Fox News stars are struggling to defend the obscene volume of coverage their programs have been devoting to culture war stories about the WNBA.

Fox dedicated 206 segments and more than 13.5 hours of airtime to WNBA coverage from June 25 through August 11, typically demagoguing issues related to race and trans inclusion in the women’s basketball league, a Media Matters study found. Such content, which has by no means abated since August 11, is likely more palatable and less depressing for its viewers than the deterioration of President Donald Trump’s Iran war or the GOP’s dwindling prospects in the midterm elections.

The co-hosts of Fox & Friends stressed the necessity of such seemingly endless coverage on Tuesday morning, portraying themselves as having their hands forced by the league’s actions.

“Let's talk about the WNBA because it's been seven minutes and I think we should be talking about that league,” Brian Kilmeade said, teeing up a segment about the Sunday ejection of Enes Kanter Freedom from a WNBA game after his courtside stunt provoked an altercation with Chicago Sky guard Natasha Cloud.

“I cannot believe how much we are talking about the WNBA, but having said that,” Kilmeade added.

“It’s not about the basketball at all, it’s all about the other drama,” Lawrence Jones replied.

After the hosts spent several minutes discussing the “drama,” Jones closed the segment by blaming the WNBA for the hosts’ decisions to cover the Freedom controversy instead of the league’s on-court play.

“The whole thing is ridiculous that we are to this point,” Jones said. “Like, [Indiana Fever star] Caitlin [Clark] gets 30 points the other night. This would be something that we would be talking about, like, that's historic … but instead we are talking about drama. And that’s not a league that is going to be taken seriously. You never talk about this sideline stuff in the NBA, and you just want to see a good game, and they are destroying it, they are destroying the league.”

Fox & Friends has featured discussions of the league on at least 14 of its 17 episodes this month, according to a Media Matters review.

The discussion of the network’s coverage by the Fox & Friends cohosts echoes similar remarks from America’s Newsroom anchor Dana Perino, who noted Monday that “we are talking about the WNBA in this way three to four times a week amongst all the other problems in the world,” and questioned whether the “controversy” is “helping or hurting the league.”

Fox News primetime host Jesse Watters, meanwhile, expressed exasperation during an August 3 WNBA segment on the panel show The Five, complaining: “I don’t want to cover women’s basketball. … We have to do this again, really?”

The Five subsequently covered the WNBA on four more episodes through Monday, when co-host Perino declared: “They are proving that women shouldn't have a league. It's too dramatic. Why can't you just play?”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters