopefully socialize with normal people to balance them out. Now the crazy people find the other crazy people and make more crazy people.
Maybe, but there were pretty crazy people 20-30 years ago too. Some college professors even (I knew one who was a JFK nut and 9/11 truther). Lots of people into aliens and other weird shit, cults, etc. Always lots of crazies.
I 100% agree I just think it is hard to untangle the visibility from the actual prevalence and there is always the danger of recency bias.
For example, I recently saw a pretty care thinker and political talker saying Trump was running on a campaign of xenophobia never before seen in US political history.
Knowing a bit about US history I am going to press X for doubt on that one.
Seems like exposure and size of audience are more important here than gambling, specifically. Unless we're sure that gamblers are many times more unhinged and prone to take their frustrations out in threatening emails.
i think it's just that this league is softer than baby shit and used to being a niche sport that only superfans knew anything about. they're going from literally 100% of commentary about and around the league being obnoxiously fake positive to the mix that other mainstream sports get.
like i hate to break it to stewie and co. but welcome to the big leagues ladies, this is the price you have to pay to get that $200M/year TV money. this is gonna get much, much worse, it's never gonna stop, and there's nothing the league or anybody else on god's green earth can do about it. as long as 14 year olds, deranged weirdo stans and sports gambling addicts have access to the internet, you're gonna hear shit like this.
it's time to turn off the comments and stop reading the spam, breanna. it's never going back to the rose garden it was before, but don't worry, you're gonna have millions of reasons not to care very soon.
I think it's pretty funny how much the media is pushing the WNBA on people. If you went to espn com and didn't know anything you'd think it was the most popular sport in the country.
I just went there out of curiosity and there's a half page of stuff about the WNBA finals game before they get to an NFl game between 2 iconic franchises and an NLCS baseball elimination game featuring a global superstar. Funny
But why are our numbers down?
Ethan makes a great point (as usual) but the Wall Street Journal Magazine’s cover story reinforces the agenda-driven angle ESPN pushes. I’m not a Caitlin Clark fan but there’s no explanation for the story’s direction other than politics.
I was coming here to say something similar. The new WSJ Mag has a big WNBA story and two players on the cover: A’ja Wilson and Angel Reese.
Only 1 hate email? WNBA is more unpopular than I thought
I appreciate Ethan's POV on this, but I would really like to stop hearing about the WNBA. I don't follow any basketball teams or players on the ESPN app and yet somehow I still received numerous updates on the recent WNBA finals and other "Breaking News" notifications about the league.
you can update your settings for only specific teams or sports.
WNBA players are almost all upper middle class kids who have been manufacturing grievance their whole lives (which to be fair is a lot of athletes, a lot).
That being said, online gambling has made things so shitty for everyone, with apparently no benefits.
I saw a graph recently of professional athletes and their primary youth second sport, and it was amazing how common golf/tennis were. Makes you think they generally come from pretty upper class backgrounds.
I think golf was #1 after like age 10 (before that it is soccer).
"WNBA players are almost all upper middle class kids". Are they? I could see that in a sport like Hockey or Golf or Gymnastics or NASCAR (especially) because they take parental investment, but how much parenting help do women's basketball players need to be great?
Probably a decent amount. Almost all of them begin playing on prominent travel teams when they're in middle school.
It is the travel teams and the top level coaching/clinics. Those matter a lot.
natural talent will get you somewhere, but honestly not very far (except height which is the great equalizer in BBball).
You can have a super talented kid, but if they are starting from a low level, and so don't get top flight coaching, then their less talented classmate maybe does a few camps.
And pretty soon the skill gap is so wide the talent gap in the other direction doesn't matter. And the more skilled less talent guy makes the "A" team and gets better coaching and more serious committed teammates, and the less skill more talented guy makes the B team and languishes or even gives up.
There are a lot of birth order effects too at young ages.
This is 100% what’s going on. I’ve been seeing this happening with gamblers and female tennis players over the past couple years.
Two of my cousins are in college right now at Power 5 conference and it is crazy how sports gambling has just taken over campuses. They are following the same marketing strategy of cigarette companies by spending every dollar on trying to be the first sports betting app freshman frat bros sign up for because then they have a customer for life to milk.
Saw it at college welcome days with credit card companies. Get’m young
This feels related to the psychos sending death threats to meteorologists warning about the hurricane, lot of people in this country have lost their damn minds.
I think there is a similar number of crazy people as always, jsut more ability for them to reach out directly to people. Lower level of effort required.
I disagree I think the internet has made it way easier for the crazy people to find each other and build communities where they make each other crazier and crazier while bringing more people into their craziness. If there used to be one crazy person per town, they would be isolated and hopefully socialize with normal people to balance them out. Now the crazy people find the other crazy people and make more crazy people.
Maybe, but there were pretty crazy people 20-30 years ago too. Some college professors even (I knew one who was a JFK nut and 9/11 truther). Lots of people into aliens and other weird shit, cults, etc. Always lots of crazies.
Absolutely, but it can’t be a good thing that those people can now find every other person that shares their theories
I 100% agree I just think it is hard to untangle the visibility from the actual prevalence and there is always the danger of recency bias.
For example, I recently saw a pretty care thinker and political talker saying Trump was running on a campaign of xenophobia never before seen in US political history.
Knowing a bit about US history I am going to press X for doubt on that one.
I'm much more interested in the term you end up using for this phenomenon than the actual contents of the email.
Make Fetch Happen!!
“Narrative Fitting”
Seems like exposure and size of audience are more important here than gambling, specifically. Unless we're sure that gamblers are many times more unhinged and prone to take their frustrations out in threatening emails.
The NCAA is pretty sure that gamblers are many times more unhinged than average fans: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/02/college-athletes-abuse-online-gambling-betting
Seriously. It's beyond pathetic. If you make the bet, you gotta own it.
But they made the smart bet and it would have hit if the dumbass player would have played better!!
I did not think anything could be worse than fantasy sports guy then sports betting was legalized in my state and its so much worse.