The WNBA’s newest star claimed white athletes have more “marketability” and receive more coverage than black athletes.
Paige Bueckers was an NCAA star at the University of Connecticut with huge endorsements from companies like Nike, Taco Bell, Nerf, and Gatorade. After being selected No. 1 in the WNBA Draft by the Dallas Wings, Bueckers has another great opportunity to star on a team that just made a move to a larger arena.
While her past success, basketball IQ, and perseverance through injuries were the focus of a lengthy piece in Time, Bueckers took the opportunity to confess that she believes she, and all white people, have “white privilege.”
Bueckers said black women are under covered by the media, noting, “It’s still an issue, every single day.”
“There’s not ever equal coverage,” she told the outlet. “There’s white privilege every single day that I see.”
The 23-year-old continued, “I feel like I’ve worked extremely hard, blessed by God. But I do think there’s more opportunities for me. I feel like even just marketability, people tend to favor white people, white males, white women. I think it should be equal opportunity. I feel like there is privilege to what I have, and to what all white people have. I recognize that, I want to counteract that with the way I go about my business.”
Bueckers has been making strange, racially driven comments since a young age; at just 19, she accepted an ESPN award and said she wanted to “show a light on black women” because they “don’t get the media coverage that they deserve.”
“They’ve given so much to this sport and the community and society as a whole, and their value is undeniable,” Bueckers said in 2021.
‘It doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter what we all do as black women.’
This narrative has been mentioned consistently by players in the WNBA. For example, Las Vegas Aces player A’ja Wilson claimed in a 2024 interview that WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark is more popular and more marketable because she is white, while black women are ignored.
“They don’t see it as marketable,” Wilson said of the unnamed powers that be. “It doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter what we all do as black women, we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug. That’s why it boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is.”
After conducting the interview but before it was published, Wilson was signed to a signature shoe deal by Nike and an endorsement with Gatorade.
Clark herself has spread similar sentiments, participating in a Nike marketing campaign that said women are not able to succeed, despite the campaign receiving massive 50-foot banners in Chicago.
Clark had previously told Time that she cannot attribute all of her success to her hard work but said a bulk of it was due to her white privilege.
“I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege,” she said at the time. About a day later, Clark contradicted her statements again while speaking with Time.
“I feel like I’ve earned every single thing that’s happened to me over the course of my career.”
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