Doug Gottlieb (6:01)
Did anybody know that? I mean, I'm sure, like soccer guys, like, yeah, you dope. Hey, I played soccer growing up. I don't remember any of that stuff. I just remember the tunnel. I remember Capri Sun. I remember scoring goals. You know, I don't remember any of that. So I love learning. And I'll tell you something I learned today, okay? There was a playwright in the 16 and 1700s, mostly 1700s. His name was William Congreve. You're like, why are you telling me about a playwright? Because he's the one who authored up the phrase, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Have you ever heard that? If you haven't heard that one, I bet he also said, you must not kiss and tell. So kiss and tell and hell hath no worry. Hell hath no wrath like a scorned woman. That's that. We changed the words, that changed the order of it. We. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That was William Congreve, who, who was a famous playwright in the 16 and 1700s. Born in 1670, died in 1729. Like, why are you starting out with that saying? Well, I'll tell you, I also learned that apparently there's not a true standalone version of it, but a video game within a video game for EA Sports. So ea Sports has two kids, or is it EA Sports that has 2K? You're familiar with 2K? All right, so apparently there's also a, a WNBA version of 2K. And I get it, right? Like, what is 2K? If you take away all the dunks and the made layups and three points and the high percentage of made three point shots and you have WNBA. But there is no denying the WNBA's sudden rise in popularity. And for those of us who are honest with ourselves, it's because of Caitlin Clark. And, you know, we can get into the reasons why I love the people that fall on the. The race aspect of it. When then you point out, like, hey, Sabrina Unescu and Kelsey Plum were great women's college basketball players who came to league and have been great WNBA players and they have not received any Amount of the acclaim of a Caitlin Clark. There's a bunch of different factors, mostly likely the logo threes, the hey, we love Steph Curry. And here's the closest version of it. Who happened to play at the same school for four years, happened to take her team to two straight Final Fours, happen. Looks like everybody else's little sister. All of those things, she kind of nails. But upon my, my quest to learn something every day, I found out that there's a NBA 2K version focusing on the WNBA. But here's the kicker. The COVID choice was Angel Reese. Was Angel Reese. And it just continues this pattern of the WNBA doing everything in their power to, I don't know if it's diminish Caitlin Clark or to promote everybody other than Caitlin Clark, but whatever it is, we try and search for reasons and I keep falling back on hell hath no wrath. Like a woman scorned William Cornelius in the late 1600s. And like, wait a second, why are they scorned? Caitlin Clark said nothing negative towards any of these women. She doesn't have to. The only logical conclusion as to why so many of these women have done everything in their power to marginalize her rise to fame and what it's done for the entire sport of women's basketball is that you have women that feel like they've been scorned by media, by mainstream fans for their entire lives, and comes out as anger and resentment towards Caitlin Clark. Does that make sense? There's something called the have you ever heard the anger iceberg. If you go through therapy, people tell you it's the. You learn the anger iceberg, that people are angry and they get snappy with one another in like, relationships. And it's not about that one thing. It's about all this other thing, all the insecurities, all the mistrust, all the, the times of other relationships that have gone bad, etc, etc, etc, and it comes out as snappiness towards one another. And any relationship you have, even in business, you pocket resentment towards somebody else getting a promotion, somebody else getting shine, you not feeling like you're heard in a meeting, you having a bad interaction with somebody at a Christmas party, whatever. For these women, okay? Remember, I see it as most of us see it. I'm Doug Gottlieb for Cohen. This is the herd, 25 years in the WNBA. I'm not as negative about their overall talent and skill as others are. It's a different sport, our expectations are different. We don't have the hundred years of history in the NBA. We just Don't. If you take away the NBA with the dunks and the proficiency from three point line, you know, and the other part about NBA players is they look like superheroes. Whereas many of these women, though for women, crazy athletic, crazy talented, there just is no comparison. When you watch one game to the other, it's like watching one in slow motion and one that plays below the rim. And below the rim causes more mislaiups and it's again just a different, much less athletic game. And for 25 years we didn't pay attention to it in sports media. And I've been a part of sports media for 25 years. We didn't pay attention to it because nobody did. The science to this is not that hard to figure out. Cullen. This is me doing the Colin thing. Cullen, you only want to talk about Tom Brady and Pat Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers and LeBron James. Yeah. Because we're no different