WNBA All-Star Weekend Is What It Looks Like When a Sports League Is Unapologetically Itself

To be a sports fan in 2025 is to be increasingly reminded of what used to be. So many things that were once institutions in their respective sports—the battering ram fullback in football, the baseball pitcher who regularly throws complete games, etc.—have either gone extinct or are at the stage of life where it’s time to get their affairs in order.

Beyond the games themselves, there’s the fact that athletes with outward, gregarious personalities have all but vanished. Look back to the ’80s and you’ll find rip-roaring MLB players doing blow and fighting cops, global soccer icon Diego Maradona doing even more blow, and the explosion of professional wrestling, a sport that’s not technically a sport but was completely personality-driven. The ’90s brought Michael Jordan and his cult of personality, Charles Barkley’s savagery—imagine how horrific and exhausting the discourse would be today if an NBA superstar threw an unruly fan through a plate glass window—and wild-boy figures like Michael Irvin, Eric Cantona, and John Daly. In the 2000s, hip-hop culture bled into the sports world, with Allen Iverson and Michael Vick as vanguards of the shift. But then things got … much tamer.

It’s easy to blame social media for that—every athlete with even a dollop of fame knows they could be posted every time they step outside—but there’s also a sports-wide flattening of individuality. This is why, when Anthony Edwards responds to virtually every question of his online fan Q&A with an unapologetic “Hell nawl,” a chorus of people clamor for him to be the face of the NBA. Sports needs this kind of attitude, the argument goes—but most of the athletes today are too guarded, too protective of their brand, or simply too boring to make it happen.

Unless they’re attending the WNBA All-Star festivities.

All weekend in Indianapolis—a city that, let’s be honest, is not on many people’s travel list—personality, elation, and self-expression oozed out of every corner. From the literal (massive Gatorade ads all over downtown showing WNBA players of past and present, splashed with text reading “Let her cook”) to the figurative (the impossible-to-replicate feeling that takes over a city whenever a capital-E event is in town), every inch of Indianapolis was dominated by the women’s basketball-palooza. But inside of all the merriment, from the league-sanctioned orange carpet and other media availabilities to the after-hours parties that punctuated every night, an unrehearsed joy jumped out. WNBA players know that, by virtue of being a professional athlete in 2025, they are a brand. But crucially, they know that their brand can also be fun.

Unlike many of their modern contemporaries, WNBA players are not shy about letting loose. Let’s begin with the unquestioned winner of the weekend: Minnesota Lynx point guard Courtney Williams. The 31-year-old two-time All-Star and co-host of the Twitch show StudBudz with her Minnesota running mate Natisha Hiedeman was living her best life and then some. On Friday morning, sitting at a table in Gainbridge Fieldhouse, I approached Williams and asked how she was feeling. “Shitty,” she responded. “Oh my goodness, bro. I did too much last night. But we had a ball!”

The night before, once her obligations were over and she could hit the town, Williams went super mega viral. The reasons, among other things, include grinding with any WNBA player she could find, suffering a passionate dance floor injury, rizzing up Caitlin Clark’s aunts, exposing several WNBA players’ not-so-secret relationships, and hitting the Shmoney dance with her coach, pretty much all of which she live streamed.

Williams explained her thinking to me in succinct fashion.

“They threw the party!” she said with a laugh. “So, we had a good time. Shout out to the W.”

That’s exactly it. For all of the problems currently facing the WNBA—the league is currently in the midst of painful labor negotiations with the players’ union, bad enough that one journalist told me “It’s giving lockout”—they are extremely hands-off when it comes to players’ personal lives. No one has publicly told the StudBudz to tone it down, or for players to keep their sexualities a secret anymore. Natasha Cloud won Friday night’s skills competition wearing a Free Palestine bracelet. Kelsey Plum was on the StudBudz stream facing Crown Royal straight out the bottle. Napheesa Collier, who is more reserved than some of the other high-profile WNBA players, strolled the orange carpet in a see-through outfit. (It should be noted that the overall fashion sense in this league runs circles around any other’s.) If anything, the WNBA fosters an environment of acceptance and openness, so much so that one of its young stars hard-launched a relationship with a former teammate on the orange carpet: Paige Bueckers, in an interview on WAG Talk, confirmed that she is dating Azzi Fudd, who she won a national championship with at UConn just three months ago.

Compared to the often toxic machismo of men’s sports, it’s wonderful to be surrounded by athletes who accept rather than reject. It was not long ago that Basketball Hall of Famer Tim Hardaway definitively stated, “I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic.” (He has since apologized.) While men’s sports is littered with dudes who continually miss the mark, the WNBA is full of people who get it. That’s what makes its All-Stars fun to be around, and by extension, why their parties are so lit. They can go toe-to-toe with commissioner Cathy Engelbert at the bargaining table in the morning, express their frustrations with her to the media, and still turn up to “Knuck If You Buck” with her later that night.

“That’s just the ladies of the W,” A’ja Wilson told me. “We are one of the leagues that love to show we are still human. We enjoy our lives! Yes, when we get on that court, we try to be the baddest women in the building. But, at the same time, we show why we are the baddest off the court as well. It’s just part of our league.”

With how far the women’s game has come in recent years, it is easy to forget how young it still is. It’s so young, in fact, that several members of the All-Star rosters are older than the league itself. The WNBA was founded in 1996 and played its first game in 1997. When the NBA was at this stage of its development, playoff games were still regularly shown on tape delay. There is no such problem for the W, a league setting viewership records and celebrating its success appropriately. The commissioner acknowledged that the rollercoaster eventually has to hit its descent, but the ride has been pretty thrilling as of late. “We have entered this period of the last two years that I call hyper growth,” Engelbert said. “We’re not going to be in hyper growth forever. No company ever is. It’s [about], how do we continue to sustain this momentum and ultimately globalize our game?”

Even with Clark’s injury keeping her out of the actual All-Star Game, robbing the hometown fans of a chance to see their hero in action, the weekend will go down in history as one of the landmark moments in the WNBA’s journey from niche sport to mainstream attraction. If you were on the internet at all in the last four days, you surely saw a clip from some Indianapolis club, hotel room, or other function that wowed you with both its authenticity and palpable happiness. As Angel Reese said in an instant-classic tweet, the WNBA and its collection of lovable, unafraid goofballs made Indy feel like Miami. The captain of the StudBudz put it this way: “People gonna party anyways,” Williams said. “So you might as well lean into it!”