Arielle Chambers Is Asking Black Athletes to Tell Their Real Stories
Courtesy of Kevin Jude
Sports Illustrated and Empower Onyx are putting the spotlight on the diverse journeys of Black women across sports—from the veteran athletes, to up-and-coming 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 women’s sports and culture connoisseur, she’s been a regular on-screen personality for the WNBA, NBA, NHL and more. Most notably, she created Bleacher Report’s HighlightHER, the House of Highlights women’s platform.
But before all that, the 30-year-old Chambers told these stories through her own grassroots coverage. And though she may seem like a self-starting, independent force, she is influenced by the women around her who are leading by example, building fellowship (and often friendship) and acting as resources for mutual empowerment.
Chambers grew up in Raleigh, which she credits for her proximity to influential women in sports and basketball, in particular. Just 30 minutes away at NC State, she watched head coach Kay Yow, who led the Wolfpack women’s basketball team to 700 career wins between 1975 and 2009. “I remember as a child in the ‘90s, we would take field trips to NC State women’s basketball games,” Chambers says. “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] Sylvia 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 each season, and actually being able to interact with them at 7, 8 years old—it stuck with me.”
Chambers went on to attend NC State to study communication and media studies and even went abroad to the University of Oxford to study English. After graduating, she earned positions in the NBA, NHL and WNBA working as in-game entertainment. It was during this time when she saw a huge discrepancy in the number of Black players compared to those who held roles behind the scenes, especially in leadership and media positions within the WNBA.
“I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but my calling was storytelling. I saw a league of 80% Black women, many of them part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and I saw how their stories had been overlooked,” Chambers says. Leaning into her own personal relationships with Black athletes around her, Chambers began her own grassroots media coverage and used the resources immediately available to her to amplify their stories.
“I saw that my friends needed their stories told. The only tool I had was my phone,” she says. “There was power in knowing what my friends would want their stories to be and knowing that I could be a safe space for them to communicate that—without any hidden agenda, or without any media bias. I like to think that as Black women, especially young Black women in the field, we have the capacity to do that. We see each other.”
This coverage would catapult her own career and visibility, both immediately and long term. She’s amassed over 57,000 followers just on her personal social media platforms. In 2017, she coined the phrase “THE WNBA IS SO IMPORTANT,” which went viral and eventually developed into Twitter Sports’ WNBA 25th Anniversary campaign. She’s been a reporter for WNBA All-Star games, the NCAA women’s Final Four and ACC women’s basketball tournament, plus was host for the Connecticut Sun’s in-arena coverage, the WNBA’s digital news, the WNBA’s Her Time To Play series and the LA Sparks’ Rooted in LA post-game series. She even hosts a weekly show on NBA TV during the WNBA season called Don’t Sleep. She was named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30 in Sports” in 2021, and took home the title for Miss North Carolina International 2021.
But perhaps most notable was the founding of her individually run women’s platform HighlightHER as a part of Bleacher Report. Since 2019, HighlightHER amassed more than 170,000 followers and has become the fastest-growing women’s sports platform. “If I have any bias, it is to tell the underdog story, to tell the stories that aren't being told. Just allowing the players that space to be themselves and to be amplified.”
She consistently acknowledges the relationships she built, relying on her immediate community and utilizing social media as a legitimate form of media, long before these platforms were as influential as they are today. “It’s yours,” Chambers says. “Social media is yours—it allows you to have something you believe in and watch it grow exponentially and gauge the interest in it. You don’t have to wait for a network to say yes, you can prove the numbers elsewhere and show that growth to people who don’t want to pay attention. You can put out what you want to put out.”
“And, if anybody says they made it on their own online, I just firmly believe you cannot,” she continues. “Why would you even want to? We grow together, and we learn from each other. I'm thankful to [Lynx guard] Layshia Clarendon, to [Sparks guard] Brittany Sykes, to [Fever guard] Tiffany Mitchell, [Mystics guard] Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, [Storm forward] Cierra Burdick, who all are some of the first interviews that I've had on my phone. It's all about intertwining each other's gifts, not using each other, but utilizing each other's strengths, and having that support system to say, ‘No, this is what you're born to do. This is what you do really well.’”
Chambers is aware of her own power to push the industry forward, on her own terms. But it’s the little, nuanced, daily interactions with Black women and girls that reaffirm how rooted in her purpose she is and how crucial her representation in the league is for those coming after her. She recalled an anecdote from the 2018 WNBA All-Star game with Maya Moore, who played for the Lynx at the time.
“There was this little girl there named Liliana,” Chambers says. “She posed in front of the Jordan brand poster with Maya with their arms outstretched, and the picture went viral. She was invited to the game, where I met her and put my media pass around her neck. The next day I saw her father and he told me all Liliana could say was, ‘Daddy, she has hair just like mine!’ I couldn’t tell that story without crying for years. Just knowing that I can show up as myself and be portrayed authentically and audaciously has been really special to me.”
When it comes to the future of the league, and coverage of Black women in sports overall, she’s setting her sights on continuing to disrupt the industry through just that—being authentically and audaciously herself and encouraging everyone around her to do the same. And, of course, working hard to create visibility and ensure that Black athletes have the means they need to continue moving the entire game forward, especially as women’s sports trend upward.
“We’re stronger together when we occupy these spaces. It won’t just be a trend, especially in leagues that are predominantly Black, predominantly queer,” Chambers says. “I hope that we not only continue to pour into each other, but get the resources to have an equitable shot. Not a bet-on situation, but an invest-in situation because the cost of inaction is higher 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 are deserving of access to the resources we need.”
Naya Samuel is a contributor for Empower Onyx, a diverse multi-channel platform celebrating the stories and transformative power of sports for Black women and girls.