WNBA President Lisa Borders made the media rounds yesterday after the weekend decision to rescind the fines the league imposed on teams and players for wearing black warmup shirts supporting the recent shooting victims, saying that he hopes the move "will lead to a fresh start on social activism for the players and their union," according to Doug Feinberg of the AP. Borders said, "In reflection, recognizing that we were at an impasse, we needed to move forward in the future. In order to do that, stop what you're doing currently, take a breath and re-engage. Rescinding the fines allowed us to do that." Feinberg noted it had been a "tense week" for the league after imposing $5,000 fines on the Liberty, Fever and Mercury -- as well as a $500 fine for players on the teams -- for a "uniform violation." The fines "seemed to galvanize the players, who used postgame interview sessions and social media to voice their displeasure." The league is on a hiatus through the Rio Games, but Borders said that conversations "have renewed between the WNBA and its players." Borders: "If we all work together, we'll make some incremental progress. No one has dealt with this before in this format or this forum. We'll get some things right and some things wrong" (AP, 7/25). Borders appeared on "SportsCenter" yesterday and said, "What we realized is that we had a response initially to what has been identified as a non-traditional situation. ... We asked players not to wear the shirts on the court. Our guidelines are something we expect our players to honor, and typically they do. In this particular case, they did not. So we invited them to think of other ways that they could lift their voices before we sent out a reminder memo about the policy and subsequently the fines." She said this is an "unprecedented time," and "we have to keep working on this" ("SportsCenter," ESPN, 7/25).
TALK IT OUT: Borders noted this is the "first time that we are aware of that any professional league has dealt with" such a prolonged player-led social movement, let alone one "of this magnitude." Borders: "There’s no playbook for this. There’s no history or marker that you can look to and say ‘well handle it this way.' So we decided to rethink how we were handling it." She noted there "was no tipping point" with the league's players, but she "would say it was more thought inside the league." Borders: "There was no inflection point, it was just us talking and thinking about it over the past two weeks, just as the players have talked and thought about things over the past two weeks" (USATODAY.com, 7/25).
BOWING TO PUBLIC PRESSURE: ESPN’s Michael Smith said there is "something to be said for realizing the error of your ways." However, he wondered, "What brought them to that realization? Probably the backlash.” He called it "typical reactionary management on the part of the WNBA.” The players “had the opportunity to lead the way on this," but the league office undermined the effort by "fining them over some trivial rules when this is bigger than basketball” ("His & Hers," ESPN2, 7/25). ESPN's Bomani Jones: "This doesn’t seem to be a show of solidarity with the players as much as, ‘We looked bad, let’s try to fix that.’” ESPN’s Dan Le Batard: “This isn’t altruism. It’s not benevolence. ... Their hand was forced because the players were making a public mess by pointing out how wrong it was” (“Highly Questionable,” ESPN, 7/25). ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser: "This was going to be a fire that swept throughout this league and they had to rescind the fines” (“PTI,” ESPN, 7/25).
