Colin Cowherd waited out the sports media firestorm around Caitlin Clark, Chennedy Carter, and the flagrant foul heard ’round the world on Monday before he weighing in on Tuesday on The Herd.
After Stephen A. Smith was called out by fellow ESPNer Monica McNutt for not covering the WNBA more and Pat McAfee was driven to apologize for calling Clark a “white b****” while talking her up, Cowherd appeared to take both sides in a lengthy rant.
Cowherd defended mainstream sports media for not covering the WNBA until Clark arrived, while also teasing his male colleagues in the industry for being “fragile” in their analysis of the league.
“I hear this pushback, ‘Well how come you guys didn’t cover us before Caitlin Clark?'” Cowherd began. “Because you weren’t that popular. I don’t cover hockey because the average sports fan can’t name three players. I don’t cover regular-season baseball much. I don’t cover college basketball, men’s or women’s, much before March … you need to be made before I talk about you. It’s not my job to make you popular.”
“Yeah, I didn’t talk much golf until Tiger Woods arrived. This league needed a catalyst. The WNBA got better and better.”
— @ColinCowherd on Caitlin Clark pic.twitter.com/dQv6Kcgq6p
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) June 4, 2024
Cowherd compared Clark and women’s basketball to Tiger Woods popularizing golf, adding, “This league needed a catalyst.”
The FS1 host called women’s basketball “the most improved sport” of his lifetime and credited the talent level and style of the league for improving to the point where Clark could be a gateway.
Then, Cowherd turned his aim at the messy coverage of the first month of the WNBA season. He criticized men in sports media for not being able to cover the league like a sport without letting their biases and defensiveness get in the way.
“These women are not fragile, some of you men who are covering them are,” Cowherd said. “The WNBA is exploding in popularity, and it’s going to be turbulent like a tech business, a media business. Whenever anything goes from semi-noticeable to really popular, it’s turbulent.”
Cowherd pointed out that the women in the WNBA may be testing Clark with hard fouls and beefing among themselves, but nobody is crumbling. The pro athletes in the league can handle all this, but, he argued, the media is showing it cannot.
“I love the fact as (the WNBA) explodes, and nobody in the media quite knows how to handle it, mostly guys … they’re not fragile,” Cowherd added. “We are.”
“I love the fact as (the WNBA) explodes, and nobody in the media quite knows how to handle it, mostly guys … they’re not fragile. We are.”
Colin Cowherd weighs in on yesterday’s circus around Caitlin Clark, Chennedy Carter and women’s basketball: pic.twitter.com/3DgS7CnNxF
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 4, 2024
Clearly, sports media is having a rough go of embracing a major women’s sport, and can’t seem to agree on a basic set of facts to analyze the games. It’s impossible for the sport not to involve issues like race, gender, and economics more than most men’s sports.
“Here’s the ultimate respect that you can give Caitlin Clark,” Cowherd said. “Treat her like a pro athlete. Because that’s what she is.”
As Cowherd notes, it probably shouldn’t be this hard.
[The Herd]
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.