Calling America “great” is apparently a flagrant foul in the WNBA.
ESPN basketball analyst Rebecca Lobo was essentially forced to eat her words after an off-the-cuff comment led to some awkward seconds of silence during a game between the Indiana Fever and the Las Vegas Aces on Sunday.
Not only did she backtrack on calling her own country “great,” she actually apologized afterward. And the public backlash has been scathing.
As Fox News reported, the embarrassing incident occurred when Lobo took issue with a foul call issued by officials in the closing minute of the contest.
You have to see it to believe it.
Check it out here:
Saying “that’s what makes America great” is treated like a slur, causes silence and an apology. Wild. pic.twitter.com/Dqgp6vufEU
— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) June 23, 2025
“They disagree with you,” play-by-play caller Pam Ward pointed out.
“They do, and I disagree with them,” Lobo said. “And that’s fine. That’s what makes America great, right, Pam Ward?”
It’s exactly the kind of light-hearted comment sports fans have heard from announcing booths since the birth of radio, generally followed by some generic agreement and maybe a lame joke about disagreeing with a spouse.
What followed, instead, was seven excruciating seconds of silence from the two women.
“I should rephrase that,” Lobo said.
“Yes,” Ward responded.
The audio is a little difficult to make out, but it sounds like Ward then suggested saying “differences of opinion are perfectly fine.”
“Yes, that’s a better way to say it,” Lobo said. “Sorry about that.”
Sorry about that? What, exactly, was Lobo sorry about?
These are two broadcasting professionals in the United States of America, a country that has for more than two centuries been the pinnacle of nations around the world. It was founded on the principles of ordered liberty for individuals, economic freedom and limited government.
It’s spent hundreds of years building on that foundation, gradually correcting the wrongs left over from the Founding days: Destroying slavery (it’s a safe bet both Ward and Lobo have at least heard of the Civil War); expanding the voting franchise (they’re probably familiar with the 19th Amendment); and generally making strides toward a more perfect union that is the envy of the world and a magnet for would-be immigrants from every inhabited continent.
Through victories in World War II and the Cold War, it’s saved the globe twice from totalitarian empires bent on world domination — and the destruction of individual liberty.
And as just the events of the past few days have proven, it remains a bulwark against the threat of murderous terrorist regimes bent on spreading their malicious cancers near and far.
And Lobo is sorry for calling it “great”?
It didn’t make for many fans on social media:
We’re not allowed to say that our country is great because why? Seems like every country on the planet knows we are great that’s why they bust down the borders to get here. We certainly have problems, always will, but this is the greatest country on planet earth.
— Creature of Habit2 (@CreatureHabit2) June 24, 2025
Seems like Pam Ward and @espn have great disdain for the country that allowed them to accrue great wealth and have the freedom to talk to about sports for a living. Shameful.
— Michael J. Hout (@michaeljhout) June 24, 2025
Every one of them is welcomed to move to Iran or Germany or wherever it’s now not even safe for women to say or do what they want.
— Betty Crocker (@BettysNoCrock) June 23, 2025
The irony of her statement of being able to disagree and how she apologizes for it offending her peer
— MAGA.com (@realmagadotcom) June 23, 2025
The sports-centric website Outkick reported Monday that it reached out to both Ward and Lobo for comment about the moment but that it had received no response.
But all in all, it was hardly surprising.
Most Americans who are even aware of the WNBA’s existence would probably agree that the league hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory.
Do you ever watch ESPN?
Even at its best, women’s basketball is no contest with men’s for the sheer athleticism involved (men’s and and women’s bodies being scientifically different), so it’s a niche market to begin with.
But the WNBA is so blinkered with a woke worldview that it hasn’t even been able to fully capitalize on the God-given gift of a generational talent like Caitlin Clark to stir up public interest without the raw resentment of other players turning Clark into a target.
And ESPN, of course, prostituted its purpose to leftist politics long ago — and far afield from the WNBA, into more popular sports like the NFL and the NBA.
A WNBA color commentator, on ESPN, apparently feeling it necessary to apologize for calling the United States “great” is simply par for the course. The fact that the word is part of President Donald Trump’s trademark platform of “Make America Great Again” no doubt just compounded the reflexively knee-jerk reaction.
It was a moment when ESPN came across more like NPR at its politically censored worst. And the WNBA broadcasters might as well have been the harridans on “The View” at their cattiest.
And it doesn’t get much fouler than that.
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