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Shortly after the Connecticut Sun knocked off the Indiana Fever 87-81 in Game 2 of their first round series, Alyssa Thomas said that she had received “racial comments” and had been harassed on social media by Fever fans during the series.
"In my 11-year career, I've never experienced the racial comments from the Indiana Fever fanbase where we had [DiJonai Carrington's] face on a serious matter that happened in this world. It's unacceptable."
– Alyssa Thomas
(via @NoaDalzell)pic.twitter.com/ul5rbwLDlr
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) September 26, 2024
“Honestly, it's been a lot of nonsense,” Thomas said. “I think in my 11-year career, I've never experienced the racial comments from the Indiana Fever fanbase… It's unacceptable, honestly. There's no place for it. We've been professional throughout the whole entire thing, but I've never been called the things that I've been called on social media and there's no place for it.”
Thomas also suggested either the Fever organization or the WNBA itself to call out this kind of fan behavior in an attempt to get it to stop.
After Thomas' comments, the WNBA released a statement about fan behavior in the league in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
— WNBA (@WNBA) September 26, 2024
“The WNBA is a competitive league with some of the most elite athletes in the world,” the statement read. “While we welcome a growing fan base, the WNBA will not tolerate racist, derogatory, or threatening comments made about players, teams and anyone affiliated with the league. League security is actively monitoring threat-related activity and will work directly with teams and arenas to take appropriate measures, to include involving law enforcement, as necessary.”
The incident involving Thomas follows up a separate incident during Game 2 in which Fever star Caitlin Clark got into it with a Connecticut fan sitting court side.
Fan behavior is getting much more intense in the WNBA as the league's popularity grows, in part due to the additions of Clark and Angel Reese. However, more fandom brings both the positive and negative sides of hardcore fans, and the bad end of the spectrum is represented here. It will be interesting if the league tries to put in any measures to limit these kinds of things in the future.
