The WNBA Must Dispose of Kelly Loeffler
It’s been time for her to go for a long time
The WNBA must dispose of Kelly Loeffler. Now.
If you’ve been hiding the past few months, Loeffler is Georgia’s soon-to-be former U.S. senator who just lost her seat in historic fashion to Rev. Raphael Warnock, making him the first Black Democrat elected to represent a Southern state and making her, by contrast, the first White person to lose such a perch to a Black man. She’s also a 49% owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. Loeffler’s election loss has nothing to do with why the WNBA must purge itself of her and whatever influence she’ll have left after January 20. She’s not the first sports team owner to be a loser in politics. She’s not the only one who’ll be remembered by history as a Trump supporter or to hold political beliefs opposite most of their players.
In fact, sports ownership in America is, if anything, a case study on messy, symbiotic relationships between capital and labor. Across all major sports, most owners are White billionaires who come from privilege; most players (except in hockey) are Black and first-generation rich. Owners rely on players’ physical gifts to contribute to their fortunes, while players earn theirs, in part, due to public policies like publicly funded stadiums, tax breaks, and anti-trust exemptions that get lavished…
