Sabrina Ionescu is the reigning WNBA 3-Point Contest champion.
Kayla McBride is one of the most prolific shooters in league history. Neither will be in Chicago for this year’s All-Star Weekend competition, and both say the reason is not that they declined an invitation but that no real invitation ever came.
The “Invitation” That Was Not One
ESPN reported earlier this week that Ionescu, McBride, and Caitlin Clark had all declined invitations to participate in the contest. The framing suggested that the league’s biggest names were snubbing a showcase event, a narrative that would have been embarrassing enough on its own for a league working to build its audience.
Then Ionescu fired back. “I can’t decline an offer I never got officially invited to,” she told reporters, as CBS Sports documented. Ionescu said she never received a formal invitation from the league, and that the characterization of her as having declined was “just false.”
McBride echoed the complaint with even sharper language. She wrote on her Instagram Story that she received what she called a “half ass invite” through her agent via text 48 hours before the announcement went public. No formal outreach, no official communication from the league office, no conversation about scheduling or logistics. Just a text from her agent saying the contest was happening and asking if she wanted in.
Why This Is About More Than a Skills Competition
The 3-Point Contest is one of the WNBA’s biggest All-Star Weekend attractions, particularly since Ionescu’s viral matchup with Stephen Curry that drew mainstream attention to the event. Losing the defending champion, one of the league’s most marketable stars, and Clark, whose crossover appeal from Iowa to the Indiana Fever has driven unprecedented viewership, turns a showcase into a second-tier event.
The six announced contestants are talented shooters: Bridget Carleton, Azzi Fudd, Natisha Hiedeman, Rhyne Howard, Marina Mabrey, and Janelle Salaun. But the absence of the names casual fans actually know undercuts the entire purpose of a showcase designed to grow the audience.
The invitation fiasco reveals a deeper organizational problem. A league that is experiencing its most significant surge in popularity, largely driven by Clark’s arrival and the expanded media deals that followed, is still running its tentpole events with the informal, last-minute communication style of a league that operated in relative obscurity for two decades. Texting an agent 48 hours before a public announcement is not how you treat a franchise player. It is how you treat an afterthought.
The Business Context Makes This Worse
The WNBA is in the middle of a transformative period. The league’s new media rights deal, its expansion to 16 teams, and record attendance numbers have created a genuine growth story that investors and sponsors are taking seriously. Every high-profile stumble like this one chips away at the narrative that the league is ready for primetime.
Ionescu’s situation is particularly telling. She missed nearly half of the Liberty’s games this season due to an ankle injury and back soreness, and her shooting numbers have dipped to a career-low 31.9% from three-point range. There may be legitimate reasons she would have sat out the contest even with a proper invitation. But the league never gave her the chance to make that decision in a way that preserved her dignity and the event’s credibility.
LNC previously reported on how the Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese rivalry has become the league’s most valuable marketing asset. That asset depends on the WNBA treating its stars as partners in building the product, not as names to be plugged into events at the last minute.
What the League Should Learn
The fix here is not complicated. Send formal invitations weeks in advance. Have a conversation with each player’s team about scheduling, health, and interest. Build the announcement around confirmed participants rather than scrambling to fill spots after your top picks say no, or say they were never asked.
The WNBA has spent years asking for the respect and investment that the NBA receives automatically. That respect requires institutional competence at every level, including the logistics of a skills competition that exists primarily as a marketing vehicle.
Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has built real momentum with the expansion and media deals, but moments like this expose the gap between the league’s ambitions and its execution. The NBA would never announce its 3-Point Contest lineup and then have Steph Curry tell reporters he was never formally asked. The reason is not that the NBA is inherently better at logistics. It is that the NBA treats its All-Star events as premium products worth the operational investment.
When your reigning champion tells the press she was never formally invited, that is not a scheduling mix-up. That is an organizational failure that undermines the credibility the league is working overtime to build.