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    WNBA’s Popularity Booms but Money for Players Hasn’t Kept Pace

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    Fans and brands have embraced the league, but rules have kept its growing financial success from fully trickling down to the players.Allisha Gray is a 29-year-old guard for the Atlanta Dream. She is six feet tall, speaks with a central Georgia drawl and smiles as if she’s keeping the best secret.During the W.N.B.A.’s All-Star weekend, she jumped into a whole new tax bracket. Her salary this year is $185,000, but she earned an additional $115,150 on Friday by winning the league’s 3-point contest and skills competition.The W.N.B.A. awards $2,575 to each winner in its skills competition and its 3-point contest, but most of Gray’s windfall came courtesy of a deal announced the day before between the players’ union and the insurance company Aflac, which agreed to pay $55,000 per winner.Her situation illustrated a theme of the league’s All-Star festivities. There is more money than ever coming into the W.N.B.A. from sponsors, ticket sales and new media rights deals, like the ones announced on Wednesday, which are expected to be worth six times what its current deals are. The presence of the rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese has exponentially increased interest in the league this season, and many fans of those two players have stayed to watch the rest of what the league has to offer.But the W.N.B.A. has never been profitable. The league’s financial health has been shaky for most of its 28 seasons. Because of that, player salaries and benefits, which are outlined in the collective bargaining agreement, are a fraction of what their male counterparts in the N.B.A. receive.As its popularity booms, the W.N.B.A. has made some concessions to players beyond the collective bargaining agreement, but it isn’t quite ready to fully loosen its purse strings. Some owners would also like to make serious investments in players, but league rules protecting competitive balance often don’t allow for that.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Soccer

      Borussia Dortmund Deal with Weapons Maker Rheinmetall Stirs Debate in Germany

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      For some fans of Borussia Dortmund, an advertising deal with Rheinmetall, a major arms manufacturer, has overshadowed the run-up to the Champions League final on Saturday.Borussia Dortmund, one of Germany’s most successful soccer clubs, is rooted in the industrial Ruhr region and prides itself on retaining its working-class roots, community engagement and anti-establishment mentality.That’s why, in the week before one of the biggest games in the club’s history, some Dortmund fans are angry about a sponsorship deal with Rheinmetall, a major German weapons producer. Everyone from club officials to lawmakers have weighed in on the move, which has provoked a debate about the normalization of the military in German society. Still, many fans would rather just focus on Dortmund’s appearance in the showcase game of the European season, the Champions League final on Saturday against Real Madrid. Dortmund’s three-year partnership with Rheinmetall, announced on Wednesday, includes advertising and marketing rights in Dortmund’s stadium and club grounds but not — crucially for some — a place on the team’s famed black and yellow jerseys. Neither side would confirm the amount of the deal.Generations of Germans, raised on the postwar idea that “never again” should their nation foment an armed conflict, remain uneasy associating with the defense industry. Unlike in the United States, where professional and college-level sports games often feature soldiers in uniform unfurling American flags and flyovers from fighter jets, at sporting events in Germany outward displays of patriotism and associations with the military are rare.Some fans would like to keep it that way.“Borussia Dortmund is a soccer club that has been a standard-bearer for tolerance and social projects,” said Inge Fahle, a retired teacher from Dortmund and a fan of the club since childhood. “A sponsorship with a weapons manufacturer just doesn’t work,” she said.Hans-Joachim Watzke, Dortmund’s chief executive, said in a statement that the club was “consciously opening ourselves up to a dialogue” by becoming partners with a weapons manufacturer. He said the partnership reflected the role that a company like Rheinmetall has come to play in German society, since the country stepped in to support Ukraine after it was invaded by Russia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Golf

      Tiger Woods Introduces His New Brand: Sun Day Red

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      Mr. Woods is trading in the Nike swoosh he wore for decades for the tiger logo of Sun Day Red, which will be a stand-alone unit within TaylorMade Golf.For even those who have only a passing interest in golf, one of the sport’s most memorable images is of Tiger Woods playing his way to another major tournament victory while wearing a red polo shirt with a white Nike swoosh.That image is officially in the past, however. In January, Mr. Woods announced the end of his 27-year deal with Nike, which had made him hundreds of millions of dollars. The partnership was marked by memorable ads and, of course, the red Nike shirts that Mr. Woods wore during many final rounds on Sundays.When Mr. Woods announced the ending of his partnership with Nike, he said there would “certainly be another chapter.” On Monday, he and his new brand sponsor, TaylorMade Golf, made clear that the next chapter would again include a red polo shirt. It will be stitched with a tiger in the center, the logo for his new brand under TaylorMade: Sun Day Red.Sun Day Red is marketed as a “lifestyle brand” for both sports fans and non-athletes and will include apparel — even cashmere sweaters — and shoes, David Abeles, chief executive of TaylorMade, said in an interview. (Mr. Woods switched to FootJoy shoes from Nike after his car crash in 2021.)How much of a role design will play in that apparel was not entirely clear, but Mr. Abeles said that “the design language of the products is completely different” from products Mr. Woods wore in his last sponsorship deal. Initial promotional images showed a new logo — a tiger with 15 stripes to mark the number of major championships Mr. Woods has won; a black, long-sleeve T-shirt with the brand’s name, Sun Day Red, on it; and its version of the red polo, which is on the bloodier end of the red spectrum and includes black buttons, suggesting attention to detail. (To be fair, there’s only so much anyone can do with a polo.)Mr. Woods’s affinity for red stems from his mother, who is from Thailand, where the color has significance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Lionel Messi Made a Pink Jersey Soccer’s Must-Have Item

