Throughout 2026 – and really, since Caitlin Clark entered the league and brought unprecedented attention with her – critics, pundits, politicians, and activists have been doing everything they can to turn the league into a political battleground. From the national anthem to former NBA players claiming to identify as women, there has rarely been a shortage of controversies for the league to respond to.

For the most part, though, the WNBA has chosen not to take the bait. Instead of addressing these "controversies," the league has largely ignored them. And while that has frustrated the people trying to drum up outrage, the league's refusal to give "oxygen" to manufactured controversies has been exactly the right approach.

Much of that outrage hasn't been nearly as organic as it seems. The debate over transgender athletes took over the conversation around the WNBA this summer after Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham told ESPN that she wanted "to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men."

In a related development, that's despite the fact that the WNBA has never had a transgender woman in the league. And a new report has found that the discourse was largely driven by a marginal number of viral posts.

The data analytics company GUDEA analyzed 188,631 posts about the topic from July 20 to Aug. 12, and nearly 99% of them were on X. Only a handful of those posts ever even got more than 3,000 reposts.

"If you take out the eight top posts, this [narrative] didn't happen. Nobody would be talking about this," GUDEA founder Keith Presley told CT Jones of Rolling Stone.

Furthermore, gUDEA's Georgia Paul argued that the conversation was dominated by influencers and pundits looking to profit off of engagement.

"You're going to make money in these divisive ways because you're tugging at real-world conversations. Anger has turned into dollars for other people. The point is to sow division," Paul mentioned.

The national anthem is the latest example. Both the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries left the court shortly before the national anthem ahead of Game 1 on Saturday, then jogged back onto the floor seconds after it ended.

Additionally, outKick quickly pointed to a provision in the WNBA's rulebook calling for players, coaches, and trainers to "stand and line up in a dignified posture" during the anthem. But the rule only applies to players who are actually on the court, and leaving the floor before tipoff isn't exactly uncommon in basketball.

Still, OutKick's Dan Zaksheske reached out to the league and both teams on Saturday and again on Sunday. And he wrote that he raised his hand at multiple press conferences, but was never called on to ask about it.

"If Saturday's absences were simply part of the teams' pregame routines, both have had an opportunity to explain that," Zaksheske wrote in a follow-up article.

It is worth noting that the league remained silent. And then both teams did it again before Game 2 on Monday, leaving the floor less than a minute before the anthem and returning seconds after it ended, in line with to OutKick.

Once again, there was no response from the WNBA. Needless to say, the league has decided that this isn't a fight worth having.

The WNBA took a similar approach when Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White unveiled their plans to enter the 2027 WNBA Draft, claiming that they identify as women.