Reading about the WNBA in local papers this summer, one might think that this season’s defining moment was a flagrant foul by the Chicago Sky’s Chennedy Carter that took place during the team’s June 1 game against the Indiana Fever. As the third quarter wound down, Carter, a 5′ 9″ shooting guard, knocked down 6′ 0″ media darling Caitlin Clark, eliciting a chorus of criticism that threatened to turn Chicago into the WNBA’s villains.
But Chicago Sky fans are largely unmoved. As Sky season ticket holder Sam Crane, forty-three, told me, “These writers are just trying to wriggle their way into relevance by perpetuating a narrative that mirrors the racism and sexism of society at large. It has very little if anything to do with basketball.”
Instead, they have bigger things to worry about. Longtime fans like Crane are more concerned about other changes stemming from the WNBA’s growing popularity, like management’s confusing promises around a training facility upgrade and the jarring announcement of an increase in ticket prices between 100-265 percent. More notably, Sky fans have embraced a newfound sense of possibility and hope that revolves around rookie and star player Angel Reese and new head coach Teresa Weatherspoon.
But the recent media scrutiny does illustrate one thing, which is that Clark’s whiteness provides a spark for combustible fears around the sport that date back to the 1800s. In fact, as long as women have been playing basketball, and as long as their fans have been watching, they’ve faced suppression and outrage, layered with racism and misogyny. This history of the sport also shapes fandom to this day. The Sky’s potential to generate new, groundbreaking legacies is what truly defines this season, beginning with rookie star Reese breaking records and Weatherspoon’s passionate return to the league as a former player turned head coach.
The nickname for Sky fandom is Skytown. It is a culture, a community. It includes Skyriders (or season ticket holders); Premium Skyriders (with access to the food buffet); old heads in Sylvia Fowles jerseys; style queens wearing fresh braids and leather; Lori Lightfoot; the occasional Bulls player (most commonly Javonte Green); queer people of all ages flanked by their partners or friends; studs walking hand-in-hand; disabled folks; fitness influencers; clusters of teens; lanky parents and their lanky kids in matching uniforms; and dozens of people with Playa Society shirts that read, “If you are just now tuning into women’s basketball, we told you so.”
More than twice as likely to be interested in political and social movements, committed WNBA fans now avidly follow a robust array of storylines, from players’ continued fight for equity and respect to the league’s desperately-needed expansion, starting with the Golden State Valkyries in 2025. WNBA fans embrace more than just competitive game play, too. They’re immersed in love stories and rumors of rebirthed romances, rallying cries for mental health advocacy, and of course, every arena now turning into “The Hottest Runway of the Year.”
But this kind of relevance and popularity is new to women’s basketball. In fact, it was almost impossible to be a fan of the sport for much of the last hundred years.
While women immediately began participating in basketball after its invention in 1891, reception of the sport was full of skepticism, if not overt anger and outcry. As longtime sports columnist and author Sally Jenkins wrote in 1997, in honor of the WNBA’s first season, “Parents forbade their daughters to participate, and medical doctors and physical education instructors wrote long worried studies about the psychological and physical effects of the sport, calling for it to be abolished.” Victorian views of female fragility were widespread at the time. Here in Chicago, in 1907, the city’s school superintendent Edwin Cooley even banned girls basketball leagues entirely.
And so it went. For the better half of the 20th century, women’s basketball grew and stalled, spread and stopped. Rules were created to limit women’s exertion and curb signs of masculinity, like being strictly confined to certain areas of the court or limiting the number of players allowed to score. As men’s basketball grew in popularity, women continued to find ways to play, often without audiences or investment, though they were sometimes stopped from even stepping foot on a court entirely. It wasn’t until nearly two decades into the founding of the men’s National Basketball Association that women were finally allowed “unlimited dribbling” in 1968. The passage of Title IX in 1972 transitioned the game to full-court play, but it remained hindered by a dearth of coverage and inconsistent progress toward equity. And while pioneering players like Elizabeth Galloway-McQuitter continued to force open opportunities and create new leagues like the Women’s Professional Basketball League in 1981, none lasted. It wasn’t until the WNBA was created by the NBA in 1996, with games beginning in 1997, that professional women’s basketball got a foothold its players and fans could hold on to.
The lopsided treatment of women’s basketball also made following the sport nearly impossible. Catherine Stewart, fifty-four, started playing basketball in Grade 9 during the mid-1980s in a small Canadian town. She always badly wanted to follow the sport, to watch the greatest players in the game: Heidi and Heather Burge, Pat Summitt, Ruthie Bolton. But there was nowhere to find them. “I’d scrounge for content—games were never on TV or written about,” Stewart said. “Two of my high school teammates and I were driven down to Tacoma by a parent to see the 1988 Final Four. It was like a dream come true.…It wasn’t until years later the women’s final was shown on TV. But that was the only game. No other games were allowed!”
Nonetheless, women kept playing. As Galloway-McQuitter said in a presentation ahead of the 2023 NCAA Final Four, “We were there. We never left. And we’re still here.” In the mid-1990s, former players like Weatherspoon helped to usher in the new era of the WNBA. Weatherspoon, one of the original players to sign with the New York Liberty, led the team as point guard, playing for audiences averaging over 13,000 that first season in Madison Square Garden. After spending eight years playing overseas, she felt the weight of visibility. “We wanted to make sure to show the world that this was real,” Weatherspoon said of that first WNBA season. “Because when this league first started, everyone said this won’t last five years.”
