Despite moving on to a flashy new role at Netflix this year, Elle Duncan has continued the role that put her on the map: WNBA studio anchor. Duncan is the host of USA Network’s pre- and postgame coverage, and will be part of the network’s WNBA Finals broadcasts this fall.
Yet while Duncan has clearly found a home covering the league as it blossoms into a major sports media property, she is not immune to the negative energy that has enveloped it this season. In fact, Duncan, who covered just about every sport coming up through local news in Atlanta and Boston before her high-profile stint at ESPN, believes WNBA commentary is already back at a low point.
In an interview on WHYY’s Sports In America podcast released last week, Duncan called women’s hoops “the most toxic space to cover,” echoing language from other figures in the sport by saying WNBA discourse has been “hijacked.”
“I remember how much passion, energy, and excitement there was for the attention that these women were finally getting, and the ratings, and this new crop of superstars that were going to come into the league and help elevate this game even more,” Duncan said. “And it would finally be all these women reaping everything that they had sewn all these years. And very quickly over the course of the last three years, it’s just turned into … a sticking point for sides to continue to politicize things that shouldn’t be, to be as divisive as possible.”
Already this year, there have been significant tensions around the league’s new collective bargaining agreement; multiple news cycles around Caitlin Clark’s on-court interactions; unproven rumors about a player getting black-balled; a reporter banned by the Indiana Fever; multiple calls for a new commissioner; several rounds of debate around the WNBA’s participation policy for transgender women; a mini gambling scandal; and a foul blamed on “white privilege.”
When Duncan talks with her colleagues, they almost unanimously agree that the WNBA has quickly become the worst sport to cover.
“Right now, the WNBA is the most toxic space to cover, and that’s incredibly frustrating and sad,” she said.
“There was so much conversation … about, early on, ‘Hey this is maybe not such a bad thing, right? No such thing as bad publicity, right? It’s all good! Now we’re like the men’s sports! We’ve got stupid narratives and discourse and we’ve got, like, 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 said the noise comes from “a perpetual cycle” that everyone must work together to stop.
“It’s on absolutely everybody,” she said.
“I know everybody that I work with is exhausted by this space right now, and I think the players included. But I do think that it’s not just the media to blame, just the league to blame, or just the players. I think, collectively, we’ve got to put our heads together and figure out how we right this ship.
“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.”
Having covered the WNBA close to full time during the entirety of Clark’s rise, Duncan has seen the environment at games and within the fanbase evolve from a welcoming one to something more confrontational. The host said she fears the WNBA is no longer the “inclusive space” it once was.
Still, viewership has remained strong for the games themselves. And with multiple star-laden teams in position for deep playoff runs, the WNBA can look to redirect fan passion toward games and basketball stories sooner than later.
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