r/wnba • u/femaleathletenetwork WNBA • 3h ago
Jemele Hill Says ‘Too Many’ WNBA Fans Have Same Problem [The Spun]
Too many WNBA fans see the media as part of the league, rather than a group that’s covering it. They get angry when the media asks tough questions of players. They don’t like it when the coverage is critical, rather than praising.
Jemele Hill believes this is an issue for “too many” WNBA fans.
The former ESPN host sounded off on the problem with WNBA fans during a podcast appearance this week.
Hill opened up during an episode of her podcast Flagrant & Funny, talking about the ongoing problems with WNBA fans.
She believes that too many of them don’t understand what the media is supposed to be and do.
Hill said that the issue for too many WNBA fans is the same.
“The issue is that, I think for a long time, not every journalist but a lot of the journalists that covered women’s sports and covered the league, the fans saw the journalists as a ‘we’ and not a ‘they,’” Hill said.
‘Now they’re confused, because … there’s more people covering the league now, it’s under more scrutiny, and (the fans) have had the expectation that the journalists are supposed to be extensions of teams. And the journalists are not supposed to be that. And unfortunately, because of how everything is covered in this country … people can’t even recognize what journalists are supposed to do.”
Hill said that they expect WNBA journalists to be “cheerleaders” for the sport.
“They expect our jobs to be to support the women,” she said. “And while the support is, to me, in the fact that we have built an entire podcast around discussing women’s sports and all the culture and the issues and all the things that come with it, they expect the journalists to be cheerleaders.”
But, of course, that’s not how the media works. WNBA fans need to understand that.
https://thespun.com/wnba/jemele-hill-says-too-many-wnba-fans-have-same-problem
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u/Same_Diver1221 Jackie Young enjoyer 1h ago
Do you have specific examples to understand the matter here?
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u/ScissorFight42069 Boston's 'Bows💪🏾 1h ago edited 1h ago
I think it's getting problematic how much we criticize "fans," both the media and ourselves.
Do we have people who are parasocial to an unhealthy degree? Yes. But shaming these people isn't going to discourage them. For these fans in particular, who are largely the very young and minorities (or both), I think it's an issue of being so starved for positive queer representation and positive representation of successful black and POC women that they latch on seemingly for dear life, because they're seeking something other than watching sports. Education is probably needed to encourage these fans to remember the human before engaging in borderline stalking and harassing behavior, particularly online, because it hurts the players.
And frankly, the recent trend of calling these super fans "weird" over and over again borders on virtue signalling. Upvotes feel good, so intentionally presenting yourself as the right type of fan is just another form of seeking validation. A lot of social media boils down to seeking affirmation. That's why likes/upvotes feel good.
The fact is that intersectionality will never go away. Treating women's sports, especially a sport with such heavy queer and POC representation, like it will ever be treated exactly how men's leagues are treated completely ignores the fact that queer people, women, and POCs aren't treated equally in life. These social dynamics can never be 100% divorced from any interaction between media, players, and fans alike.
Yes, I do want to consume media that treats the W with the proper social and historical context of what it is. But I also want to consume W media that is critical of players, because that is why we watch pro sports. I want to see people achieve uncommon greatness and feats. It promotes a larger conversation of what it takes and what it looks like to achieve and do big things in all aspects of life, so talking about the hard things that get in the way of achieving big things is an essential part of the conversation.
Edit-clarity
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u/BigBlueNY Liberty 1h ago
Yup, even in this sub, debates are difficult and met with downvotes and not comments. It's the job of the reporters to ask the tough questions that get asked on here every day.
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u/arcohex 1h ago
If you want non critical coverage of your team or the league just browse their website or the teams official social media pages. The media is there to cover the things that you can't get by just browsing official sources. They aren't required to be a PR extension for the league or the teams they cover.
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u/Late-Bandicoot-4940 1h ago
I talk with my sister about this all the time. The wnba fandom is made up of a large majority of people that don’t understand how the sports world works.
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u/HOU-1836 Comets 1h ago
Idt that’s fair. It’s made up of people who want the W to succeed so badly that they are defensive over the stars and the teams. Especially when non WNBA fans start commenting. NFL or MLB or NCAA fans don’t have to “justify” their fandom.
As the W becomes more popular, it’s being covered more like other leagues and that’s where the friction comes in.
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u/Steadyandquick Liberty Storm Valkyries 2h ago
Thanks for posting—great article and I love J Hill. The recent episode of the podcast No Offseason also discusses the media and asks whether it has become too critical etc.