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      In the span of three months, the soccer superstar has made Inter Miami’s eye-catching jersey the hottest piece of sports merchandise on the planet.All of a sudden, after a single summer, the pink jersey is everywhere. It has become almost impossible to acquire, yet there it is, paradoxically, on the backs of thousands of fans thronging American stadiums, hanging from market stalls in Buenos Aires and Bangkok, a vivid flash on almost every field where children gather to play soccer in England.That the jersey has become, apparently overnight, the hottest piece of sports merchandise on the planet is a simple, capitalist equation: the result of an irresistible combination of one of the most recognizable and beloved athletes of his generation; a distinctive, exotic color; and the ruthless efficiency of textile factories in Southeast Asia.Somehow, though, few people saw it coming. Tor Southard was better placed than most, but even he was caught unaware. As Adidas’s senior director for soccer in North America, he had been receiving emails from colleagues for nearly a year asking if the company’s biggest star, Lionel Messi, would be joining Inter Miami, also a client of Adidas.As far as he knew, it was just a rumor. Like the rest of the planet, Southard learned it was true only on June 7, the day Messi announced his intentions in a rare interview with two Spanish news outlets.For many, the immediate question was the soccer one. Six months after winning the World Cup with Argentina, why was Messi, the finest player of his generation and arguably the best of all time, leaving the elite clubs and competitions of Europe to join a team that ranked among the worst in the comparative backwater of America’s top league, Major League Soccer?For Southard, and for Adidas, there was a rather more pressing matter. Within a couple of days of Messi’s announcement, the company had received almost 500,000 requests from stores and suppliers for jerseys in Miami’s soft, electric pink. It is a specific fabric and a specific shade: Pantone 1895C. “It’s not like it was white, and we had inventory we could repurpose,” Southard said.Even if they could not foresee quite what a phenomenon the jersey would become, and quite how many people would clamor to get their hands on one, Southard and his colleagues had some sense of what was about to happen.Adidas was going to need more of that fabric. A lot more.‘No. 1 priority’The Adidas flagship store in Manhattan. John Taggart for The New York TimesOn the day Messi announced he would sign for Inter Miami, Adidas had a stock of Inter Miami jerseys in stores and storage facilities around the United States. It did not last. The shirts sold out so quickly that Southard said it seemed the inventory simply “evaporated.”Getting the fabric to make more — and fast — was just the first step. Although Adidas would not start selling official Messi jerseys until his contract was formally signed on July 15, it placed orders for vast rolls of the pink fabric needed to make them within 24 hours of his interview on Spanish television in the first week of June.The risk, of course, was that the deal could still collapse. “It’s a trade-off you make for speed,” Southard said.In ordinary circumstances, retailers order jerseys as many as nine months in advance. Major sportswear brands, like Adidas and Nike, generally prefer to produce large batches of team gear, rather than manufacturing to meet demand, as fast fashion chains tend to do.Given the number of what the industry terms “chase buys” — a sudden influx of orders in unanticipated volumes — for Messi’s Inter Miami jersey, Adidas knew its usual playbook would not work.A lone Messi shirt left in a soccer shop outside Tokyo.Kosuke Okahara for The New York TimesIt had learned that from experience. In 2021, when Cristiano Ronaldo returned to Manchester United, one of the handful of retailers Adidas works with, Fanatics, asked for a million more jerseys. A year later, after Messi helped Argentina win the World Cup, Adidas had to produce and ship an extra 400,000 Argentine national team shirts in the span of three months.Getting pink jerseys bearing Messi’s name and No. 10 into the market, Southard said, immediately became Adidas’s “No. 1 priority, globally.”Frisco, Texas.Logan Riely/Getty ImagesTo streamline the process, the company sourced the pink, recycled polyester fabric for the jerseys as close as possible to the factories in Southeast Asia that would make them. Orders for other details like logos and crests were expedited at other facilities, sometimes leapfrogging the production of apparel for other Adidas teams. To cut down on shipping times, the first batches of the Messi jerseys were sent out in small shipments, almost as soon as they came off the production line.The frantic production effort worked. Initially, Adidas had told its retailers to begin selling jerseys with a promise of delivery by Oct. 15. But the first editions arrived in the United States by July 18. They were sent straight to Miami, where demand was highest.They sold out almost instantly.‘Everyone has a hookup’La Paz, Bolivia.Leonardo Fernandez/Getty ImagesOn a street corner in Miami’s wealthy Brickell neighborhood one evening last month, two young men had set up a pop-up Messi store, their racks groaning with Inter Miami jerseys in pink and an alternate version — black with pink trim — that the team wears on the road. This was the work of the imaginatively titled Messi Miami Shop.The name sounds official. The online store looks it, too. It sells two versions of the Messi jersey, as most sportswear manufacturers now do: a “player version” made with high-quality material and an athletic cut, and a “replica” designed for fans whose bodies might not have the precise dimensions of an elite athlete.The Messi Miami Shop is not, though, affiliated in any way with Messi, Inter Miami or Adidas. (It is, though, a shop.) Its jerseys had come, instead, from a contact in Thailand, purchased for $10 apiece. “This is Miami,” one of the sellers said. “Everyone has a hookup.” And a markup: The stall was selling the jerseys at $25 for a children’s edition and as much as $65 for an “authentic” inauthentic adult version of the team’s black jersey.The sellers, who declined to give their names for reasons that should be obvious, had sold around 30 in a couple of hours, they said. But they are not the only ones hustling.A few nights earlier, outside Exploria Stadium in Orlando, Fla., a different group of hawkers were doing their own brisk business in Messi jerseys. Messi was not playing that night — he missed several weeks of the season because of an injury — but Inter Miami was in town, and plenty of fans were prepared to pay $40 for a pink jersey bearing his name, even if it had shoddy stitching and was plucked from a backpack.Despite all of Adidas’s attempts to get its official Messi jerseys into stores as quickly as possible, the clamor for them — any version of them — has proved so great that counterfeits have flooded the global market to meet the shortfall.Though the company says it has now largely caught up with the backlog of orders, it has found that it is still selling jerseys far faster than it can produce them, and not just in the United States.Rio de Janeiro.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesIn Buenos Aires, where Messi’s status as a national treasure was sealed by victory in the World Cup, there are pink jerseys for sale in store after store and kiosk after kiosk along Calle Florida, one of the Argentine capital’s teeming shopping streets, and in the stalls of the bustling San Telmo Market. At some vendors, the fakes go for about $50.In Europe, where tribal affiliations to local clubs run deep, Miami jerseys are suddenly commonplace. At a training session for elementary school children last month in Manchester, England, the usual concentration of Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool gear was flecked with a half dozen pink Inter Miami jerseys, each bearing Messi’s name.It is difficult to overstate the scale of demand. Official sales have surpassed every benchmark Adidas could have imagined, Southard said: more than the frenzy that accompanied David Beckham’s move to the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007; beyond the rush prompted by Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United in 2021; beyond the clamor for Messi’s Argentina shirt in the aftermath of Qatar 2022.Inter Miami is now the best-selling Adidas soccer jersey in North America, ahead of all five of the storied European clubs that the brand traditionally regards as the crown jewels of its portfolio: Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Arsenal.Since July, Fanatics, which dominates sports apparel in the United States, has sold more Messi jerseys than for any other soccer player, and any athlete at all except the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts. No player, in any sport, has ever sold more jerseys on the site in the first 24 hours after switching teams than Messi did in July.The Adidas store in Manhattan.John Taggart for The New York TimesHis cinematic arrival in M.L.S. — with a late game-winning goal in his debut on July 22 — came too late to salvage Inter Miami’s season. The club will miss the playoffs, which start on Wednesday. Messi will not play in pink again until next year.But that has done little to quell his impact. Inter Miami’s games drew record crowds from the moment he arrived. The team’s ticket prices for next season have soared. Adidas is confident that it has enough of the next edition of Messi’s jersey — due out in February — in production to meet demand.For many fans and retailers, it cannot come a moment too soon. The jersey has become so coveted, so scarce, that even Beckham himself — one of the most famous soccer players of his generation, a worldwide celebrity and, as part-owner of Inter Miami, Messi’s boss — has found it hard to get hold of one.More than once, he has wanted to send a pink Messi jersey to a friend or an associate as a gift, only to be told that he will have to wait, just like everyone else.Alan Blinder More

