There’s something about WAGs — the wives or girlfriends of more famous men, especially professional athletes — that just gets people annoyed. Maybe it’s because their success comes from achievements people feel these women didn’t contribute to. And so when WAGs like Brittany Mahomes lean into the spotlight too much, they’re told to ‘know their place.’ But is this all a way of demanding that women in the public eye be a little… quieter, and not get too dominant in sports? Here’s our take on WAGs, and what the hate they inspire tells us about today’s moment.
TRANSCRIPT
There’s something about WAGs that just gets people annoyed.
Today we’re bombarded with content showcasing the lives of rich women, and fans enjoy the way cast members often get taken down a notch. But with WAGs — the wives or girlfriends of more famous men, especially professional athletes — there’s a different level of criticism. Maybe it’s because their success comes from achievements people feel these women didn’t contribute to. And so when WAGs like Britanny Mahomes lean into the spotlight too much, they’re told to know their place. But is this all a way of demanding that women in the public eye be a little… quieter, and not get too dominant in sports?
Here’s our take on WAGs, and what the hate they inspire tells us about today’s moment.
How Much Is Too Much?
It’s not every WAG that draws hatred from the general public, but a particular kind of WAG who people perceive as overstepping the bounds of what they should be allowed to do. Britanny Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, has become a top internet target for how over-the-top she is in her man’s celebrations.
Brittany has been called out for criticizing referees on her twitter, over-celebrating at games, and getting into online fights with fans from other teams, and even elected officials. This has spilled over into people calling her ugly, and saying Patrick could do better. In a recent interview she said, “I had to change my phone number because people were texting me and harassing me and saying all these mean and hateful things”.
What’s implicit here is that WAGs should be quieter, take up less space. Be supportive, yes, but not too loudly or obnoxiously supportive. A good example of this quietly supportive WAG is Olivia Holzmacher, girlfriend of Bengal Quarterback Joe Burrow. She doesn’t get much abuse for her social media posts because they’re mostly pretty pictures of herself cheering on Joe in an unremarkable way. Lebron James’ wife Savannah James is also widely admired for her grounded, more understated presence and support of her husband. A good comparison of how WAGs should and shouldn’t behave came in 2022, with the incredibly public spat between British WAGs Colleen Rooney, wife of DC United manager Wayne Rooney, and Rebekah Vardy, wife of former England international Jamie Vardy. When Colleen planted some fake stories on her Instagram feed to confirm that Rebekah was leaking them to the tabloids, she was dubbed “Wagatha Christie”. But in the ensuing libel trial, it was Rebekah who took the most blows. Not only did she seem guilty of the leaks, but more broadly there was a sense that she was exploiting her proximity to world class stars, courting the limelight in a way Colleen never did. Rebekah was seeking attention, sometimes by dirty means, while Colleen was simply trying to carve out an identity for herself apart from her husband as a modern day mom-trepreneur.
Of course, the real victors in that trial were the media and the public, who ate up each new gossip drop as soon as it emerged. Because while certain WAGs might be seen as annoying, WAG culture is becoming big business — and maybe for some people, that’s exactly the problem.
WAGs Culture
The term WAGs may have gone global now, but its first and most dramatic entrance into the public lexicon came in 2006, when the WAGs of the England football team threatened to overshadow their husbands’ performances at that year’s World Cup. Stars like Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Cole and Colleen Rooney were a fixture of the tabloids for their late-night bar crawls, and their glamorous appearances in the stands. But because that England team underachieved so much during that era, it was often the WAGs who got the blame. They were a distraction. A sideshow. They shouldn’t have been there, or if they had to be, then they should have kept a lower profile.
The presence and visibility of WAGs changes our relationship with their partners. We’re used to seeing athletes as almost superhuman in what they’re able to do on a court or on a pitch. But when we start associating them with a cheering partner, or worse, a messy partner who’s all over the morning’s papers, it colors how some fans see their performances.
Really, this snobbery is an extension of the snobbery toward those deemed famous for being famous. This is reinforced by the fact that so many WAGs have found a home in reality TV franchises that already inspire that kind of criticism. Even some of the Kardashians have been sports WAGS. But interestingly, WAGs often get cast as the villains of the piece. Real Housewives of Atlanta WAGs Kim Zolciak-Biermann, Porsha Williams and Sheree Whitfield have all been cast as problematic, bitchy, or just plain mean. The preconception that WAGs are desperate for the limelight helps turn them into these characters who are always causing drama, with whoever happens to be in their orbit.