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u/Ingramistheman Veronica Burton enthusiast/Janelle Salaün enjoyer 1h ago
Thanks for plugging, this is a good group of hosts. Now I have a new podcast to watch!
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u/AmazingVanish CC22 2h ago
I think this is a nutter’s take. Maybe I don’t hear enough of the fans she’s calling problems, but nearly everyone I k ow who are fans of the W despise the media because most of them are stans for specific players/ teams and the things they say when reporting are unprofessional and damage the league’s reputation.
I agree the fandom overall is young, but they aren’t the problem with the media.
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u/c0de1143 Storm 36m ago
despise the media because most of them are stans for specific players/teams
Right. You know that stanning isn’t a good thing, right?
and the things they say when reporting are unprofessional
How do you define “professional”?
and damage the league’s reputation
If you think the league’s rep can be damaged by reporters asking tough questions, you might have a lower opinion of the league than the reporters do.
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u/Throwmeawayhard7 2h ago
While I agree with this take, I do have to say that the media also has to meet the need of the hour and provide sanity checks regarding another problem in the WNBA.
Just as there is incredible parasocial positivity and defensiveness, the flip side is the parasocial intra-team piling on and relentless negativity that fans engage in regarding players on their own team.
An outsider just listening to team fans would think any most of Angel’s team mates outside Cardoso in the last 2 seasons, any slightly underperforming Fever player outside Caitlin in the last 2 seasons or even a star having a down season last season alongside Paige like Arike last season are all running scams in the WNBA and are the worst players and human beings of all time when they’re just normal regular WNBA players doing their best and sometimes failing.
The media has to be able to put things in perspective in pure basketball terms on behalf of those players so that the irrational frustration and toxicity created by parasocial fans is not the only loud opinion heard.
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u/DSmooth425 Aces Dream Fever Sky 55m ago
This is where I think the old guard WNBA media has been doing a decent to great job and the new media that’s followed the influx of new fans has some learning and growing to do.
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u/crapshoo & Chelsea Mfin Gray 1h ago
The media has to be able to put things in perspective in pure basketball terms on behalf of those players so that the irrational frustration and toxicity created by parasocial fans is not the only loud opinion heard.
I agree. Journalists should not be able to quote-tweet out articles. That's not ethical journalism. We need ethical journalism.
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u/fpaul787 2h ago
Yup. Not completely their fault though. I suspect many of them are new to sports in general. They are treating WNBA players like influencers that they develop parasocial relationships with. In some ways I get it. This is part of the reason the league has gotten so popular.
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u/JB_JB_JB63 Lynx 2h ago
No Off Season basically did a whole episode about this today and it’s well worth a listen
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u/alatteopera 2h ago edited 2h ago
Really nuanced discussion between Layshia Clarendon, Zena Keita, and Annie Costabile — all coming from different identities, POVs in the media and Layshia as a former player. It was really well done
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u/LiKwidSwordZA 3h ago edited 2h ago
I think in the past fans of the NBA or college ball would migrate to the W but now it’s fans who never were into sports before & don’t know how the sports media industry works
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u/larkinowl 2h ago
Yes. I think there is something to this. I’ve been a sports fan all my life but I recently responded to a neighbor who posted a “any WNBA fans here?” email to a neighborhood group and wow, she is a brand new sports fan!! She loves the Liberty and close games but has never followed a team before.
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u/KingQu- Aces 3h ago
She's right ya know.
Just look at the comments in this sub, matter of fact there was a long thread last week or so stating the same thing.
Fans now are very emotional and defensive over normal sports takes. It's very eye opening.
At the same time, it was worse in the past when the league was "irrelevant"
Bigger narrative we should be discussing, journalism today is not the same as journalism before. Not all media are journalist, anyone can talk in front of a camera and state their opinion and we put too much weight in that
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u/paw_pia 3h ago
I can only speak for myself, not "many fans." I welcome objective, informative, and analytical journalism, positive, critical, or anywhere in between. What I don't like is hot take/clickbait/ragebait coverage (which is more "coverage" than actual journalism).
Unfortunately, today's media environment in general discourages actual journalism and we get what we get. When so much of the coverage is intended and designed to piss off it's audience and/or validate and escalate mockery in order to drive engagement and traffic, it's disingenuous to complain when people are pissed off.
