Before every Valkyries game, players walk what is known as the “concrete runway” in high-fashion outfits called “tunnel fits.” In fact, this happens at every WNBA game, in every city, across the country. In these pre-game walks, players show a range of elevated styles—and gender expressions.
KALW’s Jordan Karnes talks to Valkyries’ guard Tip Hayes about the phenomenon of tunnel fits, and explains the surprising and important history behind these looks.
Click the play button above to listen!
Story transcript:
REPORTER: A player’s tunnel fit sets the tone for every game. In the words of NFL superstar, Deion Sanders, “Look good, feel good, play good.” And whether it’s Kelsey Plum—mid-divorce—in an all-black leather revenge fit featuring nothing but an unbuttoned mini-vest atop high-waisted barrel pants, or Courtney Williams in a bespoke tartan suit with a pop of lime around the collar: WNBA players know how to look good. But what really stands out about WNBA tunnel fits — more than any other league in any other sport—is the range of elevated gender expression on display.
Styles range from high femme to androgynous, to more masc presenting.
But that hasn’t always been the case. Let’s go back to the early 2000s.
At this point, the W had already survived longer than any other American women’s professional sports league, but its future was still uncertain. Both game attendance and revenue had started to wane, which meant that the league, and its teams, held power over their players.
One way this power dynamic showed up was in how players could express themselves off the court.
Hypatia Sorunke, an expert in WNBA fashion, points to Seattle Storm legend Sue Bird, who was a rookie in 2002.
HYPATIA SORUNKE: Right, like them trying to paint her as this, like, you know, girl next door, or like a very cisgendered straight woman who, like, could appeal to a male audience.
REPORTER: Sue Bird wasn’t out as a rookie. Very few players were openly gay in the early 2000s. Here she is talking about the pressure she felt as a rookie to present herself more femininely — and straight — during an interview with sports journalist Pablo Torre.
SUE BIRD: It was basically told to me that the only way I was going to have success from a marketing standpoint is to really sell this straight girl next door. “You have quote-unquote, ‘the look.’” So these were things that were told to me. And at 21, I was afraid of, like, all of it.
And now you’re telling me my career might not take off?
REPORTER: You can see evidence of this in a 2003 WNBA commercial.
WNBA commercial starts, featuring music and players talking.
REPORTER: There’s a shot of Sue in a low-cut floral spagetti-strap dress, laying in a hammock cradling a basketball. In the next shot, she looks directly at the camera and says,
BIRD: I’m not as sweet as you think I am.
REPORTER: Also, players weren’t making a lot of money at this time. When Sue was a rookie, WNBA players were making an average of forty-thousand dollars a year. For comparison, that same year, the average NBA player made four MILLION dollars. Not only did WNBA players not have much of a clothing budget, they didn’t have a lot of power to stand up for themselves to the league.
Hypatia is especially interested in following and archiving WNBA fashion, and its evolution, for how it reflects power dynamics in the league. You can see that in their book The Fitted W.
Hypatia says the W’s first decade, and then some, was marked by the kind of feminization you see in that commercial — often trying to appeal to male audiences.
SORUNKE: That definitely had a lot of implications, especially for more queer presenting and people who, like, nowadays are more in that, like, androgynous or masc kind of leaning fashion where they were in situations that, like, didn't necessarily align with who we see them as today.
REPORTER: Ten years later, Valkyries guard Tiffany “Tip” Hayes recalls feeling a similar pressure as a rookie to conform.
TIP HAYES: I definitely remember, people that I know, wouldn't even dress, like more feminine, was dressing more feminine. Because I was doing the same thing. Sometimes I'd be like, "I do not wanna wear this," but it was just like, the thing. It's like they wanted us to seem more professional, but I'm like, I shouldn't have to wear something that I'm not really even comfortable in.
REPORTER: So when did things begin to shift?
WNBA DRAFT: With the first pick in the 2013 WNBA draft, the Phoenix Mercury select Brittney Griner from Baylor University…
REPORTER: That night, Brittany Griner, or BG, as she’s affectionately known, showed up to the draft in an all-white custom suit.
SORUNKE: It's like this fitted, like, ivory suit, very tailored to her. So imagine this, like, this, like, 6'9" just goddess, stature, in this full white fit, and she comes in and she's like, "Nah, actually, I'm the number one draft pick and you're gonna have to put my face on everything. I get to be masc, I get to be myself, and I get to be the face of the league for at least a day."
REPORTER: This wasn’t a feminine twist on a suit. It was created by the same designer responsible for Ellen Degeneris’ trademark looks, and it reflected BG’s masculine style.
SORUNKE: I think that was definitely a big, like, turning point because that was the first time you see a first draft pick that's in a suit that's more masculine-presenting and being like, "Hey, I'm gonna be who I am.”
I think that was kind of the big kinda moment where it signaled to other people who came before her and even who came after her that, like, you can do whatever you want and they're just gonna have to accept that.
