WNBA Star Brittney Griner’s Detaininment in Russia Should Be a Much Bigger Story

One of the biggest stars in the WNBA, Brittney Griner, is currently being detained in Russia for drug charges, and it is a story that should be a lot bigger in the States.

The New York Times reported that The Russian Federal Customs Service said earlier this month that it detained Griner (who was not identified at the time) after finding vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in her luggage. The arrest apparently took place last month, before the threat of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict was started to become a reality. Griner faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of bringing drugs into Russia, and is facing drug-smuggling charges.

Why was Griner in Russia? Because the WNBA does not pay female players their value, it pushes them to go to European Leagues where they get paid a lot more. So, many female athletes go there during the off-season in order to get a lot of the financial benefits their male counterparts get in the NBA. The WNBA maximum salary is $228,000. Through playing at UMMC Ekaterinburg in Russia, Griner’s annual salary is $1m.

For those unfamiliar with American Women’s basketball, Griner is a huge star. She’s a gold medalist who has led the American women’s team to victory twice at the Olympics, a 7× WNBA All-Star, and has been a winning player since high school. She’s a star, and being kept in Russia on these weak drug charges, especially in light of all of Russia’s recent doping scandals in sports, is ridiculous—not to mention the added issue that Griner is a Black lesbian woman in a country that has been hostile towards LGBTQ rights.

There is fear that the player might be used as a bargaining chip in Russia, with William Partlett, an associate professor at Melbourne Law School, telling Yahoo Sports that Griner is “in more danger now than she would have been pre-invasion,” now that there are fewer American resources in Russia to help with her case.

Jemele Hill wrote in The Atlantic that in addition to the international crisis, this story also illustrates the massive issues concerning how the NBA and American sports, in general, treat female athletes:

Russia wouldn’t be a tantalizing option for America’s best women’s basketball players if they could earn more at home and be treated with the same professional respect as NBA players. It is damning that teams in oppressive countries such as Russia and China—another opportune marketplace for women’s basketball players—place a higher value on players such as Griner than the teams in her own country do.

We need to do better, and the fact that this case has been so under-covered in the media, and largely ignored by politicians, is horrible—especially in comparison to when rapper ASPAP Rocky was detained in Sweden for assault, and even Donald Trump was outspoken about getting him returned.

This is a non-violent issue involving THC. Griner should be returned to the U.S., and the WNBA needs to rethink the position they put their female athletes in financially.

(via The New York Times, image: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)