“My answer missed the mark and I’m sorry. I regret that I didn’t express, in a clear and definitive way.” Just a couple of weeks ago, the WNBA president Cathy Engelbert had to come out with this apology after she faced intense scrutiny from league players following her comments about the hot rookie rivalry. Recognizing the impact of her words, it seems Cathy Engelbert has taken that experience to heart. This time around, she again had a bold perspective on the league’s star rookie, Caitlin Clark, but a thoughtful explanation followed it.

In a recent interview with CBS News journalist Jon Wertheim, WNBA President Cathy Engelbert shared her thoughts on the current state of the league and what she has taken away from it. However, when the conversation shifted to Caitlin Clark, Engelbert didn’t focus solely on the Fever’s standout rookie. Instead, she made a point to mention other rookies as well. This prompted Wertheim to follow up, asking Engelbert why she consistently mentions other rookies when discussing Clark’s impact.

However, Engelbert didn’t hesitate as she offered a quick yet sensible explanation. “No league’s ever about one player. That player could get hurt or whatever. So I think it’s just to give recognition that in sports, people watch for compelling content and rivalries. And you can’t do that alone as one person,” stated the WNBA president. While her point is logical, it’s also a bold stance considering the immense following Caitlin Clark has amassed and her undeniable impact on the league’s viewership and ticket sales.

Nevertheless, before addressing the follow-up question, she did acknowledge the talent of the Fever rookie in her initial comments but made sure to conclude her statement by revealing her opinion on the impressive skills of other rookies.

“She’s (Clark) clearly an unbelievable player, came in with an unbelievable following, has brought a lot of new fans to the league. If you look at our historic season around– our attendance, our viewership, Caitlin, Angel too, Angel Reese, Rickea Jackson, Cameron Brink. This class of rookies, we will be talking about them a generation from now,” Engelbert said in the interview. Engelbert is not wrong.

In terms of viewership, the WNBA landscape has changed forever this season. According to Sports Media Watch, before this season, no WNBA game had averaged more than 1 million viewers since 2008. This year, not one, not two, but 23 games hit seven figures in viewership. And guess what? Caitlin Clark was present in 20 of them. If you browse the list of the most-watched games of this year, you have to go down to No. 15 to find the first game without the Fever! Now take a look at the WNBA draft.

Before 2024, the most-watched WNBA Draft was in 2004. That year Diana Taurasi was drafted. That drew 600,000 viewers. Clark’s official entry to the league had garnered 2.45 million, a 374% increase over the previous year. Not only viewership, attendance, and ticket sales have also been on another level with Clark’s presence.

Last season, a struggling Fever with a 13-27 record had ranked second to last in the WNBA with an average attendance of 4,067 per game. In a staggering turnaround, this season, they led the league with over 17,000 per game, becoming the first team in WNBA history to draw more than 300,000 fans in a season, as reported by the Indianapolis Star.

That is more than a 300% increase in attendance year over year. If you are thinking, the Fever are rocking in their home arena only, then let’s tell you that in their regular season finale, the Fever’s road game against the Washington Mystics broke the WNBA attendance record with 20,711 fans. While the Clark factor is the most prominent in all these, the impact of her rivalry with Angel Reese also has a significant bearing on this.

This season six WNBA networks set viewership records for a WNBA game. It is not a coincidence that three of those were between Clark’s Fever and Reese’s Sky. Among these 3, their June 23 game drew 2.3 million viewers on ESPN, which is the most-viewed WNBA game in 23 years across all networks. In fact, their rivalry has created such magic right from their collegiate days.

On April 1, Clark’s Iowa’s win over Reese’s LSU in the Elite Eight is the most-viewed women’s college basketball game of all time after averaging 12.3 million. Unsurprisingly, the rivalry and its impact on the league remind many about the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird rivalry that marked a monumental shift in the NBA landscape. That is exactly the comparison that Engelbert also drew, which eventually got her in hot waters. But she is not the first or the only one to vouch for the rivalry factor in sports.

Rivalries like Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese make sports, but can it break too?

On CNBC’s Power Lunch on September 9, When asked about the growing fan hostility surrounding the rivalry, Engelbert appeared to side with the fans, offering a defense of their passion despite the heated tensions.

The president replied, “There’s no more apathy. Everybody cares. It is a little of that Bird-Magic moment if you recall from 1979, when those two rookies came in from a big college rivalry… And so we have that moment with these two. But the one thing I know about sports, you need rivalry. That’s what makes people watch. They want to watch games of consequence between rivals. They don’t want everybody being nice to one another.”

This instantly drew flak from the WNBA community, who accused that she focused on the popularity of rivalries but did not condemn the abusive rhetoric players have faced. But, the similarity between Bird-Magic and Clark-Reese is indeed intriguing.

It was the 1979-80 NBA season when the rookies Magic Johnson and Larry Bird emerged on the scene with the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics. But just like Clark and Reese, their rivalry started in college in the previous year. The 1979 NCAA title game saw Johnson’s Michigan State team defeating Bird’s Indiana State in a basketball game that is still the most-watched ever in the US. 45 years later it was a kind of action replay when Clark and Reese’s respective teams faced each other in the NCAA finals. Magic himself has put his stamp on it.

“Larry and I heightened the NBA’s overall popularity. The Lakers and Celtics sold out arenas throughout the league and increased television viewership exponentially. The higher viewership numbers led to the NBA signing significantly larger TV contracts which then led to higher salaries for the players. Caitlin and Angel are now doing the same thing, selling out arenas and increasing the viewership,” he had written on X in June. If this was not enough, in July, FOX Sports’ Colin Cowherd had drawn the same parallel. In fact Cowherd reached an all-new level.

On his podcast ‘The Herd’, Cowherd had stated that he did not want Caitlin Clark to win the Rookie of the Year. As he explained, that would further invigorate the rivalry between the two, ultimately benefitting the WNBA.

“It would also be the best thing in the world for the WNBA. Hear me out. It’s a Magic [Johnson]-[Larry] Bird thing. What made Magic and Bird last is [that] neither truly won the [debate about] whose better. People chose sides for years. … It just went back and forth, back and forth. … The (Olympic) snub (of Clark) plus Angel Reese winning Rookie of the Year can really change the WNBA. It creates arguments, and arguments — they’re great for sports,” Cowherd had said.

In fact, Hall of Famer former WNBA player Nancy Liberman also had positive things to say about the rivalry. Apart from Magic-Bird, she drew parallels with Tom Brady-Peyton Manning and Martina Navratilova-Chris Evert. Then why did Engelbert’s comments go wrong? That is probably because she did not clearly address social media and the fan-involvement factor in it.

Many Black players in the WNBA have been abused on social media by those who believe Clark has been targeted due to her race. In one episode of her podcast, Reese opened up about how she has received death threats and racist comments from Clark fans dating back to when both were playing against each other in college. Although Clark has condemned that in public, the demons are far from over. So the question is pertinent. Pairs of eyes on the games are on the rise. But does that cost something bigger?