At first, it appeared that the Indiana Fever’s dwelling win over Chicago Sky on Saturday can be simply one other spicy chapter within the rivalry between Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. Each gamers have been sometimes wonderful: Clark spurred the Fever to victory with a triple-double, whereas Reese grabbed 17 rebounds to go along with her 12 factors.
Nevertheless it was a second within the third quarter that WNBA followers can be speaking about for weeks to return. A few of them could even accomplish that with out resorting to low-cost bigotry. With 4:38 remaining, Clark reached for the ball over Reese’s head, made what gave the impression to be deliberate contact along with her arm, and despatched her opponent spiraling to the ground. There was a quick confrontation, Clark was hit with a flagrant foul and Reese acquired a technical. After the sport, Clark mentioned she didn’t have cynical intent main as much as the foul, and Reese agreed calling it “a basketball play.”
Relying on who you ask, the second was both enthralling or disappointing. Followers could recall conversations in regards to the physicality of the WNBA final season, as Clark was knocked across the court docket by veterans. It confirmed that ladies’s basketball is each bit as robust as the boys’s recreation, and generally a foul is only a foul.
A second like this isn’t all the time dangerous for anybody concerned, together with the gamers. Many say that a majority of these alternate drive up engagement, whether or not on-line or by attracting followers to WNBA arenas, which have loved file attendance since Reese and Clark entered the league final season.
However there are, after all, several types of engagement. The rise in consideration, scrutiny, and discourse can rapidly take a downward flip, particularly when girls are concerned. As a lot as there was loads of real dialogue and evaluation of Saturday’s recreation, quite a lot of the net rhetoric rapidly turned racist and sexist, a carryover from final season that followers and gamers had hoped to go away behind. And the abuse wasn’t simply on-line both.
On Sunday the WNBA introduced the league is investigating “alleged hateful fan feedback” that occurred on the recreation. “The WNBA strongly condemns racism, hate and discrimination in all kinds – they haven’t any place in our league or in society. We’re conscious of the allegations and are wanting into the matter,” the league wrote in an announcement. The league didn’t point out any particular participant in its assertion, however the Indianapolis Star reported that Reese, who was loudly booed all through the sport, was subjected to racial abuse from the group.
The WNBA is making an attempt to handle racism with its “No House for Hate” marketing campaign, which appears to fight prejudice, on-line and inside arenas. The gamers aren’t bought simply but. “It’s good in phrases, however we acquired to see actions,” three-time league MVP A’ja Wilson mentioned on Friday. “Hopefully individuals can take actions and perceive that is larger than basketball. We’re true individuals behind it. Any shoe that we put on, any jersey we’ve got on, we’re human. Folks need to respect that. I hope they concentrate and hearken to the phrases.”
Clark, who’s white, has tried to push again in opposition to the racism, homophobia and misogyny that a few of these claiming to be her followers have used in opposition to gamers in a league the place many of the gamers are Black and lots of are homosexual.
“It’s positively upsetting. No one in our league ought to be going through any type of racism – hurtful, disrespectful, hateful feedback and threats. These aren’t followers, these are trolls, and it’s an actual disservice to the individuals in our league, the group, the WNBA,” Clark mentioned final September.
And it’s not simply one thing followers and gamers have observed. A March 2025 research by Rice College and the College of Chicago Illinois instructed racial bias is current – on the a part of followers and the media – within the Reese-Clark debate. Researchers appeared again to the gamers’ faculty days, and the notorious “you possibly can’t see me” alternate between the pair in the course of the 2023 NCAA Match. Each gamers made the identical mocking gesture to opponents in the course of the match however Reese, who’s Black, acquired far more pushback on-line and within the media.
“This wasn’t simply social media chatter – this was a real-time reflection of how race and gender form public notion,” Rice College sociology doctoral candidate Shahill Parsons wrote within the research. “Reese and Clark [both made the same gesture], however the responses weren’t simply completely different, they have been utterly reverse. That distinction tells us quite a bit about how bias nonetheless operates at this time.”
Quite a lot of the identical discourse remains to be current at this time, Parsons mentioned by telephone on Sunday, and it hurts each gamers. The truth that Clark is “a tremendous participant” is what makes the dialog troublesome to at the present time, he mentioned. “On some degree, if the framing of that is Angel Reese is a few form of behemoth, Black, massive, disastrous, monstrosity, gorilla, what you will have is steeped in sexism and racism, which isn’t going to be helpful for Clark general as an athlete.”
As a substitute, the discourse may find yourself polarizing one demographic or one other, he mentioned. Although the Clark-Reese relationship has been in comparison with that of Larry Fowl and Magic Johnson, public curiosity in that rivalry was rooted in competitiveness on the court docket greater than race. “If the WNBA can keep away from falling into this trapping of pushing a white-Black agenda, the league can be extra well-liked, and it is going to be extra helpful for the league as an entire,” Parsons added.
Aside from issues about racism and sexism, the give attention to interactions between Reese and Clark threatens to remove from the accomplishments of the remainder of the league. The 2 different WNBA video games on Saturday have been simply as enthralling as Fever v Sky. The Las Vegas Aces, who boast Wilson, performed the defending champions, New York Liberty, and Seattle Storm travelled to Phoenix Mercury, who’re testing out their new positionless basketball scheme. However tales are overwhelmingly targeted on Reese and Clark.
Parsons agrees. If the season turns into “mired and slowed down by this racial part – if that’s the driving main pressure behind the entire WNBA season, I wholeheartedly imagine we’re not going to be seeing [much of] A’ja Wilson on SportsCenter,” he mentioned.
And that will be a real loss for WNBA followers in all places.
