After years of covering the WNBA, Elle Duncan is exhausted by the constant discourse rarely relates to basketball.
With another eventful season winding down, national conversations around the league rarely involve the Las Vegas Aces attempting to extend their dynasty or the Golden State Valkyries emerging as title contenders in just their second season. Instead, hard fouls and Sophie Cunningham's comments about transgender women in sports have stolen the headlines.
Duncan witnessed the WNBA's rapid ascension as a SportsCenter anchor and WNBA Countdown host. She'll now work the WNBA playoffs for the USA Network after leaving ESPN for Netflix in December.
During an interview on WHYY's Sports in America podcast, Duncan lamented the current state of WNBA coverage.
"Right now, the WNBA is the most toxic space to cover," Duncan said. "And that's incredibly frustrating and sad."
"It's the worst timeline"
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Duncan recalled people around the WNBA initially thinking that any attention would help. However, the league has continued to get politicized by divisive talking points.
"There was so much conversation early on, 'Hey this is maybe not such a bad thing, right? No such thing as bad publicity, right?'" Duncan said. "'It's all good. Now we’re like the men’s sports. We’ve got stupid narratives and discourse and we’ve got false things being said. Uh-oh, we’ve made it! We’re like the men.’ And I think, very quickly, that’s turned into, ‘Oh my goodness, everything that people revered and loved about this space is essentially being hijacked.'"
Duncan wishes the conversation would return to the actual basketball.
"There is so much we should and could be talking about," Duncan said. "And instead, every other day is an examination of what this foul means, and a generalization of what this league is about, and an admonishment of the women before. And it just feels like we are in a perpetual cycle that we can't break out of. And every single time there is some ammunition added onto this fire, I know at least for me personally, I put my hands in the air, just like I did on Sunday, and I go, 'Here we go again.'" It's the worst timeline right now."
Despite those frustrations, Duncan is determined to break those patterns and reset WNBA coverage as ratings keep rising and the on-court product thrives.
"I think, collectively, we’ve got to put our heads together and figure out how we right this ship," Duncan said. "Because we have an opportunity here to celebrate this monumentous moment and this movement in the WNBA, and I think we are wasting it by muddying it down with everything else that’s bothering us in this country right now."
