Draymond Green might have meant well when he decided to tweet about how to raise awareness for women’s sports, specifically basketball, but he largely missed the mark when he raised points that women have been discussing for years.
How executives explain the pay gap is directly tied to revenue, to which Green suggested forcing their hand by “taking the card out of their pockets.”
“You make those that say they stand for women actually stand up. The NBA wasn’t always the global game that it is today. It wasn’t always driving as much revenue as it does today,” Green tweeted. “But there were people behind it, building the platform, and more importantly telling INDIVIDUAL stories and building up the interest in the players. That’s how the game took off.
“Who’s building up y’all platform? Who’s telling the individual stories of how great y’all are? Building the interest and transforming women’s basketball into a global game?”
How their stories are shared is one of the reasons why Green said he turned down doing Public Service Announcements during Women’s History Month.
“It’s hypocritical. Because these same companies that are telling women empowerment are not putting their money where their mouth is,” Green said. “Call on this companies to support y’all. To infuse capitol into the business.
“Stop allowing them to yell women empowerment for the look. No company grows without funding. Y’all business can grow with the proper funding and story telling. Make these huge companies commit money to y’all cause. That’s empowering! Or don’t yell women empowerment.”
Green said he wanted to help drive the conversations and raise awareness for women’s basketball, acknowledging how the NBA has benefited from financial backing and coverage. But the Warriors forward took it a step too far, saying, “if the goal is to become as big as the NBA, you have to push NBA like things.”
He asked why no one was talking about UConn’s Paige Bueckers leaving this year after Diana Taurasi called her “the best player in basketball.” However, players must be 22 years old during the year the WNBA draft takes place and either have no college eligibility left or renounce future eligibility.
When someone told Green this on Twitter, he asked why no one had pushed against it yet.
It boiled down to him telling women what they need to do differently in pursuit of equity, something that USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe and Liberty’s star Layshia Clarendon quickly pointed out.
“Shout out to NBA guys who come to tell people in women’s sports what we need to do to grow the game,” Clarendon tweeted. “Thanks, now we’ll ask for more resources, tell the powers at be to tell our stories more, and generally just start to push things ‘like the NBA.’ Problems solved.”
Rapinoe pointed out in a thread of her own that Green should tell these companies asking him to do the PSAs what they’ve been telling the companies for years about women’s empowerment and equality.
“And you know who largely are the gatekeepers to that money, investment, resources, capital, time and sponsorship dollars are?” Rapinoe said. “Men. Do you know who men listen to? Other men.
“Just like with fights around all other social issues, change cannot be made if the only people who care about the change enough are the ones who are suffering the most from it.”
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