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      in Tennis

      Coco Gauff Says She’s ‘Ready’ for the Headiest Levels of Fame

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      Gauff, 19, has been in the spotlight since she was a 15-year-old playing Wimbledon, but after she won the U.S. Open singles title, those lights will burn far hotter.The first thing Coco Gauff did after leaving the court in Arthur Ashe Stadium, with her first Grand Slam trophy in hand, was don a sponsor’s T-shirt proclaiming her as a champion. So it begins.Gauff has been in the glaring lights of fame since she was a 15-year-old playing into the fourth round at Wimbledon, but after winning the U.S. Open women’s singles title on Saturday, those lights could become blinding and the fame distracting. Additional endorsement offers will pour in — commercial shoots, appearance opportunities, business projects, investment offers and invitations to A-list social events will pile up in the near and long-term future.Gauff has demonstrated a composed maturity in her time in the public eye, and she declared herself up for the challenge of becoming even more famous and rich, even as she tries to keep winning important tournaments.“I’m ready,” Gauff said after she beat Aryna Sabalenka, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2. “I embrace it. I know how to keep my peace, but also embrace all of this around me.”The level of fame that comes with being an American teenager winning the U.S. Open can be spellbinding and daunting for some. Gauff is the first since Serena Williams won in 1999 at the age of 17. Young athletes in every sport have been overwhelmed by early success, fame and money. They may lose focus, party too hard, tap out on the hunger that drove them to their first championship, or became bigheaded.That does not seem to be an issue for Gauff, so far. After accepting her check for $3 million, Gauff casually thanked Billie Jean King, who was also on the stage, for fighting for equal pay for women, a gesture showcasing her perspective, humor and charm, all in one.“She is so humble,” Pere Riba, her coach, said after the match. “Her work ethic is so strong, so professional and she has very good manners. Put all of that together and she will only get better. She can handle it all.”Riba has been working with Gauff, alongside Brad Gilbert, only since June, right before Wimbledon. Gauff’s father, Corey Gauff, asked Riba to be his daughter’s coach this summer on a temporary basis that turned permanent. Coco Gauff said that her father recommended hiring Gilbert, too. But Corey Gauff remains a steady influence and inspiration.“The most important person for Coco on the team is the dad,” Riba said. “The parents are really, really important for her.”Late Saturday night, Corey Gauff emerged into the player garden, where family members and friends had gathered, while Coco Gauff answered questions at a news conference. They cheered and rushed over to him as he held the coach’s trophy, and he smiled humbly and distributed hugs.Gauff’s game still has room to improve, a worrisome fact for opponents. She will probably add some strength to her impressive speed game, and will continue to shore up her forehand, which she mostly cured before the summer hardcourts circuit began.“She still has to continue fixing,” Riba said. “There were old habits, and you have to keep cleaning these up every single day, continue working because it was a long time doing it that way. But she corrects really well.”“This is a big achievement,” Gauff said. “But I feel like I’ve been used to this since I was basically 15 years old.”Karsten Moran for The New York TimesIn the next few days, Gauff’s schedule could be demanding. She will be asked to appear on national television programs and pose for photo shoots. She will be invited to parties. Celebrities will reach out, and some, including former President Barack Obama, who watched Gauff’s first match at this year’s U.S. Open in Ashe, and posted his congratulations to her on social media Saturday, will express their admiration.For players like Emma Raducanu, who won her first U.S. Open at 18 two years ago, claiming a major trophy at an early age brought riches and fame but not yet consistent tennis success. Since then, Raducanu has been ousted before the third round in the five Grand Slam tournaments she entered after her victorious U.S. Open.But Gauff, whose career earnings before Saturday from singles and doubles topped $8 million, was playing in her fifth U.S. Open, and people have been pointing to her for years as the next great American champion. Success did not come in an instant.“This is a big achievement,” she said. “But I feel like I’ve been used to this since I was basically 15 years old. In high school, doing online school, just used to it.”Marion Bartoli, the 2013 Wimbledon champion, said on Sky Sports after the match that in the next few days Gauff’s head will be spinning “like a washing machine,” with all the attention and responsibilities facing her. But Riba said Gauff is not only prepared for that.“Coco is ready for more,” he said. More

