The WNBA Just Can't Stop Embarrassing Itself

Well, let's say you ran a sports league and you had two choices in how to market that sports league. First choice, all-American, fun, inspiring, generally normie. Second choice, militantly lesbian, trans, anti-white, and the players bet on their own games. Which would you choose? Well, the NBA seems to be making its choice every single day. Yet another WNBA scandal today, and it's precisely what you think it is. This is the Ben Shapiro Show. So, I am an NBA fan. My son is an even bigger NBA fan. Back in the 70s, we probably wouldn't have been NBA fans. Most people were not back in the 70s, and there were a bunch of reasons for that. First off, the NBA was broadly perceived as a kind of thuggish, drug-infused league. They had no national TV coverage because of that perception. In 1977, a player named Kermit Washington for the LA Lakers nearly killed Rudy Tomjanovich in the middle of a game by punching him in the face during a scrum. A fan assaulted an actual ref during the 1976 NBA Finals. The ownership groups were totally mismanaged. The amount of blow and hookers wading through the NBA in the 70s, extraordinary. The NBA was kind of plodding. They didn't have a three-point line. The ABA, which was its big competitor and had its own financial problems, they at least had three-pointers and dunks. The NBA had serious problems. So, the NBA decided to solve that problem. They did so with a bunch of measures. First, the Celtics drafted Larry Bird, the Lakers drafted Magic Johnson, and then the entire league was built around them. They'd been huge, high-wattage college stars. Bird, of course, was white, and Magic was, of course, black. The NBA also integrated the ABA. They essentially bought them out and took them along. And stars like Dr. J entered the NBA. And the NBA decided to change its style. They added the three-point line in 1979. By 1982, NBA games were now live, not tape-delayed. And by 1983, the NBA had decided to pursue a pretty serious anti-drug policy to wipe out the cocaine problem. The NBA also decided to put serious focus on policing on and off-court violence and behavior. They were fining players and suspending them. And the NBA mostly decided to protect its stars. And, of course, it still does, which is why a lot of people will complain that stars in the playoffs get all the calls. Now, listen, this is how you build a league. That's what you do. Now, let's turn to the WNBA. So the WNBA is the subsidized little sister of the NBA. It has lost money every single year it's been in existence, ever, including this year. The NBA basically pays its bills. Its quality of play, well, it ain't the dude. Here's some of the all-star game highlights from this year in the WNBA. Stewart tips it alive. Williams from four-point range. Ty Young almost subbed him in when we were down by 11. She threw that up. She knew who she wanted to pass it. Jon Quell up to 10 points. Howard takes it right back. What a pass from Nneka. Asia Wilson can't finish it. Clark gives it underneath, and then we'll see. You haven't isolated on Kaylin at all for a blow by yet. Is that coming? Five seconds left in the third. Copper's jump. Not able to hit that one, as Clark with the steal on Asia Wilson. Look at the speed. Look at the athleticism. I wasn't even trying to there. Wide open at the other end. Oh, no. Asia goes down now, and Asia Wilson has to pick her up. I'm sorry. Oh, good Lord. Come on. You're two feet from the basket. How do you airball a shot two feet from the basket? OK, honest to goodness, there are like men's suburban 40 plus basketball leagues that play better basketball than was played in the WNBA all-star game. And again, that'd be one thing, but its brand is even worse because the brand for the WNBA has become militant lesbians who are kind of like OK at basketball by female standards, certainly not by male standards, and are simultaneously obnoxiously insistent that the only reason people won't watch them is racism and sexism. And that was the WNBA brand. I know. Golden stuff. Huge. And then the WNBA received a large scale gift, like the greatest gift of all time, Caitlin Clark, because Caitlin Clark was breaking records in college and her entry into the WNBA meant a spike in viewership and people actually giving a crap because she was good and she's still really good. Here's some Caitlin Clark highlights. Clark. Now, Clark trying to make something happen behind the back. That's the basket and get a nice pass there. I said it's a beautiful pass. Caitlin, of course, you can shoot the lights out. OK, so revenues are up and earnings are up and ratings are up basically because Caitlin Clark is in the league. But there is one problem for the WNBA. The league is still plagued by radical political leftism that has somehow become intertwined with the very character of the league. They basically let the character of the players in the league dictate the character of the league. And so the players whine incessantly about the fact that Caitlin Clark gets attention instead of them celebrating the fact that people are actually watching their kind of crappy games now. They just whine about the fact that Caitlin Clark gets attention. They keep saying that she's not good or that the people who are following Caitlin Clark, they're only doing so because she's white. And there are a bunch of racists. And again, in the NBA, there are people who did this throughout