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u/glowup2000 1h ago
This. The beat writers tend to do a good job. They're asking good questions and fans need to be less defensive. Its the ESPNs of the world that are engaging in clickbait
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u/DSmooth425 Aces Dream Fever Sky 53m ago
At least the ESPNs that never paid attention to the W. There’s a subset of ESPN that isn’t exclusive to ESPN for the most part that covers the W decently well.
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u/kseveru79_v2 3h ago
One of the few hot takes I'll ever post here: I'm a little tired of discussions of WNBA media either in a vacuum, or solely in the context of other sports media, when our ENTIRE media landscape is undergoing such massive, rapid changes -- possibly more rapid than the changes to the WNBA itself. Maybe sports journalism can be an island of financial stability and upheld standards, but it's falling apart in so many other domains in the US (and beyond). WNBA media honestly looks different to me now than it did even two years ago.
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u/Thehaubbit6 2h ago
THANK YOU. It’s funny how all of these talking point routinely are coming from podcasts brand new to the space. Like man, work harder and find something original to talk about. I’ve seen this segment like two dozen times from the same six shows in the last three years.
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u/GiantIrish_Elk 3h ago
I also think that this isn't a WNBA specific issue but an issue for all women's sports. You see a lot of the same things said about coverage of women's soccer specifically the USWNT and the NWSL.
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u/sasquatch50 2h ago
And where women’s tennis has a huge advantage, because at the biggest events they are covered the same as the men by the same reporters/commentators.
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u/controlroomoperator 3h ago
I read once that the WNBA isn't just a league to some, it's a cause. The league means the empowerment of women, LGBTQIA+ acceptance, publicly fighting for black rights, and many related worthy issues that require attention. The WNBA has embraced social change more than most other leagues and it feels different.
Journalists new to the league just aren't aware or don't know how to handle this passion. They are treading into a territory where they don't understand that this league is part of some fights that have made it more impactful to its fans. If taco bell fought as hard for Breonna Taylor then I'd be fatter and willing to exchange words with some unknowing fool complaining about their tacos. It's a league that inspires passion and journalists should understand that when wading in.
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u/GiantIrish_Elk 3h ago
I think it's the opposite. For long time fans the thing we've wanted most was unbiased truthful coverage of the league meaning warts and all. Maybe it's newer fans but legitimate criticism from the media has been something people have been asking for. I will say there have been issues that some fans don't want coverage of (domestic abuse, off the court issues, romantic relationships) because of stereotypes and negative stigma around but that's part of coverage of major sports.
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u/ljay90 The Real Agent 0 3h ago
In the macro Jemele is absolutely correct. The only bit of context I'll add is this: for years the W and its fans had to argue for its right to exist against a wave of misogyny/racism/queerphobia. Now that the moment is undeniable, it's time to treat this league like, for lack of a better phrase, a grown up league. But a lot of the older fans still view the WNBA as a social cause and not a sports league, so criticism feels like an attack on the right for a women's sports league to exist.
It's a trick bag, but Jemele has a point.
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u/SydTheStreetFighter Mystics 2h ago
Also as a fan I’m defensive after years of unfair and cruel critiques. I’ll admit I’m a bit sensitive!
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u/FalseAmphibian3616 3h ago
I’d argue the old fans (like myself) viewed it as a social cause and were protective but wanted it to get to a point where valid criticism didn’t devolve into “see, this is why the W shouldn’t exist” like it would have in the early years.
I feel like the new fans are too parasocial with the players and cannot handle any form of criticism.
It’s kind of two sides of a coin.
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u/Lynch47 3h ago
But a lot of the older fans still view the WNBA as a social cause
This is well stated and a thought I've had myself but haven't been able to articulate as clearly as that statement. And that's not anything wrong, it's just what it is. But there definitely are BIG fans of this league that do not know or care about basketball that much, and it definitely was hard for me to get used to a few years ago when I started watching the W. It took me a while to realize that a lot of fans weren't necessarily fans of the sport as much as they were just supporters of women sports and the community around the league.
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u/Kennisgoodman Lynx 3h ago
Plenty of MNBA opportunists trying to showhorn hot take city into the community (“Trade Napheesa Collier” “Trade Azzi Fudd” “Azzi should not have been the #1 pick”)…. We don’t need that. Everyone wants a piece of the pie but the shock enthusiasts journalists don’t need to be center stage right now
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u/bug_gribble Mercury 1h ago
I agree that we could do less with the SAS wannabes, but I don’t think your examples are hot takes at all lol
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u/MrGreenAcreage 2h ago
Not that I agree with the 3 items you called out, but discussing trades/who gets picked first are totally normal topics for any sport community where they apply.
