‘The real controllers’: Who's REALLY behind race-baiting in the WNBA



The Angel Reese vs. Caitlin Clark rivalry began years ago on the court of the national title game between Louisiana State University and University of Iowa. When Reese and LSU secured the win, Reese didn’t walk away without famously taunting Clark first.

As the pair have taken their careers into the big leagues, Anthony Walker believes the media is using the controversy, with a racism angle, to promote the WNBA.

“I see the media as a driver,” Walker tells BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock on “Fearless.” “As with the WNBA, it’s never been a profitable business. It’s always needed that infusion of finance.”


“But when we look at what’s happened the last couple of years with women’s college basketball,” he continues, “from my vantage point, women’s college basketball has always been pretty popular.”

However, the WNBA is not as popular as college basketball.

“So they need some kind of angle to push to make things kind of happen. So they’re using all this drama, using all this controversy, using all these angles. It’s why a foul call goes to somebody calling out another person’s wife, and this big racial debacle of microaggression,” Walker explains.

“No press is bad press, so as long as we can get some eyes looking into this, maybe we can turn those views into revenue,” he adds.

But Whitlock doesn't believe the WNBA is turning sports stories into racial ones on their own.

“There was a documentary about Tiger Woods,” Whitlock begins. “Nike is who wanted to push Tiger Woods as a racial story, as a black-white story, and Tiger Woods and his daddy were like, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’”

“For the most part, Nike, the real controllers, they dictate how these leagues are covered and what they lean into, and they’ve decided the racial angle and racial animus is a way of uplifting the WNBA,” he adds.

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The PERFECT analogy to explain why Caitlin Clark’s WNBA salary makes sense



In the wake of Iowa Hawkeyes guard Caitlin Clark signing with the Indiana Fever, fans are outraged at the superstar’s projected WNBA salary, which will earn her just $76,535 for her rookie season.

When you consider that Clark was the number-one draft pick, that amount does seem remarkably low, especially when you consider that the number-one draft pick for the NBA in 2023 was Victor Wembanyama, whose starting salary with the San Antonio Spurs was just over $12 million.

Is this fair?

According to Dave Rubin and guest Dennis Prager, yes.

While Dave gives credit where credit is due, calling Clark a “spectacular women’s basketball player,” he doesn’t think “[taking] some money from LeBron James and [giving] it to Caitlin Clark” is the answer.

Prager agrees, offering an analogy that puts things into perspective.

“How much does a supermodel make? The truth is some of them make millions of dollars a year,” he tells Dave.

And he’s correct. In 2023, several supermodels made tens of millions of dollars, and every single one of them was – you guessed it – a woman.

“Are there any male supermodels who make millions of dollars a year?” Prager asks. “I doubt it.”

Correct again. The highest-paid male model of 2023 was Sean O’Pry, who earned roughly $1.5 million.

Why the disparity?

“Because generally speaking, people would rather see women models than male models,” says Prager. “So is it fair that male models make so much less than female models? Yes, of course it’s fair!”

And just as the male modeling industry pales in comparison to the female modeling industry, so “the WNBA does not bring in the revenue of the NBA.”

“They take the gender confusion and then they combine it into something as it relates to capitalism that really just all leads to socialism,” says Dave.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the clip below.


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UConn Coach Dan Hurley identifies good recruits by first looking at their parents: 'They tell on themselves'



Dan Hurley, the head coach of the men's basketball team at the University of Connecticut — which has just won back-to-back national championships — claimed that when he heads out on the recruiting trail, he doesn't just look at the play on the court. For a quality player who will fit in with his program, Hurley first looks at a player's parents.

"We spend a lot of time really focusing on the parents," Hurley told CBS, according to FootballScoop. "Are they going to be fans of their son, or are they going to be parents?"

Some parents these days keep their son's skin thin by catering to his whims and ego, "constantly complaining about the coaches after a bad game" without ever pushing him "to do more" and "play harder," Hurley said.

Hurley looks for parents who will hold their child accountable and "have an expectation that when something goes wrong that it's not the coach's fault." "Their son's got to work harder," Hurley said. "He's got to do more; he's got to earn his role."

Hurley seemed to indicate that coddling parents are easy to spot. "They tell on themselves," he explained. "They drop hints."

Hurley suggested that coaches should avoid players — even those with raw talent — if they have parents more worried about protecting their children than developing them. "You've got the wrong type of people around the inner circle of your players, they'll sink your program," Hurley cautioned.

Hurley, 51, knows firsthand the importance of a strong family that holds one another accountable. Dan Hurley is the younger son of Bob Hurley, the legendary coach of the now-closed St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, New Jersey. Bob Hurley led the Friars to 28 state titles in 39 years, good enough for a spot in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

Bob Hurley's other son, Bobby Hurley, won back-to-back national championships with Duke in the early 1990s. He now coaches the Sun Devils of Arizona State. In nine years at ASU, Bobby Hurley has made three NCAA tournament appearances, most recently in 2023.