Larry Bird's career. I believe Charles Barkley early on made some comments about Larry Bird. The difference is that the league, number one, rejected it. And number two, Larry Bird himself trash talked the living hell out of everybody and would own you if you tried to do this. But there are just some of the players who've been whining about Caitlin Clark, who is the person raising the salaries for everybody in the WNBA? We're circulating the same players over and over again that we're talking about the same team, AZ Fudd, Caitlin Clark. What about Enrique? What about Kelsey Mitchell? We don't talk about these players enough. I saw that when Caitlin got hurt, nobody wanted to go to the game anymore. It was like, oh, Caitlin's not playing. I'm not interested in watching. I mean, welcome to sports where some people are stars and some people are not. There are a lot of underappreciated players in the NBA right now. Now, people who are probably better than LeBron James, but you're not going to necessarily show up to the game if LeBron isn't playing. They're probably centers who are playing better offense than Wembley right now, but you're going to show up to the Wembley game because Wembley is a star. And now it's not just that they criticize Caitlin Clark. There's this tendency in the WNBA to continue, continually manhandle Caitlin Clark. Again, the league needs to crack down on this because it's absurd. The tapes have become legion of various players basically beating up on Caitlin Clark. You can see there's a player going after Caitlin Clark's neck there to get up. Good times. And this is not rare, unfortunately. There's a lot of tapes just like this. And in for Clark. And draws the foul. 1.6. She goes sprawling. Trying to slow her down. Picking her up at midcourt. Trying to get the offensive foul call. Seattle and all of a sudden we're pretty close. Some of these are offensive fouls and some of these are just getting hammered. All second quarter long. Oh, that's on the rip through on the cut by Powell. Elbowing her in the face. I'm not going to say each one of these is on purpose or racist or anything, but there is a large scale trend of Caitlin Clark just getting randomly kind of manhandled. But here's the thing. Even that gave the WNBA an opportunity because it turns out that Caitlin Clark's team also has on it a very pretty forward named Sophie Cunningham. She also happens to be rather all American in her attitude and viewpoints. And so she has sort of become Caitlin Clark's protector on the court, which led to viral moments like this. Again, WNBA has some momentum here. This viral moment has become a meme all over the Internet. This is Sophie Cunningham, who was told by another player not to point at her, so she proceeded to point at her for the rest of time. I believe that Sophie Cunningham is still pointing at this player. So there you've got it, right? This thing, right? And it just keeps going. It just keeps going. I mean, again, one of the most hilarious things. And Sophie Cunningham, obviously she knows the cameras are on her. She knows exactly what she's doing, right? This is just smart marketing, right? Smart PR. Hey, so yet another opportunity for the WNBA, right? Kind of wrong because it turns out Sophie Cunningham has the wrong kind of politics. Mainly, she's kind of just a normie. In just a second, we'll get to the thing that got Sophie Cunningham in trouble with the trans radicals in just one second. But here is the thing. If you have phone service that is not Pure Talk, you are in trouble. Why? Well, because you're just paying too much. Pure Talk is, in a recent industry survey, the only wireless company to receive five stars in every single category, coverage, support, value, data. You deserve five-star wireless service. And now Pure Talk has an invitation just for you. Switch to Pure Talk for just 15 bucks a month for a limited time. Any plan, including their top-shelf unlimited data plans, just 15 bucks a month for your first three months. No contract needed. Just an insanely low offer to switch to a top-rated company. Now you get five stars for support, a dedicated U.S. customer service team. Now you get five stars for value. You save the average family of four over a thousand bucks a year versus big wireless. There is a better wireless choice out there at just 15 bucks a month for your first three months on any plan. Now would be an excellent time to choose Pure Talk. Simply head on over to puretalk.com slash Shapiro and claim the offer. Again, that's puretalk.com slash Shapiro to start saving today. I'm using Pure Talk myself for years. The coverage is excellent and the price is unbeatable. Go check them out right now, puretalk.com slash Shapiro to claim their special offer today. So last week, Sophie Cunningham said that boys aren't girls and girls sports should be protected from the boys playing with them. And all hell broke loose. I said what I said. I think it's kind of common sense. And I think I'll always believe in that. I think it's really important to protect children. And that's little girls who are also involved in that category. And so I stand on what I said. And I always believe that. Do you see your advocacy on that, like taking any form going forward? You know, I don't know. I didn't. I'm not a very political person, but I do have beliefs. I have morals and I'll always stand on those and be true to who I am. I think people are going to take it