Regarding the April 9 Sports article “Women’s title game sets another ratings record” and Kevin B. Blackistone’s April 9 Sports column “Women’s basketball is surging. Are we sure this time is different?”
The women got prime time only when there was a star involved. The same happens in virtually every sport. Maryland’s women’s lacrosse has been one the most successful sports programs with similar records to Connecticut women’s basketball, but many of their games are still streamed rather than broadcast on cable. Women’s sports in general have had significant rises in popularity, be they soccer, basketball, lacrosse, tennis, softball, ice skating or gymnastics. However, each sport sustains an audience only when the news media puts the events out there and consistently keeps the games and competitions in front of an audience.
How many of us remember the women’s World Cup soccer successes, the astounding achievements of Venus and Serena Williams, Simone Biles’s exploits on every piece of gymnastics equipment available to her and now Caitlin Clark’s hardwood dominance. I challenge anyone to name any University of Connecticut men’s basketball stars or any one Purdue player other than Zach Edey a week after the final. We have women’s stars who linger in our memories: Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka in tennis, Katie Ledecky in swimming, Candace Parker and Brittney Griner in basketball and Megan Rapinoe in soccer. Give women’s sports visibility and their popularity will be sustained.
Howard Pedolsky, Rockville
The contest showcased a faceoff between the two best players in college basketball. It in the end it came down to the smallest of margins: a final score of 71-69.
I write, of course, of the 1968 meeting between Elvin Hayes, the star of the University of Houston Cougars and the University of California at Los Angeles center then known as Lew Alcindor, who had helped lead his team to a 47-game winning streak. They faced off in Houston’s Astrodome before almost 53,000 fans. The home team barely emerged victorious, but men’s college basketball was the enduring winner.
This year, the two premier women college basketball stars of the past four years did battle in the Final Four. The final score was exactly that of the titanic struggle more than a half century before in Houston. Though neither Paige Bueckers of the University of Connecticut nor the University of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark was transcendent, and this was but a semifinal contest, it felt like far more than a mere game. These teams could have filled the Astrodome to overflowing. And the intensity they demonstrated brought viewers of the matchup to their collective feet and into the fold.
In 1968, what became known as the Game of the Century introduced Americans to the phenomenon that would become March Madness for men’s basketball. I suspect, for the women, much will be said about Iowa vs. Connecticut, Clark vs. Bueckers. I can’t wait to keep watching.
Robert S. Nussbaum, Fort Lee, N.J.
A bad deal
The April 5 front-page article “Firm’s NIL deals spark legal debate” did a great job of exposing the confusion and manipulation behind the “name, image and likeness” deals private companies such as Big League Advantage are striking with promising athletes in pursuit of a cut of their future earnings.
Rather than leaving it to college and university athletics departments to do legal reviews of potential deals between their players and big businesses specializing in these deals, or to states to race to the bottom in setting policies, it’s clear that there is a need for a national policy that determines what rights college and minor league athletes can sign away, and how long such contracts can last. Sports leagues should have a real interest in such clarity: I can only assume that National Football League teams, for example, might have concerns with paying portions of a player’s salary to an uncertified business under an agreement not approved by the NFL or the Player’s Association. No team would want to be exposed to potential legal issues over financial disputes that are starting to appear between players’ NIL firms. And agents are not fans either.
As a counselor assisting high school athletes with college selections, I find it shocking but not surprising that many parents prioritize NIL deals over education. But they should be aware of what these deals mean, not just for their future income, but for the prospect of securing a pro career at all. This is not free money, and recipients need to set aside a substantial amount of it for tax payments. And these are not training programs. Athletes deserve protection from anyone who might exploit their current circumstances to gain access to multimillion-dollar salaries.
Greg Raleigh, Washington
Teamwork makes the dream work
The March 30 analysis “Half of senior staffers in Congress are so fed up that they may quit” was a stark illustration of the concrete damage that political polarization is doing to governance. The inability of members of Congress to collaborate is not going unnoticed. Our recent polling shows that more than 70 percent of voters think our country is headed in the wrong direction. It’s up to lawmakers to pull themselves and their institution out of a self-destructive cycle that drives the most constructive members and staff out the door, leaving Congress in the hands of the people least inclined to use their power to constructive ends.
A good place to start would be by ending the use of the legislative process as a campaigning tool. The desire to stand up for one’s political values should be channeled toward campaigning and legislating constructively, rather than toward shutting down our legislative system with partisan games. The next step would be to identify places for clear-minded and pragmatic bipartisan collaboration. Lawmakers are up against the clock because, realistically, they will soon be diverted toward the campaign trail. But they still have some time left to show their staff, and constituents, what Washington can accomplish.
Congressional staffers understandably are exhausted. Anyone would be if they came to Washington to help foster meaningful changes for their states and country and ended up working at a place where it often feels like very little gets done and then only at the last minute. It would be a shame if such burnout drives talented people out of Congress, or discourages congressional staffers from staying in the public service sector in any capacity.
Their bosses must put their weapons down and work together so that Congress can go back to “functioning as a democratic legislature should.”
Paolo Mastrangelo, Washington
The writer is co-president of the bipartisan organization American Policy Ventures.
Out of style
The April 8 Style article “A new life for fur?” ran through a litany of ways in which consumers try to convince themselves that it’s fine to wear products made from fur. But neither TikTok’s “mob wife” and “quiet luxury” trends nor the greenwashing excuses and nostalgic musings of a few industry apologists outweigh the truth.
Fur production is a grim and violent business, one that at times includes electrocuting animals and beating them unconscious. As those realities become ever more obvious to consumers, global fur production and U.S. fur apparel imports have hit all-time lows. One fashion brand after another, and most major retailers, have abandoned fur and embraced strict fur-free policies. Public policy is following closely on the heels of evolving public sentiment and corporate social responsibility: cities, states and countries have banned fur farming, and in some cases even the retail sale of fur, in a worldwide trend that shuts off any possibility for a comeback. An industry founded on death is itself dying out.
Defending fur’s inherent cruelty is all but impossible, so its proponents have taken to making the case for its sustainability. Yet the factory farms that produce fur are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions that greatly exceed those of synthetic alternatives, which are themselves becoming more environmentally friendly. Still worse, these operations risk becoming breeding grounds of dangerous zoonotic diseases such as covid-19 and avian influenza. Soon enough, these vestiges of an industry that has lasted too long will all be gone, and we’ll find that we don’t miss it at all.
Kitty Block, Washington
The writer is president of the Humane Society of the United States.
