Tag: WNBA

‘Bayou Barbie’ Angel Reese revealed new nickname with Chicago Sky

The “Bayou Barbie” has a new nickname for her WNBA career.

Since transferring from Maryland to LSU ahead of the 2022-23 season, superstar women’s basketball forward Angel Reese has been known by her moniker “Bayou Barbie.”

Reese even went as far as trying to trademark the nickname, though it was ultimately denied. But now that she’s heading from Louisiana to Chicago after the WNBA’s Sky drafted her with the seventh overall pick, it’s time for a new nickname.

She recently revealed that she will now be known as the “Chi Barbie,” a play on the name of the city of Chicago.

After Monday’s draft, Reese took to X (formerly Twitter) to ask for advice on a new nickname.

In a TikTok video posted on Thursday, Reese revealed that she is now embracing the “Chi Barbie” nickname.

@angelreese10

see yall soon💋

♬ original sound – angel

It’s undergone a few iterations, as she has also been called the “Baltimore Barbie” after her hometown as well as “Bayou Barbie” since she joined the Tigers, who she led to their first national championship in program history in 2023.

Now, Reese is heading off to the WNBA where she’ll team up with former college rival Kamilla Cardoso to comprise an intimidating frontcourt. It seems she’ll also be bringing a new nickname with her.

Could Serena Williams be the next WNBA team owner?

Williams knows a good investment when she sees one and believes women’s sport is “an overly safe bet to me when it comes to investing.”

The WNBA is growing, and with players like Caitlin Clark and Kamilla Cardoso joining the league, the viewership will only skyrocket. The W is expanding with a new franchise in the Bay Area starting play in 2025 and another expansion franchise shortly on the horizon, or so we are told.

“I absolutely would be (interested),” Williams told CNN in an exclusive interview. “With the right market, I would definitely be super interested in that.”

This wouldn’t be the first professional sports team Williams is a part owner of. She also has stakes in soccer club Angel City FC and golf franchise Los Angeles Golf Club (LAGC).

Williams is not only a 23-time Grand Slam champion and tennis legend but also a savvy investor. She knows a good investment when she sees one and recently remarked that women’s sports are “an overly safe bet to me when it comes to investing.”

She has invested in roughly 100 companies, and multiple of them are now valued at over $1 billion.

“I invest in a lot of companies, early companies, and I’ve always done this,” Williams said on social media. “I’ve actually been investing for over 14 years and just been an entrepreneur while I was playing tennis. It’s super important for me to make a plan B while I was doing my plan A.”

Investing is important to her and she even has her six-year-old daughter, Olympia, as a co-owner of Angel City FC and LAGC. Her husband, Alexis Ohanian, shared on social media the Olympia is the youngest professional sports owner in history.

With the expansion of the W on the horizon, the league could not do any better than having Williams as an investor.

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Geno Auriemma says changing the WNBA eligibility rules could ruin women’s college basketball

Geno Auriemma thinks WNBA eligibility rules should stay exactly as they are to preserve women’s college hoops.

Women’s college basketball is in a place of high interest right now after the careers of stars like Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, LSU’s Angel Reese, South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso and UConn’s Paige Bueckers.

In fact, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James spoke recently about how that familiarity has generated more star power for the women’s side than the men’s side of the sport.

However, the odds of losing one of those premiere talents after a year could ruin the women’s college hoops altogether, at least to UConn coaching legend Geno Auriemma told ESPN Radio’s “UnSportsmanLike” this week.

As of 2022, domestic women’s college players who are graduating seniors or are at least 22 years old can be eligible for the WNBA Draft. Meanwhile, men’s college basketball players only have to play for a year pre-NBA before turning pro.

To Auriemma, giving women’s basketball athletes the chance to leave after only a year could prove catastrophic.

“It depends whether you want the game to grow or you want to kill it,” Auriemma shared on the show. “If you want to kill it, then let the kids leave after freshman year.

“On the men’s side, it’s become transactional. Everybody’s a free agent. Everybody’s a mercenary. It’s not the kids’ fault. … To me, what helped the women’s game grow is the people in Iowa got to grow up with Caitlin Clark. The people of Connecticut got to grow up with all of my great players. There’s something to be said for that.”

