satexas said:
I'll just say it :
1. She's very talented. Speaks for itself.
2. She's white. That adds some fans that like to see their own race in sports, whether it be a white girl on a mostly black sport or a black person in a mostly white sport. It's reality.
3. She's straight. Hey, say what you want but people do tire of a bunch of raging non-straight, possibly trans, people in a sport. That's reality.
When men act like women in sports, it's NOT attractive to the audience as a whole. Why wouldn't the reverse be true when a bunch of women act like a bunch of men in their sport?
4. Attractive (to some) and not full of makeup, fake nails, fake eyelashes. This isn't a racist comment nor meant towards any particular race. But if you want guy fans, this helps. I look at Angel Reese and see a talented basketball clown with a beach-face 24/7. It's what I see. It's highly unappealing to me to watch that.
1. Most important because people going to see her are probably bringing their daughters. She has skill, which creates hype, which gets daughters excited to go see her.
2. I don't think this is accurate. Think Christian McCaffrey. How long has it been since there has been a dominant white RB? Yet his jersey still gets outsold by black RBs.
3. This probably moves the needle some. If you're bringing your daughter, probably want someone to emulate.
4. Don't think many guys are tuning in to truly raise the ratings enough to matter outside of degen gamblers.
I think the real reason is the ESPN hype machine. She broke a ton of records and ESPN wanted someone to get eyeballs on the WNBA. Griner did give it a bump but that was back in 2013 before the wokeism was fully manifest. Had griner hit center stage in 2023/24, I think she would have had similar momentum