CHICAGO, Ill. – Sometimes, professional athletes aren’t very different from us.
Take the Chicago Sky, for example. When the topic of travel is concerned, they’d prefer not to spend plenty of time in an airport.
“It’s really hard to be an airport,” Sky rookie Kamilla Cardoso said Wednesday.
For WNBA players especially, the travel situation was always dubious. The league didn’t have charter flights like other professional leagues, until this week that is.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced Tuesday the league would be using charter flights this season, which is a massive shift in the league’s development.
The Sky reacted in kind during the team’s media day on Wednesday.
“We don’t have a ton of details, but everybody’s happy for obvious reasons,” Sky general manager Jeff Pagliocca said. “The players and teams have been fighting for this for some time, so to finally hear what we heard yesterday, players are thrilled. They’re relieved.”
For starters, the stars of the league won’t have to wait in an airport for commercial flights where fans can approach players without guard.
“We got some really great players, some amazing people right here and everybody wants to take pictures,” Cardoso said. “I feel like our fans are gonna come over and follow us no matter what. Like me, Angel Reese and all of these girls, we have a lot of fans and they’re going to come out and going to support us, like we seen yesterday.”
The league has been asking for charter flights for years. The conversation took a turn last season when Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner was approached in an airport last season once she returned to the United States after missing the entire 2022 season. Griner was incarcerated on drug charges in Russia, and returned to the U.S. after a prisoner swap.
The league, which did not allow charter flights in its collective bargaining agreement, allowed Griner to take charter flights after that.
Now, the WNBA is going to have charter flights for all of its teams. Details may be forthcoming, but the players understand what it means in terms of planning for a game day.
“It’s going to help for one just timing wise, I feel like you lose a whole day when you flying commercial,” Sky guard Dana Evans said. “Like we have an off day, but we’re flying at 10 or 11:00 AM and we getting back around 1, 2, 3 and you’re tired. So it’s really not an off day, it doesn’t count.”
The players are also reveling in what it could mean for player performance.
“I feel like we’ll get a lot more rest using the charter flights,” Evans said. “That was the biggest focal point on that. It is resting because we play so many games in a short amount of times. We need those days off to really focus on our body and what we need to do.”
The WNBA is also in the midst of a massive momentum shift in women’s basketball.
Women’s college basketball was seeing record viewership. The last WNBA season had record viewership, too, but the players that ushered in the viewership records in college are now coming to the professional leagues.
Taking this step is a positive move for the WNBA, regardless of the details.
“Being able to have that, that’s a step in the right direction,” Sky forward Angel Reese said. “The CBA stuff is about to happen within the next year too. So just understanding the gravitation that we have right now and everything is in our hands right now to control and as long as we continue to keep going up and doing the right things. I think things are going to continue to grow.”
The Sky found out about the charter flights yesterday, the same as everyone else.
Once the team knows more, they’ll share the details. But, that doesn’t hinder the step forward the league made.
“There’s not a ton of details that have come our way yet,” Pagliocca said. “It happened pretty quickly, so we’re assuming we’ll be happy to share more details as soon as we have them.”
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