Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It is no question that Caitlyn Clark is the most
popular player in the WNBA, and unfortunately, there are a
lot of people that play in the WNBA that think
that because she's the most popular, that it allows people
to think that she's the best. And while I think
she's elevated her status to probably be a top ten player,
(00:22):
maybe a little lower, a little higher than that, but
certainly in the ballpark around number ten. I think Nafisia
Collier is really good, and Asia Wilson's good, and obviously
Brianna Stewart's got.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
A few.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Years in the league, and to me, Diana Trossi before
she left last year in what was Caitlin's rookie year,
maybe the best player of all time. But I think
a lot of people mistake the fact that you're the
most popular for the best. Now. I don't think Caitlyn
Clark's the best player. I'd put some of those players
I just mentioned ahead of her, but I also think
(00:57):
that she is the second She is the most popular,
and the second most popular is now her the facto bodyguard,
and that's Sophie Cunningham, and Sophie is very prevalent on podcasts.
Does a lot of interviews, does a lot of social
media posts, and she has basically come out and said
she's been fined several times for being critical of WNBA officiating,
(01:20):
which some of them certainly are deserving of because that
league has struggled with finding really good officials for a
long time. I think women's college basketball has officiated a
better stance. But then again, basketball in general is a
really hard sport to call. They're playing at a level
now that is so fast, and you have to be
a really special talent. You have to be kind of
(01:40):
a goat referee if you're going to be a good referee.
There's no such really anymore as an average referee, really
good at it or really bad at it. But with
what Sophie Cunningham is doing and basically telling the league
and the officials, I'm not going to let you beat
up our cash cow here. Caitlin Clark is making us
all rich and you people are sitting there waiting around
(02:01):
waiting for her to get hurt so that the league
can lose opportunities to to market her. And I'm not
gonna let that happen. And if you're gonna bully her,
I'm going to bully back and I don't care what
it makes because I'll go to a podcast and make
whatever the finance. And I kind of applaud her for
that because the league needs that. And Sophie Cunningham also
(02:23):
said something I think that was really really important. She said, Yeah,
we'd all like to get paid more, but if we're
going to get paid more, then we need to have
more games. We're gonna have to put more input. We're
gonna have to do more because we've got to increase
the revenue so that we can get paid more. That
is a common sense approach to hopefully salvaging the labor
dispute that's likely to happen as soon as the season
(02:45):
is over. I think she gets it more than any
other players players do. And I like the fact that
she is protecting Caitlin Clark and not afraid to get
her hands a little bit dirty in order to do it.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well. I think it's more than just the more than
just protecting Caitlin Clark. It's just, you know, it's going
about the consistency of WNBA referees. You know what she
got fined for. She got fined for fifteen hundred dollars
in her actual first pilot episode for her podcast where
(03:19):
she said, quote, if I was a ref, I know
I would mess up all the time. Like I'm not
saying that your job is easy, but when it come
but when it is a simple call right in front
of your face, multiple times, what are you doing? What
are you doing? They're just so inconsistent. Like that's one thing.
If you're on the other team and you're going to
(03:40):
be fouling the bleep out of me, cool, but let
me do it to you, right. I think players across
the league and new fans across the country are like,
what is going on with the refs? And I'm like,
I don't know, and you're finding me five hundred dollars
and you're finding me five hundred dollars is not going
to do bleep And and she's right, She's right. There's
(04:02):
nothing wrong with speaking up and not just talking about
Caitlin Clark, but just saying let's have some consistency. That's
the one thing you and I were always big on
that we know in the playoffs it's a different animal.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, here's the thing is that if a player doesn't
continually make themselves better, they likely don't make the roster.
