What the World Cup Changed for Women’s Basketball | QITM | Quita in the Morning

[laughs] Um, okay anyway, um, let's talk about the FIBA World Cup.

Okay? Now, um, you know, before we dive right into, uh, some of the costs that, uh, that it, that it had, let's just talk about how the fact that like, yes, the WNBA was on a break during this, uh, World Cup period, but a thing to remember, I've seen a lot of people online, uh, on Twitter specifically, uh, talk about how the WNBA should have not, um, had a break and they should have just played through the World Cup, and how, you know, the WNBA is dumb with the timings of everything, and yada, yada, yada.

Here's a thing to remind ourselves about FIBA controls the timing of the World Cup.

The next World Cup I believe is gonna be in November, so it shouldn't be, uh, that much of an issue with, uh, the, the WNBA, uh, uh, season.

But the WNBA don't, don't decide that.

FIBA decides when they wanna have it.

Also, the next World Cup is gonna be in Japan, and so I probably do plan on going there.

That should be fun.

Um, but anyway, um, you know, the WNBA didn't decide that, and the WNBA realized that, that there's a lot of players in the WNBA, a lot of top players who play for their respective countries.

Uh, and it wouldn't, it would not have made any sense at all for the WNBA to keep going.

Now, have, have other leagues done that when there's international play? Uh, yes.

I believe, uh, the NWSL has, has done it before where, you know, um, some of the pl- uh, players may be overseas playing for their respective countries and, you know, you, you k- You still have a league and it still goes on.

But the issue that the WNBA has is that a large amount of players are go- would be going over.

Roughly 50, 50 players this season went over to Berlin, Germany to play in the World Cup, which means that that's, that's 50, I mean, ba- basically some of the top players in the league are overseas.

Why would you continue to have games, especially games of consequence? If you did that, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have all these teams signing a bunch of rando players, and who's gonna pay to watch that? So it makes sense that the WNBA is like, "You know what? Let's pause.

Let's pause and, and, and, uh, let's, let's bring it back once everybody gets back." The WNBA does not control FIBA.

FIBA does whatever they want, and the WNBA, it's their job to respond.

They responded by taking the break.

'Cause 50 people is a lot of people when it comes to the WNBA that only has, um, 15 teams, 12 players on each roster.

It's a lot of people.

It's close to a third of the league, uh, that was playing in there, okay? Just saying.

And so it was a break for some, not a break for others.

Um, you know, we saw those 50 or so WNBA players, they got on planes, they flew internationally.

They, uh, went through a super quick, uh, camp with their national teams, and they played a international tournament in just a couple of days.

A thing to note is that the World Cup is not just a normal tournament, guys.