The Women of the WNBA Are Fighting for Their Slice of the Multibillion-Dollar Basketball Industry
Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike, both starters for the WNBA Sparks, are ready to work. The only siblings other than Eli and Peyton Manning to both be drafted at number one in the history of the four major U.S. pro sports, they’re the engine behind the Sparks’ bid for the championship this year (which they’re favored to win). This season will be the first time the sisters have played together since their days at Stanford—and the reunion feels damn good. “It's kind of like reigniting an old flame,” says Nneka.
While working for the championship, the duo are also working toward another major goal: fair pay. Last fall Nneka, who is the current president of the league’s players association (basically, the WNBA players union) penned a powerful op-ed, announcing the women of the WNBA were opting out of their current contract agreement. “Opting out means not just believing in ourselves, but going one step further: betting on ourselves,” Nneka wrote in the Players’ Tribune. “It means being a group of empowered women, not just feeling fed up with the status quo but going one step further: rejecting the status quo. And it means taking a stand, not just for the greatest women’s basketball players of today, but going one step further: taking a stand for the greatest women’s basketball players of tomorrow.”
It’s time, in other words, for pro sports to step up. The fight for fair pay, most recognizably championed by the women of the U.S. women’s national soccer team, isn’t going away. And the players aren’t going to go silent. “As women's basketball players, we realized that we are more than just athletes—we have a platform to not only change our lives but change other people's lives,” says Chiney, current vice president of the players’ association. “We've been at the forefront of multiple [equality] issues, at the center of anything that matters to diverse groups of people. It's sort of like just allowing the rest of society to catch up and discover what makes us amazing women, what makes our brand of basketball unique and special.”
The women of the WNBA have something exceedingly rare in pro sports: They’re actually relatable. “We're more authentic, more accessible, more approachable, and we're more integrated into our communities,” Nneka says. “And that's what really makes the WNBA unique. We are businesswomen, we are artists, we are mothers, we have women who are in school—there's just such a range of people [in the WNBA] to relate to.”
It’s like the Chaka Khan song, Chiney interjects, riffing “I’m Every Woman”: “We really have every woman, every single woman, represented in the league.”
The WNBA still has a long way to go to build up a fanbase as big as that of the men’s league—
the 2018 All Star game drew just a little more than 700,000 viewers. But as the players work to grow the game, they’re asking for a fair playing field: resources befitting world-class athletes, investment in the league—and fair pay. “Every player who plays for WNBA plays for the respect of the game, the love of the game, the legacy, but we also are part of a business,” Chiney says, “a business that we want to grow.”
Ultimately they want the chance to inspire investors, sponsors, media partners, and little girls to believe in the WNBA as much as they do. “It’s a male-dominated industry, but I hope that our legacy will be showing young girls and young women that we can do anything,” Chiney says. “Like, there's no limit to what you can do on the court—and there's no limit to what you can do off the court.”
Macaela MacKenzie is a senior editor at Glamour. Follow her on Instagram @MacaelaMac and Twitter @MacaelaMack.
This year has made one thing clear: Women are showing up, stepping up, and taking what they deserve. From politics to pop culture, women aren't just leveling the playing field—they're owning it. As we ramp up to our annual Women of the Year summit, we will be highlighting women across industries who do the work every day. Whether it's the CEO of a multinational retail corporation, a James Beard Award–winning chef, or the World Cup champions, here are the women you need to know right now. First up: 10 profiles of women who are making their mark on the world of sports, where female athletes and businesswomen are fighting it out for championships, equal pay, and culture-shifting change. Spoiler alert: They're winning.
See all of the Glamour Women of the Year All Year: Sports.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