Right now, there's thirteen teams and I think twelve players
on each team, so there's one hundred and whatever, one
hundred and fifty seven players in the league, and there's
going to be a few more teams added, so there's
only one hundred and fifty seven jobs. And if you
(04:36):
don't improve, you don't get better, you don't work on
your craft, you don't make a roster. But there are
WNBA referees that have been refereeing since the league started
twenty seven years ago. They've never been promoted to the NBA,
which is what their goal was in the first place,
and they continue to make the same mistakes they used to,
and I don't think a lot of times they're held
(04:56):
at the same accountability that the players. And listen, I
think they have a tough job. I've told you before,
I tried it when I was in high school and
I was never gonna do it again, and I don't
want to do it, and I want, but I want
you to get better at it. If you can't get
better at it, then go do something that you can
get better at. And there are some good officials and
a lot of the officials that are really good people
(05:17):
don't like we in San Antonio have a vendetta against
Joey Crawford because he kicked him dunking out for smiling.
But Joey Crawford was one of the best officials in
the history of professional refereeing, and he worked at it,
and he took him and his dad and his brother
were lifelong football and i mean basketball and baseball officials,
and they were proud of their craft, and they worked
(05:39):
their tail off at it. And you could tell that
when they made a mistake that they were generally upset
with themselves about it. And it seems like so many
of them don't care. They're going to make the same
bad call and for whatever reason they've decided, we're gonna
let Kaylin Clark get beat up and we're not gonna
call fallis. When she gets pushed off the play, she's
going to have to learn to live with it and
earn her stripes. And their salaries and everybody else's salaries
(06:03):
are increasing because of her. You would think they would
want to protect that just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Well, here's the funny thing, you know, along with her
comments is you could argue, well, she's talking about Caitlyn Clark,
which she probably is to a certain extent. But I
mean Caitlyn Clark's been hasn't played in what a month
and a half's She's only played a few games in
the last you know months, forty five days because of
(06:28):
that groin injury. So it just goes back to she
just wants consistency. And I think that's not only players,
it's fans as well. You know, we saw it in
the playoffs when it comes to the free throw merchant
himself with Shay Gilgess Alexander. So I don't falter for
saying it. And she's definitely becoming one of my favorite players,
(06:50):
that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Absolutely. Okay, we got baseball to talk about, you know,
that's baseball. We'll talk about it next. And man, I'm
gonna just lay into the analytic people who prepare for
the prepare that coming up. It's the Andy Everage Show
on the ticket
It is no question that Caitlyn Clark is the most
popular player in the WNBA, and unfortunately, there are a
lot of people that play in the WNBA that think
that because she's the most popular, that it allows people
to think that she's the best. And while I think
she's elevated her status to probably be a top ten player,
(00:22):
maybe a little lower, a little higher than that, but
certainly in the ballpark around number ten. I think Nafisia
Collier is really good, and Asia Wilson's good, and obviously
Brianna Stewart's got.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
A few.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Years in the league, and to me, Diana Trossi before
she left last year in what was Caitlin's rookie year,
maybe the best player of all time. But I think
a lot of people mistake the fact that you're the
most popular for the best. Now. I don't think Caitlyn
Clark's the best player. I'd put some of those players
I just mentioned ahead of her, but I also think
(00:57):
that she is the second She is the most popular,
and the second most popular is now her the facto bodyguard,
and that's Sophie Cunningham, and Sophie is very prevalent on podcasts.
Does a lot of interviews, does a lot of social
media posts, and she has basically come out and said
she's been fined several times for being critical of WNBA officiating,
(01:20):
which some of them certainly are deserving of because that
league has struggled with finding really good officials for a
long time. I think women's college basketball has officiated a
better stance. But then again, basketball in general is a
really hard sport to call. They're playing at a level
now that is so fast, and you have to be
a really special talent. You have to be kind of
(01:40):
a goat referee if you're going to be a good referee.
