Players, union say WNBA's Engelbert dropped ball in interview - ESPN

INDIANAPOLIS — Some WNBA players and their union spoke out Tuesday against recent comments commissioner Cathy Engelbert made that failed to condemn racist and vitriolic behavior from fans surrounding the Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese rivalry.

On Monday, Engelbert appeared on CNBC's «Power Lunch» and was asked by anchor Tyler Mathisen about what he called the «darker… more menacing» tone taken by the fan bases on social media, one «where race has been introduced in the conversation, where sexuality is sometimes introduced into the conversation.

»How do you try and stay ahead of that, try and tamp it down or act as a league when two of your most visible players are involved — not personally, it would seem, but their fan bases are involved — in saying some very uncharitable things about the other?" he asked.

Engelbert's response focused on the role the Clark-Reese rivalry has had in helping grow women's basketball.

«There's no more apathy. Everybody cares,» she said. «It is a little of that [Larry] Bird-Magic [Johnson] moment if you recall from 1979, when those two rookies came in from a big college rivalry, one white, one Black. And so we have that moment with these two.

»But the one thing I know about sports, you need rivalry. That's what makes people watch. They want to watch games of consequence between rivals. They don't want everybody being nice to one another."

Engelbert then acknowledged that social media didn't exist when Bird and Magic played and added that she tells players, «If someone's typing something and you wouldn't ask their advice, ignore it.»

The commissioner concluded her response by mentioning how corporate partners are endorsing WNBA players now more than ever.

Women's National Basketball Players