As the Team USA women’s basketball team prepares to win its eight consecutive Olympic gold medal, the WNBA players that comprise the squad are also formulating an organized and united plan on how they choose to support Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in these upcoming Olympics.
Team USA women’s 5×5 hoops made its Olympic debut in 1976, and the U.S. has dominated, winning nine gold medals – including seven consecutive starting with the 1996 Atlanta Olympics – one silver and one bronze.
The U.S. did not participate in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, therefore the Soviet Union won gold at the 1976 Montreal Games and in 1980, and the Unified Team (made up of former Soviet republics) captured gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
After that, it’s been all Team USA sweeping any team that stands in its wake.
WNBA Social Justice Council Meets On Ways To Support Kamala Harris Presidential Campaign
The WNBA’s Social Justice Council is meeting in Paris and discussing ways that the league can leverage its burgeoning popularity to support presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the upcoming election.
“We have been talking in the group chat about finding a way to obviously back Kamala as much as we can,” Breanna Stewart, a member of that council who plays for the New York Liberty and the United States Women’s Basketball Team, said here Saturday.
The Council is a partnership of the WNBA and the WNBA Players’ Association. It was formed in the wake of the 2020 death of George Floyd with a mission “to educate, amplify, and mobilize action to address inequality.”
The burgeoning success of the league, which has led to celebrity rookies such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, chartered flights, increased attendance, ratings, brand visibility and a $2.2B media rights deal over the next 11 years, hasn’t shifted the players’ focus when it comes to continuing to use their platform to fight for the voiceless.
Breanna Stewart and WNBA Helped Raphael Warnock Unseat Owner Kelly Loeffler
In 2023, an in-season tournament, the Commissioner’s Cup, was created in part so that a cut of proceeds could help fund the group and its outreach.
WNBA players have always been at the forefront of issues with political ramifications, including elections.
The support of the WNBA was pivotal in helping Rev. Raphael Warnock make history in 2021 when he defeated billionaire Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler in Georgia’s Senate runoff election.
Loeffler was also owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream franchise at the time, and she was less than supportive of any of her team’s social justice agenda following George Floyd’s death and dating back to Colin Kaepernick’s influence on the sports landscape.
With incredible support from Stewart and the rest of the WNBA, Warnock beat the odds and became the 11th Black senator to be elected to Congress, also the first Black senator from the state of Georgia. Loeffler was also basically forced out as owner.
Stacey Abrams’ grassroots work gets much of the credit for Warnock’s victory as she helped mobilize voter blocks that could get Warnock the win. But the push he got from the majority Black; female athletes of the WNBA — especially early on in his campaign — was influential.
WNBA Has Always Been A Voice Against Systemic Racism and Social, Economic, Gender Inequality
That’s why this recent meeting of the minds isn’t surprising. The women of the WNBA are meeting to build a strategy for the next election, which is one that most Americans agree is crucial to the immediate future of this country.
It might be infuriating to “shut up and dribble” people who don’t want athletes choosing political sides or having a voice when it comes to such matters, but the WNBA has long been at the forefront of social justice movements and its women like those of the Atlanta Dream who refuse to be silenced by any forms of systemic hate or oppression.
“This is a big, big election,” said A’ja Wilson of Team USA and the Las Vegas Aces, who like Harris is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. “We are always going to stand behind her in that sense.”
What’s WNBA’s Plan To Support Kamala Harris?
Stewart, one of the leading voices in the league and the 2023 MVP suggested that plans were just being formed now about how to maximize the league’s current wave of interest in order to reach larger audiences with their message.
“Everything we have been working for this year, the Commissioner Cup, has been about voting rights, reproductive rights,” Stewart said. “The things that she stands for we also stand for. So making sure we can definitely stay united and continue to push the message of registering to vote and where to vote and pushing the resources behind it.”
The WNBA has made no bones about it being a league that slants towards the Democrats as the party that most aligns with their culture as a human rights, LGBTQ, racial and gender equality-driven organization.
There are surely some Donald Trump supporters among the 144 women in the league and 12 head coaches, plus the executive branch of the league. The majority of the players, however, are trying to be a part of history and get the first woman in American history voted into the Oval Office.
It’s a glass ceiling that they are most interested and invested in. so much that they are spending part of their offseason Olympics vacation in Paris, not only playing basketball and representing the USA, but building on ways to make the country more balanced, united and opportunistic for all.
WNBA Fans Can’t Forget Caitlin Clark
Despite the big political pow wow and the team trying to make history again, WNBA fans on social media can’t forget about Cailtin Clark.
Dawn Staley, a member of the USWNT selection committee joined Mile Terico to do some pre and post game commentary for Team USA men and naturally asked the three-time national championship coach about Caitlin Clark’s Team USA omission.
Staley responded: “If we had to do it all over again, the way that she’s playing, she would be in really high consideration of making the team because she is playing head and shoulders above a lot of people.”
Of course, that one comment took the focus off of the WNBA legends actually participating and opened up a lane for Team Clark to express their displeasure again.
Clark’s time will come in 2028. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see if she joins her WNBA sisters in supporting Kamala Harris or she sides with her male fan base which has been a mixture of Trump and Democrats who are leery on Harris.
