Last Saturday the Phoenix Mercury and star Brittney Griner were harassed by a Blaze Media YouTube personality at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The man, described by the WNBA as a “provocateur,” shouted questions at Griner while filming her and her teammates. The WNBA approved charter flights for Griner this season, given her recent release from a Russian prison. It’s unclear why she wasn’t flying chartered on Saturday.
“Given her special situation, the WNBA approved charter flights for BG for the 2023 season,” a league spokesperson said. “We informed the Phoenix Mercury earlier this year to move ahead with any arrangements they felt were appropriate and needed, including charter flights.”
Griner Is A High Profile Player
Griner was arrested and detained in February 2022 when she was returning to Russia to continue her overseas basketball season. Russian customs officials said they found vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage, which she later acknowledged in court while saying she had no criminal intent and had packed them in haste.
Last August, she was sentenced to a nine-year prison term but in December was freed through a negotiated prisoner exchange between the United States and Russian governments.
Russia agreed to a prisoner exchange for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout aka “Merchant of Death.”
Bout is a former Soviet military translator who used multiple companies he controlled to smuggle weapons from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s and early 2000s. He reportedly broke embargoes in the name of weapons sales and war profiteering.
As reported by The Economist in 2008, “[Bout] struck deals with a remarkable axis of ne’er-do-wells: supplying weapons and air-transport to the Taliban, abetting despots and revolutionaries in Africa and South America, aiding Hizbullah in Lebanon and Islamists in Somalia. He also found time to supply American forces in Iraq, perhaps al-Qaeda too, and maybe even Chechen rebels.”
Alex Stein, the right-wing YouTube personality who harassed Griner and her teammates, was seen and heard asking if the prisoner swap was a fair exchange. He also asked if Griner slept with Putin to get released. This man is an idiot and did what he did for clout and to rile up his base of supporters.
The W Needs To Protect Its Players
But what if this was one of the more rabid members of his base of supporters who saw Griner and decided to escalate the situation? Don’t act like we haven’t seen people commit acts of violence in the name of right wing zealotry.
This incident does raise the issue about WNBA teams flying commercial as opposed to charters like their male counterparts. We know all the arguments about the WNBA not being nearly as profitable as the NBA.
But if ratings and interest are up and the league is considering expansion, it should invest in the safety and well being of its players.
Many of these teams are run by the billionaire owners of the NBA teams in the same city. Let these insanely wealthy people foot the bill. New York Liberty owner Joe Tsai has said he would pay for his team to have a charter.
“[I]n times like that, we don’t want to throw phones or yell and say things back, so we kind of have to take it,” said Griner’s Mercury teammate Brianna Turner. “I guess you live and learn, but I don’t know … if it happens again, what do we do next?”
It’s on the W now. What will you do next, to ensure player comfort and safety?