how they want to take it. But I've never even really said anything about that. And so when it comes just to protecting young girls in sport and women in sport, I feel very strongly about that. I think that's why you have Title nine. That's why you have some of the greats in women's sports. If Title nine and women's sports were protected, then you wouldn't hear about any type of women in sport. And so I think in the future, it's just really important to protect. OK, you know, great opportunity for the WNBA, because it's like an 80 20 issue. Most Americans don't believe that boys should play against the girls. And you're talking about a woman's sport league. That's what you're talking about. Women's basketball. If you let the biological men play, you end up with the movie Juana Man or alternatively lady ballers. A 14 year old high school freshman boy starting varsity player at any decent public school in America would torch these ladies. That is just a reality that is not sexist. That is called reality. Fourteen year old boys all over America are dunking in the WNBA with biological men would just be called the NBA and the ladies would be called ushers or at best refs, maybe an assistant coach or two. So naturally, the WNBA top voices decided to come out in stern opposition to Sophie Cunningham because the WNBA isn't the women's NBA. It is the LNBA or the LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign NBA. And all that came out into the open, no pun intended, a couple of nights ago in Seattle. So Brandi Kruse, a journalist in Seattle who I know from my days back at a Seattle radio station, took a bunch of girls to the Indiana Fever game in Seattle and they were wearing XXXY T-shirts. Those are T-shirts produced by Riley Gaines's company and Jennifer Say's company. They stand against men in women's sports. Fine. Right. Good. Right. I mean, they're carrying a sign that said, thank you, Sophie, for speaking up for girls. And then the owner of the Seattle Storm, who seems like a real charmer, her name is Celeste Keaton, showed up to scream at these teenage girls. Here are those teenage girls recapping what happened. Well, we were just sitting there with our signs that said, like, we love Sophie, like, thank you, Sophie, for speaking up. And so we were holding on, just watching the game again, like we were being super great. We hadn't said anything to anyone else. We were being super respectful. We were just holding our signs and cheering for both teams. And this lady, older lady, comes up to us and she comes up to us. And at first I think she's going to be nice. And then she asked, like, what are you guys doing? Something like that. Yeah. And then it was like, Jesus loves everyone. That's what she told us. And I was like, oh, I know. Like, I'm religious. Like, I know. I know. Yeah. And she's like, oh, I hope Jesus can forgive you for what sin you've done. And like something like that. And then she told us that we were effing insane. And she went like, you got to stop this and stop pulling. Yeah. And for you guys to come here and pull this. Yeah. She said for you to come here and pull this. Yeah. She said the word. Yeah. Did she say effing insane or? No, she said the word. So, I mean, here are the pictures of the Seattle Storm co-owners, by the way. And it kind of looks like you would think that it was going to look just a little bit. Just a little bit. Well, meanwhile, the Seattle Storm center at the same game, a lady named Stephanie Dolson, who is 6 foot 5 and 245 pounds, which makes her the shack of the WNBA, except she stinks. She averages 3.8 points per game and 2.6 rebounds per game and has the mobility of quicksand. She wore this shirt, which said trans rights are human rights. OK, lady, if you were playing against the dudes again, you would not make a basketball team. You would not. And you're the ones who are bringing this up because you're the ones who insist that boys can be girls. Now, Sophie Cunningham applauded the girls. She went on X and she said, I truly believe there is a safe space and love for everybody, biological girls, biological boys, trans women and trans men. So she's using the language of the left there. Everyone is welcome at my table. You can disagree and still be kind. Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You'll be hearing from me soon. Yay for gifts. Truly embarrassing of the co-owner, unfortunately, shows the type of leader she is. So, again, Sophie Cunningham is trying to play it as mainstream as possible. She's even using the acceptable language, which, again, I would not recommend because it ain't going to win her any points. But it is incredible that this was even a controversy. So the WNBA eventually suspended and fined Keaton. They said that she has been the co-owner suspended from attending a a series of games, the next five home games she's been fined. But again, the lasting impression here is pretty obvious. If you are traditionally conservative health, if you're traditionally rational in any way, if you are not a radical LGBTQ plus minus divided by an activist, you do not belong at a WNBA game. They're actively alienating well over half of the American population. But apparently, you know, who is acceptable in the WNBA? Players in the WNBA who literally bet on their own game on camera. The WNBA spread this actual tape. So Paige Buchers, who I guess plays for Dallas, she made a bet with Angel Reese, who's sort of the