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Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are currently some of the best players the WNBA has seen in decades. Statistics show that in their rookie year, the average price for a resale ticket for Fever games (Caitlin Clark\u2019s team) in 2024 was $186, representing a 136% increase from 2023, according to ESPN. For Reese, her team’s ticket pricing was $146 in 2024 and $56 in 2023. However, throughout their basketball careers in college, a narrative was created by the media, which then led to a supposed rivalry, putting the two stars head-to-head.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This rivalry has been long-lasting, but it gained traction in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, where Clark’s team, the Iowa Hawkeyes, faced Angel’s team, the LSU Tigers in the national championship. The game was a very close one, in which both teams were in very close reach of each other, with the scores going back and forth. LSU eventually beat Iowa 102-85 in overtime. However, during the final few seconds of the game, as Caitlin was reportedly going to her team’s bench, Reese came up to Clark, pointing at her ring finger. This hand signal is a celebration performed by athletes, often during championship games, symbolizing championship rings distributed to the winning team. Reese also waved her hand in front of her own face, a gesture translating to \u2018you can\u2019t see me\u2019 because the player performing the gesture is too fast or quick.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Reece\u2019s gestures caused an uproar in the media, fans, and sports outlets, with some believing that her actions were a \u201cdeliberate attack\u201d. With all of this attention, Reese gathered loads of hate on social media for how she is \u201ctoo ghetto\u201d, a \u201cthug\u201d, and more, from viewers of women’s basketball. This is where the rivalry began, through the media\u2019s portrayal. The rivalry was not only because of this game, it was also because they were both excellent players, and they had great achievements that changed women’s basketball forever, such as Caitlin becoming the All-Time Leading Scorer in NCAA Division 1, and Angel leading LSU to its first NCAA championship. Since these women are so talented at their sport, the media was destined to put them head-to-head.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The next season, in the Elite 8, a round in the NCAA tournament, the Iowa Hawkeyes beat the LSU Tigers, eliminating them from the tournament. This game had 12.3 million viewers, and the attendance number was 13,978 people, which broke an attendance record. After the game finished and LSU lost, Reese stated in her post-game interview, \u201c<\/span>I\u2019ve been through so much\u2026 I\u2019ve seen so much. I\u2019ve been attacked so many times, death threats, I\u2019ve been sexualized, I\u2019ve been threatened, so many things, and I\u2019ve stood strong every single time. I just try to stand strong for my teammates because I don\u2019t want them to see me down and not be there for them. <\/span>I\u2019m still a human. All this has happened since I won the national championship, and I said the other day I haven\u2019t been happy since then. And it sucks, but I still wouldn\u2019t change anything, and I would still sit here and say I\u2019m unapologetically me\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Throughout these past two seasons following both women getting drafted into the WNBA, Caitlin as the first overall pick and Angel as the seventh overall pick, it is clear that these women have paved the way for other women and worked hard to get where they are today. During a few initial WNBA matchups between the two, Caitlin was frequently fouled, a flagrant foul by Reese, when her arm hit the side of Clark’s head and pushed her to the floor. When incidents like this happened, many have tried to push the rivalry narrative upon this, instead of accepting it as competitive play. Another more recent incident was during a preseason game on May 17th, when Caitlin fouled Reese, and then Reese heard racist comments, racial slurs, and even animal noises directed at her from the stands. After this, the WNBA went under an inside investigation into who those fans were. Caitlin addressed this and stated that <\/span>“People should not be using my name to push those agendas. It’s disappointing. It’s not acceptable.” <\/span>Despite these narratives coming in from the media, both women have spoken positively about each other, even after multiple rumors spread about the \u201crivalry\u201d. Reese has stated multiple times that she and Clark do not hate each other and that the media just needs to understand that their relationship is just competitive and not an actual serious feud.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Another event this past season occurred when more rumors of this rivalry spread when Clark swatted the ball out of Angel\u2019s hands to defend her teammate, Aliyah Boston, who got pushed when trying to rebound defensively. Angel then went up to Clark, and the two proceeded to be separated. Again, the media fed on this story, twisting it into the same narrative that consistently garners the attention of the public. All of these events have caused an inaccurate portrayal of a victim and a perpetrator, with Clark primarily as the victim and the perpetrator typically being Reese. This narrative has caused harm to both parties, and fans want the WNBA to address the issue of ongoing racism happening in the WNBA towards players of color.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are currently some of the best players the WNBA has seen in decades. Statistics show that in their rookie year, the average price for a resale ticket for Fever games (Caitlin Clark\u2019s team) in 2024 was $186, representing a 136% increase from 2023, according to ESPN. For Reese, her…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":4683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[323],"staff_name":[362],"class_list":["post-4682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-december-25","staff_name-jojo-olson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4685,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions\/4685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4682"},{"taxonomy":"staff_name","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff_name?post=4682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}