Women's Fastbreak On SI

WNBA Fans Furious About Valkyries Expansion Draft Spoilers

WNBA fans are not happy about some reported results of the WNBA Expansion Draft getting spoiled before ESPN's broadcast.

Grant Young

Apr 6, 2024; Cleveland, OH, USA; Iowa Hawkeyes guard Kate Martin speaks at press conference at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Apr 6, 2024; Cleveland, OH, USA; Iowa Hawkeyes guard Kate Martin speaks at press conference at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The women's basketball community is now less than a half hour away from the start of the Golden State Valkyries WNBA Expansion Draft.

This is an extremely exciting time in the sport right now, as it officially marks the Valkyries' inclusion into the WNBA and conveys what their roster will look like for their first official season.

The expectation was that everybody would find out about the Expansion Draft results at the same time. Alas, that is not what happened in reality, as The Athletic reported about 90 minutes before the draft that, "The Golden State Valkyries will be selecting Kate Martin and Kayla Thornton in the 2025 WNBA expansion draft".

Many fans are excited about Martin (reportedly) leaving the Las Vegas Aces for the Valkyries.

However, some fans are more upset about this news getting leaked in the first place — which they conveyed on social media.

"Why are yall leaking information before the draft is out??? DELETE," wrote X user @lifewithkeerose in response to an aggregated report from Underdog WNBA regarding the Expansion Draft leak.

Another fan added, "Don’t spoil it damn".

"now it’s bout to be 28 minutes cause yall wanna spoil 2 players they might pick 😒," wrote a third.

It's important to note that it's common practice for reporters and journalists in other sports to "leak" information of this sort during major events like drafts, and this is just a byproduct of journalists doing (and being good at) their job.

However, fans in those other sports get upset about these spoilers too. Perhaps WNBA fans feeling the same way is another indication that the sport has entered the mainstream.

Published
Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

Home/News