archenemy of Caitlyn Clark, about the WNBA All-Star game, literally betting on their teams before the game, which got Pete Rose banned from the Hall of Fame and baseball. But the WNBA thinks this is fun and cool. This is OK, apparently. At All-Star weekend, you and Angel made a bet with each other on this game. Is that this is how the rich stay rich? You got to say you got to say this money. I'm gonna see you next week on Wednesday. Yeah. At night? No, at practice. Oh, at practice? I mean, I know you're going to lose, but if y'all lose. I get to have that. If y'all win, if y'all win, you get it. And if we lose, then you get to keep it. No, you owe me 400. Bet. I'm staying on it. I'm staying on it. The WNBA put this out like this was cutesy. Seriously, this is stuff that gets people banned from the NBA. These are two supposed stars in the WNBA. One, Angel Reese. Again, she's supposed to be the competition for Kaitlyn Clark. Well, man, yeah. The defense, Reese in transition, too strong. Huge. After the uber efficient 45 points, Rimron Reese couldn't finish it. Offensive rebound, second chance. It's Canada for three. Weekside board. Game, but just checked in a few seconds ago. Kaitlyn Clark to Angel Reese. What a connection. Angel can't connect. Minnesota a minute to go in the first quarter is Reese from the perimeter of the spin move. Clearly could have just got to the basket for the Asian. They want that three point shot. Miles throws it away. A two on one for Reese who gallops to the rim. Can't finish the test. Here is how strong the announcers in front of the lay in and another opportunity for the dream. Great. She also misfires an offensive rebound by Reese, who's getting that rebound. Got the position. And yeah, again, Angel Reese isn't a terrible player. She's scoring like 16 points a game. Hey, but the other player in that clip, by the way, Paige Bukers, she's averaging 21 points per game and is a very good player. She's mostly known for the fact that the Dallas team drafted her girlfriend number one. So it's great. You can take your daughters to the game and hear about lesbian relationships and why trans politics are the thing that matters. So here is the deal. The WNBA, it theoretically could be a thing. It could be. I mean, after all, there are a lot of women's sports that are the thing and that are actually a thing. Women's tennis is very much a thing. So is women's golf. Not so much for soccer, which tends to spike around the World Cup and then fall apart for the same exact reasons, because it's very important to be incredibly woke. But if you want people to watch your product, you might want to think about who's the who's the crowd? Who are you actually trying to appeal to? I have two girls, 12 and six. What I want to bring them to a WNBA game where they are being preached to about the virtues of LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign radicalism. It's enough of a burden for me to pretend that the games are actually entertaining and interesting. I would never allow these people to shovel politics into my kids brains. That's the problem for the WNBA. They should separate off from their politics, but they won't for them to do what they actually need to do to make the least successful. They would need to acknowledge they're totally out of step politically with the rest of America, and they won't do that. So I promise you the WNBA after a flash in the pan will likely stagnate yet again. Coming up, we'll be joined by Jennifer, say the founder of XXXY Athletics. She, of course, is promoting the idea that boys should not play against the girls. These things are obvious, but you know what else is obvious? Death. I know. Right. That's a hard transition. But here's the reality. We are all going to plots at some time. And this is just one reason why you need to think about making provision for that happening. God forbid. This is why life insurance isn't something you should put off. I have a new addition to our family. Every time I have a new addition to the family, I think, how do I take care of my family for the future? These are all decisions we only be making all the time. The good news that finding the right life insurance policy does not have to be complicated. Policy Genius is an online insurance marketplace where you can compare quotes from America's top insurers side by side for free. They're licensed experts to answer your questions, handle the paperwork, help you find the most affordable policy that fits your family's needs. No guesswork and no pressure, just clarity. With thousands of five star reviews on Google and Trustpilot, you know you're working with a team that people trust. With Policy Genius, you can find 20 year life insurance policy starting at just 276 bucks a year for a million dollars in coverage. Head on over to policygenius.com slash Shapiro to compare life insurance quotes from top companies. See how much you could save. That's policygenius.com slash Shapiro. Joining me online to discuss all this is Jennifer Say, the founder of XXXY Athletics and 1986 Women's National Gymnastics Champion. Jennifer, thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me, Ben. So let's talk about what happened at the Seattle Storm Games. So obviously some young women were wearing your gear. Why don't you start with your organization and what it's designed to do? Yeah, I started the brand about two years ago. I have a background in fashion and brand