Playing In The Dark: The dilemma of African American Women in Basketball

Surprisingly, Women’s Basketball is more popular outside the United States, as many players go abroad to earn more money in places like Europe. Given the immense popularity of men’s Basketball in America this fact is somewhat shocking. Also women’s sports in general have been gaining more attention and becoming more lucrative, thus one would assume that women’s basketball would be one of the major beneficiaries. However this is not the case. So the question is why is women’s basketball more popular in foreign countries than here? In my opinion, the answer lies in the racial make up of women’s basketball leagues. The WNBA is predominately comprised of African American females, while European leagues are not. Before the WNBA was set up in the mid-1990’s, Europe and Asia had well established women’s basketball leagues which received much attention.

While European Women’s leagues are still trying to gain support, there does not seem to be the disparity in popularity between men and women’s basketball that exists in the U.S. Many theorists suggest that the image of American women’s basketball suffers because of the negative stereotypes associated with black women; such as hypersexuality, and bad motherhood. These oppressive ideologies could be the reason why women’s basketball does not receive as much media attention. Sports are a multi-billion dollar industry, Men’s Basketball profits extremely well, however women’s does not. It seems that these negative associations make large endorsement companies reluctant to associate themselves with the sport. Because of its reputation women’s basketball seems incompatible with mainstream society. Sports media and companies only market things that will be profitable, therefore given the challenge that the WNBA provides to mainstream norms or race, gender and sexuality, it becomes marginalized.

I was surprised to find when conducting research on sports magazine covers that black female basketball players were rarely present. In its 10 years of existence, ESPN magazine has never had a black female basketball player on the cover. There have however been other black female athletes on covers, mainly from tennis (Venus and Serena.) Furthermore there have been white female basketball players. Thus it seems that the problem is not necessarily with black female athletes, or with women’s basketball players, but it arises when the two combine. This suggests that the message a black female basketball player sends is thought too controversial. Therefore, the white female is used as a marketing ploy to try and attract people to the sport. This is unfortunate because many black female players do not get the recognition they deserve. I feel that the reason European women’s basketball is more popular is because this scenario does not occur. European leagues are dominated by white women, and therefore basketball perhaps does not have the same stigma attached to it as it does in America.

The case of women’s basketball appears to be an example of the difficult position black women occupy in America. Multiple prejudices or race, gender, sexuality and other factors often create an unfair stigma which undermines their attempts for success. Given that they are often kept from the more prominent female sports (country club sports such as tennis, and hockey) because of socioeconomic reasons, Basketball has become a realm in which they can shine. However once again here we see how prejudices hinder black women, robbing them of the credit that they deserve.