The Indiana Fever have championship expectations this season. Caitlin Clark has already made that explicitly known.

Battling for a title will be a big step up for the Fever after a 20–20 finish last season. After all, Clark is only a 23-year-old entering her second year as a professional. However, Indiana made significant changes in the offseason to justify the lofty expectations.

The team brought in a new coaching staff led by 2023 Coach of the Year Stephanie White and added veterans DeWanna Bonner, Natasha Howard, Sophie Cunningham, Sydney Colson, and Brianna Turner to complement its young core.

“The main thing we were lacking last year was experience. Adding really great vets like [Bonner] and Syd [Colson] and Tash [Howard] and putting that experience around us of not just being in this league but also winning. They have the championship pedigree,” Clark said at a press conference Thursday.

Due to the changes, the Fever have the second-best odds to win the WNBA title behind the defending champion New York Liberty, according to ESPN Bet. DraftKings has Indiana tied for second with the Las Vegas Aces, winners of the previous two championships, while FanDuel has them in third behind the Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx, the 2025 runners-up.

Good for the WNBA

A competitive Fever team could result in consecutive record-setting seasons for the WNBA’s ratings. Last year, the league averaged a record 1.2 million viewers on ESPN during the regular season, while Ion averaged 670,000 viewers, a 133% increase from the previous year.

More than two-thirds of the league’s telecasts last season that averaged at least one million viewers involved the Fever—and that’s despite the team’s 2–9 start to the regular season.

It took just one preseason game this year to show there is no Clark fatigue. The Fever’s game against the Brazil women’s national team last week drew 1.3 million viewers on ESPN, the first time the network aired a WNBA preseason game. It was Clark’s first organized game in more than seven months.

Indiana will have a league-high 41 of 44 games televised or streamed nationally this season after 36 of 40 games last year. (The WNBA added four games to its regular-season schedule after the Golden State Valkyries were added as the 13th expansion team.)

A deep playoff run for the Fever could also break postseason viewership records for the WNBA. Indiana’s two-game series last year averaged 2.2 million viewers—more than four of the five WNBA Finals games. While the league is experiencing unprecedented growth for games without Clark—the 2024 WNBA Finals were the most watched since 2000—it’s clear her presence is a multiplier. The 2025 WNBA Finals will also be the first seven-game series in league history—which opens the door to even more playoff games if the Fever make it all the way.

Fortunately for the league, Clark is embracing the added expectations.

“We understand the spotlight, we understand people expect this team to win, and that’s exactly what we want to do for our fans and for this organization. But I think, me personally, I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Clark said.

On the field, the Tush Push in the NFL is something of a modern twist on the ancient paradox of an immovable object versus an unstoppable force. The continuation of the Tush Push itself across the league is taking on a similar dynamic. 

Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, who became just the ninth rusher in league history to surpass 2,000 yards in a season en route to Philadelphia’s Super Bowl LIX title, became the latest to make a passionate defense for the hotly debated play. 

“If you don’t like it, get better at stopping it,” Barkley told ESPN as he attended the Met Gala this week in New York. “It’s not like a play that we only could do. Everybody does it. Everyone tries it. We’re just super successful at it.”

That sentiment contrasts sharply against NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who is favoring a ban of some sort, perhaps through a return to pre-2004 rules, when players were not allowed to push or pull a ballcarrier in any fashion. After a proposal to ban the Tush Push, made by the Packers, was tabled last month at the NFL’s annual meeting, the issue is expected to be revisited at the league’s spring meeting in Minnesota set for May 20–21. 

Advocates of a ban have cited safety concerns, though there were no player injuries last year from the play, as well as aesthetic issues, as the accentuated quarterback sneak has been likened by some to a rugby play.

At the recent NFL draft in Green Bay, Goodell said on The Pat McAfee Show that he expects agreement to develop around the issue, as he revisited the aesthetic and safety arguments. At the prior annual meeting, team support for a ban was divided, leaving the Packers’ proposal about eight votes shy of the necessary threshold for passage.  

“I think as people see the different things the [NFL competition] committee has been considering and hear the conversation, I think they’ll actually develop a consensus,” Goodell said.

Barkley, for his part, remains defiant in his support for the play.

“[People] are going to be in their feels about it and are going to try to make changes, but I don’t see that happening. And if it doesn’t, just get better at stopping it,” he said.