How Cat Disabato Wrote ‘Rooting Interest,’ A WNBA Romance

Over the course of the Los Angeles Sparks’ last season, Cat Disabato found herself at six of their basketball games, a figure she tells Bustle is “less than I’d like, more than I ever expected.”

Raised outside of Chicago, Disabato grew up a devoted White Sox fan, and after moving to Los Angeles in 2008, became a “very casual” Dodgers supporter. But it wasn’t until 2020 that the author fell in love with the WNBA, drawn in by the way players rose to the political moment through online activism, and dedicating that season to Black Lives Matter and #SAYHERNAME.

Over the last five years, the W has gone from enjoying a modest but mighty set of supporters to becoming one of the fastest-growing professional sports leagues. Disabato’s Rooting Interest captures the boom of excitement surrounding the W and its players.

The novel opens with Jennifer Felix (or Felix, as she calls herself), an ever-hungry sports journalist, being pulled off the beat she’s spent her career chasing — the Los Angeles Cougars, a fictional National Football League team — and reassigned to the WNBA All-Star Weekend, a decision she suspects has more to do with her queer identity than her resume. As she fumbles her way through the W’s history and stats, she finds herself in a tense press room standoff with the Los Angeles Sparks’ captivating but aloof star, Natalie Czapski.

Already the author of two best-selling literary crime fiction novels under the name Catie Disabato, Rooting Interest is the author’s foray into the world of romance. The book was published last month by 831 Stories, a romance publishing company founded in 2024 with the stated mission that “joy is important, and pleasure reading serves a fundamental purpose.” Rooting Interest embodies that ethos, weaving will-they-won’t-they tension with decidedly blush-worthy NSFW scenes.

Below, Disabato opens up about finding queer community in the WNBA, writing sex scenes, and the sports romances she’s loving right now.

How did you first get into the WNBA? What does the community look like?

With the caveat that I’m not uncritical of the W as a league and I’m not uncritical of league leadership, I do find being a part of the fandom of the WNBA to be an incredibly affirming and incredibly fun experience as a queer woman.

I’ve made new friends and deepened other friendships. I’ve gone to baseball games with friends and had a great time, but you’re not really chit-chatting with the people around you and you’re not really expecting to be in community with them. When I go to WNBA games, though, it’s the same kind of feeling I get when I go to a queer bar or a WLW dance night.

Why did you want to write about women’s basketball?

One of the best things about being a reader is that when you get a new hobby, there’s a whole bunch of new books that you get to read. I really wanted to read a WNBA romance, and there just wasn’t really very much there. And you know how everybody says, “Write the book you want to read?” I thought, “No, I don’t want to write the book I want to read. I want to read the book I want to read. I’m mad that I had to write it because now I don’t get to read it.”

The NFL is in the book, too. Are you a fan?

That choice really comes from where Felix is starting in her emotional journey, because she’s not in the closet. She is not somebody that is ashamed of her queerness. She’s very out to friends and family, and out professionally, but she believes that to reach the heights professionally, she has to make it in a man’s world. It’s her trying to be the best woman within a patriarchal kind of setup.

On a practical level, I have a couple of very good friends — Sarah Enni and Zan Romanoff — who watch football, and they host a podcast called On the Bleachers. They talk about football a lot, and they interview reporters, I knew that I would have pretty easy access to research about the day-to-day life of a beat reporter because of that.

What other sports romances inspired you?

The first one I would say is You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian, which I thought was fantastic. I also really liked Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilner. One book that I read while I was midway through the process was Totally and Completely Fine by Elissa Sussman, which I really loved.

There’s also Venus to the Hoop, which is a nonfiction book published in 1997, about the Women’s Olympic basketball team right before the WNBA was founded in 1996, and how the Olympics helped push the WNBA into existence. That book just gave me a really strong sense of an athlete’s mentality.

Are there any drinks or snacks that powered you through writing this book?

Martini and french fries.

What’s your approach to writing sex scenes?

Sex scenes are character development scenes because romance novels are about the intimacy that builds between two people — but they should also make you a little bit turned on. But I will say, I’m not getting hot and bothered when I’m writing them because it’s like writing an action scene. You’re like, OK, where are the legs, and where are the arms, and where’s everybody positioned, and how is that going to work?

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.