Women’s National Basketball Assn
Pretty in Any Color: Women in Basketball Make the Style Rules
W.N.B.A. players, with a maximum base salary of about $230,000, earn far less than their millionaire counterparts in the N.B.A., making marketing dollars even more important. The W.N.B.A. has a pool of $1 million that it must spend on marketing deals for players, and each team has to spend between $50,000 and $100,000 per year […]
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NBA Campaign to Free Brittney Griner Is Mostly Low Key
The N.B.A. is a $10 billion corporation that has the power and reach to promote not just its teams and players but to provoke discussion and debate around social issues. It has used that influence most prominently to fight racism in the United States. Yet when it has come to Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star […]
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Glimpses of Brittney Griner Show a Complicated Path to Release
One hundred forty-one days. That is how long Brittney Griner has been behind bars in Russia. That is how long she has been stuck in the middle of a high-stakes staredown between the United States and Russia at exactly the wrong time, as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia continues his horrendous invasion of Ukraine […]
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Brittney Griner Pleads Guilty to Drug Charges in Russian Court
Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges in a Russian courtroom on Thursday, as the wrangling over the American basketball star’s fate shifted increasingly to the diplomatic arena — a daunting prospect for Ms. Griner’s supporters amid America’s rift with Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Appearing before a judge outside the Russian capital on […]
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Russia Hints at Linking Griner’s Case to Fate of ‘Merchant of Death’
WASHINGTON — She is an American professional basketball star, accused of carrying hashish oil in her luggage. He is a notorious Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” serving a 25-year federal prison sentence for conspiring to sell weapons to people who said they planned to kill Americans. And the Kremlin appears interested […]
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Brittney Griner Trial Likely to End in Conviction, Experts Say
More than four months after she was first detained, the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner is expected to appear in a Russian courtroom on Friday for the start of a trial on drug charges that legal experts said was all but certain to end in a conviction despite the clamor in the United States for her […]
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The Day the Supreme Court Crashed the Title IX Party
But Friday hummed with sadness. By taking an ax to Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that nearly 50 years ago guaranteed women the right to abortion, the Supreme Court demolished a signal of freedom in the battle for gender equality — freedom that helped female athletes achieve glory that many now take for granted. […]
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The WNBA Has Too Few Spots for Too Many Talented Players
Raina Perez is used to staring down obstacles. It’s not just her sport, women’s basketball, which seems forever in the shadow of the men’s game. It’s not just her height, 5 feet 4 inches — diminutive, even for a point guard. It’s not just that she is Mexican American, and that there are few Mexican […]
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Brittney Griner’s Supporters Have a New Strategy to Free Her: Make Noise
Her face is on hoodies. Her name is in hashtags. Her “B.G.” and number are on fans’ jerseys and W.N.B.A. courts. As the Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner waits in Russia, detained since Feb. 17 on drug charges, symbols of support for her are all around. They come from people who don’t know her at […]
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