In the latest jaw-dropping episode of “Let’s Pretend Reality Doesn’t Exist,” ESPN has gone ahead and given us a masterclass in wokeness that would make any cheerleader blush. This time, they’ve crafted a sports icon collage so baffling it just might succeed in convincing us that black is white and cats are actually dogs. Anyone taking a casual glance at their handiwork might think they’re showcasing athletes from another planet, where women rule the court and field equally alongside men. How else could you explain the preposterous decision to spotlight 11 WNBA stars—yes, 11!—while shortchanging the NFL with a mere 10 figures?
For a reality check, let’s consider the audience numbers. The NFL, America’s undisputed favorite sports pastime, draws a staggering 18 million viewers per game. Meanwhile, despite hitting “record” numbers, the WNBA can barely muster an audience of 600,000 on a good day. During playoffs, the disparity yawns wider: the NFL captivates 40 million compared to the WNBA’s modest 1.2 million. Come Super Bowl time, the NFL commands the attention of 130 million viewers—a spectacle so grandly entertaining it even ropes in those who typically couldn’t care less about football. Try as you might, selling the WNBA as equally iconic isn’t just a tall order; it’s borderline performance art.
To add insult to injury, ESPN crowned a sports commentator worthy of their icon poster: Monica McNutt. Never mind her amusingly unfortunate last name—her notoriety crests on a faux pas where she mistook a Barry Sanders jersey for one belonging to Shador Sanders. In football terms, Barry isn’t just a name; he’s a legend, an icon who’s left an indelible mark on the NFL. Think of the misstep as akin to a surgeon confusing a heart with a liver — not life-threatening here, but certainly bewildering. Yet, somehow, we’re expected to buy into the narrative that this oversight is merely a new benchmark for recognizing greatness in the sports world.
The façade didn’t hold long, fortunately. After enduring well-deserved criticism, ESPN sheepishly pulled the post. But that it was conceived at all heralds the network’s unyielding commitment to wokeness. Entrenched deep in the sports world, they’re on a quixotic quest to feminize a domain that is, by nature and design, unequivocally masculine. It’s not that there isn’t a place for women in sports; it’s just that the current engineering of reality—to shoehorn equal attention on unequal arenas—is destined to fail.
ESPN, in all its uber-woken splendor, remains obstinately undeterred. They seem intent on compensating for their own perception of sports as aggressively male by doubling down on narratives that few are prepared to buy. Yet no matter how much they insist otherwise, the truth remains that sports are a domain where biological realities reign supreme. Such attempts to rewrite this narrative aren’t just futile; they represent a profound misunderstanding of what draws fans into the heartfelt passions of sport in the first place.
