If you think Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark’s rise over the last four years—from Des Moines-area high school basketball star to one of the most transcendent college athletes ever—has been the stuff of Disney movies, you are not alone.
Disney+ will debut in the live sports space next Tuesday by airing Clark’s WNBA regular season debut, ESPN toldThe Hollywood Reporter Tuesday.
The Fever are slated to open their season against the Connecticut Sun, one of four games scheduled for the league’s first day. A second matchup between the Phoenix Mercury and Las Vegas Aces will also air on Disney+.
These two games will be the first traditional live sporting events to air on Disney+, barring a pair of themed animated telecasts of NFL and NHL games.
Clark was selected with the No. 1 pick by Indiana in the WNBA draft out of Iowa on April 15, part of a heralded rookie class that includes Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese and Los Angeles Sparks forward Cameron Brink.
Over the last two years, the friendly rivalry between Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese has elevated two games—women's college basketball and the WNBA—to never-before-seen heights.
Like all truly great sports rivalries, however, Clark and Reese's rivalry is built on mutual respect. On Saturday morning, Clark demonstrated that by praising both Reese and Sky center Kamilla Cardoso before the Fever played Chicago in the afternoon.
"The thing about (Reese), she's been so dominant at what she does ever since we played in high school," Clark said via Julia Poe of The Chicago Tribune. "She's always had a knack for being able to rebound the ball and that's just translated immediately to the WNBA."
Caitlin Clark had high praise for Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso ahead of today’s game.
“(Angel) has been so dominant at what she does ever since we played in high school.”
Reese entered Saturday averaging 8.2 rebounds per game, ninth in the WNBA.
"Kamilla caused us a lot of problems in the national championship," Clark said of Cardoso. "Kamilla is just scratching the surface of her potential... it's been a lot of fun to watch those two kind of evolve over their college careers."
Each of the trio had a role to play in Indiana's eventual 71–70 win. Clark scored 11 points, pulled down eight rebounds and gave out eight assists; Reese scored eight points and pulled down 13 rebounds; Cardoso scored 11 points and had six rebounds.
"Individuals who have never covered the WNBA before, don’t have the history to help provide context, don’t know the storylines or the players, but have large platforms and the loudest voices, are helping to fan the flames."
— Lyndsey D'Arcangelo 🏀 (@darcangel21) June 3, 2024
And since I'm on a soapbox, lemme just add that "talking" about a sport does not equal "covering" a sport. These ppl are TALKING about the WNBA. But they aint covering it. I haven't seen a single one of these high profile media personalities in the press conferences (1/2)
Actually, I’m lucky enough to have my own column, so I can tell you how much I hate these tweets and I will tell you how much I hate them.
First, and most important, I’m not trying to single out the writers of tweets. I’m not familiar with either of their work, but I’ve seen this take a lot over the past few weeks and these particular tweets were retweeted into my feed Monday and pushed me to write about it.
The theory that you have to be a long-time WNBA follower/watcher in order to voice an opinion about general issues regarding the league and the game is complete nonsense.
You don’t have to watch every WNBA game to know this is a cheap shot.
Anyone who knows anything about basketball knows this is a dirty play.
I agree that someone who doesn’t follow the WNBA shouldn’t be breaking down which team has the best defense or which coaches are great at X’s and O’s strategy. But the idea that unless you are a hardcore WNBA watcher you should shut up about anything related to the league goes against everything that is sports.
People are allowed to talk about a sport without covering that sport. People who have large platforms are allowed to weigh in on any sports topic they want if they think the general audience will respond, watch, or click.
What so many people seem to be forgetting about what’s going on with the WNBA right now is that sports are supposed to be fun. Sports are supposed to be entertaining. Sports are a watercooler topic. A huge part of sports fandom is arguing, offering opinions and debating. The WNBA has that right now because of Caitlin Clark.
Here's the other thing that’s going on here. Sports are also a business. It’s a business for companies and individuals who rely on page views, engagement, clicks, subscriptions, video views, etc. If the people in those businesses see that Clark drives those things (and she does), then they will give you as much Clark content as possible regardless of what their WNBA coverage has been in the past. This is just Business 101.
So if there’s a dirty play in any sport, or if a player gets a historic contract in any sport, or if a player sets ratings records in any sport, it’s going to get talked about by plenty of people who don’t follow the sport.
The other issue here is Clark has crossed over into the mainstream. She gets covered on the Today show, network evening news, People magazine, TMZ, etc. She is not just a sports figure at this point. She is also a pop-culture figure.
