The new director of the
Women’s National Basketball Players Association and the new president of the WNBA both want to move beyond the controversy of the league fining players for wearing T-shirts with political statements on them on the court.
“Honestly, where we are is: We are ready to move forward,” Terri Jackson, WNBPA director of operations, said last week.
Union officials and the players were pleased that the WNBA rescinded fines given out to about 30 women after they wore T-shirts protesting violence against African-Americans and violence against the police late last month. “The players themselves, they are ready to move on and go to the next stage of demonstrating what their support [for movements against violence] would be,” Jackson said.
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Lisa Borders joined the WNBA in February.
Photo by: NBAE / GETTY IMAGES
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Meanwhile, WNBA President Lisa Borders said the problem was not with the statements on the T-shirts but more about league guidelines.
“It didn’t matter what the shirts said,” Borders said. “It could have said, ‘The sky is blue.’” The problem was that wearing the shirts on the court violated the league’s uniform rules, she said.
“We have always supported our players 1,000 percent,” Borders said. “This was no different. In fact, we specifically said to them, ‘We support you. What we asked you to do, though, and the only thing we ask you not to do is wear your shirts — the T-shirts, not the shooting shirts — your T-shirts on the court.’ Therein lies the rub. The players wanted to wear them on the court.”
The union and the league had been having conversations about the players wearing the shirts for about two weeks before the fines were levied July 20 and then rescinded four days later. The WNBA is taking a break from July 23 to Aug. 26 while some players compete in the Rio Olympics, and during that time, the league plans to meet with the union to come up with a plan for players to express their views without violating the league’s uniform rules, Borders said.
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JACKSON
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Both women are fairly new to their respective jobs. Borders took over as the fourth president of the WNBA in March after working in business and government, including being vice president of global community affairs for Coca-Cola Co. and vice mayor of Atlanta. Jackson was named director of operations of the WNBPA in May after working at the NCAA the last four years, most recently as director of law, policy and governance.
“Lisa is not as new as I am in my role; she’s had several more months into it,” Jackson said. “But we both have pledged that we will work and we will collaborate and we will have good, hard, productive conversations.”
Borders noted that she took over the WNBA about four months ago, just prior to the start of the season and Jackson started a bit more than two months ago, in the midst of the season. “She and I have had lunch and have had many, many conversations,” Borders said, “but it is a new relationship.”
> CAA SPORTS SIGNS NBA FREE AGENTS: CAA Sports signed NBA free agents Sergio Rodriguez and Ish Smith and negotiated deals with their new clubs.
Rodriguez, a point guard who played in the EuroLeague last year, signed a one-year, $8 million deal with the Philadelphia 76ers in July. Smith, who played last season with the 76ers, signed a three-year, $18 million deal with the Detroit Pistons last month.
At CAA Basketball, Smith will be represented by a team of agents led by Drew Morrison and Leon Rose, and Rodriguez will be represented by a team of agents led by Morrison and Steven Heumann.
It’s not clear who previously represented Rodriguez, but Smith was represented by independent, veteran agent Tony Dutt.
“We are disappointed that we will no longer be working with Ish, especially given all that we were able to accomplish on his behalf over a relatively short period of time,” Dutt said in a statement to SportsBusiness Journal.
> WME SIGNS BRADY QUINN: WME has signed former NFL quarterback and Fox Sports NFL and college football analyst Brady Quinn. Agent Josh Pyatt will lead Quinn’s representation. He was formerly represented by CAA.
Liz Mullen can be reached at lmullen@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @SBJLizMullen.
