MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
On a busy sports Sunday it wasn’t lost that yet another WNBA game between the Chicago Sky and the Indiana Fever more than held its own against Stanley Cup hockey, Major League and College World Series baseball, Scottie Sheffer’s sixth PGA win of the year, as well as the racing and soccer that was being viewed by a nation of sports fans.
No, the WNBA game wasn’t lost on sports fans because it played to yet another sellout crowd in Chicago and was viewed by a national-television audience live on ESPN.
Tickets to the game were reportedly going in the hundreds of dollars and the Sky issued 75 media credentials, naturally because it was Round 3 of the rapidly flourishing professional rivalry between the Fever’s Caitlin Clark and the Sky’s Angel Reese.
While WNBA veterans are a bit touchy about the impact the Clark-Reese rivalry has had on the league, the impact is undeniable as their games have become natural and unavoidable attractions. They’re magnet games as sports fans are naturally drawn to them, not to mention celebrities who just happen to show up at such events when they know there will be a large audience, and Sunday was no exception, as the Wintrust Arena was crawling with Chicago and national celebrities.
Of course, that’s how it’s been since the players’ college days when Reese won a national championship with LSU over Clark and Iowa in 2023, and then when Clark and Iowa avenged it this past March in the Elite Eight.
There is an old Broadway saying, “Nothing ensures a sellout like a sellout,” and nothing attracts celebrities like celebrities, and that is exactly what Clark and, now, Reese, have become – bonafide celebs.
Since their college days, the two of them helped produce the highest television ratings a WNBA draft has ever drawn and now have met three times on the court this season, with the Fever winning the first two, but with the Sky storming back on Sunday from a 15-point third-quarter deficit to win the third, 88-87. The teams will not play again until late August in Chicago with possible playoff spots on the line for both the Fever (7-11) and the Sky (6-9).
Clark was very good on Sunday, scoring 17 points with 13 assists, but contributed little in the fourth quarter when Reese took over for the Sky to finish the game with 25 points and 16 rebounds to extend her rookie double-double record to eight on the season, and becoming just the second rookie in history to turn in at least 25 points and at least 15 rebounds in a game.
The best part about this game was that it was unlike the first two in that it wasn’t overly chippy. There was no noticeable name calling, nor was there kickin’ and a-gougin’ in the mud and the blood and the beer. The teams competed and they just played. It was a flat-out game, which is what the league is anxious to showcase, because there is a lot of great basketball being played in the WNBA even when Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese aren’t playing.
There are so many similarities, albeit in very different leagues and times, between what Clark and Reese are doing to help the WNBA become part of the natural vernacular and what Larry Bird and Magic Johnson did to make the NBA merely viable before it would turn basketball into the global sport it’s become, doing so because of Bird and Magic.
Hell, the NBA Finals weren’t even shown live before Bird and Magic were in the league; they were shown tape-delayed at 11:30 p.m. on the nights the games were played. I know, because I ran home from jobs at Pizza Inn and Pizza Hut to watch them. Ah, the glory days of slinging pizza … I was really in the dough. Ba-da-bump!
In fact, I said right here when Clark and Reese declared for the WNBA Draft, that the NBA, which owns and operates the WNBA, would market them to the point of, first, saving their league and then making it a worldwide sensation in the same way they did Bird and Magic.
Apparently, I was not alone in my thinking, as none other than Magic Johnson posted on X the other night, “When I think about Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese’s impact on the game, they remind me a lot of Larry Bird and me. Our first meeting, Indiana State vs. Michigan State, in the (1979) NCAA Championship set the all-time viewership record for men’s basketball. Caitlin and Angel’s 2023 NCAA Championship matchup and their 2024 Elite Eight games were the highest viewership records at the time.
“Larry and I heightened the NBA’s overall popularity. The Lakers and Celtics sold out arenas throughout the league and increased television viewership exponentially. The higher viewership numbers led to the NBA signing significantly larger TV contracts which then led to higher salaries for the players.
“Caitlin and Angel are now doing the same thing, selling out arenas and increasing the viewership. They have taken women’s basketball by storm and with expiring TV deals on the horizon, the WNBA is now in a position to negotiate higher TV contracts and increase salaries for all of the talented players.”
The WNBA veterans doth protest too much, methinks.
For their own well-being, they need to hear Magic.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @MikeBurkeMDT