Peace, Love, and Broken Hearts

There’s a saying that work won’t love you back (it’s also the title of a great book), so you shouldn’t be loyal and take all your paid time off. Women’s sports was supposed to be different.

As fans we approached the challenge of sustaining women’s sports leagues as moral imperatives. Professional women’s basketball and soccer leagues tried to harness the excitement after the 1996 Olympics and 1999 World Cup, respectfully. The WNBA was launched in 1996 on the heels of the ABL, an independent league, and crushed it swiftly. Just as swiftly, I started to call the Chicago Bulls and urge them to bring Chicago a WNBA team. As a board member of Chicago NOW, they took my call and had a meeting. I was told that the league probably wouldn’t last, but if we could sign up a certain number of season ticket holders, they would consider it. The Sky arrived in Chicago without the support of the Bulls in 2006 and remains one of the few WNBA teams without an NBA counterpart.

Meanwhile in women’s soccer, the Women’s United Soccer Association launched in 2000.  But that folded after three years, and its successor also folded after three years. The Chicago Red Stars, established in 2006, have participated in three different leagues. While the current NWSL has been around since 2012, buoyed by the USWNT winning two consecutive World Cups, it still feels fragile. Even more so after the USWNT’s disastrous showing in last year’s World Cup. We’ll see if our Olympic win will result in more fans attending games and corporate sponsorships.

After the success of the 2015 World Cup, fans became more aware of the pay disparity between the women’s and men’s national teams. In 2016 I organized a protest outside of US Soccer, which is currently headquartered in Chicago. A handful of activists joined. The players appealed to the fans for support. When the USWNT won their second consecutive World Cup in 2019, the Paris stadium erupted in chants of “Equal Pay! Equal Pay!” This was replicated at the NYC parade and rally, especially when US Soccer President Carlos Cordeiro spoke. Fans showed up for the team, had their back, and in 2022 the teams signed a contract that provided pay equity.

In the early aughts I talked with a TV sports journalist about why women’s sports weren’t shown on the evening news. “No one is attending, so why report the scores?” was her response. That stayed with me over the years. During the 2010 Winter Olympics, I grew angry and frustrated at mainstream media fawning over women athletes, knowing full well that once the flame was extinguished, so would the spotlight. I launched a Facebook page challenging people to attend at least one professional women’s sporting event a year. At the time, Chicago was wealthy in women’s (semi) professional sports: soccer, basketball, football, softball, and two roller derby leagues. I tracked news of these leagues and shared on Facebook. I wrote an Op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times and letters to the editor. I was a one-woman women’s sports aggregate until I recruited friends to join me in the endeavor. I closed that page in 2020 after the launches of Just Women’s Sports, The Gist (Business), Togethxr, Re—inc, and seeing legacy outlets finally covering women’s sports.

Then 2023 women’s March Madness happened.

The Caitlin Clark effect was ignited. Angel Reese waved her hand. This carried over to the 2024 NCAA season. People I knew weren’t sports fans were watching women’s college basketball. Heck, I was following women’s college basketball outside of March Madness.

March Madness 2024 was filled with commentary about Clark setting the NCAA scoring record and if it was worth it for Reese and others to jump to the WNBA and risk losing money. But fans turned out in droves, selling out stadiums, forcing relocations to larger stadiums, and astonishing demand for player merch.

It was during last NCAA season that I heard some fans say they were planning on reselling their tickets for the Indiana Fever (as the number one pick in the WNBA draft, it was a given Caitlin Clark would end up there), and it would pay for their Chicago Sky tickets. I laughed. Mostly cause I had been a fan for so long that the thought seemed ludicrous.

The joke was on me though.

Fans did show up. And they bought my friend’s tickets at prices that did end up paying for their season tickets.

During the first half of the 2024 WNBA season, I’ve been blown away by the energy that is in the Wintrust Arena. Energy that didn’t show up until the finals during our 2021 championship season.

No one was laughing as the WNBA took its All-Star and Olympic break though.

After years of advocating for the teams, the players, and increased investment by corporations in terms of sponsorships and media in terms of attention, the teams sent the bill to the fans.

And not just a sizable increase as they did after the 2021 championship season, but doubling our season ticket prices (in some cases, more than double).

My gut reaction is to walk away. To go back to being a fan who cheers them on, but only goes to one or two games a year. To invest in supporting Chicago’s women’s sports bar, Whiskey Girl, which is cheaper than one game at Wintrust.

But last Friday I let my tickets renew in the least enthusiastic manner possible, by being too tired to cancel and feeling defeated. Why should I keep myself from enjoying the team I love just because it doesn’t love me back? What many of us mourn the most though is the sense that the games will change. Women’s sporting events have been a haven for families and queer folks. Affordable events where I would plan Girl Scout nights. Will those be possible anymore?  

Early on a friend warned of using capitalist means as a path to feminist ends and in my heart, I knew she was right. Maybe I never thought this day would come, our stadiums would remain empty or that it wouldn’t be as bad as it is, but it hurts. Both to my heart and my bank account.