Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark have made headlines for all the wrong reasons over the last week. A routine take foul in a game between Clark’s Indiana Fever and Reese’s Chicago Sky last Saturday ignited a firestorm of coverage about the perceived rivalry between the 2 women, the attention that Clark receives, and the kind of criticism that Reese receives.
During a podcast appearance with Colin Cowherd this week, FS1’s Danny Parkins took issue with the way the 2 are covered in the media. Cowherd asserted that Michael Jordan hates Isiah Thomas and is celebrated for it, but said if Reese lets it be known that she hates Clark, the topic suddenly becomes about race rather than a sports rivalry. Parkins just shook his head.
“I think it’s the worst story in sports media,” Parkins said on The Colin Cowherd Podcast. “I hate the discourse around it. I think it brings out the worst in everybody. I really do think a lot of people are showing their ass on this story. Of course, what you just said is correct. One of my things, it’s a trope, it’s a cliché that I created: ‘Less hate in the world, more hate in sports.’ Sports hate is good. It is objectively good. Now, when it leads to fights in the stands, OK, fine, someone took it too far. But that doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing. Trash talk, rivalries, bulletin board material, lobbing shots in the press, hard fouls, stare downs, the occasional fight.
“Those things are good. They’re good for ratings. They’re good for business. They’re good for fan interest. They’re good for jersey sales. They’re good. It is good for the WNBA for there to be sports hate, for there to be rivalries. It is a good thing. That is so objectively, obviously true that I can’t believe anyone dares to deny it.”
It’s a fair angle to take amidst all the noise. In male professional sports, heated rivalries are celebrated. Duke-North Carolina is nasty. Michigan-Ohio State is nasty. The Bulls and the Pistons were mauling each other in the 90s.
The WNBA is grappling with the attention Clark has brought since entering the league last season — both good and bad. Clark is a generational player and might even have a Jordan-esque impact on her league. The W has often been criticized for its handling of Clark. Following the incident in the Fever-Sky game, the WNBA launched an investigation into “hateful fan comments” directed at Reese. That investigation was heavily criticized.
Discourse around the incident exploded when ESPN personalities Robert Griffin III and Ryan Clark got into a personal beef that included swipes at family.
“It is so very clear that way too many people in the industry formulate their opinions based on the algorithm they see on X, and it’s just complete horsesh*t,” Parkins said. Without directly naming names, he was clearly speaking about the bickering between a pair of ESPN representatives. “I don’t believe the people that went to the basketball game left being like, ‘Phew, you know what that was? A race war.’ Like it was a basketball game.”
Reese and Clark met in the NCAA Tournament twice when they were at LSU and Iowa, respectively. Reese’s Tigers beat Clark and the Hawkeyes in the 2023 national championship game. Clark knocked LSU out of the tournament in the Elite Eight the following year. Their rivalry has been a topic of conversation ever since.
Angel Reese-Caitlin Clark rivalry is ‘worst story in sports media,’ analyst says Saturday Down South.
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