"My dad started the whole thing," Bobby Hurley said last year. "If anyone has a problem with our competitive drive, you should probably start right there. He hated to lose. He rarely lost, and when he did, everyone was hiding in the house because that’s just how things were."

The Hurley family are also practicing Catholics, and Dan Hurley recently gave a speech about the importance of fatherhood at a fundraiser for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Hartford. "We can’t thank Coach Hurley enough for supporting our mission," said CEO Marek Kukulka. "He and his family are shining examples of dedication and commitment."

That strong foundation of faith and family has shaped Dan Hurley into the coach he is today. "I want to coach with integrity," he said, "... [and] be a coach’s coach like my dad, not a phony or a fraud or a liar or a cheater."

"I want to be the college version of my dad."

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Will viewership tank once Caitlin Clark heads to the WNBA?



Women’s basketball has now broken records, and some believe it has a lot more to do with Caitlin Clark than anything else.

The television broadcast of the South Carolina-Iowa game averaged 18.9 million viewers and peaked at 24.1 million, which is the most views ever recorded for a men or women’s college basketball game on an ESPN platform.

“She’s brought a bunch of eyes to women’s college basketball,” Jeffy tells Pat Gray, who adds, “It’s hard for me to believe. The most-watched basketball game of any kind?”

While it’s an impressive feat, neither Gray or Jeffy believe the viewership will continue once Clark moves on to the WNBA.

“In the future, without Caitlin, you know there will be a few more eyes brought to women’s basketball,” Jeffy says.

Gray wonders if “they will stay there,” and Jeffy predicts, “No way.”

Even the vice president has gotten in on the madness by recently feigning interest in women’s basketball, claiming that women’s teams were not allowed to have brackets until 2022.

“A bit of a history lesson, do you know that the women’s teams were not allowed to have brackets until 2022? Think about that,” Kamala Harris said, despite being wrong.

“People used to say, ‘Ah, women’s sports, who’s interested?’” She added.

“We’ll check back in with you next year after Caitlin’s gone,” Gray laughs.


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Woke op-ed writer blasts Oral Roberts U., suggests Christian school should be banned from NCAA competition for its 'anti-LGBTQ+ stance'



After tiny Oral Roberts University shocked the sports world with its otherworldly upsets of second-seeded Ohio State and then seventh-seeded Florida in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, you knew the woke mob sooner or later would deliver vitriol against the famously conservative Christian college.

What are the details?

Sure enough, a Tuesday op-ed penned by USA Today's Hemal Jhaveri did just that.

While acknowledging that Oral Roberts has "become a fan favorite" due to its improbable underdog run, Jhaveri pulled no punches when came to the school's moral standards, which she said are "wholly incompatible with the NCAA's own stated values of equality and inclusion" — particularly its "discriminatory and hateful anti-LGBTQ+ policy."

She noted that ORU condemns "homosexual behavior" along with "adultery" and "premarital sex" and requires students to pledge they won't be in marriages other than those "between one man and one woman," none of which is surprising for a conservative Christian college.

More from Jhaveri's op-ed:

As a private university and under the banner of fundamentalist Christian beliefs, the school is free to impose whatever standards of behavior they see fit, even if those standards are wildly out of line with modern society and the basic values of human decency. Now, as Oral Roberts gains national attention, the focus shouldn't just be on their very good men's basketball team, but on their prejudiced teachings and moral regressiveness.

That Oral Roberts wants to keep its students tied to toxic notions of fundamentalism that fetishize chastity, abstinence and absurd hemlines is a larger cultural issue that can be debated. What is not up for debate however is their anti-LGBTQ+ stance, which is nothing short of discriminatory and should expressly be condemned by the NCAA.

She went on to argue that "any and all anti-LGBTQ+ language in any school's polices should ban them from NCAA competition."

Calling ORU "a hotbed of institutional transphobia, homophobia with regressive, sexist policies," Jhaveri added that "there is no way to separate their men's basketball team from the dangers of their religious dogma, no matter how many top seeds they defeat."

If Jhaveri's name sounds familiar...

You might recognize Jhaveri's name, as she was in numerous news stories earlier this week for being one of many prominent leftists who jumped to conclusions about the race of the Boulder mass killer before suspect Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was identified.

Jhaveri wrote in a now-deleted tweet that "it's always an angry white male. always."

I’m shocked and appalled that the Race and Inclusion editor at a major newspaper, is, in fact, a racist. (And prono… https://t.co/OI01ehUnbA
— Dave Rubin (@Dave Rubin)1616517524.0

While Jhaveri's tweets are now protected and not viewable without her permission, Townhall noted that she apologized for the latter tweet: "I deleted a previous tweet that was posted in haste and poor judgement. My tweet was impulsive and an over-generalization, for which I apologize. That over-generalization does not reflect the values of this position or Gannett."

It's likely just fine with Twitter's censors, though.