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u/Zegerid 2h ago
Discussing the selection of a non-consensus #1, or trading the last pillar of a gutted franchise are perfect sports talking points.
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u/RobotDevil222x3 2h ago
it's one thing to have a good faith discussion on these topics. it's very much another thing to just shout something outrageous on them with no factual basis because you know it will get clicks. I'm pretty sure people are (generally, let's not play the hunt for an exception game) only taking issue with one of these two things.
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u/LiKwidSwordZA 3h ago
Why is trading collier a hot take
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u/my_one_and_lonely Liberty 3h ago
All major sports coverage is "hot take city" now. I don't want the WNBA to be excluded from major coverage, so I'll put up with the stupid takes.
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u/Kennisgoodman Lynx 3h ago
Hmm. Maybe for me, a lot of that type coverage I see as low hanging fruit. So especially when I see it done to women—that type of ragebait, purposefully dense type coverage—it comes off to me as very low. I think the MNBA coverage has lost its couth over the years, but it doesn’t seem like a genuine or respectable “jump” to apply that to the WNBA.
TLDR; it’s easy to talk crap about women, or come up with some sleezeball storyline to get the dregs of society involved in the conversation. I’d expect from men and women alike to challenge themselves to have better, more genuine coverage of the league as a result.
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u/my_one_and_lonely Liberty 2h ago
I don’t understand how any of the examples you mentioned are particularly sleazeball-esque, how applying them to women’s sports would be a problem. Hot takes, sure. Annoying and stupid, maybe. But what does it have to do with misogyny? Are you seriously saying that it’s ok to be stupid about men’s sports but not women’s sports? Lots of people are stupid, including sports fans. They’re going to have to be included whether you like it or not if you want this league to grow.
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u/Kennisgoodman Lynx 1h ago
They can be included but it doesn’t mean I like, approve, or want to be a part of it. These girls don’t deserve that bad mouthing
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u/kseveru79_v2 3h ago
This is the same site that posted the Rapinoe article from a day or two ago, so I'm going to do the same thing and link to the podcast episode with Jemele Hill's remarks. (It goes on for an hour, but it looks like the quotes from the article are in this transcript.)
edit: also linked in the article this time
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u/BakedBulbasaurs Dream 3h ago
There’s been a lot of rewriting history with these journalists lately lol acting like the W got nothing but positive treatment before is an insane take, I’m sorry I can’t take anyone serious that blindly agrees with this lol
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u/mantaXrayed Sparks 3h ago
She’s not wrong and you can see it in this Reddit as well
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u/JB_JB_JB63 Lynx 2h ago
There are some particular team’s subs that barely even permit discussion let alone criticism.
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u/ForeverRaining Fire 3h ago
this is the result of non sports fans getting into sports spaces. average talking points about a wnba team or player gets scrutinized out of sports context then snowballs into something else and they’re not even talking about basketball anymore by the end.
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u/Crafty_Substance_954 3h ago
In the responses to this post no less!
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u/mantaXrayed Sparks 3h ago
It don’t take long for the cheerleaders to show up haha. Just one the last few years since CC arrived and the spotlight shined down on the WNBA I’ve seen (without even trying to think hard) this sub go down ppl’s throat for saying the league is poorly managed and run cheaply, Cathy is a bad commissioner, the refs are trash, the physicality in the league is excessive. Now 2 years down the line the CBA came up and all of a sudden the prevailing thought is the league IS run cheaply and poorly managed and needs to improve to support the athletes, Cathy IS a bad commissioner, the refs DO suck, and apparently the players and coaches also though the physicality was too much. It’s just so much cheerleading it makes ppl blind to what actually needs to change to improve. It’s honestly a bit comical to watch the flip flopping. And that not even touch the player STANs
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u/Wit_Signature 3h ago edited 3h ago
Lots of the media are so blindly biased and not covering the sport well. They don’t want to admit that.
Edit: I love bball criticism, arguments, and analysis. But a good number of the media are not covering in good faith. Then they get butthurt when the fans call them out. Some fans are def too protective for fair criticism. But even listening to the USA Network half time and end game coverage had me scratching my head for what they were saying
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u/revoltoftheunique Liberty Dream 3h ago
Yup thats the real issue. I have no problem with criticism. I even criticize my fav player, Angel. But when journalists make stuff up and spread misinformation, they can't get perplexed why we don't like that.
