Victor Davis Hanson: The WNBA Is Turning on Its Biggest Stars

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Welcome to the Daily Signal Podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take.

**Victor Davis Hanson** (0:08)
The reaction to Sophie Cunningham's offhanded remark that while she thinks trans people should enjoy all the civil rights of everybody else, but as originally a biological male, they have undue advantages over other females, and that should stop. Well, what was the reaction?
Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. There is more controversy surrounding the Women's National Basketball Association. Remember, the WNBA is owned by the NBA, and for years, it had not shown a profit. And it was a subsidy provided by the Men's National Basketball Association to the women's. And then something happened.
Caitlin Clark, the star college player from Indiana, joined the Indiana Fever. Now, there was a problem there to be candid because, it shouldn't have been a problem. But apparently, the Women's Basketball Association is 65 to 70 percent African American. And people have argued that it's also 35 to 40 percent gay.
So you had a marquee player in Clark, who is white and heterosexual, joining a league which the American public didn't really, to be frank, pay much attention. Poor attendance, very meager TV revenues, almost no merchandising, just sort of an adjacent auxiliary charity, so to speak, of the NBA.
And then everything changed. Clark turned out, as everybody expected, to be a superstar. Her games in Indiana are sold out when she plays on the road. Many of those games are played out. All of the players got a second league look in the league, and their TV revenues, their merchandising contracts soared. People have estimated that if you look at the television revenue, the merchandising revenue, the attendance revenue, and the private contracts individual players use themselves in addition to the league revenue, that Caitlin Clark may have been responsible for a $1 billion surge in total league and individual revenues. So you think that she would be worshiped, but as we said before on one of our videos, she's been beat up, she's intentionally fouled, she's had flagrant fouls, and the general impression that the public has after watching this is that she is a target because of envy and jealousy that she gets so much public attention and media attention that the other players who feel they've been in the league longer have been neglected. Bottom line is they can't think rationally and strategically that they are flying in private jets, they have enhanced conditions to play, they get more money, they get more attention because of Caitlin Clark. All they can focus on is she is white, she is heterosexual, she gets too much attention, and that is the subtext that we're not supposed to discuss around the league. Now there's a new controversy, hence this video.
Sophie Cunningham, kind of a statuesque, blonde, beautiful, white, heterosexual team player and fellow player on the Indiana Fever. She's the protector in basketball terms or parlance of Caitlin Clark. And she was famous most recently for doing that gesture where she pointed at the player who fouled and the referee who allowed that foul on Caitlin Clark, that notorious foul where there was a fist on her Adam's apple. And that went viral, not just on social media, but in terms of endorsements, etc. And Sophie Cunningham has gotten almost the same amount of publicity now as Caitlin Clark. And the two of them have soared revenues into the league, enhanced them even further. And the Indiana Fever has had a new burst of enthusiasm. It's on a winning streak, etc. So, you would think that everybody in the league would calm down and say, no, do not kill these golden gooses. Do not flagrantly foul them. Do not get into the racial politics or the sexual poli- let's just be united and all get rich together. That didn't happen. Sophie Cunningham said when asked in an interview, what was her attitude about biological male-transsexual athletes participating in female sports? And of course, she said she thinks girls should participate, biologically determined women, not men who have trans- that are transgender. Now that, that is not a controversial view. Eighty percent of the American people agree with her. And most Americans feel that they have no problem with trans athletes. They can have a special trans league. But they do note that when biological men and their muscular skeletal system are superior to women's by birth and nature, they have an unfair advantage that sometimes can border on danger to other women in general. And in particular, when they share female facilities, showers, gym, etc., there's problems. They also know, the 80% of Americans who disprove of this, that when women transition with muscular skeletal systems at birth, female, when they transition to male sports, they don't win anything. And in the public's mind, that's sort of proof that biology determines your size and muscularity, which is very important to sports. So why are we talking about this now? The reaction to Sophie Cunningham's off-handed remark that while she thinks trans people should enjoy all the civil rights of everybody else, but as originally a biological male, they have undue advantages or they're females and that should stop. Well, what was the reaction? Two fans went to a game and they had various signs suggesting that they supported Sophie.