The WNBA didn’t literally sneak into Wrigleyville, climb the flagpole, and swipe the Cubs’ iconic W banner, but it might as well have in the court of public opinion. The league’s attempt to trademark “The W” for apparel has put it on a legal collision course with the Cubs and Nationals, and symbolically it feels to a lot of Chicago fans like somebody messing with the most sacred piece of cloth on the North Side.
Legally, this is a pretty dry trademark dispute. The WNBA filed in March 2025 to register THE W as a standard-character mark for jerseys, shirts, caps, and similar gear. The Cubs and Nationals responded with a joint opposition, arguing that the phrase could cause confusion with their existing W-related trademarks, especially in the apparel lane.
An MLB source has already tried to pour water on the fire by saying the sides are in constant communication and expect to resolve it amicably by establishing clear boundaries around how each brand uses W. On paper, that’s just IP lawyers doing IP lawyer things.
Emotionally, though, it hits different in Chicago. The Cubs have been flying a white flag with a blue W at Wrigley Field since the 1930s, using it as a visual scoreboard so people outside the park could tell whether the team won that day. Over time that simple flag morphed into one of the most beloved symbols in baseball, woven into songs, merch, and an entire “Fly the W” culture that survived even through decades of heartbreak. You don’t have to be a trademark lawyer to know that if you mess with that symbol — even indirectly — you’re stepping into holy ground for Cubs fans.
From the WNBA’s perspective, there is some logic here. The league has leaned into The W as a nickname for years, to the point where it filed a separate THE W trademark back in 2024 for entertainment and educational services related to basketball; that earlier filing was never opposed by MLB teams.
Extending that nickname to apparel is the kind of brand consistency any marketing department would push for, especially in a league that’s still fighting for mainstream recognition. The WNBA isn’t trying to patent the letter W itself, just the phrase THE W in specific commercial categories. On a whiteboard in a conference room, this probably looked like a no-brainer.
The problem is that the WNBA lives in an environment where literally everything becomes a referendum on the league. In the last few seasons, on-court incidents and commentary around Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and other stars have routinely been dragged into larger culture wars about race, gender, and politics.
A routine hard foul in a Fever–Sky game in 2024, later upgraded to a flagrant-1, spiraled into a full-blown national controversy, with pundits framing it as evidence of jealousy, bad faith, or worse. Another high-profile foul in a recent game sparked debates about cheap shots and officiating, again overshadowing the actual basketball being played. When even basic physical play becomes a week-long news cycle, you know the league is operating under a microscope.
On top of that, the commissioner herself has been criticized for not taking a stronger public stance against racist and homophobic abuse directed at players like Clark and Reese, with the players’ union calling her response disappointing.
That’s the backdrop here, a league trying to ride an unprecedented wave of popularity while constantly fighting off storms it either walks into or fails to get out in front of. The last thing the WNBA needs is another storyline that lets critics say, See, they’re focused on the wrong things again.
Whether the WNBA is right on the law isn’t really the point for most fans. Coverage of the dispute has suggested the league has a solid argument that The W as a phrase creates a distinct commercial impression from a stylized single letter on a flag or a logo.
In the courtroom, that nuance matters. In the bleachers, it doesn’t. To a big chunk of sports fans — especially in Chicago — it’s going to look like the WNBA trying to carve out a piece of a tradition they didn’t build, and doing it in a way that feels tone-deaf to the weight that W flag carries.
And that’s where this becomes another avoidable hit to the league’s image. From a pure growth standpoint, the WNBA needs as many casual sports fans as possible to check out the product, see the skill level, and stick around.
The storylines that help with that are about sellout crowds, record TV ratings, rivalries, and playoff runs — not headline after headline about legal fights with MLB, social-media culture wars, and who owns a letter. When every few weeks bring another controversy, it feeds a narrative that the league is more drama than basketball, even when the truth is that the games themselves have never been better.
It’s also terrible optics to pick a fight — again, in perception if not intent — with one of the most tradition-heavy fan bases in American sports. Cubs fans are fiercely protective of their history, and the W flag is about as iconic as it gets.
Even if the WNBA wins the legal argument, it risks losing hearts and minds among fans who might otherwise have been open to checking out Sky games or buying WNBA merch. Framing this as the WNBA stealing the Cubs’ W practically writes itself for sports talk radio and columnists who already view the league skeptically.
The irony is that everyone involved appears to know this needs to be de-escalated. The sane outcome would let the Cubs keep flying the W in peace, let the Nationals hold onto their curly logo, and let the WNBA keep calling itself The W in contexts that don’t trample on nearly a century of tradition.
Here’s the thing, folks: Even if it gets settled quietly, the damage in the short term is real. At some point, the league has to decide which hills are worth dying on — not just legally, but in the infinitely more important arena of public perception.
With that . . . The WNBA is in a fragile sweet spot with more buzz, more stars, more money, and more scrutiny than ever. That’s exactly when you should be choosing battles that showcase your game, your players, and your growth, not ones that let critics say you’re stealing another league’s most famous flag.
When you do not play with them, you should not let a trademark dispute stop you from rooting for them!