The W.N.B.A.’s players and fans pushed furiously for Brittney Griner’s release from a Russian penal colony, but her plight also highlighted gender inequities in sports.
While American female basketball players have largely stayed away from Russia, dozens of American men have sought pay and career development in the country.
Brittney Griner, the Phoenix Mercury star, was convicted on drug charges in Russia. Hours later, her teammates had a game. “Nobody even wanted to play today,” one said.
Amid the hostility over the war in Ukraine, a court imposed nearly the maximum possible sentence on the American basketball star Brittney Griner, intensifying calls to win her release.
The atrocities of the war in Ukraine and Griner’s detention in Russia on drug charges could cut off a lucrative pipeline for women’s basketball players.