Whether you like it or not, more people are watching the WNBA and attending the WNBA because of Clark. That can’t be argued. And a lot of those people just care about Clark and not the WNBA. So people with small platforms, big platforms and no platforms are going to opine on any and everything related to Clark. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
2. In Monday’s Traina Thoughts, we told you about Monica McNutt pushing back against Stephen A. Smith on First Take about his coverage of the WNBA. Smith wanted credit for talking about the WNBA on the show and McNutt said, “Stephen A., respectfully, with your platform you could’ve been doing this three years ago if you wanted to."
Here’s the reality though. You know why Smith has covered the WNBA? And do you know why ESPN covers the WNBA? Because the network airs WNBA games. If you think ESPN would spend as much time covering the WNBA if they didn’t have television rights, I have three words for you: National. Hockey. League. ESPN gave the NHL very little coverage when it didn’t air games.
3. Good news for Good Morning Football fans. Kyle Brandt revealed Monday that he will remain with the show when it moves from New York City to Los Angeles later this summer. Brandt will be on the air five days a week. Jamie Erdahl has already announced that she’s making the move to California.
4. Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano, who appeared in 75 games for the San Diego last season, was suspended for life by Major League Baseball on Tuesday for betting on the sport.
Marcaho definitely seems like he enjoys placing a wager.
He was found to have placed 387 baseball bets from Oct. 16, 2022 to Nov. 1, 2023, totaling more than $150,000.
The problem is that 231 of those wagers included MLB games. The league says 25 of those bets included wagers on Pittsburgh Pirates games while he was on the team’s major league roster.
Here is MLB's account of the baseball betting by Tucupita Marcano that caused him to be banned from baseball "permanently."
231 bets on baseball Baseball bets totaling $87,319 25 bets on the Pirates while he was a Pirates player pic.twitter.com/WTEAslhqel
6. The latest episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation with Charles Barkley.
The Inside the NBA host discusses the possibility of TNT losing the NBA in the current television rights negotiations, his frustration with the lack of communication from Warner Brothers Discovery about the negotiations, whether the show could continue on another network, reaction from fans to the possible end of Inside the NBA, the awkwardness of still having to work next season for TNT if it loses the NBA beginning in the 2025–26 season, and the lack of loyalty from the NBA and what would make him decide between ESPN, NBC and Amazon if he became a free agent.
Barkley also goes off on CNN for never telling him that his show with Gayle King, King Charles, was canceled, he explains what could make him be the subject of a comedy roast, who the two nicest GOATs are in sports, the Lakers saying that LeBron James doesn't have a say in their coaching search and the reaction to his recent Caitlin Clark rant.
Following Barkley, Sal Licata from WFAN and SNY joins me for the weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week's topics include the passing of Bill Walton, Ángel Hernández's retirement from Major League Baseball, the mystery behind the Dov Kleiman Twitter account and the latest story about a restaurant charging for a ridiculous service.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Since I included Scott Van Pelt’s rant about going to the beach today, we should remember when happened when Larry David went to the beach.
Matt Barnes, who co-hosts the All The Smoke podcast with fellow former NBA player Stephen Jackson, joined the chorus of voices discussing Clark, only he decided to focus less on Carter's foul and more on the reaction, or lack thereof in his eyes, of Clark's teammates to the play.
Barnes, in a post onto his account on Instagram, ripped Clark's Fever teammates for seemingly not coming to her defense on Saturday—or this season as a whole.
Former NBA Enforcer Matt Barnes on the abuse that Caitlyn Clark has gone through in her early WNBA career 😳 pic.twitter.com/SJSsDdskbM
"So, there's a hot topic going on right now," Barnes said. "Caitlin Clark says she got cheap-shotted against the Sky. I mean, throughout the season she's been getting beat up. Hard screens, elbows, knocked down. It is what it is. She's not the first. She won't be the last."
"My issue and my question is, where the f--- are her teammates at? Where y'all at? Where are the rest of the Indiana Fever? I've seen a couple girls smirk when she's got knocked down, half-a-- to pick her up. Like, y'all are supposed to protect the asset, protect the star and although this is a team, she's the star."
Barnes, as a former enforcer for 14 seasons in the NBA, then went on to say that the Fever should be "ashamed of themselves."
Barnes is not the only person to suggest the Fever need an enforcer-type on the roster, an opinion that Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green stated in an Instagram post on Saturday—and one that Carter herself seemingly scoffed at.
As Barnes said, the WNBA is going to continue to test Clark. How the Fever respond, especially given Carter's—and perhaps others'—opinions on Clark, should be of the utmost importance to the franchise moving forward.
