{"id":251472,"date":"2025-09-24T16:23:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/251472\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T16:23:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:23:10","slug":"wnba-embraces-player-identities-as-studbudz-rises-in-popularity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/251472\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA embraces player identities as StudBudz rises in popularity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-leagues-and-governing-bodies \">In a season \u201cdeprived of a full suite of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/07\/15\/caitlin-clark-to-participate-in-wnba-three-point-contest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/07\/15\/caitlin-clark-to-participate-in-wnba-three-point-contest\/\">Caitlin Clark magic<\/a>, in a season that saw the rise of the Lynx, in a league that has only recently embraced the variety of its players\u2019 identities,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/07\/21\/lynx-duos-studbudz-takes-over-all-star-weekend\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/07\/21\/lynx-duos-studbudz-takes-over-all-star-weekend\/\">the StudBudz<\/a> have \u201cbecome the biggest thing in the WNBA,\u201d according to Katie Barnes of ESPN.com. At the start of the season, Lynx Gs Courtney Williams and\u202fNatisha Hiedeman\u202f\u201cunleashed StudBudz accounts on Instagram and TikTok.\u201d The first Pride initiative in the WNBA did not happen until 2014. The \u201cfirst of its kind\u201d in American professional sports, the initiative \u201chighlighted the pressing need to serve LGBTQIA+ fans.\u201d The WNBA fanbase has \u201cmostly been served conventionally feminine players, even among those who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community.\u201d The StudBudz\u2019s queer ethos \u201cflips assumptions about attractiveness\u201d to fans and sponsors alike. They have also \u201cattracted some brands on their own,\u201d recently dyeing their hair \u201cperiod red\u201d for a partnership with Kotex, and \u201cmanaged to have fun with a topic that has traditionally been taboo.\u201d Williams sees their content as \u201cfilling a need for some\u201d and understands that StudBudz \u201cmight not be for everyone.\u201d Barnes noted All-Star Weekend this year launched the StudBudz into a \u201cdifferent stratosphere.\u201d According to Google Trends, \u201cStudBudz WNBA\u201d search interest in the U.S. \u201cincreased over 5,000% in July compared to June.\u201d During All-Star week, the query \u201cStudBudz merch\u201d had \u201cincreased over 5,000% in U.S. search interest\u201d compared to the previous week. If the Lynx wins the WNBA championship, \u201cprepare for a StudBudz party\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/story\/_\/id\/46315159\/studbudz-courtney-williams-natisha-hiedeman-minnesota-lynx-wnba-playoffs-2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ESPN.com, 9\/23<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a season \u201cdeprived of a full suite of Caitlin Clark magic, in a season that saw the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":251473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-251472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba","13":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115260201733765975","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}