9 mixed Olympic gold medals. Six WNBA championships. Twenty-one All-Star appearances. One WNBA MVP. Sue Hen and Sylvia Fowles, two of essentially the most adorned and prolific basketball gamers in WNBA historical past—and each amongst Adweek’s 2022 Most Highly effective Ladies in Sports activities honorees—every mentioned goodbye to their skilled careers a couple of months in the past, selecting to retire on the high of their respective video games.
“What makes myself and Syl fascinating proper now could be we’re actually one of many first crop of gamers which have had these prolonged, prolonged careers,” mentioned Hen, noting the WNBA is barely in its twenty sixth season. “We’ve been in individuals’s properties, on their TV units, on the Olympics for [more than] 15 years, and that’s not even together with faculty, when each of us had been family names.”
Nevertheless, regardless of their profession similarities—each credit score Nike as an early supporter and are represented by Lindsay Kagawa Colas at powerhouse company Wasserman—their alternatives and expertise off the basketball court docket have been wildly divergent. Solely considered one of them has been a fixture in model spots for 20 years, earned a plethora of media protection and been given each future alternative to proceed as an trade mainstay. In the meantime, the opposite is making ready for a second act in funerary arts.
Hen, 42, the primary general draft choose in 2002, hung up her sneakers after 18 seasons and 20 years with the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, main her group deep into one final playoff run. No. 10 is a four-time WNBA champion, the league’s all-time help chief, a 13-time All-Star and a five-time Olympic gold medalist. She has partnerships with main manufacturers like Nike, American Categorical, CarMax and Capital One. The New York native is a part-owner of the NWSL’s Gotham FC, and based media and commerce firm Togethxr with three different elite athletes, which works to amplify the voices of ladies athletes.
Arguably top-of-the-line gamers to ever change the sport, Fowles doesn’t have the top-tier offers that Hen does. At 37, the second general 2008 draft choose retired after an elite profession with the Chicago Sky and Minnesota Lynx. The Miami native is a WNBA MVP, four-time WNBA Defensive Participant of the 12 months and four-time Olympic gold medalist. She’s the league’s best rebounder of all time and the profession chief in subject aim share. But she’s spending post-retirement far-off from sports activities, the place she’s finding out mortuary science.
“The world we reside in, the world that the WNBA is making an attempt to thrive in, doesn’t actually respect [and value] the kinds of individuals which might be taking part in within the league,” mentioned Hen. “[It] doesn’t respect individuals of colour, doesn’t respect the LGBT group. Whenever you take a look at Syl, a Black girl on this world who stands at 6’6”, nobody’s her and seeing her expertise.”
‘Pushed’ to succeed
Fowles was raised within the Victory Houses Initiatives in Miami-Dade County, which she believes formed her into who she is now. “The neighborhood was dangerous, and also you’re seeing issues that youngsters shouldn’t see at these ages. However it’s a group. We took care of one another,” she mentioned, emphasizing that whereas residing was tough, she by no means wanted to scrounge for meals or go with out garments and sneakers.
“In some unspecified time in the future, I knew I used to be going to achieve success as a result of I used to be pushed at a younger age,” mentioned Fowles. She partnered with Nike in highschool and was recruited by LSU after her standout Beginner Athletic Union (AAU) profession. The college retired jersey No. 34 in 2017.
“I don’t assume I might be the individual I’m in the present day with out Nike,” mentioned Fowles. “Nike gave me an outlet to offer so many issues for household. They gave me so many alternatives to offer for my journey group. Nike has been an enormous a part of who Sylvia Fowles is as an individual.”
Whereas Nike is Fowles’ greatest partnership by far, she’s additionally signed a handful of different smaller-scale offers with Affalia, a Black cleaning soap, shampoo and hair firm; and child meals manufacturers Yumi and Contemporary Bellies, which is especially apt since beginning a household is a large precedence for Fowles, post-retirement.
“I’m making an attempt to assume long run as a result of I need children, so I’m making an attempt to line every part up of how can I get my children arrange?” she mentioned. “I actually don’t have sponsorships, and I do know lots of that comes by means of social media and followers.”