There's no such really anymore as an average referee, really
good at it or really bad at it. But with
what Sophie Cunningham is doing and basically telling the league
and the officials, I'm not going to let you beat
up our cash cow here. Caitlin Clark is making us
all rich and you people are sitting there waiting around
(02:01):
waiting for her to get hurt so that the league
can lose opportunities to to market her. And I'm not
gonna let that happen. And if you're gonna bully her,
I'm going to bully back and I don't care what
it makes because I'll go to a podcast and make
whatever the finance. And I kind of applaud her for
that because the league needs that. And Sophie Cunningham also
(02:23):
said something I think that was really really important. She said, Yeah,
we'd all like to get paid more, but if we're
going to get paid more, then we need to have
more games. We're gonna have to put more input. We're
gonna have to do more because we've got to increase
the revenue so that we can get paid more. That
is a common sense approach to hopefully salvaging the labor
dispute that's likely to happen as soon as the season
(02:45):
is over. I think she gets it more than any
other players players do. And I like the fact that
she is protecting Caitlin Clark and not afraid to get
her hands a little bit dirty in order to do it.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well. I think it's more than just the more than
just protecting Caitlin Clark. It's just, you know, it's going
about the consistency of WNBA referees. You know what she
got fined for. She got fined for fifteen hundred dollars
in her actual first pilot episode for her podcast where
(03:19):
she said, quote, if I was a ref, I know
I would mess up all the time. Like I'm not
saying that your job is easy, but when it come
but when it is a simple call right in front
of your face, multiple times, what are you doing? What
are you doing? They're just so inconsistent. Like that's one thing.
If you're on the other team and you're going to
(03:40):
be fouling the bleep out of me, cool, but let
me do it to you, right. I think players across
the league and new fans across the country are like,
what is going on with the refs? And I'm like,
I don't know, and you're finding me five hundred dollars
and you're finding me five hundred dollars is not going
to do bleep And and she's right, She's right. There's
(04:02):
nothing wrong with speaking up and not just talking about
Caitlin Clark, but just saying let's have some consistency. That's
the one thing you and I were always big on
that we know in the playoffs it's a different animal.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, here's the thing is that if a player doesn't
continually make themselves better, they likely don't make the roster.
Right now, there's thirteen teams and I think twelve players
on each team, so there's one hundred and whatever, one
hundred and fifty seven players in the league, and there's
going to be a few more teams added, so there's
only one hundred and fifty seven jobs. And if you
(04:36):
don't improve, you don't get better, you don't work on
your craft, you don't make a roster. But there are
WNBA referees that have been refereeing since the league started
twenty seven years ago. They've never been promoted to the NBA,
which is what their goal was in the first place,
and they continue to make the same mistakes they used to,
and I don't think a lot of times they're held
(04:56):
at the same accountability that the players. And listen, I
think they have a tough job. I've told you before,
I tried it when I was in high school and
I was never gonna do it again, and I don't
want to do it, and I want, but I want
you to get better at it. If you can't get
better at it, then go do something that you can
get better at. And there are some good officials and
a lot of the officials that are really good people
(05:17):
don't like we in San Antonio have a vendetta against
Joey Crawford because he kicked him dunking out for smiling.
But Joey Crawford was one of the best officials in
the history of professional refereeing, and he worked at it,
and he took him and his dad and his brother
were lifelong football and i mean basketball and baseball officials,
and they were proud of their craft, and they worked
(05:39):
their tail off at it. And you could tell that
when they made a mistake that they were generally upset
with themselves about it. And it seems like so many
of them don't care. They're going to make the same
bad call and for whatever reason they've decided, we're gonna
let Kaylin Clark get beat up and we're not gonna
call fallis. When she gets pushed off the play, she's
going to have to learn to live with it and
earn her stripes. And their salaries and everybody else's salaries
(06:03):
are increasing because of her. You would think they would
want to protect that just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Well, here's the funny thing, you know, along with her
comments is you could argue, well, she's talking about Caitlyn Clark,
which she probably is to a certain extent. But I
mean Caitlyn Clark's been hasn't played in what a month
and a half's She's only played a few games in
the last you know months, forty five days because of
(06:28):
that groin injury. So it just goes back to she
just wants consistency. And I think that's not only players,
it's fans as well. You know, we saw it in
the playoffs when it comes to the free throw merchant
himself with Shay Gilgess Alexander. So I don't falter for
saying it. And she's definitely becoming one of my favorite players,
(06:50):
that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Absolutely. Okay, we got baseball to talk about, you know,
that's baseball. We'll talk about it next. And man, I'm
gonna just lay into the analytic people who prepare for
the prepare that coming up. It's the Andy Everage Show
on the ticket
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.