Now, Weatherspoon’s role for the Sky makes her a new kind of icon for fans. She’s joining a tiny group of former players who have ascended the ranks as WNBA head coaches. The franchise’s rebuild relies on a new crop of young players, including Reese, Cardoso, and Carter, and on Weatherspoon’s ability to lead them. Weatherspoon’s pride in the league’s history runs deep, and her connections with players are striking. “She’s a players’ coach,” said Carter, early in the Sky’s season. “She’s played before. She’s been in my shoes, and I think that’s why I can connect with her.”
Longtime fans of the WNBA can see the power of Weatherspoon’s approach, inextricable from the Sky’s success. Stewart describes watching one of Weatherspoon’s press conferences this way: “T-Spoon sat there like the amazing Great Pyrenees amongst her flock, protecting. It’s a beautiful moment, to see her scoop those young kids up, so to speak, and carry them away to safety. She is the Sky head coach for a reason!” One of only three Black women head coaches in the WNBA, Weatherspoon reflects a new paradigm of the sport. Not only does she embody the league’s longevity, but her open, loving respect for players and fans unites the women’s basketball community as a whole.
Then there’s the Sky’s two rookies, Reese and Kamilla Cardoso, part of a WNBA draft class that brings new levels of obsessive fandom and national attention. As ESPN correspondent and former player Chiney Ogwumike recently wrote in The Players Tribune, “Honestly, I feel like women’s basketball for so long has been The Hunger Games. Every generation has fought to move the game forward. But now we are Catching Fire. We are bringing that main-character energy.”
In Chicago, the hope is to funnel this excitement into an ambitious rebuild by the Sky’s front office following the exit of stars like Kahleah Copper and former head coach James Wade. The franchise has struggled to retain its biggest stars for long-term contracts, including Copper, who reportedly requested her trade to the Phoenix Mercury in 2023. “I was devastated,” Crane said. “That was a really low point.”
Now, the potential of the team revolves around a new cast of characters and in particular Reese, who arrived in Chicago already with an unprecedented level of fame and financial success. And so far this season, the Sky have defied expectations. While some power rankings put the Sky last in the league, the team’s record stands at 10-14 at the end of July, a collection of thrilling victories and frustrating losses. But fans remain invested. This season, “there are so many bright spots in every game,” Crane said.
No moment was brighter than on June 30, when Sky fans witnessed Reese make WNBA history.
Known for her rebounding prowess, Reese quickly racked up a streak of consecutive double-doubles (notching double digits in both points and rebounds) from nearly the start of the WNBA season. This continued for nine games straight, setting the stage for Reese to break the league record, ten, for back-to-back double-doubles in a single season. But in order to do so, Reese would have to face the Minnesota Lynx, a heavily favored team that boasts Olympian and star forward Napheesa Collier.
On June 30, a month after the Chicago-Indiana game sent local media into a frenzy, Sky fans arrived at Wintrust Arena in the thousands, their excitement and energy reaching new heights. The court, gleaming under the arena’s bright lights, seemed to almost glow with anticipation. Adam Morrison, forty, had traveled to the game from Florida after recently following Reese on social media. It was his very first time watching professional basketball in person.
“She’s just got such amazing presence. The way she plays, her persona, her fashion sense…she knows she’s the shit, but she’s also open to learning,” Morrison told me. Reese’s self-definition as a stylish, confident young Black woman at the forefront of popular culture has hooked many new Sky fans in exactly this way.
Reese, on the verge of making history, played fearlessly. In the first half, her hands were a magnet for the ball, and she collected rebounds in double digits by the end of the third quarter. But by the fourth quarter, the Sky’s scoring had flatlined, and offensive errors piled up. The game was slipping away.
With less than a minute to go, and the Sky decidedly defeated, Reese managed to stave off Collier on the baseline, drawing contact from Collier on a missed layup. No foul call. So Reese kept going. Without averting her eyes, she grabbed her own rebound, attempting a putback, to no avail: another miss. And still, Reese bounced up, rising with the hope of Sky fans all at once, to sink her third attempt, putting herself just one point away from making history.
It came down to the final few seconds of the game. Reese caught the ball in the paint, a bullet to the rim, drawing the quick foul. But then she missed her first free throw. Everyone in Wintrust held their breath. Then, on the second shot, as the ball sailed through the net, the arena exploded.
On July 13, in a home game against the New York Liberty, Reese’s double-double streak came to its historic end at 15, a WNBA record. The truth of Reese, according to Sky fans, is that she is a lifeline for the team.
“Her ferociousness is a huge blessing to our team,” said twenty-eight-year old Stefania Gomez, a season ticket holder from Hyde Park and the creator of Patchwork Sky, making WNBA fan gear out of colorful upcycled materials. “That’s why it’s so crazy that people paint her as a villain, because she’s really just a force for positivity.”
Perhaps Chicago sports fans don’t get every gift, but Reese most certainly is one. In Wintrust, it’s easy to feel the intensity of fans’ support. “She’s just a force for good,” Gomez said.
Halfway through the season, Reese’s breakout stardom is the talk of the WNBA. She remains in contention for Rookie of the Year, championed by Weatherspoon. Meanwhile, the Chicago Sky’s front office strives to keep pace, recently announcing a $38M dedicated practice facility to open near Midway in 2026.
Diehard Sky fans remain along for the ride. As Crane summed it up: “I would run through a brick wall for this team.”
Maya Goldberg-Safir is an independent writer and audio producer based in Chicago (and sometimes Oakland, where she was born and raised).