REPORTER: BG wasn’t alone that night. Layshia Clarendon, who later became the first player in the league to come out as non-binary, also sported a more masculine fit, wearing a navy blazer and grey slacks. Things were beginning to change in the W.
Two years later, you start to see Sue Bird in less girly looks for her pre-game tunnel walks. She’s wearing skinny jeans, blazers, and a pair of high-top converse.
Tip’s tunnel fits got less feminine around this time, too.
HAYES: Graphic tee, that was my go-to. I was a tight graphic tee, skinny jean pants, and either some Nikes, some G. Fazos or Chuck Taylors, and that's it. Maybe, maybe a little bit of jewelry.
REPORTER: Over the next few years, social media helped push the popularity of tunnel fits in the WNBA, and the league took notice. In 2019, the W launched a 7-episode YouTube series called “Match My Fly” that featured players working with different stylists to create tunnel fits.
REPORTER: What really stands out in this series is the mix of gender expression. There’s no pushing one kind of look — you get the masc stylings of BG and Natasha Howard, the feminine-presenting Monique Billings and Kalani Brown, and the fluid looks of Shenise Johnson and Kayla McBride.
On Kayla’s episode, the then-Aces guard describes her fashion as gender neutral. She also talks about the WNBA dress code for coming to games back then.
KALYA MCBRIDE: Some days I'm feeling a bit more feminine. Other days I'm not. Um, it just kinda depends and, you know, when we come to the games we have to be business casual. So it's kinda hard to decipher on what I'm actually gonna wear compared to what I'd wear when I go out and things like that.
REPORTER: Kayla’s stylist for the episode offers her a cherry red tuxedo with a black body suit to wear underneath.
MCBRIDE: I love it…I love it. Red’s my favorite color. I love blazers. Um, this is actually something that I wear a lot.
REPORTER: Around the same time as “Match My Fly,” Tip Hayes was starting to take her fashion even more seriously.
HAYES: Like, was my style what it is now? Right before COVID? No. But like that's kinda when I started like, ‘okay, maybe I should, like care a little more.’ When I was doing my outfits then, like yeah, I wanna look good, like I just wanna be fresh. It's probably gonna match more than anything.
But I wanted to like, elevate my style. I wanted to like, learn more about it. So,yeah, I started working with a stylist around then.
REPORTER: But working with a stylist isn’t cheap. So while some WNBA players could begin to afford expanding their fashion prowess, it wasn’t something readily available to everybody in the league.
The next big turning point in the WNBA’s tunnel fits journey was January 2020. That’s when the players and the league negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement, or CBA. This was a landmark deal, increasing player salaries by over 50 percent. For the first time in WNBA history, the average player was earning over six figures. Hypatia says this meant that more players could begin to splash out on their style.
SORUNKE: When you see tunnel fits now, you see it's elevated at a level where they're wearing designer, or they're wearing customs, or they're wearing things that, um, are a little bit on the pricier side, right?
Whereas back in the day, they were making less than teachers.
REPORTER: After this historic CBA, Tip recalls seeing more players start to invest in their tunnel fits.
HAYES: And not just me, like now it's like everybody's like, "I'm finna come in with some sh*t on."
REPORTER: And then, COVID struck. Starting July 2020, the WNBA played their 24th season in the “bubble.” Players were isolated from the outside world, and the tunnel fit was one of the only ways they had to express themselves.
Players used fashion as activism, wearing shirts in honor of Breonna Taylor, police reform, and voter registration. And with nowhere else to show off their style, even more players were coming to games in elevated looks: graphic tees fitted with bright colored suits, pants with bold patterns, designer handbags, you name it.
Legendary sideline reporter Holly Rowe, the only sports journalist in the bubble, took notice. Here she is on the podcast, No Hesitation.
HOLLY ROWE: I remember calling my boss and saying, "Hey, you know, like, the fits are a thing. Like, they keep coming in and we're doing tunnel fits, and we don't ever broadcast it. We're not showing it on TV." And my producer was literally like, "I don't understand what you're saying to me. What is a fit?" So I had to explain to her what a fit was. And so, like, I'm, I take a teeny bit of pride in that, like, I was the first one that got tunnel fits on TV in the bubble.
REPORTER: Average viewership for WNBA games increased by nearly 70 percent during the bubble season, while league social media interactions increased by 30 percent.
Hypatia says this year was a big deal for players.
SORUNKE: And like that becomes one of the more impactful things around 2020 that I feel like beyond, like the, the fashion of it all, beyond the like, ‘okay, now this is written into law that you have to like respect me,’ it became this moment for them to like respect themselves enough to want better for the future, and to be able to take on the responsibility of building that.
REPORTER: The other thing about this time in the bubble is that everyone was on their phones. Players were livestreaming their locker rooms and their lives, being themselves and people were watching.
When the popular sports fashion Instagram account, LeagueFits started in 2018, it mostly showed NBA players’ tunnel fits. But by 2020, LeagueFits was regularly featuring WNBA players, bringing a huge new audience to the W’s tunnel fits.