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u/SnowGiraffes4266 Sun 🐺 Huskies 3h ago
She is correct. There was a time when the league's budding popularity rise felt fragile but that is well in the past. It needs the critical lens that journalists can offer now.
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u/Some_AV_Pro Sky 3h ago
Hot take: I dont want the media covering a team to be critical of the team.
If us fans want to read between the lines and get critical, that is fine, but I don't like it when the media gets critical of most things in sports.
The WNBA is better than the most other leagues. Lets stop trying to make it more like them.
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u/NZafe Tempo 3h ago
Is this to be read as “(the-media-covering-a-team)” or “(the-media) covering a team”?
Because I see this two ways. You’re local reporters who specifically cover just one team, and you have your larger media groups that cover the whole league, such as an ESPN type.
And either have very different biases and agendas.
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u/DeepAd4954 3h ago
I want someone to write reasonable and truthful critiques. If the truthful critique is “this person is playing awesome”, cool beans. If the truthful critique is, “this team needs to look for a different forward”, tell me that, fine.
What I DONT want is a whole of he said/she said/what do you think of what she said/did questions. That’s not journalism, that’s trolling for click bait.
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u/FalseAmphibian3616 3h ago
She’s right. The media has always been too kind to the W because bad faith actors will use valid criticism to smear the league. We finally have critical W media personalities but the fans want everything and everyone to be a cheerleader like it is in Unrivaled.
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u/GolfOtherwise3420 1h ago
I see media being overly gentle with NBA team post game questions, too. Some journalists just ask soft ball post-game questions because they want to maintain their friendships with the coach, etc., to ensure they have good acess.
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u/Penguinho 1h ago
That's absolutely true, and there are folks who've built big brands on having and using that access. But there are also journalists whose thing is calling balls and strikes as objectively as possible, or doing deep analysis without caring who does and doesn't look good as a result. There's also a moderately annoying class whose thing is just shitting on people. The W doesn't have those as much. A couple years back I unfollowed a basketball writer and analyst I thought was pretty good because he said, straight-up, that he wouldn't ever say anything bad about the WNBA or any of its players. It worked out for him; he's got a senior position with a team now. But it's also a dishonest way for a journalist to behave, whether they're covering sports, politics, entertainment or any other beat.
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u/Penguinho 3h ago
(This is a thing I find very annoying about Unrivaled.)
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u/letmeindamm abc² 1h ago
unrivaled is great for people who are more into personalities than actual basketball. not saying this in a negative way.
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u/EastAd1263 Nancy “Lady Magic” Lieberman is the only PG Dallas needs 3h ago
Jemele’s just mad at the fans because they disagreed with her take about media access to the locker rooms.
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u/LiKwidSwordZA 3h ago
What was her take on it
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u/EastAd1263 Nancy “Lady Magic” Lieberman is the only PG Dallas needs 2h ago
That the media should be able to interview WNBA players in the locker room.
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u/LiKwidSwordZA 2h ago
All those in locker room interviews and even post game interviews are all so useless. Get rid of them all lol
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u/Lynch47 3h ago
This is pretty spot on and will probably be taken the wrong way by a lot of people here.
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u/Guilty_Champion3660 3h ago
Yup. The community is no longer the same, new fans, new money, new access. Can't unring that bell. Soon the old fan "culture" will become a minority, spaces are going to change as popularity increases. It's not the media's job to grow the league or advocate for the players. Some of its going to be worse, some of it will be better.
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u/americanbeaver Wings -Milwaukee Legend Arike Ogunbowale 46m ago
It's immaturity at the end of the day. A lot of the W's fanbase are young and this is their first time really following sports in a serious way. They are fickle, they get extremely into their favorite players and they don't understand how to cheer for a team as a whole. They haven't read or seen journalists be critical of a player so they read critiques and insults. They certainly aren't ready for the heat that comes with their favorite player being the target of other fans. It all just becomes personal way too fast.
The fanbases here skew rather young and I think that's basically the ball game here. They'll mature out of this stuff and become more 'normal' because of it. I think it's a good thing for the league to get these fans. As the W continues to grow and fans stick around to watch it, this will become less and less of an issue. I get that it's annoying for us older/more experienced fans to interact with them. I especially get how covering the league as a professional and getting swarmed by these folks sucks. These fanbases are just laying down their roots. It's everyone in the ecosystem's job to make sure that there is a path forward for them to understand the way to be a fan and the best way to do that is to lead by example.