WNBA players and their union have criticized Commissioner Cathy Engelbert for her recent remarks on a TV show, where she did not address the racist and harsh criticism from fans directed at the Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese rivalry.
Engelbert appeared on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” on Monday, where anchor Tyler Mathisen asked about the negative tone from fan bases on social media, including race and sometimes sexuality.
Mathisen asked Engelbert, “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?”
Engelbert replied, “There’s no more apathy. Everybody cares. It is a little of that Bird-Magic 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.”
WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson responded on Tuesday, stating that Engelbert should have answered the question about racism, misogyny, and harassment by saying, “There is absolutely no place in sport — or in life — for the vile hate, racist language, homophobic comments, and the misogynistic attacks our players are facing on social media.”
The union’s statement continued, saying that fans should “lift up the game, not tear down the very people who bring it to life.”