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      in Soccer

      Nike Says It Will Offer Mary Earps’s Goalkeeper Jersey

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      After being criticized for not offering replicas of the jerseys worn by the English goalkeeper Mary Earps and others in the Women’s World Cup, Nike said limited quantities would be available.With each breathtaking save made by Mary Earps, the goalkeeper who helped England’s national team take second place in the Women’s World Cup, the complaints from fans got louder: Why couldn’t they buy a replica of her Nike jersey?Nike, which outfitted the team, has attempted to present itself as being ahead of the curve in terms of offering support to female athletes and emerging sports talent. Though the company, the world’s largest sportswear maker by sales, acknowledged fans’ interest in replica goalkeeper jerseys, it initially did not commit to making them.That changed on Wednesday, after thousands of people had signed a petition requesting that replicas of the jerseys worn by Ms. Earps and other women goalkeepers be released, and after a motion addressing the issue was submitted in the British Parliament.“Nike has secured limited quantities of goalkeeper jerseys for England, U.S., France and the Netherlands to be sold through the federation websites over the coming days, and we are also in conversations with our other federation partners,” a spokeswoman for Nike said in a statement emailed to The New York Times on Wednesday evening, referring to members of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body.Nike is “committed to retailing women’s goalkeeping jerseys for major tournaments in the future,” the spokeswoman said in the statement, which did not specify how many jerseys would be available or when they could be purchased.In the days before, Nike, which outfitted 13 of the 32 teams in the Women’s World Cup, had faced an escalating backlash from soccer fans on the issue. (Replica goalkeeper jerseys were available for four of the men’s teams Nike sponsored in last year’s World Cup.)Many of the complaints centered around Ms. Earps, 30, who received the Golden Glove, an award recognizing the top goalkeeper in the tournament. “She’s the best in the world right now, and she doesn’t have a jersey,” Beth Mead, who has played for England’s women’s national team, told the BBC. “She doesn’t have a shirt that young boys and girls can buy.”Why wouldn’t Nike want to offer replica jerseys for popular goalkeepers?In the past, goalkeeper jerseys have not been best sellers for athletic-wear companies, for a few reasons.With a few exceptions, goalkeepers typically do not cultivate the kind of passionate fan base that other players like forwards can, meaning potentially fewer jersey sales.A goalkeeper’s jersey is also different from that of other teammates to ensure they stand out on the field. (Ms. Earps’s World Cup jerseys were emerald green and pink; her teammates’ were blue and white.) While a team’s main shirt can be produced en masse — with versions for various players requiring a simple name change on the back — a goalkeeper’s jersey requires a much smaller and more customized manufacturing run.Though interest in women’s soccer has risen, the sport still drives fewer apparel sales globally compared to men’s soccer.Did other brands make jerseys for goalkeepers playing in the Women’s World Cup?Adidas, which outfitted 10 teams for the tournament, did not offer replica goalkeeper jerseys. Neither did Puma, which made kits for Morocco and Switzerland.But Hummel, which made jerseys for Denmark’s national women’s team, and Castore, which made them for Ireland, each have released replica goalkeeper jerseys for those teams.How did the controversy start?At a news conference at the start of the Women’s World Cup, Ms. Earps expressed frustration about Nike’s decision not to offer replicas of the jerseys worn by participating teams’ goalkeepers. “It is hugely disappointing and very hurtful,” she said, adding that she had sought talks with both Nike and the Football Association, the governing body for English soccer, after England won the European Women’s Championship tournament last year.Ms. Earps, who is a goalkeeper for Manchester United in the Women’s Super League, also pushed back on the idea that her jersey would not sell. “My shirt on the Manchester United website was sold out last season,” she said.By the time England faced off against Spain in the Women’s World Cup final, Ms. Earps had made several vital saves that helped keep her team in the tournament. Her star performance only intensified questions about Nike’s decision.David Seaman, a former goalkeeper for Arsenal and England’s men’s national team, posted a message of support for Ms. Earps while she was playing in the final. “Bet Nike are regretting not selling the #maryearps shirt now,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.Another post on X shared that day read in part: “My 10 year old daughter is the goalie in her school team. She’s just gone online to buy a jersey for next year and wanted one like Mary Earps’s only to find Nike don’t do one. ‘That’s a bit stupid’ she said.”In the absence of an official replica jersey by Nike, some of Ms. Earps’s fans made their own jerseys using tape. Several small retailers also started manufacturing jerseys similar to her Nike shirt.How did Nike respond at first?In a statement released after the Women’s World Cup final on Sunday, which England lost 1-0 to Spain, Nike tried to put the focus on the future.“We are working toward solutions for future tournaments in partnership with FIFA and the federations,” the company said. “The fact that there’s a conversation on this topic is a testament to the continued passion and energy around the women’s game, and we believe that’s encouraging.”That did not satisfy Ms. Earps. On Tuesday, she reposted Nike’s statement to her Instagram account, adding the text: “Is this your version of an apology/taking accountability/a powerful statement of intent?”In another Instagram post, she shared a link to a Change.org petition that had been created in her support. It has received more than 150,000 signatures.Ms. Earps, through a representative, declined to comment for this article.How did Parliament get involved?This week, Tracey Crouch, a member of Parliament and former sports minister, submitted a motion calling on Nike to release a jersey for Ms. Earps.Nike “could have changed this,” Ms. Crouch wrote in an essay published in The Independent on Wednesday. “They still can if they take their fingers out of their tin ears and listen to the hundreds of thousands of women who have signed the petition, gone on social media, listened to the outcry on the media.”The change of course by Nike, and the loud online chorus that apparently prompted it, underscore the growing influence of the global women’s game and its major names. More

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      in Basket

      Brittney Griner Is Creating a New Normal, for Herself and the W.N.B.A.

