WNBA Off-Court Activism Spotlighted on 'Power of the Dream': NPR

You know how to tell if women's sports has finally broken into the American mainstream consciousness? When your 82-year-old mother-in-law tells you, “They show a lot more girls' basketball on TV these days.”

With women's basketball viewership at an all-time high, “Power of the Dream” — Amazon's new documentary, directed by Dawn Porter, highlighting the WNBA's fight for equality and representation — is reaching a peak.

The film offers a candid look at WNBA players' off-court activism during the COVID-affected 2020 season – as players mourn the loss of Black lives due to police brutality and become involved in Georgia's senatorial race – the film is not what you would expect. expect from a basketball joint. There is virtually no dripping and very little action about the sport itself. (Perhaps that's communicated in the title, which is more poetic than athletic).

And yet this is not a polished look at the impenetrability of the competition. It's about the ugliness of professional sports in America: the issues faced by even the world's most successful, elite basketball players, their struggles to create greater social change, and their sacrifices to improve conditions for marginalized communities while simultaneously keeping an eye on their own needs that are not being met by a union team of 144 employees.

Featuring a mix of news clips, original documentary footage and interviews with notable sports journalists and WNBA icons (including Angel McCoughtry, Layshia Clarendon and Elizabeth Williams), the film explores multiple dimensions of player-led change.

Rather than glorifying the WNBA's public image (the film shows how the league made a mistake by fining players for their social actions), the camera zooms in on players who are in a real state of vulnerability and uncertainty – if not utter frustration – as they work together to stand up for their core beliefs. It helps that two of the leads, Nneka Ogwumike and Sue Bird, widely considered among the best female hoopers of their generations, are behind the film's production. The documentary shines brightest in moments that feel intimate: windows of real urgency and (figurative) access to the locker room that can be had when the players themselves have a hand in the making.

Layshia Clarendon inside Power of the dream.

Prime Video/Amazon MGM Studios

hide caption

change caption

Prime Video/Amazon MGM Studios

Ultimately, the film asks: What responsibilities do modern professional athletes have? How do these responsibilities evolve, shift, and deepen as they intersect with issues of gender, race, and economics? And how do high-achieving individuals respond when their dreams are challenged and interrupted?

A legacy of WNB activism

“Power of the Dream” constructs a framework that begins with the opening scene, when a group of protagonists prepare to discuss their political views on live television while wearing black T-shirts that read “ARREST THE COPS WHO KILLED BREONNA TAYLOR” and “TELL HER.” NAME.”

From the start, the film offers a microhistory of the legacy of social advocacy among WNBA players – despite fines, attacks and criticism from league officials, media and fans. In 2016, the Minnesota Lynx drew ire from Minnesota police after members of the team spoke out against the killing of Philando Castile in nearby Falcon Heights. The team's franchise player and four-time WNBA champion, Maya Moore, became the face of the player-led protests. The audacity of the Lynx — at the time the WNBA version of Michael Jordan's 1990s Chicago Bulls — sparked a series of protests across the sports world that culminated in Colin Kaepernick's infamous NFL kneel later that year.

Moore would eventually take her fight for justice further, stepping away from basketball in 2019 to devote time to the release of a wrongly convicted man (Jonathan Irons, her current husband), and eventually retiring to further the goals of social to fully pursue justice. Moore's story isn't brand new, but thanks to the insights of journalists like Jemele Hill, the documentary argues that the extent of Moore's actions has not yet been fully understood. Her work is positioned as a reflection of the WNBA's broader ethos of compassion in ways rarely seen in other major leagues.

Moore isn’t the only WNBA star who has risked her own neck to do the right thing. Much of the documentary focuses on the coordinated efforts of the league’s players at the height of the 2020 “Wubble.”

With the killings of Breonna Taylor and, months later, George Floyd, the league’s biggest stars are taking a united stand. With games now televised, they collectively refuse to compete as usual, instead gathering on the turf of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida—the site of their abbreviated, quarantined season—to hold a vigil. Every WNBA player was in attendance. It’s one of the most moving things you’ll ever see in professional sports. Imagine if any other league could pull that off.

Holly Rowe, an ESPN reporter assigned to cover the WNBA’s COVID season, says in the documentary that those WNBA players embodied the most politicized group of professional athletes in American history. These weren’t just individuals sharing commentary on social media, or outliers spouting out-of-context postgame press conference soundbites — it was a tactical, organized collection of the entire league speaking as one. And they kept it up all season.

Labor politics in the “W”

For the uninitiated WNBA newbie: “Power of the Dream” is an introduction to the ability of players to work together for change. Indeed, the WNBA offers a case study in labor organization that probably no other major sports league in America can provide.

Ogwumike – a Stanford alumni and former No. 1 pick in the 2012 WNBA Draft – helped the Women's National Basketball Players Association through crucial contract negotiations in 2019 and 2020.

Nneka Ogwumike was seen in Power of the dream.

Prime Video/Amazon MGM Studios

hide caption

switch caption

Prime Video/Amazon MGM Studios

The filmmakers show Ogwumike and her colleagues devising a strategy and then, like a fast break on the public track, going all out. They assured of an unprecedented 53% salary increase and paid maternity leaveone of the largest and most progressive reforms in the history of American sports negotiations. (There is still a long way to go: The WNBA's highest-paid stars will earn about $250,000 in salaries this year; a fraction of the NBA's minimum wages of more than $1 million.)

Although the WNBA players' victory is a subplot in the film, it serves a narrative function: it lays the groundwork for legitimizing the WNBA's tireless efforts to improve conditions on multiple fronts. It is a spearhead in their multi-faceted demand for change that ultimately reaches Congress.

The Battle for the US Senate in Georgia

The WNBA's Atlanta Dream franchise – named after Dr. Martin Luther King's timeless monologue – is the climax of the documentary's ending (see: 'Power of the Dream“)Although the filmmakers choose to explore the league-wide issues plaguing athletes on various teams leading up to that moment, the overall exposition is ultimately about Atlanta.

Amid the social unrest of the 2020 season, Atlanta's then-majority owner, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler (who declined to be interviewed for the documentary), became a major source of unrest for the players when she disparaged the WNBA's women over their support for Black Lives Matter.

As the 2020 elections unfolded in Georgia, Loeffler was favored to win as the incumbent candidate in a crucial Senate race. WNBA players have made history again, publicly denouncing Loeffler by strategically rallying around her opponent, the Rev. Raphael Warnock.

Sue Bird stars in new documentary Power of the dream.

Prime Video/Amazon MGM Studios

hide caption

toggle caption

Prime Video/Amazon MGM Studios

Warnock had only 9% of voter support before the WNBA's involvement, and the documentary positions the players' support as crucial to his victory. In the film, Warnock (the only male subject) largely credits the WNBA for his unprecedented victory, which made him Georgia's first-ever black senator. He remains in office.

Despite her monumental success on and off the field, Bird still struggles with the larger issue of the responsibilities of professional athletes, and whether or not they should wield their social and political influence at such a high level. It is not lost on her and her colleagues that to bring about change in their communities, they must also do the work. For these players, that meant talking to family members and figures like Michelle Obama, getting involved with organizations like Say Her Name, researching candidates and actually meeting Warnock before officially endorsing him. Those duties are certainly not listed in the job description of a WNBA player – or any elite athlete for that matter.

“It’s never been just about basketball for us,” Bird says on camera. And how could it be for this particular group of hoopers?