WNBA Analyst, Rebecca Lobo, Actually Apologized On Air For Saying “That’s What Makes America Great” During Indiana Fever Game

What? You can’t call America great on live national television?

There’s no doubt that President Donald Trump’s slogan of “Make America Great Again” has become politicized beyond understanding. It started out as a sentiment of returning the United States to its former glory, and now, M.A.G.A. is basically one of the biggest triggers in politics.

It’s also become a bit of an overarching term used to describe Republican supporters of Trump, or anything associated with the president’s agenda.

All that to say that saying “America” and “great” in the same sentence can fire up the alarms for some people, and an example of exactly that played out in a recent WNBA broadcast. Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever were facing off against the Las Vegas Aces this past Sunday, and the exciting back-and-forth game was being aired on ESPN.

Considering Clark was out with an injury for much of the beginning of the season (that had some negative affects on the WNBA), it was nice to see the talented, superstar guard back on the court doing her thing. And late in the game, when an important foul call was challenged by the Indiana Fever – and eventually upheld – ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo stated that she disagreed with the call of the referees.

Lobo’s broadcasting counterpart, Pam Ward, pointed out that the refs disagreed with the view of the foul call that Lobo had. The ESPN analyst acknowledged that, and then said this:

“They do, and I disagree with them. And that’s fine. That’s what makes America great, right Pam Ward?”

As you’ll see when you watch the video below, an uncomfortable amount of dead air followed that comment from Rebecca Lobo, as if she had just confessed her love for President Donald Trump. In actuality, she was just pointing out that free speech – and being able to disagree with one another – is a quality of the United States that makes the country great.

Is that debatable? No.

But because it was too close to “Make America Great Again,” and due to the reaction that Pam Ward had to what Rebecca Lobo said, she had to walk it back and apologize:

That seems a bit ridiculous, does it not?

I understand that ESPN has been trying to distance themselves from intertwining politics with sports, after they decided to be more open to political elements seeping into their sports coverage just a few years back with not much success. But Rebecca Lobo wasn’t making a political statement… she was making an America statement – as in how happy she is to live in a country where two people can have differing viewpoints on something, and then just move on.

But based on that apology, sounds you can’t have opposing viewpoints, otherwise, why would you have to apologize for that? What she said was evidently too close to President Trump’s mantra, and ended up requiring an apology before the ESPN broadcast team could move on with the game.

If you ask me, that’s an example of unnecessary tip-toeing… and it looks like social media agrees with me: