[81alum]

NIL has changed my attitude toward WBB players, and not in a good way.

When the players were college students who played basketball as amateurs, with a tiny handful of them having the opportunity to go pro for a salary less than a grade school teacher's, I felt quite good about cheering for them and also felt it was our responsibility to be restrained in our criticism.  I also felt as if the players deserved privacy about their lives and their decisions, and that there was something vaguely distasteful about older (often much older) fans becoming obsessed about kids who were doing their best to balance school and a sport.  

But the moment a player takes money for her name, image, or likeness--and begins to intentionally cultivate celebrity status-- I think she has forfeited the expectation of privacy or restraint on the part of fans.  Players cannot reasonably expect to have it both ways--to be "influencers" and public persons for the sake of profit but to be private college students when it suits them.   They have earned the same level of scrutiny as professional athletes, Hollywood celebrities, and the like--because that is what they have chosen to become.

I say that with a heavy heart, because I have always hated that aspect of professional sports.  Unlike my friend Chimera, I don't think I can transfer my loyalties from the minor-league university system to the big-league WNBA system, since for me the motives of the players matter.  I was never in this just to see the highest quality of basketball that could be played--I was in it because there was something virtuous about playing for education, for sisterhood, for unadulterated joy, and simply for the love of the game.  Pro sports have left me cold for a long time, and now college sports is beginning to as well. 

I suppose I might be able to work my down, but with my luck high school girls will soon be getting collectives and NIL contracts.

[81alum]

NIL has changed my attitude toward WBB players, and not in a good way.

When the players were college students who played basketball as amateurs, with a tiny handful of them having the opportunity to go pro for a salary less than a grade school teacher's, I felt quite good about cheering for them and also felt it was our responsibility to be restrained in our criticism.  I also felt as if the players deserved privacy about their lives and their decisions, and that there was something vaguely distasteful about older (often much older) fans becoming obsessed about kids who were doing their best to balance school and a sport.  

But the moment a player takes money for her name, image, or likeness--and begins to intentionally cultivate celebrity status-- I think she has forfeited the expectation of privacy or restraint on the part of fans.  Players cannot reasonably expect to have it both ways--to be "influencers" and public persons for the sake of profit but to be private college students when it suits them.   They have earned the same level of scrutiny as professional athletes, Hollywood celebrities, and the like--because that is what they have chosen to become.

I say that with a heavy heart, because I have always hated that aspect of professional sports.  Unlike my friend Chimera, I don't think I can transfer my loyalties from the minor-league university system to the big-league WNBA system, since for me the motives of the players matter.  I was never in this just to see the highest quality of basketball that could be played--I was in it because there was something virtuous about playing for education, for sisterhood, for unadulterated joy, and simply for the love of the game.  Pro sports have left me cold for a long time, and now college sports is beginning to as well. 

I suppose I might be able to work my down, but with my luck high school girls will soon be getting collectives and NIL contracts.