By Douglas V. Gibbs
Friday night on “Gutfeld!” the sharp-tongued libertarian regular on the program, Kat Timpf, was asked to give her opinion about the recent bizarre appearance of dildos thrown on the court at WNBA games. She responded that she considered as a possibility that what was happening was an “inside job” and believes the stunt may be for the purpose of boosting ratings. And you know what? She may be onto something.
Let’s be honest: the WNBA is not some premiere sports league as they may desire. They struggle with ratings, struggle with fans in the stands, and they are struggling with relevance. And, they have been struggling with the reality that entitlement doesn’t equal interest. Remember the whole All-Star Game idiocy with the shirts reading, “Pay Us What You Owe Us”? I argued that you can’t claim more money if you don’t earn more money. The cost for arenas and to run the sport isn’t reduced if you aren’t doing as well. Make the billions, and you may make millions, but until then, you get what you get because of the size of the operation. That’s not sexism. That’s economics. The league has lackluster merchandise, has a barely popular product with a few people on the court and they badly need something that will get them the attention they think they deserve.
Hockey had Gretzky. Golf had Tiger. Now the WNBA has … dildos.
Did someone in the front office of the WNBA say, “hey, I’ve got an idea! It’s weird, but it’s so weird, it might just draw some attention in our direction!”
The whole WNBA thing is what happens when identity politics meets market reality. The WNBA players, like the lady soccer players last year, have been demanding “equal pay, equal attention, and equal respect.” You don’t get NBA money without NBA numbers. You don’t get LeBron-level salaries when your games can’t fill half an arena. And you certainly don’t earn cultural clout by turning your sport into a sideshow.
Is this manufactured outrage meeting a manufactured spectacle? When you can’t win the ratings war with talent or competition, you turn to shock? That’s what the Democrats do. They can’t win in the arena of ideas so they have turned politics into a giant circus. Stunts, props and deceptive screaming about things that actual don’t exist.
The WNBA may have simply taken a page out of the hard-left’s playbook, turning to stunts, and turning to props that belong in the bedroom to shock people into watching the games – not for the games, but to see if any more dildos will be flying onto the basketball court.
Arrests have happened, and the truth is the ratings and ticket sales have risen slightly – ever so slightly. The league, I believe, is trying to provoke a reaction because they can’t provoke genuine interest. This is what leftists do, in sports and politics: if you can’t win hearts and minds, distract them. If you can’t earn respect, demand it. If you can’t sell tickets, sell controversy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of expression and I am glad the league exists for those who crave lady basketball. But when a professional sports league becomes a parody of itself, it’s time to ask: What are we really promoting? Athletic excellence? Or cultural absurdity?
The United States Constitution enumerates our God-given rights to speak, protest, and even (sort of) to wave around whatever novelty item you want (though local laws might have an issue). But it doesn’t guarantee you a paycheck, relevance, ratings, or respect. That is on you. Opportunity is nothing if you don’t take advantage of it and figure out a way to make it shine. Respect is earned. Interest is earned. Success is earned. And if the WNBA wants to be taken seriously, maybe it’s time to stop chasing shock and start providing substance.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
