Bleacher Report's Arielle Chambers: 100 Influential Black Women In Sports

arielle-chambers-100-influencer — Courtesy of Kevin Jude

Sports Illustrated and Empower Onyx are highlighting the diverse journeys of Black women through sports, from veteran athletes to rising stars, coaches, executives and more, in the series, Elle-evate: 100 Influential Black Women in Sports.

Arielle Chambers is known for using, or creating, platforms from which to tell the stories of black women in sports. As a writer, journalist, and insider on women’s sports and culture, she has been a regular screen personality for the WNBA, NBA, NHL, and more. Most notably, she created Bleacher Report’s HighlightHER, the women’s platform House of Highlights.

But before all that, Chambers, 30, told these stories through his own grassroots coverage. And while she may seem like an independent, self-driven force, she is influenced by the women around her, who lead by example, foster camaraderie (and often friendship), and act as resources for mutual empowerment.

Chambers grew up in Raleigh, to which she attributes her proximity to influential women in sports and basketball in particular. Just 30 minutes away at NC State, she saw head coach Kay Yow, who led the Wolfpack women’s basketball team to 700 career wins between 1975 and 2009. “I remember when I was a kid in the ’90s, we used to do field trips to NC State women’s basketball games,” says Chambers. “Women’s basketball was huge because you have Kay Yow, and then you go eight miles down the road to UNC and you have [former women’s basketball coach] Silvia Hatchel. Then go two hours south and you can see Dawn Michelle Staley playing for the Charlotte Stings.

“Seeing all these influential women in high places on the court really inspired me. Having their trading cards on my walls and posters every season, and being able to interact with them at 7 or 8 years old, stuck with me.”

Chambers attended NC State to study communication and media studies and even went abroad to Oxford University to study English. After graduating, he landed positions in the NBA, NHL, and WNBA working as in-game entertainment. It was during this time that he saw a huge discrepancy in the number of black female players compared to those in behind-the-scenes roles, especially in leadership and midfield positions within the WNBA.

“I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but my calling was to tell stories. I saw a league of 80% black women, many of them from the LGBTQIA+ community, and saw how their stories had been overlooked,” says Chambers. Drawing on her own personal relationships with the black athletes around her, Chambers began her own grassroots media coverage and used immediately available resources to amplify her stories.

“I saw that my friends needed their stories to be told. The only tool I had was my phone,” he says. “There was power in knowing what my friends wanted their stories to be and knowing that I could be a safe space for them to communicate that, without any hidden agenda or media bias. I like to think that as black women, especially young black women in the field, we have the ability to do that. See you.”

This coverage would catapult his own career and visibility, both immediately and in the long term. He has amassed more than 57,000 followers on his personal social media platforms alone. In 2017, he coined the phrase “THE WNBA IS VERY IMPORTANT” which went viral and eventually became Twitter Sports’ WNBA 25th Anniversary campaign. She has been a reporter for WNBA All-Star games, the NCAA Women’s Final Four, and the ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament, as well as hosting in-arena coverage for the Connecticut Sun, the WNBA’s digital news , the its time to play series and the LA Sparks’ Rooted in Los Angeles Post game series. He even hosts a weekly show on NBA TV during the WNBA season called do not sleep. she was appointed to Forbes’ “30 under 30 in sport” in 2021, Y took home the title of Miss North Carolina International 2021.

But perhaps most notable was the founding of her individually targeted women’s platform HighlightHER as part of Bleacher Report. Since 2019, HighlightHER has amassed over 170,000 followers and has become the fastest growing women’s sports platform. “If I have any bias, it is to tell the story of the underdog, to tell the stories that are not told. Just allowing players that space to be themselves and be amplified.”

She consistently acknowledges the relationships she built, trusting her immediate community, and using social media as a legitimate form of media, long before these platforms were as influential as they are today. “It’s yours,” says Chambers. “Social networks are yours: they allow you to have something you believe in and watch it grow exponentially and measure interest in it. You don’t have to wait for a network to say yes, you can test the numbers somewhere else and show that growth to people who don’t want to pay attention. You can take out what you want to take out.”

“And if someone says they did it on their own online, I strongly believe they can’t,” he continues. “Why would you want to? We grow together, and learn from each other. I am grateful to [Lynx guard] Layshia Clarendon, a [Sparks guard] Brittany Sykes, at [Fever guard] tiffany mitchell, [Mystics guard] Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, [Storm forward] Close Burdick, who are some of the first interviews I’ve had on my phone. It’s about intertwining each other’s gifts, not using each other, but using each other’s strengths, and having that support system to say, ‘No, this is what you were born to do. This is what you do really well.’”

Chambers is aware of his own power to drive the industry forward, on his own terms. But it’s the small, nuanced daily interactions with Black women and girls that reaffirm how rooted she is in her purpose and how crucial her representation in the league is to those who come after her. He recalled an anecdote from the 2018 WNBA All-Star game with Maya Moore, who was playing for the Lynx at the time.

“There was a girl there named Liliana,” says Chambers. “She posed in front of the Jordan Brand poster with Maya with her arms outstretched and the image went viral. They invited her to the game, where I met her and put my press pass around her neck. The next day I saw her father and he told me that all Liliana could say was, ‘Daddy, you have hair like mine!’ I couldn’t tell that story without crying for years. Just knowing that I can show myself and be portrayed authentically and boldly has been really special to me.”

When it comes to the future of the league and coverage of black women in sports in general, she has her sights set on continuing to disrupt the industry through that: being authentically and boldly herself and encouraging everyone around her to do the same. And of course working hard to create visibility and ensure Black female athletes have the means they need to continue to advance throughout the game, especially as women’s sports trend upwards.

“We are stronger together when we occupy these spaces. That I will not do it just being a trend, especially in leagues that are predominantly black, predominantly queer,” says Chambers. “I hope that we not only continue to collaborate with each other, but that we get the resources to have an equal opportunity. It is not a gambling situation, but an investment situation because the cost of inaction is greater than the risk. We are the shapeshifters, we set the trends and we are the catalyst for change. I want us to know that the possibilities are endless, that the limit does not exist, and that we deserve access to the resources we need.”

Naya Samuel is a contributor to empower onyx, a diverse multi-channel platform that celebrates the stories and transformative power of sports for Black women and girls.

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