In her last season, Fowles lastly started to interrupt out into mainstream media, a story that triggered conflicting emotions for a participant who remained humble her entire profession. She additionally put among the blame on the WNBA itself, noting the league tends to advertise solely a small group of its high gamers.
“Give me credit score the place credit score is due,” she mentioned. “I’ve been constant since I bought on this league. I’ve been on the high of my recreation since I bought on this league, however to cowl it inside my final 12 months? The place had been you all these different years? It begins with our league as a result of we’ve got some dope-ass girls within the WNBA.”
Constant stands out as the excellent phrase to explain Fowles. After battling again from a knee harm that sidelined her for 5 video games in 2022, she made her eighth All-Star look this 12 months (her first again in 2009) and led the league in rebounding as soon as once more.
However even the 12 months’s elevated media protection didn’t be a magnet for the larger manufacturers which have flocked to different WNBA icons.
“Race performs an element. Social media performs an element,” Fowles mentioned. “What else do I’ve to do? I’m not disrespectful. I don’t get in hassle. What else are you able to need from an individual, which is to do their job?” (As a comparability, Hen’s Instagram following is at 706,000 whereas Fowles’ is round 73,500, although Fowles doesn’t use hers as a lot.)
“It’s not an equal platform. You may work your tail off and you are able to do all these nice issues and nonetheless don’t get as a lot as your counterpart. I needed to study to have thick pores and skin. I’m simply one thing that they don’t need, and that’s completely wonderful. Everyone has a picture that they need, and I’m not that. I needed to get to that time to grasp that it’s greater than me,” she mentioned.
And for these few manufacturers which have reached out, Fowles’ group doggedly retains away those that don’t match her values. “They know what I’m going to say no to,” she mentioned. “It needs to be one thing I’m very keen about, and that I again 100%. I’ve been bugging [my agents] Lindsay [Kagawa Colas] and Tracy [Hughes] about signing with a Black firm for years. I don’t desire a deal to only say I’ve a deal; I need to have the ability to say I mirror what I’m with.”
Fowles’ altruistic nature comes by means of when she chooses to signal with a model. “It needs to be one thing pushed in the direction of children, in all probability girls, starvation, training, and people are the issues I search for once I’m signing offers,” she mentioned.
Advocating for change
Hen has traveled a a lot totally different path, post-retirement. Two months after chants of “Thanks, Sue” reverberated round Local weather Pledge Enviornment in Seattle as Hen exited for the ultimate time in her profession, she has been approached with talking alternatives, provided extensions to current partnerships and extra model alternatives.
When Adweek informed Hen what Fowles mentioned about her lack of brand name offers, she took a deep breath.
“It’s actually unhappy to listen to her say that,” Hen mentioned. “It’s not due to who she is and what she’s carried out. When individuals activate the TV, they see the expertise, however society doesn’t see expertise first. They simply see pores and skin colour; they simply see sexual orientation. That’s what within the final couple years, all of us within the WNBA have been making an attempt to vary. As a result of it’s not proper. It’s not truthful. It’s not correct. And there’s so many individuals like Sylvia Fowles who may have been giving a lot to a model and simply by no means had the chance primarily based on discrimination.”
Hen is aware of she has the platform to advocate for change and doesn’t hesitate to make use of it. She got here out as homosexual in 2017 and is at the moment engaged to soccer star (and fellow Most Highly effective Ladies in Sports activities honoree) Megan Rapinoe.
“I had been homosexual for a really very long time,” Hen mentioned, including that her group, her brokers and coaches all knew. “I felt like I had gotten to that time the place I used to be like, do it is advisable to say it, like what’s the large deal?”
It wasn’t till conversations with Rapinoe that Hen realized the significance of publicly popping out to advocate for many who can’t safely accomplish that.
The WNBA’s Darkish Cloud
Whereas the WNBA group celebrates the top of Hen’s and Fowles’ storied careers, it is usually targeted on the harrowing plight of Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner, a WNBA champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist and the primary overtly homosexual athlete endorsed by Nike, who has been wrongfully detained in Russia since February for possession of hashish oil. In August, she was sentenced to 9 years in jail, and final week was transferred to a Russian penal colony. Her present location is unknown.
Griner, 32, like many different American gamers, competes in a Russian league through the WNBA low season. In contrast to the NBA, the place stars like Steph Curry rake in $48 million yearly, there are solely 14 WNBA gamers making north of $200,000 per 12 months. Abroad contracts are sometimes way more profitable than home salaries, together with for Griner, who made greater than $1 million taking part in for UMMC Ekaterinburg.
The group has been fiercely advocating to convey Griner dwelling since she was first detained. Each WNBA court docket final season featured a BG42 decal, and through July’s All-Star recreation, every participant wore No. 42 through the second half in her honor. On Nov. 9, President Joe Biden informed reporters he was “decided” to convey Griner dwelling, and mentioned he has been in touch together with her spouse, Cherelle.
“We wish to be sure that she will nonetheless really feel all of the love that individuals have for her,” mentioned Hen. “That is completely devastating. You may’t consider a worse state of affairs. We’re making an attempt to make use of our voices, so hopefully BG can hear and really feel it.”
“Each time I stroll in a room now, everyone knew precisely who I used to be, who I liked, what I stood for, and there was one thing actually highly effective in that for me,” Hen mentioned. “Regardless that the motivators had been different individuals, I used to be in all probability impacted essentially the most. There’s simply a lot energy in that. And that’s the place it is advisable to notice once you’re residing your genuine life, and also you’re displaying up that approach on the planet, not solely does it encourage others to do the identical, it means that you can be your full self. And that’s the place the inspiration lies.”
That authenticity interprets into the varieties of brand name partnerships Hen seems to be for.
“You wish to have partnerships the place your values are aligned,” she mentioned. “After I consider a model like CarMax, the business I did final 12 months with Corona, even among the Capital One spots, what’s been actually superb about working with these manufacturers is that this capability to spotlight the feminine athlete through the use of somewhat little bit of humor.”
American Categorical was considered one of Hen’s first model companions, and one she factors to as most supportive of the WNBA early in her profession, outdoors of Nike.
“Nike has been there since day one, and so they’ve been with me my total profession. By no means wavered within the assist, supported us within the WNBA lives, in our Nationwide Workforce lives, even in our abroad lives,” Hen mentioned, including that when Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this 12 months, Nike was one of many first entities to try to get WNBA athletes taking part in in Russia dwelling safely.
“We’re in a spot in girls’s athletics the place we’d like manufacturers,” Hen mentioned. “We’d like these company sponsorships for leagues to outlive, we’d like them for people to have the ability to construct their very own manufacturers, however you need to be strategic in the way you do it. Issues are 100% altering. We nonetheless have a protracted approach to go, and it’s going to take all of us and all of the totally different views. I’m undoubtedly nonetheless going to have my foot on the pedal.”
However Hen is aware of she will’t simply depend on manufacturers to result in these mandatory modifications in sports activities. She just lately invested in Gotham FC, New York and New Jersey’s Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League group, and launched media and commerce firm Togethxr alongside athletes Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim and Simone Manuel.
“You need to take motion as effectively. There are moments when you possibly can step into the second and have affect as an investor or beginning an organization,” she mentioned. “This was a approach for us to place our cash the place our mouth is, and to try to construct this firm that will have the ability to inform the tales that don’t get the sunshine that they deserve.”
As Hen launches her new companies, checks out a broadcasting profession and experiments with entrance workplace alternatives like working with the Denver Nuggets in recent times, Fowles quietly—and, she mentioned, fortunately—works on her mortuary science diploma.
“It provides me time to deal with myself,” Fowles mentioned. “I feel that’s what attracts me to mortuary science as a result of it’s humbling. What am I complaining about? Life is a lot less complicated than we make it.”
However, as Hen famous, Fowles’ affect has certainly helped change the sport for the higher, paving the way in which for the subsequent technology of superstars. That features 26-year-old A’ja Wilson, the 2022 WNBA MVP and Defensive Participant of the 12 months, who’s signing the model offers that Fowles couldn’t, a feat Hen believes is because of Fowles’ indelible legacy.
“There actually hasn’t been a participant like her, the methods through which she was capable of dominate and the way in which she was capable of do it constantly,” mentioned Hen. “I hope Syl feels actually happy with the truth that she helped change that narrative.”
