“Being the Villain Is Easy for Angel Reese” — Former Netflix CMO Shares Bold Branding Advice for WNBA Star

Apr 15, 2024; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark pose for photos before the 2024 WNBA Draft at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Women’s basketball is more popular than it’s ever been. The women’s college game often draws just as many viewers as its male counterpart, while the WNBA has made the leap from being a niche sport to joining the mainstream conversation.

Though WNBA salaries aren’t yet reflective of what these ladies are worth (a fact they pointed out during this weekend’s All-Star Game), many are thriving off the court thanks to increased sponsorship opportunities.

Caitlin Clark is the single biggest catalyst in the rise in interest in the women’s game, and as such, she’s been a major beneficiary from a marketing perspective, as she currently has deals with Nike, Gatorade, State Farm and other major companies. She’s not the only one riding the wave, though. Right behind her is her rival dating back to her college days, Angel Reese.

Reese and Clark famously met in the 2023 national title game, with Reese’s LSU Tigers cutting down the nets after a 102-85 victory over Clark’s Hawkeyes. Reese became a lightning rod for criticism after she taunted Clark in the game’s waning moments, but Clark got revenge in the 2024 Elite Eight with a win to get back to the Final Four.

The rivalry has carried into the WNBA, as the two have traded flagrant fouls and contentious moments in their five professional games against each other. Clark has gotten the better of Reese on the court with a 4-1 head-to-head record, but both ladies, and the WNBA itself, have reaped the rewards of their bad blood.

Reese has numerous sponsorship deals of her own with companies like McDonald’s, Hershey and Beats by Dre. She was also recently named as the cover athlete for the WNBA Edition of NBA 2K26.

Angel Reese is already a star but still has room to grow

Bozoma Saint John, the former chief marketing officer for Netflix, recently appeared on the Scorer’s Society podcast, and she explained how Reese can become even bigger from a marketing perspective.

“For certain sports, it requires that you create main characters that people can cheer for or that they can make villains,” Saint John said. “It’s like casting a movie where you need all the different players, literal and figurative, to make the thing work.”

Saint John said that, traditionally, the WNBA has had a more difficult time than the NBA in promoting different types of personalities because of the societal expectations and inherent biases we have when judging females compared to males. “It’s easy for Angel Reese to be a villain,” she said as an example.

Whereas, in the past, there was no marketing lane for WNBA players to embrace being “the villain,” Saint John believes that it’s the perfect time for Reese to be the bad guy, so to speak.

“I think she should go full force, lean all the way in,” Saint John declared. “Wear some little short dresses that she likes to wear, show the body. Be at parties, dance on tables, drink a little bit, get mad on the court, do all of the things. Because you need somebody like that to attract an audience that also feels that.”

That’s just one piece of the puzzle for the WNBA to continue to grow its audience, Saint John argues. “You need Caitlin Clark to be who she is. And then you need to fill in all of these other characters so that the wider audience of sports, and also just of pop culture by the way, are attracted to them. That’s what makes any league or any company, any brand, really live.”

Saint John is an expert in her field. She knows what she’s talking about, and we’re seeing the fruits of this storytelling approach in how popular the league has become. Reese has also leveled up her game in recent weeks, which also helps.

No shade to Pat Beverley or Dillon Brooks, but if Reese was a villain in that mold while being a role player, that would only have limited appeal and, thereby, limited help for the WNBA and herself. If she could be more like a Draymond Green or even a Russell Westbrook or Anthony Edwards, stars that talk a lot of trash and back it up, that’s a whole different level.