SORUNKE: Then, especially LeagueFits became almost, like, this home base for, okay, this player was wearing this fire fit, where can I find it, right?
REPORTER: And this spotlight translated into sponsorships and more financial opportunities for players — beyond just athletic brands.
SORUNKE: The influencer market is insane and I think like in terms of the amount of money, like you can get, like, 20K for one video. You can, you know, depending on the type of platform that you have, you can get 5K for a minute video, you know, things like that.
REPORTER: Along with the salary increase, this new revenue meant that more players were able to afford elevated fashion — and hire personal stylists.
HAYES: Now, I’m like, people have stylists. Like, people are like getting their clothes ready the day before, like stuff like that. So like it's, it's a thing. Like you look good, feel good, play good. That's just what it is now.
REPORTER: For Tip, the extra income meant the freedom to explore and develop her sense of style and self, which was starting to lean into more gender expansive territory.
HAYES: Cause I used to be, like, nervous, like, worrying about what other people was thinking. And then I'm like, "All right, it's just me and me right now. Let's just figure out what you like and then just be confident in it." And that's, it just blew up from there.
REPORTER: The increase in audience and independent revenue continued to shift the power in the W, from the league to its players.
HAYES: I feel like we've definitely grown to like, know that we can be ourselves. Like, uh, I think we've had to definitely come to that, and I think there's more people that had to get on the train of that for it to be like, a known thing. Like, ‘know, we're gonna speak our mind. Know, we're gonna stand up for ourselves. Know, we're gonna make sure people know we know our worth.’
REPORTER: Players felt safer to express themselves, and dress however they wanted.
Take Sue Bird. By the time she retired in 2022, the days of dressing like “the girl next door” to please the league were long behind her. That season, she arrived to games in tailored suits and pants in bold, colorful prints; boxy chore coats buttoned to the collar, and pristine sneakers. A very different vibe from the feminine looks we saw 20 years earlier.
Today, tunnel fits have become such a big phenomenon that teams feature them on their own social media pages. The Valkyries regularly post tunnel fits, and even took it a step further in 2025 with the first-ever Valkyries Fashion show.
The show was an opportunity for Tip Hayes to highlight her off-the-court talent. A year before, she had actually launched her own fashion line, Seyah.
REPORTER: Former Valkyries’ center Temi Fagbenle modeled for Seyah. She wore a floor-length, camel-colored leather trench coat over a white oxford shirt unbuttoned to her waist. The shirt was tucked into a black leather mini-skirt, and she had a black tie loose around her collar. Think deconstructed business femme.
Many of the other pieces in the show featured Valkyries gear that spanned gender expression: boxy or oversized polo jerseys, a pinstriped Valkyries jacket with matching wide-legged pants, and a cropped halter paired with purple Air Force Ones. It was a show that had a little something for everyone.
HAYES: It's like, you love to see - like everybody now - expressing themselves.
REPORTER: And for Tip, that’s the whole point of style.
HAYES: I mean, everybody has their own style. Everybody should be different.
There's a lot more people coming out about, their personal lives now than hiding it. I just think we're now living in our truth and like we're all doing it together, so like it's a great thing.
REPORTER: Hypatia Sorunke thinks that Tip’s approach to style plays an important role in current WNBA fashion because of how it pushes the imagination of what expression can be.
SORUNKE: When I think about Tip Hayes, right, like being able to experiment with different types of, like... It almost feels like a little surrealist, which is really nice, especially in, uh, the women's basketball space.
REPORTER: Tip’s turn to this surreal style was a breakthrough for her as a designer.
HAYES: I think when I made the Tsunami Pants!
REPORTER: The Tsunami Pants are like nothing you’ve ever seen before. They’re heavily ruched silk, wavy, slightly flared pants that come in either inky black or creamy ivory. The name says it all: these are the tidal wave of pants. And yes, they are super surreal.
HAYES: I had these, like, silver, futuristic-looking glasses with them. That might have been with a white button-up. I was a, white button-up, I was in that phase for a while too.
But that outfit was really, like, out of the box for me, but I liked it. It, was, like, futuristic for me.
REPORTER: But the Tsunami Pants were just a stepping stone for Hayes, who feels like she’s already moved on from that particular look.
HAYES: Like, I'm not, I'm not in that phase no more, so I kind of like don't wear them a lot, but I do love them.
When I do stuff like that, it's because I experience those things, right? So like the, for instance, the, uh, Grounding Pants.
REPORTER: The Grounding Pants are another Seyah creation: wide leg pants or shorts that appear to be made of green astro turf.
HAYES: When I'm out there and I'm like, feeling the grass and I got my feet to the ground. I could be relaxed, I could be nervous, whatever, I'm just sitting there just like rubbing on the pants like. 'Cause it reminds me like a, I'm grounded. So they, it makes me feel better.
REPORTER: The Grounding Pants symbolize the goal of this whole WNBA tunnel-fit journey: to feel good in the clothes you wear. To feel grounded in your gender expression, and how you get to move through the world. From street sidewalks, to the tunnels inside of arenas before basketball games.
