Ever since the thrilling Game 5 of the WNBA Finals between the Minnesota Lynx and Los Angeles Sparks, things haven’t exactly been peachy for the WNBA.
First off, the intense series finale was overshadowed by missed calls by the officials. Then, WNBA players who headed overseas for their higher-paying gigs had to deal with a number of terrorist attacks, resulting in the WNBA having to work to keep its players safe.
Now, one of its former players has some pretty bad things to say about the league.
In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, former WNBA player Candice Wiggins says she was bullied while playing, with some of this having to do with her sexuality.
Wiggins was drafted out of Stanford in 2008 and played eight years in the league. She abruptly announced her retirement prior to the 2016 season. But based the fact she felt she was bullied while in the WNBA, she didn’t think she could handle more time on the court:
“I wanted to play two more seasons of WNBA, but the experience didn’t lend itself to my mental state,” Wiggins said. “It was a depressing state in the WNBA. It’s not watched. Our value is diminished. It can be quite hard. I didn’t like the culture inside the WNBA, and without revealing too much, it was toxic for me. … My spirit was being broken.”
The former Stanford Cardinal standout believes that this mistreatment was based on the fact she was a heterosexual woman:
“Me being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge,” Wiggins said. “I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are gay women. It was a conformist type of place. There was a whole different set of rules they (the other players) could apply.
“There was a lot of jealousy and competition, and we’re all fighting for crumbs,” Wiggins said. “The way I looked, the way I played – those things contributed to the tension.
“People were deliberately trying to hurt me all of the time. I had never been called the B-word so many times in my life than I was in my rookie season. I’d never been thrown to the ground so much. The message was: ‘We want you to know we don’t like you.’ “
The 98 percent assertion is certainly hard to prove. As of now, just 12 active players have publicly come out.
These claims were also followed by Wiggins complaining about the state of the WNBA as a whole:
Of the league as a whole, Wiggins said, “Nobody cares about the WNBA. Viewership is minimal. Ticket sales are very low. They give away tickets and people don’t come to the game.”
As a league that is constantly fighting for attention, this probably wasn’t the attention it was looking for. It will be interesting to see how the WNBA responds to Wiggins. This league doesn’t need any more bad PR.
