Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah? How about team WNBA?
Summer 2025 was a very team-oriented summer. Everywhere you looked, people were debating the merits of Team Jeremiah vs. Team Conrad. And every Wednesday, it felt like the entire nation was sat on the same couch to watch season three of The Summer I Turned Pretty.
However, I, for one, needed entertainment every other night of the week. And thanks to my WNBA League Pass subscription, I had plenty of it in the form of women’s basketball. More importantly, I made sure that everyone around me knew about it. And I didn’t just talk about it; when I went to games, I took people with me, too.
This summer, I gave a grand total of seven people their first “Welcome to the W” moment. I dragged various friends and family to games in not one, not two, not even three, but four different states. The result? Watching my loved ones experience the joy of women’s basketball firsthand and doing my part to grow my favorite league.
The excitement inside any WNBA arena is palpable and contagious. So were my family’s and friends’ reactions to the games. One friend had always wanted to go to a game, but had settled for watching Paige Bueckers edits on TikTok instead. Another had been obsessed with March Madness for years, but had never watched the WNBA.
As we were walking out of our first WNBA game, before we had even fully exited the Crypto.com Arena, my friend Rennie whipped out her phone to send a voice memo to her roommate: “Hi, Lucy. I just went to my first WNBA game and I just need to let you know that when we’re at school in the fall, we need to go to a game. I’ve literally never even liked sports before, but that was amazing. We need to go.”
Similarly, I got to watch my friend Tia’s face light up when she saw Caitlin Clark for the first time after excitedly following her college career. At the same game, I got to watch her and another friend, SarahMary, learn the names of every player they hadn’t yet heard of, but who they are now excited to see next season. “It’s so much more fun now that I know all of their names,” SarahMary exclaimed during the second quarter, and I had to agree.
There is only one thing better than loving something, and that’s sharing that thing with the people you love. What was once something I watched and obsessed over on my own has become something I share with my family and friends. From fangirling over Tasha Cloud and Ellie the Elephant with my family, to making friends at Connecticut Sun games, to plotting which Mystics games that I’ll go to next season with my college friends, my experience sharing the WNBA has reminded me why I fell in love with it in the first place: the community.
There is nothing quite like the unity of an arena full of excited fans who are there for the same reason. And there is nothing more exciting than helping to fill up that arena with your own “team.”
So maybe Team Conrad and Team Jeremiah aren’t so different from my favorite WNBA teams, after all. Whether I’m reacting to a new episode on the couch with my family or reacting to a game in an arena or on that same couch, I am nothing short of entertained. And more importantly, I’m sharing that entertainment with the people I love.