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      PHOENIX — Brittney Griner embarked on a four-day itinerary that would disrupt anyone’s circadian rhythm.First came the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, where she was decked out in a sharp, black suit that Saturday night. President Biden pointed to her in the audience and said, “Boy, I can hardly wait to see you back on the court.”Soon she was rushing to catch a flight, landing in Phoenix at 4 a.m. for the start of W.N.B.A. training camp with the Mercury. Then she hustled back east, to New York, for her first Met Gala. She wore a sleek tan suit, and her wife, Cherelle Griner, was in a strapless white gown, both custom outfits by Calvin Klein. They mingled with A-list celebrities that night, but Brittney needed to be back in Phoenix by Tuesday afternoon for more basketball and, she had hoped, a nap.The sparkling events, time-zone hopping and overall spectacle were overwhelming but perhaps also came as a kind of relief for Brittney Griner, who spent nearly 10 months detained in Russia and returned to the United States in December as a new symbol of hope. Ensnared in a geopolitical showdown between Washington and Moscow, Griner drew attention not only to herself and to the plight of other foreign detainees but also to the financial disparities facing women in sports that had brought her to Russia in the first place.On Friday, Griner will return to the court for her first official W.N.B.A. game in 579 days. The league is not the same now, in part because of her. The issues her detention spotlighted are not new and are unlikely to be easily resolved. But she has galvanized a potent fan base and sports work force who are both eager to welcome her home and to use this moment to promote change alongside her.“We have wanted change for a long time, but now we’re really starting to demand it,” Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said. “We’re just getting a little more impatient with that and realizing that it’s an issue where we don’t have the money yet, but pushing so that really, really soon we do have the resources to be treated like the athletes we are.”A modest crowd roared for Griner this month during a preseason game, her first action since she was released from Russia.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesWhy Brittney Griner Was in RussiaRussian customs officials detained Griner at an airport near Moscow in February 2022 after finding vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage as she returned to play for UMMC Yekaterinburg, a professional team that reportedly paid her at least $1 million. She was convicted on drug charges and sentenced to nine years in a penal colony, but she was freed in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer, in December. The U.S. State Department said that she had been wrongfully detained.The W.N.B.A., now in its 27th season, has long watched dozens of its players go overseas during each off-season in search of higher pay, though the league has been trying to offer them additional ways to make money stateside. The maximum salary in the W.N.B.A. is about $230,000, and was half as much just a few years ago. Top players like Griner, a seven-time All-Star center, can command hundreds of thousands more from international teams. Many people were not aware of this dynamic until Griner’s detention and expressed shock and frustration on social media and on television shows.“As much as I would love to, you know, pay my light bill for the love of the game, I can’t,” Griner said last month during her first news conference since she was freed.The Associated Press reported that 67 of the league’s 144 players still played internationally this off-season, indicative of the strong pull of the opportunity to make additional income. But in light of Griner’s detention and the war in Ukraine, players eschewed the historically lucrative Russian organizations for teams in countries like Italy and Turkey. About 90 players played internationally five years ago.Collier, 26, who has played for international teams in W.N.B.A. off-seasons, said younger players gain important experience overseas. But she said she doubted she would play abroad again after Griner’s experience and because she wants to spend more time with her daughter, who will turn 1 next Thursday.“I also encourage everyone that played a part in bringing me home to continue their efforts to bring all Americans home,” Griner said in December.Caitlin O’Hara/Reuters‘That’s How You Build Household Names’W.N.B.A. officials have attributed players’ modest salaries to its historically modest — and perhaps meager — revenue and media attention. Many W.N.B.A. players have become accustomed to entering the league with less media fanfare and to at times playing before far smaller audiences than they experienced in college.“I’ve been a part of it when I was in college and it was the hottest ticket in the country,” said Mercury guard Diana Taurasi, who starred at UConn before becoming the W.N.B.A.’s career leading scorer. She continued: “How do we make the hottest ticket in the country for the best basketball players in the world in the W.N.B.A.? That, to me, it only happens in women’s sports where the adolescents get more attention than the grown-ups.”Griner, who joined the Mercury in 2013, has been a star since she became known for dunking at Baylor. At her first news conference since returning, Griner pleaded with the unusual swell of reporters to come and cover games during the season, too.“The league is a league that needs celebrity,” said Candy Lee, a professor of journalism and integrated marketing communications at Northwestern. She added: “The league can take advantage of it. The Mercury can take advantage of it.”The surge in W.N.B.A. interest because of Griner has dovetailed with broader momentum for women’s sports in recent years. The N.C.A.A. Division I women’s basketball championship game last month shattered records with an average of 9.9 million viewers, according to ESPN.A whirlwind few days for Griner included the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner and the Met Gala, which she attended with her wife, Cherelle Griner.