Hate against sports stars is soaring and it is becoming meaner, the anonymity of a keyboarding emboldening vicious attacks.
The WNBA’s Chicago Sky is working to protect players with an app by agencies, BarkleyOKRP and Putney, that lives of players’ phones and blocks negative social posts. The app is part of a new campaign, Block the Negativity, Post Up Positivity, that extends Chicago Sky ‘s year-three initiative to support players’ mental health and wellbeing. It enables players and others to block negative social posts. The campaign was inspired by the majority of female athletes having experienced some form of online harm that poses a direct threat to their mental health.
The app, currently in beta testing, lives on The Chicago Sky players’ phones. It uses AI to identify negative posts in players’ social feeds and blocks them. The app will be available to Chicago Sky players this week and then to the public later in the year. In addition to keeping negative posts from showing up, the campaign encourages fans to flood social feeds with positive messages.
The campaign for the initiative features Chicago Sky players, Angel Reese, Chennedy Carter, Isabelle Harrison, and Brianna Turner, all of whom are confronted with mean and unpleasant social comments that surround them on the basketball court. Chicago Sky coach, Teresa Weatherspoon, makes an appearance to encourage her players. The Angel C. Reese Foundation and Mesirow Financial are partners of the program.
The full campaign includes a series of online videos, social posts, in-arena activations, a website and merch featuring headbands with positive affirmations from the players themselves. The videos were produced by Miniac and directed by Cristopher Pina. It is an evolution of The Net, a program now in its third year that was created by BarkleyOKRP in partnership with the Chicago Sky. The Net was designed to provide a network of mental health support for women in sport, encourage others to find their community in managing mental wellness and with this year’s program, to bring The Net to more people beyond the Chicago Sky.
