The 2025 WNBA draft concluded in deafening silence. One by one, the names of a new generation of stars were announced, but the name of Sedona Prince, a 6’7″ standout from TCU with the talent and profile to be a shoe-in, was never announced. The reason being was not a lack of talent, but a cloud of past allegations of domestic abuse. In one, unstated decision, a promising career was put aside before it could even begin. This moment is in stark, almost theatrical contrast to the landscape of men’s professional sports, where stars like the NFL’s Deshaun Watson — accused by more than twenty women of sexual misconduct — do not only remain on the field but are rewarded with historic, fully guaranteed $230 million deals. This contrast between the handling of Prince and Watson exposes a fundamental and growing chasm in how sports leagues approach accusations of abuse — a chasm where gender, economics, and brand identity collide to create two entirely distinct systems of justice, each controlled by its own unstated rules.
In male sports, handling abuse allegations has become a routine and extremely cynical process, one that has only been reaffirmed throughout the 2024-2025 season. Entities like the NFL, NBA, and MLB operate based on what can be called an “asset protection” model. In these billion-dollar settings, a star player is not merely a player; he’s an investment of multi-millions. The end objective is to maximize that asset’s output on the field. When charges are serious, teams and leagues have a tried-and-true playbook: they issue lawyered “statements of serious concern,” perform impenetrable “investigations” that have a habit of outlasting the news cycle, and impose suspensions that get appealed and reduced. The actual goal is not accountability, but containment.
The Trevor Bauer case is still a textbook example. After a lengthy MLB suspension following accusations of sexual assault, Bauer never made it back to a major league mound. He simply resumed where he had left off abroad, playing professionally and maintaining a public profile. His situation, and the ongoing presence of numerous other players with serious allegations against them, demonstrate a core tenet of men’s sports: on-field play consistently trumps off-field accountability. The economic math is dismal but clear. The risk of public relations fall-out is viewed as a short-term, tolerable cost of business, a thing quickly outweighed by the tangible value of winning championships and contests. The fan base, while often loud in its outrage, has been largely powerless to inflict lasting economic damage on these giant organizations, whose multi-decade media rights deals are signed and whose fanbases are large and spread out.
It is a decidedly different story for women’s sports leagues, particularly the WNBA. Their plan is not one of “asset protection” but of “brand preservation.” For a league which has fought to receive each inch of mainstream credibility, press coverage, and corporate support, its brand is its most valuable and susceptible asset. As opposed to the prevailing, entertainment-focused brand of men’s leagues, the WNBA’s appeal and marketing are inherently based on principles of community, social justice, and women’s empowerment. Its players are pioneers in the fight for racial equality and gay rights, and its fans are passionately devoted, socially engaged, and require adherence to these principles.
Under these circumstances, a domestic violence charge is not just an issue; it is an assault on the viability of the league. It directly refers to the essence of the league’s brand commitment. This dynamic explains the historical inconsistency in its response, from the seven-game suspensions of Glory Johnson and Brittney Griner in 2015 after a mutual altercation to the institution of a more formal policy in 2020. The Sedona Prince case in 2025 could, however, signal an ostensible hardening of the same position. For WNBA franchises, the danger is not a momentary decline in attendance but a thorough dismantling of the credibility and identity that underlies the league as a whole. In a society where the whole enterprise appears to be on the line at all times, controversy is a risk that few franchises can afford to take. This can amount to a de facto “zero-tolerance” environment in which an accusation, whatever the law might finally determine of it and whatever the subtleties of due process, can be a permanent stain, effectively ending a career before it has even begun.
Why does this harsh double standard not only persist but appear to be getting worse? The answer is where raw economics collides with the vastly disparate expectations of those leagues and their players. The economic mechanisms are naturally disproportionate. Men’s leagues are economic titans, insulated by long-term television contracts and global merchandising empires. They can ride out scandal because their economic foundation is nearly full-proof. Women’s leagues, meanwhile, operate on much more stringent margins and with more of an emphasis on corporate sponsorships that are likely to be specifically subject to values-based marketing. A sponsor with whom the WNBA shares its platform of empowerment might easily distance itself from a team in the midst of a scandal involving domestic violence.
Additionally, women athletes carry with them the burden of representation. They must not only be entertaining, but also become role models and bearers of morality. They are forced to live up to a higher standard of conduct, one that reflects more profound societal sexism. This puts them in a no-win situation: women’s leagues are criticized for not keeping up with men’s leagues’ commercial success, yet they are bound to operate with an ethical conscience and candor that their male counterparts can afford to ignore. The male player is typically positioned as an imperfect prodigy whose greatness excuses his immorality; the female player has to be an icon of virtue, both in and out of the playing field.
Lastly, Sedona Prince’s undrafting and franchisement of most accused male players are two dysfunctional facets of the same imperfect coin. Neither approach supports the cause of actual accountability, that being victim protection, fair investigation, and even sanction. Men’s leagues, in preoccupation with profit and winning, minimize the gravity of violence and re-victimize victims who report. Women’s leagues, in their just struggle to live and be taken seriously, face the risk of creating a culture where the specter of accusation becomes an unavoidable professional death sentence, and perhaps even overriding gradations of context and forgiveness.
The varying fates of players along both sexes remind us of a blistering and enduring fact: in professional sports, justice is not blind. It is graded on revenue forecasts, informed by brand management practices, and governed by a hierarchy of unwritten rules that continue to be deeply and unfairly disparate for men and women. Until each league, men’s and women’s, commits to closing that gap by adopting uniform, transparent, and victim-centered policies that are enforced with unwavering integrity, the accountability playing field will be alarmingly unequal, and the response to “benched or backed” will still depend not on the facts, but on the jersey’s logo.