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Clark discourse

There is no such thing as bad publicity, and the WNBA is experiencing that in full swing.

It’s a slow lull on the sports calendar and what feels like a fledgling sports league — it’s been around since 1997 — has become the talk of the sports world over the last several days.

That’s a great thing for the league, but how they handle the exponentially greater spotlight will be critical.

And right now, it has been a C-minus at best.

Embrace the rivalries. Do not be afraid of Angel Reese as Bill Laimbeer and her Chicago crew as the league’s version of those Pistons’ Bad Girls.

(Reese was ejected Tuesday night after a double-technical exchange with a whistle-happy referee and she was trending atop the Yahoo News page this very morning. It even had NBA star Lonzo Ball pledging to cover Reese’s fines for the technicals.)

Showcase the stars as you showcase the mega-popular Caitlin Clark. Embrace her love from the fans and even her animosity from the rest of the league.

Maximize this chance, because after almost 30 years, this is the most the national sports collective is talking about women’s basketball in general and the WNBA in particular.

Find a way for Clark to make the Olympic team later this summer, but do not alter the game rules in an effort to stroke the feathers of the Golden Goose.

At least not in season, which leads us to this point Vader made Tuesday, which has merit like most of his inputs.

“The excuses to protect Clark are getting kinda pathetic. If men’s and women’s sports want to claim to be similar (as the sports content wants us to believe), we need to treat these situations similarly. She got hip checked in a dirty move. People are treating it as worse than when Myles Garrett tried to murder Mason Rudolph with his own helmet…”

He’s correct. The hand-wringing over a hip check — by me included — has become over-the-top. And while we are here in the men’s vs. women’s sports discussion, that’s what got Pat McAfee in hot water Monday. There will always be some things that do not overlap. For instance, if McAfee was talking about the race and success of, say Christian McCaffrey and called him repeatedly a “White b——” it’s not a big deal and it comes across as street compliments. When he says it about CC, well, over-reactive haters what ESPN to fire him.

Chennedy Carter’s flagrant foul was dirty and intentional but it certainly was not on the realms of Myles Garrett’s helmet swinging or infamous events like the Malice in the Palace per se.

But I would counter that men’s sports have altered rules to protect their money-makers.

When he became “I wanna be Like Mike” Jordan got foul call after foul call and the league altered the rules for less contact.

Heck, how many rules have been changed — not necessarily in a good way either — about where and when you can hit a QB1 in the pocket?

I hope the WNBA does not extend or escalate the divide caused by Clark’s stardom with silly overreactions.

But I do hope they embrace this time in the national discourse and maximize their exposure.

Monster betting loss

I wrote about this in Monday’s Plays — my afternoon gambling email that you can get for free by signing up here — but the news changed dramatically since we last convened in this space.

Here was my blurb on now-banned, former Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano from Plays:

“When Denver basketball player Jontay Porter was suspended for life by the NBA for sharing inside gambling picks and even betting against his personal over/under props, we shared several opinions.

Among them was that the Porter incident was not going to be the last time this kind of thing happened in professional sports with the growing presence of legalized sports betting.

Meet former Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano, who has been banned from MLB for life for betting on baseball while injured last year.

Four other players — one MLB pitcher and three minor leaguers — were suspended for one year for violating the sport’s gambling guidelines.

Marcano’s career in MLB though is finished.

From various reports and a MLB news release, here’s the skinny on Marcano:

— He is not appealing the ban;

— He reportedly gambled more than $150,000 across nearly 400 baseball bets, including on MLB and international contests;

— Most damning is Marcano bet on his own team, then the Pirates while he was injured last year, including some against his team and a bunch of bets on run totals;

— He also was not very good at it — and certainly was dealing in very good “inside” information — since MLB officials estimated that he won fewer than 5% of the bets he made.

And, like in the case with Porter, Marcano will not be the last pro athlete caught up in this either.”

(Side note: More details have emerged in the Porter case, which reportedly was worth more than $1 million to his ‘investors.’)

It’s a crazy time in which the major sports are embracing the money from legalized sports betting but can’t allow anything close to the appearance of fixed games or impugned integrity in regards to fair competition.

Somewhere Pete Rose is asking “What the heck?”

Well that was quick

So you regulars know I am not stoked about the expanded college playoff.

It devalues college football’s greatest asset — it has the best regular season in all of sports.

This year the playoff expanded to 12 teams, and the assertion of fairness and openness is folly.

It will likely have seven combined teams from the Big Ten and SEC.

But there are already talks about expanding again when the new TV deals start in 2026.

And of course, the SEC and the Big Ten — which have angled for 59% of the total payouts from the CFP paydays — are already trying to angle for more guaranteed spots in the playoff, including secured bids for the SEC and Big Ten conference champion.

That’s a smart ask for those leagues because it secures the financial importance of those season-ending conference title games, but the rest of college football is starting to balk at the big two’s bullying.

Here’s more from CBSSports’ Dennis Dodd, and in truth, the cash grabs are only going to continue — and grow in strength — as the leagues and schools realize the financial impact of revenue sharing with the athletes in the months and years ahead.

This and that

— You know the rules. Here’s Paschall with the perfect summertime elixir — a UT football story.

— The Joro spider is a scary bugger. It has 4-inch legs, is venomous and can fly. Yikes.

— Speaking of sports betting, Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter entered a guilty plea on fraud charges after being involved in a widespread illegal sports gambling operation. Ohtani has been cleared by MLB.

— The Lakers appear to be closing in on JJ Redick as their next head coach. Redick can shoot the eyes out of it and is improving as a TV commentator. He also does a podcast with some dude named LeBron who may have some pull in the Lakers’ decision-making protocols. But Redick has not coached above the youth level. Hey, I do a podcast and I have had a ton of success at youth and even middle school levels of hoops. Lakers, give me the gig.

— Braves played. Braves won. Ozzie Albies hit a three-run homer and Max Fried was a boss.

Today’s questions

Which Way Wednesday starts this way:

Which current sports star is more popular than Caitlin Clark in the U.S.?

Which sports will have the next gambling ban?

Which will happen: Braves sign Max Fried long-term or let him walk?

Which will be the number of college football teams in the playoff come 2026?

Answer some WWWs, ask some WWWs.

As for today, June 5, let’s review.

Robert Kennedy was shot and killed on this day in 1968.

Mark Wahlberg is 53 today.

What’s Markie Mark’s Rushmore?