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesW.N.B.A. teams will play a record 40 regular-season games this year, and the league signed a multiyear deal with Scripps to televise Friday night games on the network ION. Griner’s first two regular-season games, on Friday in Los Angeles and Sunday in Phoenix against Chicago, will be nationally televised by ESPN. Viewership during the 2022 regular season rose 16 percent over the previous year, according to the league, making it the most-watched season in 14 years.Flip on the N.B.A. playoffs and you’re likely to spot a W.N.B.A. player, like Candace Parker of the Las Vegas Aces or Arike Ogunbowale of the Dallas Wings, featured prominently in a commercial. Puma recently announced the second signature shoe for the Liberty’s Breanna Stewart. Griner, who became the first openly gay athlete signed to Nike in 2014, remains with the brand, a spokesman confirmed, but the company did not answer questions about whether it planned to market her this season.A few weeks before Griner was detained, W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced that the league had raised $75 million from investors that she planned to use for marketing and revamping the league’s business model.Collegiate stars like Angel Reese of Louisiana State, Paige Bueckers of UConn and Caitlin Clark of Iowa are poised to enter the league in the next few years, bringing their dynamic games, name recognition and national television exposure.“That’s why we’re putting so many marketing dollars behind some of our star players,” Engelbert said. She added: “That’s how you build household names.”Griner’s absence and images of her behind bars or in court weighed on her Phoenix teammates last year.Pool photo by Evgenia NovozheninaThe Travel DebateConcerns about Griner’s security while traveling since her detention have added to the fiery debate about travel in the W.N.B.A.Unlike in the N.B.A. or on many top men’s and women’s college teams, W.N.B.A. players fly on commercial airlines to games. It has long been a sore point for players, who have had to sleep in airports or rush to games because of delays. This year, it is widely believed that Griner will need to travel privately, though neither the Mercury nor the W.N.B.A. have disclosed her plans.“Would definitely like to make all those flights private,” Griner said. “That would be nice. Not just for me and my team, but for the whole league. We all deserve it. We work so hard. We do so much and it would be nice where we finally get to the point where we get to that point, too.”The W.N.B.A. has said that it cannot afford the tab of over $20 million a season for charter flights, even though some owners might be willing to provide them for their own teams. Charter flights are prohibited in the collective bargaining agreement between team owners and the players’ union as an unfair competitive advantage. The W.N.B.A. fined the Liberty $500,000 for secretly using charter flights to travel to some games during the 2021 season.In April, the league announced that it would have charter flights for teams playing on consecutive days during the regular season and for all playoff games. The W.N.B.A. had made exceptions in similar situations previously.“We’re going to chip away at this as we continue to build this model,” Engelbert said. “Because once you do it, you have to do it essentially for perpetuity, so we want to make sure we’re not putting the financial viability of the league at risk.”On Thursday, the W.N.B.A. players’ union announced a deal with Priority Pass to give players access to airport lounges, which could provide food, spa treatments and places to sleep. Nneka Ogwumike, the star Los Angeles forward who is president of the players’ union, said in a statement that she hoped other “partners” would see the deal as a “call to action.”In a statement, Terri Jackson, the union’s executive director, called the deal a “significant step in the right direction.”Players around the W.N.B.A. wrote to Griner and pushed for her release throughout 2022.Rebecca Noble for The New York Times‘She Impacts the World’Vince Kozar, the president of the Mercury, described an ominous cloud over the franchise last season at every practice, media session and game without Griner. Brief video clips that emerged of her in Russia showed her handcuffed or caged. The day Griner was sentenced, Mercury players came together and cried — then had to play a game. “You carried that weight of the uncertainty and the fear,” Kozar said.It finally, suddenly, parted upon Griner’s release in December. Kozar did not expect Griner to announce immediately whether she would again play in the W.N.B.A. But when she returned to the United States, she said she would play.Griner may have been the most plugged-in W.N.B.A. player last season. Players from around the league sent her letters, their only means of communicating with her. In letters with Kozar, Griner was not asking about the organization and its going-ons as much as informing him about them.“It was just a reminder that basketball was one of the things that had been taken away from her, this thing how she impacts the world that’s central to her identity, that so many of her relationships are built around,” Kozar said.Griner will lead the league in hugs this season. She scribbled autographs and posed for selfies in the tunnel of a preseason game against the Sparks in Phoenix last week. It was her first action since she’d returned. A modest crowd cheered louder than it seemed capable of during Griner’s pregame introduction. Mercury Coach Vanessa Nygaard said chills ran down her spine.Griner towered over everyone else on the court, securing her first bucket on a quick turnaround a minute into the first quarter. All right, here we go, Griner thought to herself. So much had seemed unfamiliar to her lately. Jet-setting for a living? That’s not her, she said with a laugh. But that first shot, she thought, that felt comfortable.Matt York/Associated Press More