building. I spent 23 years at Levi's. Eight of them as the CMO, two as the brand president. And I left the company in 2022 and I decided to start my own brand that combined my athletic background with my brand building experience because to influence this conversation about biological reality and standing up in defense of female athletes. I've been standing up for female athletes for 20 years. I was the first whistleblower about abuse in gymnastics way before the story of Larry Nassar blew up. So I'm kind of used to saying true but controversial things that people don't want to hear. So I just feel like the other side, the other side, they have all these brands and cultural artifacts, movies, film, music, all of it touting their message. And we've just ceded that territory. I just want to make it cool to stand up and say men and women are different and women and girls deserve their own spaces. That should be cool. That's a normal thing to say. And so that's what I'm trying to do with the brand, if that makes sense. So the other night, Brandi Kruse, who's a former colleague of mine actually at a Seattle radio station, she took a bunch of girls to the Seattle Storm game and they were wearing your gear. And this turned into a national issue because the owner, the co-owner of the Seattle Storm decided to berate the girls pretty publicly. What did you, what did you feel when you saw that happening? Well, I do want to say one thing. So I know Brandi well, and they did host a rally outside of the stadium beforehand and the attendees, it was 10 to one our side. I mean, the ground is shifting under our feet. That's the good news. That's the cultural ground is shifting under our feet. There were 10 times as many women there showing up to support Sophie and fair competition than there were activists screeching at them. So that's, that's huge. That's a good news. That wouldn't have happened a year ago or two years ago. It would have been totally the other direction. So yeah, these girls were courtside. One of them, her name is Analee Wilson. She's 16. She's taken a stand for fair competition in Washington state. She's one of the athletes on our roster. And one of the co-owners of the Seattle Storm saw fit to come up and berate these two teenage girls, curse at them, you know, tell them to cut that. I won't curse, cut this out. She said, effing this, effing that. And poor Analee started crying. I mean, she's a 16 year old girl. This is a girl. And all she was doing was wearing one of our shirts and holding a sign saying, thank you, Sophie. I mean, totally peaceful there to support both teams cheering for both sides. So this woman is cretinous and has been suspended. Now is my understanding from attending any games by the WNBA. That's the good news. This is what I mean when I say the culture is shifting. Now, it is kind of incredible that this should even be a matter for controversy inside the WNBA, considering that after all the WNBA of all leagues should understand that if boys were allowed to play with the girls, there would be no WNBA. I mean, whatever you think of the WNBA, a decent high school varsity basketball team at any public school in America would destroy the WNBA champions because boys are taller, boys jump higher, boys can dunk. I mean, I know 14 year old boys who can dunk. There are no dunks in the WNBA. Like, again, this is not a rip on women. This is just a reality about the differences between the sexes. The fact that you have the owners of these teams who are saying that somehow women should not be protected, women's sports should not be protected is totally insane. Yes, it's totally insane. But this sort of march through the culture has been going on for 20 years, as you know. You know, they took over the language, the other side, these ideologues, this whole, like, forced pronoun recitation. That's what this is about. If you're forced to say your pronouns, if you're forced to say trans women are women, how do you at that point, once we, well, not you and I, but once others have said that, how do you tell that person, Will Thomas, well, you are a woman, but you can't compete in women's sports. That capturing of the language has been the march through the culture. And we were asleep at the wheel, frankly. There have been women and men fighting this for some time, and I'm glad the rest of the country is waking up. We can't see one inch on this. We have to wrest the culture back, and that means the language with the force that was taken from us. I live in Colorado, and it is a crime to misgender here, literally a crime with penalties. Like, that's insane. I correctly gender every single day. My brand is suing the state of Colorado because this is ridiculous. We have to forcefully take it back, and we just have to influence hearts and minds. And I think it sounds so silly that a T-shirt can help do that, but it makes it really easy for someone like Analeigh Wilson to just wear the shirt, not say anything. It says, I believe in biological reality, and I believe women deserve their own sports and spaces. It's simple. Well, as Jennifer say, you can check out all of her work online, and you can go over to her company, XXXY Athletics, and buy some gear for your daughters or wear it yourself. Jennifer, thanks so much for the time. