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For nan first clip successful a while, location was nary statement connected who would spell No 1 wide successful nan WNBA draught this year. When nan Dallas Wings did make their pick, they chose Azzi Fudd, who had distinguished herself nether Geno Auriemma astatine UConn, including a nationalist title successful 2025.
The infinitesimal she was picked was pure: a delighted and seemingly tense Fudd joined WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert onstage. She took photos pinch her jersey, made it done nan ESPN question and reply that instantly followed, and beamed astatine her family and teammates successful nan audience. Paige Bueckers, who played alongside nan 23-year-old astatine UConn and was nan No 1 prime for nan Wings successful 2025, was location besides to observe a well-deserved grant for Fudd.
Fudd was considered 1 of nan champion shooters successful nan assemblage game, was named All-American by nan Associated Press, and was a personnel of nan All-Big East first squad – and that’s conscionable successful her last season.
But alternatively than looking astatine nan effect Fudd will person successful nan master game, it was her narration pinch Bueckers that dominated nan draught nighttime discourse. The brace confirmed they were making love past twelvemonth but person offered fewer nationalist specifications astir their narration since, and it’s imaginable they’re nary longer together astatine all. It’s their correct to time off fans successful nan acheronian if they wish. It’s besides really players successful nan convention person ever moved.
The WNBA is entering its 30th season. Like immoderate workplace, nan convention has been location to romanticist relationships arsenic agelong arsenic it has existed. Women making love women isn’t thing caller successful nan W, but a fixation connected nan emotion lives of grown women who are nan champion astatine nan crippled successful nan world is.
Frankie de la Cretaz, writer of nan Out of Your League newsletter, notes that while nan league’s foundational assemblage was mostly queer, nan “dominant culture” is now imposing its ain narratives connected a convention wherever a 4th of players are out.
As a result, says De la Cretaz, “the taste discourse and history is erased. The WNBA and its locker rooms are culturally lesbian spaces, and those spaces travel pinch different societal norms than consecutive ones do.”
While ample portions of WNBA newcomers whitethorn obsess complete players’ relationships, for nan athletes themselves it’s business arsenic usual. Some of those norms see “the truth that members of nan sapphic organization regularly socialize pinch their girlfriends, their exes, and/or their exes’ caller girlfriends,” De la Cretaz adds. “WNBA players person been making love each different for a agelong time, and for each mates that we cognize about, location are dozens that we ne'er will. There are hookups, situationships, and breakups connected WNBA teams each nan time. These insular, overlapping societal dynamics are not conscionable communal successful women’s sports locker rooms – they’re a halfway facet of really lesbian communities operate, too.”
To a ample degree, nan surge of liking successful nan emotion lives of WNBA players is fueled by societal media. It’s ne'er been truthful easy to hop connected your phone, type successful an athlete’s name, and find nary shortage of posts speculating astir their societal life. Parasocial relationships are simpler than ever to form; Instagram and TikTok, which are celebrated pinch WNBA players, make specified attachments moreover easier.
But there’s besides thing other astatine work, says Dr Alicia Smith-Tran, an subordinate professor of sociology and comparative American studies astatine Oberlin College. “Obviously, nan position of women’s sports is elevating,” says Smith-Tran, who played connected Oberlin’s hoops squad arsenic an undergraduate. But contempt nan surge successful fame of leagues specified arsenic nan WNBA, she says “women who are master athletes proceed to beryllium seen arsenic lesser than their antheral counterparts”.
The attraction connected nan romanticist lives of players “is benignant of a manifestation of really women athletes proceed to beryllium marginalized, and nan attraction is taken disconnected their skills and contributions successful nan workplace,” Smith-Tran adds. In short, it’s “another measurement that women athletes are being painted arsenic little worthy, aliases little talented, erstwhile compared to men”. They go nan entity of rumors columns alternatively than sports columns.
The public’s guidance to seeing women arsenic athletes successful nan aforesaid measurement we position their antheral counterparts is owed to nan truth that culturally, “we thin to spot athleticism arsenic a masculine trait,” says Smith-Tran.
That’s particularly existent for basketball, which requires attributes – specified arsenic tallness and spot – that don’t neatly quadrate pinch really astir of america framework femininity. NBA stars for illustration LeBron James and Steph Curry besides person romanticist relationships – notably, not same-sex ones – “but that’s benignant of conscionable a bully broadside truth that we cognize astir them, compared to seeing [what happens] pinch women successful nan WNBA, wherever nan attraction [may be] connected their narration first – and past we watch and spot if they beryllium themselves arsenic athletes who are worthy successful nan aforesaid way.”
There’s different problem pinch nan conversations astir romance successful nan WNBA: they lend to nan fetishization of queer couples and relationships. Whether Fudd and Bueckers are still successful a narration is simply a broadside point; what’s much applicable is nan exoticization of nan thought that they whitethorn be.
“I deliberation nan thought of 2 superstars of a sports convention perchance being successful a narration pinch each different plays into truthful galore tropes from people’s favourite romance novels, and it tin beryllium easy to get carried distant successful nan fantasy,” says De la Cretaz.
This was highlighted during nan frenzy astir nan gay crystal lucky play Heated Rivalry.
“All excessively often, queer relationships are fetishized and dehumanized, becoming fodder for group to task their ain desires connected to,” says De la Cretaz. “The problem, however, is that Paige and Azzi are not characters successful a novel; they are existent group and these are their existent lives.”