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      in Soccer

      Fortuna Düsseldorf Will Offer Free Tickets to Its Soccer Games

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      Fortuna Düsseldorf will allow fans to attend a handful of matches for free next season. It hopes to eventually extend the offer to all games.Fortuna Düsseldorf, a middleweight sort of a club based in Germany’s richest city and currently treading water in the country’s second division, does not make a likely crucible for a revolution.It is, though, about to embark on an experiment that could have profound consequences not just for the rest of soccer, but also for sports as a whole: Starting next season, Fortuna will set out to give away tickets for several games at its 54,600-seat Merkur-Spiel Arena for nothing.Not cheap tickets. Not reduced-price. Free, for both home and away fans.“We think it is completely new,” Alexander Jobst, the club’s chief executive, said in an interview on Thursday. “We were trying to think about how we could do the soccer business completely different from before.”The solution he and his colleagues happened upon, he admitted, might seem just a touch “disruptive,” to use his word. Long before television and sponsorships, ticketing was the original pillar of the sports industry.It also represents a considerable portion of Fortuna Düsseldorf’s income. The club makes as much as 8 million euros ($8.8 million) from gate receipts every season it is in the second division, Jobst said in a conference call on Thursday. The figure, he said, was higher when the team last played in the Bundesliga, in 2020. That revenue accounts for around a fifth of the club’s total income.Under its “new strategic vision,” Jobst said, Fortuna would try to replace that with commercial revenue, as well as increased income from merchandise and concessions generated by attendances better than the 29,000 or so it currently attracts.It has already signed agreements with three partners — worth around $45 million over five years — with the aim of introducing free tickets for three games next season. If the club can find more partners, Jobst said, it hopes ultimately to be able to expand the plan to include every home game. “We are convinced we will have the chance to do so,” he said.The program is unique in a German league system famous for its fan-centered club ownership rules, its low ticket prices and even its ticketing gimmicks. In Berlin a few years ago, for example, one club offered a fan a lifetime season ticket if he had its computer code tattooed onto his arm.As he weighed options to attract bigger crowds, Jobst said Fortuna had considered the more obvious option of simply reducing its ticket prices before concluding such a move would be dismissed as merely “trying to fill the stadium.” It had also taken into account the risk that fans would fail to turn up for games if their tickets were, in a strictly economic sense, worthless. But the idea of throwing open the doors to everyone — “Football for all,” Jobst called it — won out.“We want to open Fortuna Düsseldorf to our fans even more than before,” he said. “We want to give something back, to open it to fans regardless of what their personal price barrier is. Let’s open it and see what is going to happen.”He is aware that his club’s precedent might inspire, or force, other teams to do the same, and he accepts that such an idea is rather easier to adopt in Düsseldorf — a hub for some of Germany’s largest corporations — than it might be elsewhere. That, he said, is why the club believes it will work.“It fits for Düsseldorf,” he said, “and it fits for Fortuna.” More