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. All right, coming up, we'll get to Clay Travis plus Anthony Fauci pleading the fifth 111 times. We'll get to all of that. It was a big fail for Fauci yesterday, but if your business fails, it is likely because you lost momentum. Customers want to buy, checkout gets clunky, and then you just don't receive the sale. The website is slow. The UX is terrible. 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To start your free trial today, Shopify.com slash Shapiro. Joining me online is Clay Travis. He, of course, is the founder of OutKick and a frequent guest on Daily Wire programming as well. Clay, thanks so much for taking the time. Appreciate it. Yeah, always enjoy it. So, you know, we have to talk about a subject I know that is close to both of our hearts, the WNBA. So I was talking a little bit earlier on the show about the fact that the WNBA, I'm not sure I've ever seen a league that is so dedicated to its own destruction. It's pretty astonishing to watch. I was sort of comparing the WNBA right now to the NBA in the 70s. During the 70s, the product wasn't particularly good on the court, a lot of thuggish behavior off the court, cocaine problems, crime problems, people punching each other, and just kind of brutal brutality on the court. And people weren't watching it, so it was on tape delay on national TV and all the rest. And the NBA decided it was going to solve its problems by not only drafting a couple of stars like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and then featuring them, but also really cleaning up the league in a wide variety of ways. The WNBA is so tied into its own character as a radical left organization that it's alienating a huge component of the American population. And I think that that played out this week. 100 percent. I've got so many thoughts on this, but I think ultimately what it reflects is identity politics destroys everything. Think about this for a minute just from a pure business perspective, because I like your analogy on the late 70s NBA. Caitlin Clark, whatever you think about her, is the golden goose of WNBA basketball. She comes in and she immediately brings a level of attention, frankly, Ben, that I never believed would happen. This is one I got wrong. I just didn't think people would care enough. I understood they cared about her in college, but we've had a lot of college women's basketball, you know, Gino Oriyama, Pat Summit. There have been a lot of times when women's college basketball mattered because they have a built in fan base with all of the colleges that people root for. Right. So I thought Caitlin Clark to the WNBA, it's never going to work. It did. OK, now pause. We've seen this happen a couple of times before in the history of sports. Tiger Woods to the PGA. There were some minor snafus when he came into the league. But overwhelmingly, the guys in the PGA suddenly realized, holy crap, we're all going to make a lot more money. The crowds are way bigger. Way more people are watching our events. Tiger Woods was the rising tide that lifted lifted the entire golf boat. Everybody made more money. Right. You have this same situation now playing out, by the way, if you want to say, OK, what about women's sports? Venus and Serena in women's tennis overwhelmingly increased the audience in a positive way. They were welcomed. They're good examples, actually, of sports leagues getting a gift, a star who transcends the entire sport and provides so much more impetus in a positive way. The WNBA got it. They didn't follow the league of the W, the lead of the WTA. They didn't follow the lead of the PGA. Heck, they didn't even follow the lead of the UFC. If you remember, Ronda Rousey came in there and women's fighting suddenly mattered way more. Instead, they decided this is a black lesbian league. We're not going to let some straight white girl come in and become the face of our league. We're going to try to humiliate her. We're going to try to injure her. We're going to make it clear we don't want her and we don't want her fans. We would rather be an unsuccessful black lesbian woke league than a successful league appealing to everyone. That really is the story. It is pretty incredible. Again, if you were just from a marketing perspective going to design a women's league, what you would figure is that your core audience would be, number one, people who are fans of women's college basketball. You try to transfer those over and up. As you say, there's a built-in audience for that. Two, people with daughters. I have a couple of daughters. I'd certainly bring my daughters to a WNBA game, except for the fact that I'm going to get hit with a bunch of radical left-wing agitprop about LGBTQ politics. Guess what? I'm really not interested in doing that, that's really stupid. I'd much prefer that my daughters, if they're going to watch women's basketball, watch the college game, which is not implicit with any of these biases. Instead, the league has decided to embrace all of its worst aspects and then to turn potential stars into activists on behalf of the left. I mean, they've decided to aim at legitimately about 2% of the American population when they should be aiming at at least 50% of the American population. Yeah, look, I think your point on dads is so huge here. Men, I know people don't want to talk about it, men are overwhelmingly the majority of sports fans. In fact, men are even the majority of women's sports fans. In particular, dads want to share something wholesome with their daughters. They love to take their daughters, and moms do