Brianna Turner (right) of the Las Vegas Aces criticized the possibility of WNBA players wearing patches on their uniforms to celebrate America's 250th anniversary, citing the lack of rights that women had in 1776.Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Canadian Press
Last Thursday, it was reported that the WNBA would have its players wear a ‘USA 250’ patch at the league’s upcoming all-star game. Of all the players in that league, just one had a thought about it.
“Whoever called for the WNBA all star uniforms to have the USA 250 patch should have thought that through considering no WNBA players would have been free 250 years ago,” Las Vegas Aces forward Brianna Turner wrote on X.
The WNBA immediately busted into a brisk, backward trot.
“Like other major sports leagues, we are exploring how best to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary,” the WNBA said in a statement to media. “Nothing has been finalized at this time.”
I’m guessing that star-spangled bodysuits are out, too.
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This move is of a piece with the L.A. Dodgers’ recent Pride night. All of the Dodgers wore hats featuring a rainbow motif. All but two - reliever Blake Treinen and outfielder Alex Call. They wore the regular blue hat.
In the recent past, this small protest would have put the team into PR fits. There would be public statements about public statements and, eventually, public apologies for all the public statements. The players would have been compelled to address the issue on the record, so that they could be seen to be lashed in the square.
Not this time. Call started the game. Although he didn’t have to play – he’s one of eight relievers – Treinen was called on in the ninth inning. He got the win. The situation was news, but not big news.
Two separate incidents involving two different political leanings, both pointing in the same direction. When you try forcing people to visibly endorse whatever politics you think you can sell, it won’t always work out as you hoped.
Freddie Freeman (5) is celebrated by his L.A. Dodger teammates as they wear the team's Pride-themed hats for their Saturday game.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Reuters
It’s no mystery why sports leagues keep pushing this boulder uphill. Every small change to the costume of its employees is marketable. It’s a quirk of this moment that people – Americans, in particular – want to advertise their voting habits.
You put that tendency and sport together and you’ve got a retail tsunami. I’m sure that pride hats and USA 250 jerseys – both of them semiotic turn signals on the left-right dividing line – sell as fast as you can bulk order them.
This isn’t about this or that cause. If invading aliens showed up with a great idea for a collab, the Dodgers would be out there wearing ‘Terraformed by 2040’ hats.
This is about money. When there’s a corporation pulling the levers, it’s always about money.
The wrinkle is that the players have their own politics, and at least a few will be principled about them. That is to say, they’re not going to wear what you tell them to wear just because you told them.
Five years ago, the momentum was all moving in one direction. A year or two ago, it began to swing the other way. Now we’ve entered a period of chaotic equilibrium. Some leagues are left, some are right and some go back and forth, depending on the branding opportunities. It’s become hard to predict which issue will catch mass attention, or how exactly people will react to it.
In the cases of Turner, Treinen and Call, the online herd took a pass. Maybe our collective capacity for outrage has been worn to a nub. People could be saving their emotional energy for something more important than who wore what shirt.
Perhaps people have accepted what should have been assumed from the start – that Turner, Treinen and Call and everyone else is entitled to their opinion. Then the public is entitled to react to their opinion with its own opinion, and their teams will react to that reaction.
Sports is an entertainment business. Everyone has a right to freely express themselves, but no one has a right to a job.
Dodgers relief pitcher Blake Treinen, seen here in a game this past Tuesday in Phoenix, opted not to wear the team's Pride-themed hat on Saturday night in L.A.Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Turner, Treinen and Call share an advantage – they’re good. In the end, that is all any team cares about.
You could be out there on the ice/field/court in a helmet wrapped in tinfoil rambling about The Great Awokening, but if you’re a top line guy who scores reliably, everyone will look past that. If you’re a bench warmer in the wrong sort of league who wears an ‘I’m With Her’ T-shirt to dinner with friends, you may be getting cut.
It makes you nostalgic for an era you never got to experience firsthand. One in which the leagues were businesses first and last, and avoided politics altogether. Back then, all protest was principled and felt important because all of it was self-destructive.
Muhammad Ali didn’t get a Nike deal when he bailed out of the Vietnam War. He gave up an easy life of celebrity to make himself a public enemy. What successful entertainer would have the steel to do that now?
Instead, we get an upside-down world. The corporations are the ones calling for action – though they’re not bothered about which action or who it affects, as long as it sells. The players are the ones acting as a bulwark against political incursion, policing which messages are sent on their behalves.
Most don’t care. As long as the cheques don’t bounce, they’ll wear what you tell them to wear. They are us.
Sports is the truest cultural reflection of where we are at a given time, because it is the one entertainment-based endeavour that draws from all strata of society. Every type and background is represented there.
Most of that group goes along to get along and always will. But every time I see one of them refusing to stick with the program – regardless of which program it is – I feel reassured.
Every sort of social pressure is the pressure to conform. The people in charge would prefer that all of us be good, uncomplaining consumers. We need a few complainers out there, if only just to show the rest of us that it can be done.