Both WNBA Finals Teams Ducked Out on the Anthem. Twice. It's Another Reason This League Will Fail.

The two teams playing for this year's WNBA championship, the Golden State Valkyries and the Atlanta Dream, left the court for the locker room right before the national anthem at both of the first two games of the WNBA Finals. Both came back out seconds after the last note.

It happened Saturday before Game 1 at Chase Center in San Francisco, and again Monday night before Game 2, when Alanis Morissette sang the "Star-Spangled Banner," the New York Post reported. "They literally left the floor for only the two minutes the anthem was played," wrote OutKick's Dan Zaksheske, who was in the arena, per Men's Journal.

The WNBA's own rulebook says players, coaches and trainers "are to stand and line up in a dignified posture" during the anthem. Two Finals games in, neither team has been on the floor for it, and the league hasn't said a word, OutKick reported. It's the WNBA in one picture: a league that keeps telling a big slice of America it isn't welcome, at the very moment it needs every fan it can get.

"Just part of the routine"

Both teams were warming up on the court, left less than a minute before the anthem, and jogged back right after it ended, according to OutKick. Stars on both rosters, including Atlanta's Angel Reese and Golden State's Gabby Williams, stayed off the floor.

The Valkyries told the Associated Press they have gone inside for the anthem as part of their pregame routine since joining the league last year. The AP said Atlanta has done the same for several years, and that it has been "common practice for many WNBA teams over at least the past six seasons."

So this isn't a one-time protest. It's a habit. The league quietly suspended its own anthem protocols late in 2017, the AP reported, and in 2020 it dedicated the season to Breonna Taylor as teams walked off for the anthem. That year, the Dream's Aug. 2 game notes carried players' union messaging that "the anthem does not represent freedom, justice and liberty for all Americans," OutKick noted.

Some teams manage it fine. The AP noted Caitlin Clark's Indiana Fever and the Minnesota Lynx stayed on the court for the anthem this season. And the New York Post editorial board pointed out that Reese and Atlanta's Rhyne Howard stood "proudly" for the anthem at last month's FIBA World Cup final. As Zaksheske put it, "if your pregame routine requires leaving the court for the national anthem, it's time for a new routine."

OutKick asked the WNBA, the Dream and the Valkyries to explain after Game 1, and asked whether any discipline was coming. None answered:

Two days later, they did it again:

Meanwhile, in the stands

The fan base sent its own message at Game 1. Jennifer Sey, a former gymnast who founded the women's sports brand XX-XY Athletics, came with friends wearing the company's shirts. After other fans complained, security walked the group up the stairs as fans shouted insults and one flipped them off, USA Today reported. Security told them the complaint was that they were "antagonizing" people with their shirts, then let them return to their seats. The WNBA and the Valkyries declined to comment.

Her video has been viewed more than 4 million times. That's the audience the WNBA says it wants to reach, watching a woman get hassled for a T-shirt about protecting women's sports.

The other reasons this league will fail

The league will tell you it just had its best season ever, and on paper it did. Look closer, though, and the foundation is shaky.

1. It's a one-woman league

The WNBA set records in 2026: 731,000 viewers a game, up 11%, per Sports Media Watch. Attendance averaged a record 11,474 a game, the league said. But every one of the seven TV platforms the league highlighted had its biggest regular-season game with Clark's Fever on the floor, OutKick found, topped by 3.31 million on NBC and Peacock.

The playoffs told the same story. Clark's two biggest games drew 2.25 million and 2.11 million viewers. Without her, the two semifinal openers drew 1.17 million and 1.12 million, and no reported game without the Fever passed 1.44 million before the Finals, per Sports Media Watch.

We've already seen what happens when she sits. After Clark hurt her quad early in 2025, Fever games on national TV fell 53%, from 1.81 million viewers to 847,000, USA Today reported. She ended up playing just 13 of Indiana's 45 games that year, per Sports Media Watch. One injury is all it takes.

2. The payroll just exploded

For most of its history, this league has lost money. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in 2018 that the WNBA lost more than $10 million a year on average, Front Office Sports noted. In 2024, sources told the New York Post it would lose $40 million.

Then came the new labor deal in March. The team salary cap jumped from about $1.5 million in 2025, per ESPN, to $7 million in 2026. The average salary went from $120,000 to $583,000, and the max from $249,244 to $1.4 million, according to ESPN's 2025 figures and the league's own summary of the new deal. The league projects more than $1 billion in player salaries and benefits over the seven-year deal, per WNBA.com. The deal also adds league-wide charter flights, which the league projects at more than $300 million.

During talks, the league warned that a richer players' proposal would mean $700 million in losses over the deal, more than the league and its teams lost in their first 29 years combined, ESPN reported. The union called that figure "absolutely false." The cap is now tied to revenue, so if the Clark bump fades, the bills don't fade with it.

3. It mistreated its biggest star

In Clark's 2024 rookie season, five of the league's first 30 flagrant fouls were committed against her, the most of any player, including Chennedy Carter's shove, Sporting News counted. In 2025, Marina Mabrey's shove of Clark was upgraded to a Flagrant 2 and Jacy Sheldon's poke to her eye to a Flagrant 1, per WSMV.

Even the commissioner's office got pulled in. Minnesota star Napheesa Collier said Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told her that "Caitlin should be grateful she makes $16 million off the court because without the platform the WNBA gives her, she wouldn't make anything," CBS Sports reported. Engelbert said she was "disheartened by how Napheesa characterized our conversation." The league's golden goose kept getting treated like a nuisance.

4. Politics before basketball

Walking off for the anthem is just the most visible part. Add a 2020 season dedicated to a political cause, game notes declaring the anthem doesn't represent all Americans, and Finals crowds hassling a woman over a pro-women's-sports shirt. The Post's editorial board said the league treats its audience like "political hostages" and warned that fans "won't just tune out — they'll bolt for the exits," in its editorial.

A league that needs every new fan it can get keeps choosing to irritate the ones it most needs to win over.

5. A leadership mess

The WNBA's labor deal expired Oct. 31, 2025, and needed two extensions before a deal came in March, per ESPN. Along the way, the players authorized a strike "if necessary," ESPN reported.

Collier called it "the worst leadership in the world" and said officiating has "reached levels of inconsistency that plague our sport." She said that when she asked Engelbert about the referees, the commissioner told her, "only the losers complain about the refs," per CBS Sports. In September, the league announced Engelbert will retire at the end of the year. A search firm is still vetting candidates to replace her, the AP reported. So the WNBA heads into its biggest-spending era with a lame-duck commissioner and no successor.

The bottom line

Golden State and Atlanta are tied 1-1 after Reese's 30 points and 16 rebounds carried the Dream to a 79-65 win Monday, the AP reported. Game 3 is Wednesday night in Atlanta.

Two minutes. That's all it takes to stand with your team for the national anthem at the biggest games of your season. The WNBA's Finals teams couldn't spare them, and the league hasn't said a word. Bills that are growing faster than the fan base and a star who can't carry the whole league forever are bad enough. A league that keeps snubbing the people it needs is making it worse.