too, but to your point on dads in particular, this is an audience that could make the WNBA tens of billions of dollars. If they just leaned into your daughter can one day grow up and be the next Caitlin Clark, she can grow up and be the next superstar in the WNBA. We want to create a wholesome family environment that welcomes families across the board. Instead, they decided we don't want anyone who voted for Donald Trump, whether they happen to be Caitlin Clark fans or not. We don't want white men to like our league. And by the way, if you criticize it, it's racist, it's sexist, it's homophobic, it's transphobic of you. How about I just like basketball? And the NBA, Ben, I think partly because of people like you and me who are sports fans, has really, I'm gonna give Adam Silver a little bit of credit. They finally started to pivot back to the Republicans by sneakers to era of Jordan where they appealed to everyone. I think that's a conscious choice. The WNBA refuses to do it. I mean, that's exactly right. Listen, there are a lot of left wing players in the NBA. Overwhelmingly, the players in the NBA are undoubtedly voting Democrat. But the fact is that the NBA decided that it wasn't going to do this sort of overt Black Lives Matter nonsense it did in 2020. They'd alienated an entire fan base. And instead, they were just gonna focus on the talents of the basketball players. The WNBA has not done that in any way, shape, or form. They actually have some very talented players, people like Paige Buechers, for example, who's scoring like 21 points a game. But the story around Paige Buechers right now is not that she's a great basketball player, it's that she has a relationship with her teammates. I mean, that is not the kind of narrative that is gonna drive dads to take their daughters to the game. Ben, back-to-back number one draft picks are in a relationship, and they were upset. I saw this story. I said, this can't be real. They drafted her girlfriend with the number one overall pick, when, by the way, it was not the case that everybody looked at that and said, hey, you know what? This is clearly the best player in the league. I think the relationship probably did impact it. I don't know if you've seen this. Last night, I'm scrolling through Twitter, getting ready to go to bed. Paige Buechers and Angel Reese bet $400 on video on the outcome of their game, Ben. I saw this, and the WNBA tweeted it. I said, there's no way this is real. I thought it was AI. I'm doing research on it. I told my wife. She's like, what are you paying attention to? I was like, they're betting on games? This is one of the craziest stories I've ever seen, and the league shared it, Ben, which I think is probably the stupidest move in the history of online sports in the internet era. The league itself shared two of its star players betting $400 on a game, which is like 90% of their WNBA weekly salary, probably. So it's like Shohei Otani betting like a million dollars on a game. I couldn't believe this is real. I don't know what the fallout's going to be. I was just looking it up so far this morning. There hasn't been any discussion about comments from the WNBA. This is a big deal. Can you imagine if this was men's sports? It would be everywhere. There's no chance, by the way, the WNBA is going to shift tactics at all, at all, because the chances they will ever allow an owner who voted for Donald Trump or even thought at one point about voting for Donald Trump to be in the league, they simply will not allow it. The ownership structure is completely filled up with people who are on the radical left. They will not allow expansion to anywhere that is going to lean toward even moderation, politically speaking. And meanwhile, they're just going to live off the subsidies from the NBA. The reality is that despite the fact that their revenue has been increasing and their ratings have been increasing, they're still running tens of millions of dollars in the red every single year, the WNBA. Yeah, look, this is why I've argued, and I really do think she should look into it, that Caitlin Clarke should think about leaving the WNBA and starting her own league of six or eight teams. You look at Sophie Cunningham, who I give credit for saying the absolutely radical idea men shouldn't be able to compete in women's sports, boys not in girls' sports. What happened right after she said that, she's playing in Seattle two nights ago, one of the owners of the WNBA franchise in Seattle cursed out teenage girls who showed up at the Seattle game to cheer for Sophie Cunningham. Now, they reportedly suspended this owner for five games. But can you imagine running a women's sports league, cursing out teenage girls who have showed up at your game to support a player who had the radical position of men shouldn't be able to play in women's sports? I mean, there's a reason it's the WNBA, Ben, because obviously none of these women would have any hope if you watch the highlight reels. Frankly, I don't think, I bet a million dollars on it, they wouldn't take it up. A boys' high school state championship team in any state wouldn't destroy the WNBA champion. They know it, which is why they wouldn't take my million-dollar bet. That's Clay Travis. You can check out all of his work over at X and beyond. Also, check out his podcast. He's the founder of OutKick. Go check him out. Clay Travis, thanks so much for the time. Thanks, Ben. Keep up the good work.