than top 40 radio man. Play the hits. Our job is to talk about what most people care about. And we have 25 years of data that tells you most people don't care about the wnba. And the only reason we're talking about it now is because Caitlin Clark has brought attention and people are in fact talking about the WNBA now. So now we're going to be attracted to talking more about it. But when you're raised as a women's basketball player, you're raised to believe everybody's out to get you. Everybody's out to get you. Okay, look, I don't, I don't know if you recall, but if you go back to the COVID year NCAA tournament, they had women who are in San Antonio and they had a little makeshift weight room and it was like, you know, two dumbbells and you know, and a balance ball. And then they showed the men's weight room in Indianapolis and it looked like a real weight room. And what happens is, you know, the, the NCAA like apologized for it. Act like this was, this was discrediting all of women's basketball. When reality is one, it comes down to the planning committee. That's what they have to do to the men's teams. I believe all of them were there for like a month. So they had to prep for it and they had the Big Ten tournament there. So they had all this had all been kind of planned out. Whereas for San Antonio it was just a one stop shop and they threw it together. And anybody who's ever traveled know, knows that like it doesn't matter. The hotel chain, you can be a Hyatt guy, right? Or a bonvoy guy and only stuff. And some hotels have a rinky dink weight room and some hotels don't. It doesn't have anything to do with anything other than that particular hotel, that particular general manager, and what they think they want to focus their resources on. But the point is that that case is no different than anything else. Right? Why do women have home sites during the NCAA tournament instead of the regional sites that the men have? Well, again, anyone who's realistic in business knows that the reason they went back to home sites is that's their only ability to draw people and to sell tickets. They've played in the big arenas. It hasn't worked, by and large. Trust me, if the NCAA felt like they could make more money doing it, they would do it because it's the only way in which they make money is the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournaments. But again, how you and I view it from a business perspective, which is very much in the neutral kind of corner, is, hey, they're doing it because it makes the most sense financially. How women view it is, oh, we're a secondary tournament. We have to play in home sites. Right. So it doesn't matter necessarily what the reality is. Women's basketball was over the last 25 years, right, that you started from nothing and built it into something that was fairly sustainable. Again, those of us who lived it in real time, as I have, like my media career, has mirrored essentially the length of the wnba. You went from being completely subsidized by the NBA playing in these gargantuan arenas to, hey, let's dial this back. Play in smaller venues, be smarter, okay? Save more money, fly commercial, space out the games, etc. Etc. But how it's received is we've been treated like crap for years, and now you're trying to push this star, who she might be, another Jeremy Lin Lynn sanity. And we're not buying it. So when I saw that quote today, I just. And then I saw that the 2K version of NBA 2K had Angel Reese, not Caitlin Clark, on the COVID right? Because again, whether or not you're buying or I'm buying a WNBA 2K game doesn't matter. Everything would be boosted up if you put Caitlin Clark on it. Probably cost, you know, the gaming company more to put her on the COVID But the WNBA forcing us to. To take on Angel Reese as some sort of rival to Caitlin Clark. Forcing it, Forcing it. Forcing it makes it feel icky when as. Whereas it's super easy here, just put Caitlin Clark on everything. It'll sell more. It'll be the rising tide that lifts all ships. But from the Olympic team last year to the players only voting where they voted her the 9th best guard to put Angel Reese on NBA 2K, to all the bitterness and pushback and the treatment of Caitlin Clark where they're clearly trying to punk her and bully her and her teammates into making her look bad, all of that stuff leads most of us to go, why? Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you embrace the fact that people are paying attention to your sport, covering it like it's one of the big three sports, probably got more coverage than the NHL Stanley cup playoffs, and the only logical conclusion I can come to is Hell hath no wrath like his woman scored. All the years of being made to feel like you're a secondary or tertiary product and probably even tertiaries not as strong as they were leads women to push back against anything seen as mainstream media and fans. Oh, now you like us. But only for her. Well, to you too. Give me your thoughts. Twitter, Instagram, otliebshow In the meantime, okay, we do have some NBA news. Chet Holmgren Re Ups for the Max Re ups for the Max what does that mean for the Thunder and their ability to maintain the best record in the regular season and a postseason championship? Let's discuss it next. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is the Herd.
