WNBA president Lisa Borders is glad her players are activists — she just wishes that activism would stay out of the arenas.
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After several teams and multiples players received fines for wearing all-black warm-ups for the Black Lives Matter movement, many expressed their anger that their freedom of speech right was being suppressed.
However, Borders said the black shirts were not in regulation, therefore the players and teams were breaking certain rules and needed to be fined.
"We were making every effort to engage our players," she told The Associated Press on Friday. "We made an effort to support them and we were trying to get them to come to the table to have a conversation. The players have an open invitation with the league. Our players are important to us. We believe in them. We want them to be the people they are and we're proud of them. We want to make sure they play well on the court and they are happy off the court."
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The players aren't pleased and said more than a black shirt is at stake.
"The players want to blog about (Black Lives Matter), tweet about it, do videos. They want to raise visibility and keep the conversation going. They don't want this to die out," WNBAPA director of operations Terri Jackson said.
According to Borders, the players can still remain active on the social scene, as long as the warm-up attire isn't violated.
"We want the players to know that we have supported them in the past, support them today and will continue to support them in the future," she said. "We're not trying to stop them from expressing themselves."