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      in Basket

      A Growing W.N.B.A. Still Boxes Out Some Personalities

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      Ahead of the W.N.B.A. draft, women’s basketball remains troubled by racial disparities in how its stars are showcased.Aliyah Boston, one of the most dominant and decorated players in women’s college basketball, was selected with the top pick in the W.N.B.A. draft Monday night.It’s a big deal — a milestone for any player and a key day for building excitement as a new W.N.B.A. season is soon to begin.But in the lead-up to the big event, much of the conversation around women’s hoops swirled around two players returning to the college game — not heading off to the pros.Since Angel Reese made a mocking gesture to Caitlin Clark at the end of the N.C.A.A. Division I championship game between Louisiana State and Iowa nearly two weeks ago, players, fans and internet rabble-rousers have weighed in on racial double standards that exist in the women’s game: How ponytailed, high-scoring white players are lauded for their brashness while Black women who talk trash are vilified for it.The matter of racial hypocrisy has been a bone of contention in the W.N.B.A., a league where 80 percent of players are women of color but that, players say, has struggled to promote its Black stars. Nneka Ogwumike, the president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association and one of the league’s most compelling talents, lamented that the style, skill and personalities of Black women drive the league forward, but “when it comes to the perception, the reception and the marketing” of women’s professional basketball, they “don’t get the credit.”White stars such as Breanna Stewart, Sue Bird and Kelsey Plum have made similarly sharp observations.Plum, a guard for the Las Vegas Aces, has said that when she entered the league as the No. 1 draft pick in 2017, she felt she was getting preferential treatment from the league’s marketing machinery because she is straight and white. “It’s absolutely a problem in our league. Just straight up.”Is there any hope that the league will know what to do with Boston, who became a star of college basketball last season during South Carolina’s run to a national title?She emerged as the consensus national player of the year in 2022 as much for her personality as her skill. During national broadcasts, Boston showcased her playfulness, her dancing and her candid thoughtfulness during interviews, where she selected her words as carefully as she selects the pinks or oranges or blues of her next set of braids.In a perfect world, she will end up being embraced and promoted as much as her white counterparts in a league still struggling to gain a foothold with the average sports fan.I want to believe the slew of talented, young Black basketball players taken in the W.N.B.A. draft will end up being as embraced and promoted as much as their white counterparts.But I can’t say they will.The W.N.B.A. highlights players’ off-court fashion, but Nneka Ogwumike of the Los Angeles Sparks said there were fashionable Black players who had not been among those recognized.Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty ImagesOgwumike, who won both the W.N.B.A. title and Most Valuable Player Award while starring for the Los Angeles Sparks in 2016, said that at the start of each season, the league still emphasizes to players the importance of decorum.“There’s this perception that they want our game to be family oriented and that means no trash talking and no real, like, true natural expression,” she said.Ogwumike said every year she has pushed back against the demand, couched as respect for the game, “because we’re not allowed to be our full selves within reason,” adding that her male peers in the N.B.A. are “admired and looked up to” for their antics.Elevating the contributions of the W.N.B.A.’s Black talent is high on the list of ways players would like their league to evolve.Case in point: The league increasingly markets itself as a cultural trendsetter. Pointing to off-court fashion as one example — think of the camera shots of players clad in boundary-pushing, often gender-bending attire as they head to arena locker rooms — Ogwumike said those who are starting the trends are often not getting their due.“There are lot of Black players in the W who have been dressing fashionably for a long time and setting trends for a long time,” she said. “But they are not the ones being recognized as trendsetters.”The tilt toward whiteness can be quantified.A recent study of W.N.B.A. media exposure on the popular websites ESPN, CBS Sports and Sports Illustrated found a yawning coverage gap between the races. People like me, journalists who cover women’s basketball and care about the untapped potential of women’s sports, need to look in the mirror and think about who we’re focusing on and how we are talking about them.In 2020, a year when race was at the forefront of the American conversation, Black players won 80 percent of the league’s postseason awards: M.V.P., Rookie of the Year, and Defensive Player of the Year, to name three. And yet, according to the study’s University of Massachusetts researchers, Risa Isard and Nicole Melton, Black players received roughly 50 percent less focused attention than their white counterparts.That same year, the W.N.B.A. invested more in marketing, committing to spending $1 million annually to highlight performance and diversity, which has directly impacted several Black players such as A’ja Wilson, Betnijah Laney and Jonquel Jones. And as part of a $75 million investment raised in 2022, the W.N.B.A. planned to prioritize marketing and improving its website and app.Another nugget: The former South Carolina star Wilson, who has won two M.V.P. Awards since being drafted No. 1 overall in 2018 by the Aces, was the only Black player in 2020 to receive more media attention than Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.In 2021, Wilson was the only Black player to crack the top five in jersey sales, trailing Sabrina Ionescu, Bird, and Diana Taurasi, and ranking just ahead of Stewart.No, I’m not saying the W.N.B.A. is rife with abject racism. Far from it, the W.N.B.A. is a model in many ways.That said, the league is simply a microcosm of a broader world that struggles mightily with all of the vexing issues around race.It’s time to move past the old dichotomies and expand the range of what is possible for female athletes. The W.N.B.A. can help by fully embracing the stories of Boston and Stewart and Wilson, along with all the other players of every hue and identity who strut their stuff in their own distinctive ways.Let’s see the league showcase that. More