Why Lesbians Hate LeBron James

Last year I was sitting at a bar having drinks with some friends, when somebody mentioned they hated LeBron James. I am making a definite assumption here she had never met him, but nonetheless he disgusted her. Since I have a sincere love for the man (as you will soon find out in my All-Star Game preview letter), I had to question this. She believed he was the reason the Cleveland Rockers were disbanded.

The Rockers were Cleveland’s Womens National Basketball Association (WNBA) and like all WNBA teams they were funded by the NBA team in that city. Keep in mind the WNBA has been around since the summer of 1997 and has yet to make a penny for any of the investors. If you have ever been to a WNBA game, it is a very similar feeling to being at a minor league baseball game. If the team was lucky they would get half capacity, the marketing tactics would make you cringe at times, and to be honest, these games had no flair. Put simply, there was no excitement. Also for this story to make sense you have to understand the fan base for the Rockers was lesbians and small children. I am yet to hear from the children on this issue but I have heard from several women who would identify themselves as lesbians and boy were they mad and some of them apparently still are for the loss of this team.

Now this particular friend of mine felt like the owners of the Cleveland Cavaliers had given up on the Rockers to promote LeBron James, as if he needs anyone’s help to promote himself. They felt Gordon Gund, the owner of the Cavaliers didn’t care enough to promote women’s sports in Cleveland. Here is my opinion on that: It is not Gordon Gund’s job to support a failing sports league. He is a business man. Sports is a business. Also for anyone familiar with Gordon Gund, then I am sure you are familiar with the Gund Foundation, an organization started by his father in 1952 to support the city of Cleveland. The Gund Foundation is synonymous with philanthropy and last year alone gave away close to 28 million in grants to fund the arts, economic development, the environment and human services. Plain and simple, the man and his family care about people bettering themselves but he wants to win on the court. Now I want to make a comment to all of those women that felt like the CAVS gave up on the Rockers to promote LeBron and a new era in CAVS history, get over it. I am the strongest proponent of Title IX I know (keep in mind it ONLY has to do with educational institutions), I have spent the past ten years either working in women’s sports or researching women’s sports. However, why we would we want to rely on men to support our women’s sports leagues in the first place? Yes, in many historic battles for women's rights, men have served as allies but women were not solely dependent on these men, especially for ten years without gaining anything for either gender in return.

The reason I find this issue relevant today is that I still hear people talk about LeBron as if he is the reason the Rockers disbanded. Gund just sold the CAVS at the beginning of this year and I feel his legacy as a person who wanted to better people should remain strong. Women should not blame LeBron or Gund for the failure of the Rockers, they should blame themselves. Oh...and yes, I am a lesbian.