Wives and girlfriends who are famous in their own right tend to escape this typecasting, as if because they have their own thing going they’re allowed to share in their husband’s glories. Gisele Bundchen at times outshone her ex husband Tom Brady, and many sided with her in their divorce. Fans don’t take issue when Eric Decker’s country singer wife Jessie James Decker celebrates her husband’s wins. And increasingly, many WAGs today already have a following before they date a famous player – like Perrie Edwards who was famous for her band Little Mix and Alisha Lehmann who’s also a footballer herself. Or else, they try to get their own thing after they’re famous – like Cristiano Ronaldo’s partner Georgina Rodriguez (who has over 40 million instagram followers) starring in her own reality show. Ted Lasso invents a wonderful WAG character in Keeley, who goes from dating one professional soccer player to another – but while she starts out as the famous-for-being-famous cliche she eventually blossoms into a confident, empowered woman who’s making good use of her many gifts. Ayesha Curry – wife of Steph Curry – has done this well in real life, managing to come through with her charisma and personality to pull off her own successful projects. And Ryan Reynolds’ and Rob McElhenney’s documentary Welcome To Wrexham – about them buying a Welsh football club – provides a funny twist when you have ultra-famous Hollywood actors Blake Lively and Kaitlin Olsen becoming WAGs for a minor team.
So overall, these distinctions people love to make between who’s a deserving or undeserving WAG, who should know their place and who’s allowed to take up more space, are making less and less sense.
Maybe a lot of us just envy the WAG– because it seems pretty nice to get launched into this elite lifestyle through meeting a rich, successful guy. On Orange is the New Black, when one of the characters hooks up with a basketball player, she feels like she may have hit the lottery. And we might wonder if there is something exceptionally savvy, smart, or magnetic about this person who managed to attract, support and stay together with an ultra-successful performer in any field. As Chris Rock jokes about his ex-wife’s share of the wealth he’s made through stand-up comedy: “My ex-wife is the smartest person I know. She’s just as rich as me and she’s not funny at all.” But to dwell on the idea that a WAG doesn’t deserve winning this lottery is kind of absurd – because there isn’t really any fairness or “deserving” when it comes to who gets to be obscenely wealthy, at all.
The Drama Of Sport
Sports are a soap opera, packed with drama, intrigue, rivalries, narrative and scandal, as much as any reality show. The birth of WAG culture in the 00s was also the birth of shows like From Wags to Riches, Dream Team and Footballers Wives, and it’s telling that the latter is enjoying something of a cult revival after being launched onto streaming services, and hitting its 20th anniversary.
Shows like Basketball Wives, Baller Wives, and WAGs Miami allow for drama unfiltered by actual extensive athletics, while still existing in this interesting, exciting world of elite level sport But these shows have an interesting dual function, and that’s to subtly change how women are seen in the context of sport. Traditionally, the role of women in men’s sports is as supportive eye candy. Boxing has ring girls, football has cheerleaders. They are window dressing, whose role is really to fire up the crowd, and honestly, mostly just to look good.
But the WAG has agency, personality. And maybe this is the real reason that loud, extravagant, space-filling WAGs are subject to so much hate. By not remaining in the background as eye candy, they become a reminder that sports in general are gradually changing to be less male-dominated. Women’s sports are growing in popularity, and it’s more common to see women as presenters and commentators too. For a lot of men who’ve gotten used to sport being a space apart from women, that might be perceived as a kind of threat to what they’ve always known. WAG Culture also shines a spotlight on all the non-sporting things that make following a sport so engaging, which aren’t typically coded as masculine. The gossip, the fashion, the celebrity, the feuds. All these things have always intersected with sports, and are crucial to their popularity. Now, documentaries like Drive To Survive, the All Or Nothing series, or Welcome to Wrexham have shown the appetite is there for sports content that isn’t just about the sport. So maybe it’s time to accept the ways this whole environment is expanding.
Outro
The problem people have with WAGs is that they think they’re just piggybacking off the success of their men. But how do these people know that the WAG hasn’t been a key part of helping her family succeed?What’s that phrase — behind every great man, there’s a great woman? There are so many subtle and nuanced ways that a partner or spouse can benefit someone’s overall life and career. WAGs may be cheering on from the sidelines, but that cheering, that support, could be the marginal gain that gets them over the line.
At the end of the day, when Britanny Mahomes and others like her are taking up space or celebrating like they just won the game themselves, it’s because…well, they kinda did.
SOURCES
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Chavkin, Daniel. “Brittany Mahomes Is Not Happy With Cincinnati Mayor’s Proclamation.” Sports Illustrated, 28 Jan. 2023 https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2023/01/28/brittany-mahomes-cincinnati-mayor-proclamation-patrick-mahomes
Sam. “Joe Rogan mocks Patrick Mahomes’ wife after Super Bowl antics: Keep that same energy when you get divorced!” MARCA, 26 Feb. 2023 https://www.marca.com/en/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/2023/02/26/63fb4850e2704e3b598b45ba.html
Hendricks, Jaclyn. “Joe Burrow’s girlfriend, Olivia Holzmacher, tailgates with Bengals QB koozie.” New York Post, 11 Sep. 2022 https://nypost.com/2022/09/11/joe-burrows-girlfriend-olivia-holzmacher-tailgates-at-bengals-game/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter
Kindon, Frances. “The WAG class of 2006 - from drug scandals and £57k shopping sprees to dancing drunk on tables.” Mirror, 4 Jul. 2018 https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/remembering-wags-2006-drug-scandals-12852499
Hogan, Michael. “A seminal slice of TV trash: it’s Footballers’ Wives at 20!” The Guardian, 7 Jan. 2022 https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jan/07/a-seminal-slice-of-tv-trash-its-footballers-wives-at-20