Joe Biden Was Right, for Once.
The WNBA's Las Vegas Aces are mad at the President for saying a true thing
It’s never a dull moment when the WNBA ventures into politics. Because once again the WNBA has proved that it is a political movement masquerading as a sports league.
President Joe Biden tweeted this yesterday after the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights won their first Stanley Cup earlier this week.
The statement Biden made was 100% factual. And yet……
President Joe Biden congratulated the Vegas Golden Knights on their Stanley Cup win Wednesday. In doing so, he found a way to significantly annoy one of the city's other professional sports teams….
…his time, however, Biden referred to the Golden Knights' title as being won by "the first major professional franchise in such a proud American city." Which is inaccurate if you consider the local WNBA team to be one of Las Vegas' major sports franchises.
So the furor is that Biden did not congratulate the Aces as “The first major professional franchise in such a proud American city.”
There are a couple of problems with that outrage…
First off, nobody considers the WNBA a major sports franchise. Ther are four universally accepted major sports leagues in America: Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and the National Football League. Nobody considers the WNBA to be a major league sport. WNBA revenue and attendance are dwarfed by Major League Soccer, which is sometimes considered a fifth "Major League”.
The only people who consider the WNBA to be “Major” are people who are either in the WNBA or recognize the WNBA because of political reasons.
Let’s just assume for the sake of argument that the WNBA is a “Major League” and that the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces winning the WNBA was the city’s first “Major” Championship.
Well, Biden didn’t say anything about winning the first title for Las Vegas. He said that the Golden Knights were “the first major professional franchise”. Which is completely accurate.
The Las Vegas Aces came into existence on December 11, 2017, when the new ownership group of the San Antonio Stars announced the team was decamping for Vegas.
That announcement came two months AFTER the Golden Knights dropped the puck on their first season in Las Vegas.
Heck, the Aces announcement came almost a year after the Oakland Raiders announced they were moving to Las Vegas in time for the 2020 season.
If the Aces players wanted to take umbrage had Biden said that it was the first major championship for a Las Vegas team, I would at least understand that even though they would have been wrong. But to be angry with Biden about something he didn’t even say is a new low in ridiculousness for a league like the WNBA that stays afloat based on its ridiculousness.
The WNBA: still a joke after all these years.