CHICAGO Fans clutching cell phones at the ready bracketed each end of a line of black Suburbans and sprinter vans outside the Obama Presidential Center on a mild morning in July.They were there to see a president, but it wasnt Barack Obama. There was a chance that Nneka Ogwumike, the WNBA Players Association president who ushered a transformative collective bargaining agreement (CBA) over the finish line this past offseason, could walk out. Her sister, ESPN broadcaster and former player Chiney Ogwumike, heel-tapped over for photos. Caitlin Clark exited stage right, a hoodie over her head, while Jessica Shepard stepped onto a waiting bus unbothered.This is the world of the WNBA in its 30th season, where fans crowded the sidewalks of practice facilities, hotels and player appearances. More people watched their All-Star game than did the NBAs, and TV viewership ranked second all-time for the event.Those factoids are already lost to the past amid a league grappling with a stark delineation between reality and social media. Those photos at the Obama Center and elsewhere during All-Star weekend were dissected and investigated more than a Nancy Drew case.On Saturday, DiJonai Carrington's flagrant foul on Sophie Cunningham added fuel to the fire of recent WNBA discourse. (Photo by Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesThat level of interest is in part a result of a more robust marketing team. Now it has to sift through the muck and stay focused amid all the discourse that evolves into headlines.They come non-stop, the latest occurring Saturday when the Skys DiJonai Carrington committed a Flagrant Foul 2 on the Fevers Sophie Cunningham. After the automatic ejection, she took to social media to say White privilege afterward while tagging the Fever. The league has not announced any further punishment for Carrington.We still have a league to run, WNBA chief marketing officer Phil Cook told Yahoo Sports on the first night of All-Stars WNBA Live event. We still need to inform the fans: when are the games, who's playing, whats an important piece of this game we should be cognizant of, where can I watch it, whens it on?That part of our job has to go on irrespective of the noise and the clutter. But we see it all. And we talk about it often.The challenge is juggling it.The Taylor Swift Effect and cultural reachMarketing strictly toward already established sports fans is no longer the path toward growth for any league, the 30-year-old WNBA included.A study released last month by Genius Sports as part of The Fan Project found that fans of womens sports are more willing to spend particularly when a brand uses an athlete in storytelling and 88.6% of womens sports fans view fan apparel as culturally meaningful, even if theyd never purchased a ticket to a game.We know that there's an audience out there who may enter the WNBA only through the cultural door, Cook said. They might just be fans of sneakers or fashion or personal care products, so why not invite them into our league? They dont have to come in through the 94-by-50 [court-sized] door, they can come in through a different door.Those companies surrounded him at WNBA Live, where 34 partners and licensees, including Dicks Sporting Goods, Coach and Ally Financial, leaned into player-led merchandise. A nearby TV aired the ESPN docuseries Life in the W, released that weekend, which followed the 2025 seasons of Aja Wilson, Napheesa Collier and DeWanna Bonner.Fan interest and engagement in the WNBA is at an all-time high, but that attention comes with downsides. (Photo by Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images)Geoff Stellfox via Getty ImagesBut the classic case, Cook said, is in the NFL, where the relationship between Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and pop star Taylor Swift allowed an easy entry for girls and women to latch onto the sport. Fathers cited their daughters interest in watching games for the first time, and the data bore out the anecdotes.Viewership for the Chiefs 2024 Super Bowl win reached a record 123.7 million, with a 24% jump in 18-to-24-year-old women. Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z (ages 14-29) and millennial women (ages 30-45) held a favorable opinion of the NFL in December 2023, a growth of 11% from July, according to the Morning Consult. Swift attended her first game that September.While we dont have that magnetic of a draw, I think we have grants who are willing to invest with us in that space and bring their audience into their ecosystem, Cook said.More attention, more noiseYet, opening that many doors creates the unintended consequence of ushering in unwelcome company. As droves of new fans step in, so, too, do people and groups unwilling to learn about the leagues history or choosing to chase their own agendas. Some long-time fans feel like the intimate space they created is being infiltrated.It often manifests online in snippets of misinformation, incorrect character-based claims and allegations with an impact on real people. Players who utilized social media to build their brands in an era of little investment vary in how they still regard the medium.The internet is going to create whatever narratives theyre going to create, Lynx guard Courtney Williams, who runs the popular StudBudz live stream during All-Star, said. You could have someone blatantly lying and the internet will take it and run with it. That aint got s*** to do with the league. You know what Im saying? Like, if you want to feed into the narrative, thats your business. If you dont, then block them folks.Courtney Williams, alongside former teammate and "Studbudz" collaborator Natisha Hiedeman, knows firsthand how out of control the online chatter can get. (Photo by Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images)Geoff Stellfox via Getty ImagesIn June, a furious Fever head coach Stephanie White called out two cheap shots on Caitlin Clark that went uncalled by referees. In one, Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas put her closed fist on Clarks neck while the guard was on the ground. It was a similar tenor to past remarks about officiating, from her and coaches around the league.The league retroactively assessed Thomas a Flagrant Foul 2 the next day as noise around the play ratcheted up. It ate up all of the leagues oxygen for more than a week, intensified by hatred and threats online.Entering the All-Star break in late July, Aces guard Chelsea Gray shared a screenshot of a racial slur she received on social media. It sparked a broader conversation about player safety, and reopened one on how the league could mitigate the nasty online discourse. That led to additional criticism of Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who was already under a microscope ahead of another tentpole event.Sifting through the discourseThe marketing team blocks out that noise, but doesnt ignore it.Were cognizant of the tone, the tonality, Cook said. When theres a surging story that is swallowing media, we stay the course, we do our job, we inform, we educate, we inspire. We may pause on some other stories were set to release [and] navigate where we can.Cook said there are a lot of very emotional conversations within the leagues front office, from Engelbert on down, about the online discourse. People flood the mentions of the leagues social media accounts, and those monitoring the channels are forced to read what can be very depressing, defeating comments, he said.Thats kind of what makes our league very, very honest and transparent, internally anyway, is that we have that ability to bring these issues to the forefront and have honest discussions about it, Cook said. I think its really important. Ive worked in places where these things get buried and we dont talk about it, and its hard, because it just festers. It feels like no one is listening and no one is caring. And thats the last thing that we try to portray at the W. It really is.The league took a self-inflicted hit when its social channels shared a video of Paige Bueckers and Reese betting on their Wings-Dream matchup in the first game back from All-Star weekend. Wagering on a game is forbidden by the CBA. A league spokesperson said the deleted post was intended to be lighthearted, and we recognized that the post missed the mark and addressed the matter internally.The latest lingering controversy the league fell into is the debate around transgender womens participation in womens sports after Fever reserve Sophie Cunningham answered a question about it for an ESPN profile, and stood behind her response to local reporters days later.Rallies for and against it were held during the Fevers previous road trip, while more are in the works for their upcoming games. In Seattle, the league fined Storm minority owner Celeste Keaton and suspended her for five home games after comments made to two fans holding pro-Cunningham signs at the Storm-Fever game last week.Last week, Cunningham urged everyone to get back to basketball. That alone only fueled more furious typing and critiques. There is nothing too small for the leagues fans and followers to latch onto; nothing too minuscule to investigate deeper.Its a much more emotional league than I anticipated it being, you know? Cook said. I was going to come in and run a sports league, right? Its different. But its what makes it so special, and when you do make an impact, its all the better.