--- title: Breanna Stewart Used ESPY Speech To Talk Inequality description: LeBron James and Breanna Stewart won ESPYs for Best Athlete—the WNBA star used her moment to speak for change canonical: https://time.com/4406421/breanna-stewart-equality/ author: Megan Lasher article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-14T17:12:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:02:56.391Z og:title: Breanna Stewart Used Her ESPY Moment to Address Inequality og:description: The WNBA star and Best Female Athlete is tired of inequality in her sport og:url: https://time.com/4406421/breanna-stewart-equality/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57dd5321af7d41b4/69889c005f570fded6b21b4b/breanna-stewart-espy-equality.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: ABC's Coverage of The 2016 ESPYS og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Breanna Stewart Used Her ESPY Moment to Address Inequality twitter:description: The WNBA star and Best Female Athlete is tired of inequality in her sport twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57dd5321af7d41b4/69889c005f570fded6b21b4b/breanna-stewart-espy-equality.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Breanna Stewart Used Her ESPY Moment to Speak Out Against Inequality > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher Jul 14, 2016 5:12 PM UTC  WNBA player Breanna Stewart won an ESPY for Best Female Athlete. WNBA player Breanna Stewart won an ESPY for Best Female Athlete. Image Group LA—ABC via Getty Images by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher Jul 14, 2016 5:12 PM UTC The 2016 ESPY winners for Best Male Athlete and Best Female Athlete were basketball players [LeBron James](http://espn.go.com/espys/2016/story/%5F/id/17061236/2016-espy-awards) and Breanna Stewart. Chances are, you’ve heard of James a couple thousand times but might have had to Google that second name. For two accomplished athletes, it’s clear who is more famous—and Stewart was quick to point out this difference. “Now that I’m in the WNBA, playing with other amazing female athletes, I’m trying to understand why we, as professional female athletes, don’t receive anywhere near the fame,” [Stewart said ](http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/news/a61333/espys-best-female-athlete-breanna-stewart-gender-equality/)upon accepting the award. “This has to change. I know that everyone in this room loves and supports women and girls in sports and wants to be a part of that change, right?” Stewart isn’t the first athlete to bring up this discrepancy. In an [interview with Motto](http://motto.time.com/4263401/elena-delle-donne-sexism-interview/), fellow WNBA player Elena Delle Donne spoke out about the sexism she’s seen in her career. “When \[interviewers\] ask if we have a certain sponsorship, they then ask, ‘Is it because you’re pretty?’ And that’s something that I don’t think men get,” Delle Donne told Motto. “And that’s what’s so frustrating. Instead of talking about our skill level on the court, they want to talk about that. So that’s the part that is a little tough and I hope to see change.” [_Follow Motto on Facebook._](https://www.facebook.com/mottoworkplaylive/) Soccer athletes are also speaking up, most recently with the United States Women’s National Team’s “[#EqualPlayEqualPay](http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2016/07/11/3797009/equal-pay-equal-play-uswnt/)” campaign, which demanded that female athletes make what their male counterparts do. “We need to narrow the gender [pay gap](http://motto.time.com/4201637/pay-gap-calculator/) because it sends a strong message,” athlete [Abby Wambach](http://motto.time.com/4233620/abby-wambach-on-hillary-clinton-equality-pay-gap/) wrote on Motto. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4406421/breanna-stewart-equality/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4406421/breanna-stewart-equality/"},"headline":"Breanna Stewart Used Her ESPY Moment to Speak Out Against Inequality","datePublished":"2016-07-14T17:12:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:02:56.391Z","description":"The WNBA player and Best Female Athlete is tired of inequality in her sport","url":"https://time.com/4406421/breanna-stewart-equality/","keywords":["motto","News","Sports"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57dd5321af7d41b4/69889c005f570fded6b21b4b/breanna-stewart-espy-equality.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan Lasher","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57dd5321af7d41b4/69889c005f570fded6b21b4b/breanna-stewart-espy-equality.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"ABC's Coverage of The 2016 ESPYS","caption":"WNBA player Breanna Stewart won an ESPY for Best Female Athlete.","creditText":"Image Group LA—ABC via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4406421/breanna-stewart-equality/","name":"Breanna Stewart Used Her ESPY Moment to Speak Out Against Inequality"}}]}] ```