Caitlin Clark’s first season in the WNBA brought viewership, attendance, and merchandise records. But at the same time, the league and its players are also facing a more insidious problem that sometimes comes with increased attention.
The first-round series between the Indiana Fever and Connecticut Sun highlighted the growing tension between players and fans which has spilled from social media trolling to the arenas. On Thursday, shortly after the Fever were eliminated from the playoffs, the WNBA released a statement denouncing the actions of fans.
“While we welcome a growing fan base, the WNBA will not tolerate racist, derogatory, or threatening comments made about players, teams and anyone affiliated with the league,” the statement read.
What happened in Connecticut
Several Sun players claimed after the game that racial comments were hurled at them throughout the series—despite playing at home.
“I think in my 11-year career, I’ve never experienced the racial comments from the Indiana Fever fan base… Basketball is headed in a great direction, but we don’t want fans that are going to degrade us and call us racial things,” five-time All-Star Alyssa Thomas said.
Thomas’s teammate, DiJonai Carrington, faced most of the backlash from fans and media following Game 1—when she hit Clark in the eye in the first quarter—claiming the poke was done on purpose. Some claimed Carrington used her fingernails extensions to intentionally hurt Clark.
Carrington and Clark denied the poke was intentional. But Carrington wrote in a now-deleted post on X she received death threats and racist comments via email. NaLyssa Smith, Carrington’s girlfriend who also happens to be Clark’s teammate, confirmed that Carrington had received death threats and claimed she was even followed.
At Game 2 in Mohegan Sun on Wednesday, posts circulated on social media about fans mocking Carrington, with one wearing fake nail extensions and a shirt that said “Ban Nails.”
Clark also faced her share of fan hate. In the first quarter, she called security to have a fan temporarily removed from his courtside seat. It was unclear what prompted Clark to call security, but NBA players like LeBron James and Russell Westbrook have done the same in recent years.
Fans spewing racial comments at players isn’t new in pro sports. Last year, Celtics star Jaylen Brown said that it’s about a “problematic” portion of his team’s fan base. The father of Grizzlies star Ja Morant also claimed fans made vulgar remarks at him back in 2021. And in 2017, then-Orioles outfielder Adam Jones said a bag of peanuts was thrown at him and was also the target of racial slurs at Fenway Park.
How it started
The tension among players, fans, and media has been brewing all season—and is a carryover of the rhetoric around the rivalry between Clark and Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese, which started in college.
Clark and Reese faced off in the NCAA Tournament in each of the last two years, and though the two have been complimentary of one another, fans and media latch onto the rivalry. Early in the WNBA season, a racial component was added by several members of the media, alongside claims that players were jealous over the attention Clark was getting.
In June, the Sky played the Fever, and Clark was hip-checked by Chicago guard Chennedy Carter. The foul was upgraded to a Flagrant 1 by the league after the game, but in the days following, Carter and the Sky claimed they were harassed outside their team hotel in Washington, D.C.
“Find out our teams hotel to pull with a camera as we get off the bus and put it in my teammates face & HARASS her is NASTY WORK,” Reese posted on X.
The W’s position
Earlier this month, at an appearance on CNBC’s Power Lunch, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert was asked about the “darker turn” the conversation about Clark and Reese has entered on social media.
“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,” Engelbert said.
WNBA stars including Breanna Stewart and Chelsea Gray rebuked Engelbert’s comments, and WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson released a statement following Engelbert’s appearance, condemning “racist language and homophobic comments.”
“This is not about rivalries or iconic personalities fueling a business model. This kind of toxic fandom should never be tolerated or left unchecked,” Jackson said.
Engelbert responded on X following Jackson’s statement: “To be clear, there is absolutely no place for hate or racism of any kind in the WNBA or anywhere else,” she wrote.
