Following an awkward exchange with Caitlin Clark at her introductory press conference as a member of the Indiana Fever, Indianapolis Star reporter Gregg Doyel has been suspended two weeks without pay. Doyel will also not be permitted to cover Clark or the Fever over the summer, although he may reportedly still write columns about the team. The incident took place upon Doyel making a heart sign with his hands towards Clark and stating that they would “get along just fine” if she started doing that towards him. On a recent episode of The Colin Cowherd Podcast through The Volume with Nick Wright, Cowherd does not believe that Doyel should have been suspended.
Cowherd explained that the media has regularly tried to protect people who do not need it and proceeded to outline that he can say that Anthony Edwards reminds him of Michael Jordan because he leans into it. Within his remarks, he did acknowledge that he thought what Doyel did was weird but proceeded to articulate that Clark did not need the protection of the media because of her strength and toughness. Nick Wright, who is a colleague of Cowherd’s at FS1, gave his perspective of Doyel since he knows him.
“If you’ve been around him, you can see, ‘Oh, he wasn’t trying to be creepy,’” Wright said. “He’s just, I think, well meaning but a little awkward at times,’ and that’s what came across…. But if you had never met him, you might be like, ‘What the hell is wrong? Who is this guy?’”
Cowherd asserted that Serena Williams was the best tennis player he had ever seen and acknowledged her as Roger Federer’s equal both emotionally and in the sport. Attaining that level of recognition and prestige, he averred, is representative of “the ultimate respect for women’s athletes.” Wright then explained that conversations surrounding women’s sports have turned to discussions he classifies as “dumb,” something that he views as progress and momentum in the right direction.
“The ‘Who’s the G.O.A.T. of this?’ is the dumbest, but it is also [something that] gets people riled up [and] people have opinions,” Wright said. “In my whole career leading up to that, we would only be talking about women’s sports in such a bespoke way – it wouldn’t be that – but now it’s just like sports. Like, ‘Hey, is she the best? Is she going to suck as a rookie?’ Like it’s just regular, stupid sports talk.”
Wright believes that Clark is going to make an immediate impact in the WNBA, but said that it would be “patronizing and insulting if people don’t rip her.” In fact, he perceives it becoming more ingrained within discussions on their respective FS1 programs.
“There is a level of – this just sounds silly – but equality of criticism that I do think now is going to come to the WNBA,” Wright said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a direct, straight, linear growth, but I do think they now have enough star power that it is going to be a topic.”
Last season, the WNBA averaged 505,000 viewers across ABC, ESPN and CBS during its regular season. The WNBA Finals averaged 728,000 viewers per game, which was up 36% compared to the previous year. No WNBA game has surpassed 1 million viewers in 16 years; however, the recent WNBA Draft on ESPN recently averaged 2.45 million viewers, the largest audience for any WNBA event in 23 years.
The league recently approved charter flights for its players and is looking to “at least double” its broadcast deals that are currently worth a reported $60 million per year. In late April, the league inked a three-year deal with The E.W. Scripps Company to televise Friday night games on ION. It also reached a two-year extension with Amazon Prime Video for a 21-game slate each year, including the championship matchup within the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup.
“It will arrive this year,” Cowherd said of the WNBA, “and it will arrive because the discussions will be authentic and critical, not flowery and protective, and I’m looking forward to it.”
