Brittney Griner’s first WNBA game after being brought back home from Russia was on Friday night - not that many of you cared.
Griner’s Phoenix Mercury played against the Los Angeles Sparks, losing 94-71 to open up the WNBA regular season. But Mercury head coach Vanessa Nygaard wasn’t just miffed that her squad had a nearly 20-point loss to start the 2022-23 campaign.
She was annoyed because in her mind, not many people showed up to support Griner’s homecoming, as only 10,396 fans attended the game at Crypto.com Arena. She wanted all 19,068.
Phoenix Mercury head coach wants to know why Brittney Griner’s debut didn’t sell out the arena 👀
— Sportsville (@Sportsville_) May 20, 2023
“How was it not a sellout?” pic.twitter.com/YlQtF9utrA
"I mean, it was great. But like honestly, c’mon now LA. We didn’t sell out the arena for BG?" Nygaard said. "Like, I expected more, you know, to be honest. Right, it was great, it was loud. But how was it not a sellout? How was it not a sellout?"
Nygaard somehow thinks that Griner was deserving of a hero’s welcome. But in case she forgot, Griner did nothing deserving of a sellout show of support during the game.
The WNBA star and part-time social justice warrior was threatened with nine-and-a-half years in a Russian prison for possession of marijuana vapes. While the sentence was certainly overkill, she brought the trouble on herself and should have known better. Maybe people weren’t willing to treat Griner like a hero because she isn’t one?
One Twitter user perfectly summed up why so many people chose to do something better with their Fridays than watch social justice warriors play a basketball game.
Turns out, every person interested in the WNBA was in that arena.
— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) May 21, 2023
When you take all of these factors into account, it’s easy to see why roughly 9,000 seats were empty on that Friday night.
