The WNBA’s haphazard constitution flight rollout is resulting in potential Caitlin Clark subtweets

When the WNBA introduced on Might 9 that each one groups would have flights chartered this season, it felt like the tip of an issue that existed for a lot too lengthy. However what was missed by some in that announcement is that the charters for each recreation wouldn’t begin till Might 21.

That, sadly, left some wiggle room for controversy within the last days of the previous coverage, as a result of with the season beginning on Might 14, solely the Indiana Fever and Minnesota Lynx had been going to obtain constitution flights to open the 12 months.

For Indiana, it was a results of Caitlin Clark being a star attraction and having her in airports created security considerations. For Minnesota, a visit from Minneapolis to Seattle both crossed a number of time zones and should sometimes require a connecting flight, the reason utilized by Engelbert to the gamers in a city corridor assembly, in keeping with The Chicago Solar-Instances.

Nonetheless, a fast scan across the league confirmed the issues in that plan. The obvious instance was a visit by the Atlanta Dream to Los Angeles to face the Sparks on the second evening of the season. Regardless of crossing a number of time zones, there was no constitution flight.

Since there was no public clarification for this, it rapidly devolved to the purpose that gamers started accusing the league of favoritism on Twitter/X in both delicate or not-so-subtle methods.

Brittney Sykes, a guard for the Washington Mystics, identified that as a result of the Mystics traveled throughout the nation a day earlier than the constitution flight program went into place, they might be flying commercially for greater than 5 hours, whereas Clark and the Fever can be chartered for his or her shorter flight from Indiana to Connecticut:

Or there was Aces ahead Alysha Clark, who reacted to the WNBA starting an investigation on the $100,000 funds the staff was set to obtain from the Las Vegas tourism authority by asking to start out an investigation into Englebert’s decisions over who would get to fly constitution earlier than the brand new program, and who wouldn’t:

This comes a little bit over every week after Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve additionally raised an eyebrow at potential Clark-based favoritism by the league through the preseason.

It’s exhausting to look at this throughout what needs to be a second to rejoice the brand new season and this historic win for the gamers, as a result of had the league higher or extra clearly carried out this constitution rollout plan, had a greater clarification for who they initially selected to take part, or simply merely had it in place for all groups to start out when the season opened and never every week into it, this wouldn’t have led to the newest bout of Clark-centric criticism.

As a substitute, we have now subtweet-fueled controversy pitting gamers towards one another.

In actuality, it was going to be unsafe for Clark and the Fever to fly business this season due to her degree of fame. It is sensible for them to obtain constitution flights. However it was unsafe final season when Brittney Griner was confronted by a YouTuber on the airport, too, and the league nonetheless didn’t put this program in place till this season, so it’s straightforward to grasp why some gamers look like sad.

Ultimately, the conclusion the league reached that it was time for this alteration to its flight coverage was the right one, nevertheless it’s resulted in accusations and perceived favoritism that by no means would have occurred if the league had simply handled each staff the identical from the beginning — or just began each staff’s chartered flights on the twenty first — moderately than this haphazard rollout.

In the end, it may need been a no-win situation for the league no matter which possibility it selected, however on the brilliant facet, a minimum of the controversy will probably be over quickly.

You’ll be able to observe Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.