Is the WNBA a Mass Delusion?

Yes, of course. But the jury is out on which kind — and whether, in this case, that's really such a bad thing.

San Francisco’s Chase Center center is the most feminine of sports structures, when you think about it. It’s a giant white egg with a mammoth screen in the middle — an egg yolk of sorts — which dwarfs the tiny spermatozoa of a basketball court tucked somewhere below. Now draped in the lavender theme color of its WNBA expansion team, the Valkyries, the Chase Center of Summer, 2025, harks back to the womyn’s music festival era of the 1980s, when women separated the “wo” from the “men” to make a space for themselves — and party¹.

These days, the womyn and their spaces may be gone, but fans entering Chase wearing the Valkyries logo gear this week paid homage nonetheless to a time when absolutely every person on planet earth could answer the question “What Is a Woman?” Their lavender t-shirts sported a gynecologically evocative triangle that purports to represent the Bay Bridge but has the very real association of a traditional merkin (I’m not going to explain that; you can look it up.) The logo — also presented in rainbow colors on a black t-shirt backdrop, as I saw on many a fan — doubles as the traditional Pride triangle, a symbol reclaimed from its very dark purpose in WWII Europe, but we also won’t go there today, either, or we’d be bringing the Valkyries and their Balhalla full circle.

Regardless of the actual numeric breakdown of those present, you’d have to acknowledge this as a woman’s world. You got that gendered feeling all the way down to the upbeat emcees and t-shirt tossers. I didn’t have to take a poll: My partner for the evening was a man, who reported for the first time ever at any sporting event in his entire life, there was no line in the men’s toilet.

Chase Center’s Egg at nightfall. Who are those masked fans?

I’ve been reading a lot about cults lately, and watching documentaries on them — trying to figure out what happened to the entire world in the years 2020-2024, when so many intelligent people were so stupid psyop-able as to think locking down the world and mandating behaviors would save us from … anything. So fierce they were in their newly adopted beliefs they would force dissenters to submit. Mattias Desmet has described it as a Mass Formation Psychosis, when entire societies buy into narratives that are completely absurd, and as a result, become totalitarian states. He says they don’t need to rely on dictators to enforce compliance, because they have the complete loyalty of the citizenry to compel the conformity and action right there on the ground.

I’d been feeling the slight itch of that totalitarian groupthink vibe coming on again — comically, it seemed to me this time — because it was about professional women’s basketball, which I was supposed to love. Supposed to, or … compelled to? Why was it coming up so often? I was getting word that this team, the Valkyries, was “exciting” from people I knew who really didn’t watch basketball all that much. I was seeing the shirts and the logos pop up everywhere. Its branding brought me right back to Valencia Street women’s “bath” era, the Women’s Building at its heyday, and the lilac, plum, mauve and slight nausea that went with it.

It turns out the latest cult I had taken an interest in learning about courtesy HBO was the Love Has Won cult, which — my luck! — featured a “Mother God” as its guru. Like all cult leaders, she found a way to take in multiple lovers (hers were male), the monies of many followers, and as many substances as her heart desired … until that heart stopped beating. And like so many cult phenomena, this one relied on lonely people — disconnected from others, but well connected to the internet — as fuel, which its remaining leaders are still burning to this day. You will Love Mother!

I stood well prepared for the sea of purple people with v-shaped insignias I was about to experience at Chase. And frankly, I wanted to believe. The “We Believe” era was iconic for Golden State Warriors fans when, in 2007, an underdog version of the team led by Baron Davis broke a 12-season playoff draught and actually beat the 1 seed from the lowly 8-seed spot. It was a magical time before Bay Area crowds flush with tech cash felt entitled to wins, and championships, under Joey “Light Years” Lacob.

I get why people were telling me about these games: They knew I played sports. So they figured I would like a sport that featured women. Because: I am a woman. (Whatever, to them, a woman is!)

But the thing is: I also love excellence in entertainment. Sitting in my seat and experiencing the massive roar when a player made an extremely everyday looking layup in the second quarter, I had to wonder, if and how these fans might get de-programmed from whatever had taken over their psyche. The fans seemed so geared up to just EXPLODE at the slightest sign of competence, the way a parent might when watching their own elementary school child play soccer. And like those side-line parents, they didn’t seem particularly aware of basic rules and rhythms of the game, or the season, for that matter. We were 13 games in and from the noise you would have thought this was Game 6 of the Finals.

Good for the franchise. They have certainly tapped in. The day after, I took a quick read of the media on the subject of WNBA. On Reddit’s protected spaces, I found chats where the Valx is what they call their women’s team. Slightly gender neutered. And where birthing persons young and old, who hadn’t been on BART ever (or at least not in decades) were venturing out to witness this man-free sporting event. But I still didn’t understand. I’ve never needed to watch sports in order to feel my “identity.” If I were short, I wouldn’t need to watch sports with only short people. If I were tall, same thing. I generally enjoy watching whoever makes whatever the sport activity is look the most graceful. In the case of gymnastics, it’s women. In the case of basketball, men. Tennis, track and field, Olympic ski jump: 50/50.

I don’t deny these women are, indeed, the best in the world at women’s basketball. But the standard of women’s basketball is so far below what we’re used to watching in professional men’s basketball, it all just seems so silly. Could they make the court smaller, or the basket lower? That might solve it. But of course: many seem happy enough if they can see a girl-fight, or get dirt on off-court player drama — and there is no shortage of that. Over on X, where it seems they do not want the WNBA to succeed, the league is made to look like WWE when it comes to the fouls on Caitlin Clark of the Fever. And there have been some doozies!

Love Has Won! Indeed. (An AynsRants original yard sign!)

For those in the mesmerized Chase Center crowd, I wondered, do they really hate men that much? Or, for the men in the audience, do they hate “those other” men that much? The ones who love trad sports and the beer and cheerleaders that go with it? That they can pretend this basketball they’re watching is anywhere near as exciting as the NBA? Maybe they do, and maybe they can. In which case, this really is a cult, one which I’m happy is getting addicted to basketball instead of drugs or sex or (have mercy on us) politics.

Perhaps the real psyop here is a truly positive one. Getting these lonely internet-connected fans a whole world of drama — characters to love, characters to hate — that are as far away from world of men as possible is probably a safe thing to do, for everyone involved.

I found this hilarious recent moment from one of the WNBA announcers on a TV broadcast. She was talking about a difference of opinion (about basketball) and says, innocently, “That’s what makes America Great, right? ……” A long silence ensues, where I imagine she gets instruction from ESPN HR that no mentions of any language that could be even remotely associated with the 47th President of the United States should enter the broadcast ... or something equally surreal. She then attempts to correct herself — “I should rephrase that” — but can’t quite think of how.

“Yes,” comes quickly from the other announcer, who, after too long a beat, jumps in: “Differences of opinion are perfectly fine.”

Unless they aren’t. How dare she even think of using the word “great” in proximity to the word “America” to talk about “differences” of “opinion” which is clearly code word for “freedom” of “speech,” which can only mean one thing: H-a-t-e. Don’t even think of mentioning it. Not in the WNBA, which is definitely a very welcoming place for the Indiana Fever rookie and most definitely not a cult….

But if this religious practice is your thing, bless you. America is great in the sense that you do have that freedom; I have no problem with it. There are worse things to do than watch a game of basketball, however programmed. I may not be joining in the frenzy, but I do wish you all the best in your Ballhalla while it lasts.

So much pink, I don’t know what to think.

1. Party, in this instance, means get naked and listening to lesbian-themed folk music.