While we’re not sure what the future holds for WNBA eligibility, we do know that Auriemma joins the group who feels things should stay exactly as they are.

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WNBA draft pick Nika Mühl headlines 2024 Kelsey Plum Dawg Class

Plum’s initiative with Under Armour was started in 2023 and helps ease the transition from college basketball to the pros.

Las Vegas Aces guard Kelsey Plum announced her 2024 Dawg Class, an initiative with Under Armour started in 2023 to “help ease the transition from college basketball to the pros.”

The second cohort of athletes includes players Plum believes have a tough mentality on the court and deserve a shot to be mentored by her. Some of the players were drafted in the 2024 WNBA draft and some are still in college and not yet eligible to declare for the draft. Plum believes this mix provides a great atmosphere for all players to grow in their journeys.

The players selected to the 2024 Dawg Class:

  1. MiLaysia Fulwiley, South Carolina
  2. Raven Johnson, South Carolina
  3. Deja Kelly, North Carolina
  4. Saniya Rivers, NC State
  5. Dyaisha Fair, Aces
  6. Aziaha James, NC State
  7. KK Arnold, UConn
  8. Ta’Niya Latson, Florida State
  9. Nika Mühl, Seattle Storm
  10. Georgia Amoore, Kentucky
  11. Aneesah Morrow, LSU
  12. Shyanne Sellers, Maryland

“The Dawg Class with Under Armour will bridge the gap between college and the professional game,” Plum said when she launched the program last spring. “It’s difficult to jump to the next level and I didn’t have anyone helping me navigate the unknown. I want to pass on the knowledge that I’ve gained and the resources available to me now to young women who are about to take that next step.”

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The inaugural 2023 class included Azzi Fudd, Deja Kelly, Diamond Miller, Georgia Amoore, Gianna Kneepkens, Hailey Van Lith, KK Bransford, Raven Johnson and Rori Harmon.

A few players were invited to attend again this season, with Amoore, Johnson and Kelly being repeat dawgs.

The three-day camp will take place at the IMG Academy in Florida in April.

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Angel Reese embraces new WNBA Draft weekend friendships with heartfelt tweet

Angel Reese had the best time with Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink and the 2024 class.

After a whirlwind weekend, Angel Reese reflects on her incredible time with the 2024 WNBA Draft class.

In case you missed it, Reese and her fellow rookies had the time of their lives during WNBA Draft activities. It was quite the weekend, from selfies at the top of the Empire State Building to TikToks with Caitlin Clark and Cameron Brink.

Rightfully so, Reese took to X (Formerly Twitter) to reflect on the time the 2024 class spent together. It must have felt amazing for players like Angel, Caitlin, Kamilla and Cameron to hang out in an environment that wasn’t about competition. Everyone was winning on Monday!

See Cameron Brink’s epic New Balance ad with Shohei Ohtani and Coco Gauff

Shohei Ohtani. CoCo Gauff. Cameron Brink. YES.

Los Angeles Sparks rookie Cameron Brink is in a new ad for New Balance with six other sports stars, including Shohei Ohtani and Coco Gauff, and it’s fantastic.

Cameron Brink, who the Sparks drafted at No. 2 overall on Monday, is having one heck of a week. Brink, who’s had a NIL deal — now likely turned endorsement — with New Balance since 2023, is in an epic ad with several sports giants.

As part of New Balance’s “We Got Now” campaign, the company recently released another commercial with Brink in it. I have to say, the list of athletes she’s with is super impressive. This is my kind of carrying-on.

Tickets to Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever debut more than double NBA playoff courtside seats

Caitlin Clark is one of the biggest draws on the planet right now. Her Fever debut tickets are more than double NBA playoff courtside seats.

If you build it, they will come. Or, in this case, if you draft her, they will buy tickets to every game. The Indiana Fever took Caitlin Clark at No. 1 in the WNBA draft and are already seeing her transcendent ability across all things.

At Iowa, Caitlin Clark took ticket prices to new heights. Every road game was a sellout, secondary markets saw tickets constantly over $400, and fans couldn’t get enough of her. The same thing is happening in the WNBA.

The Indiana Fever are seeing courtside seats for her debut going for nearly $2,500. In and of itself, that is an astronomical number. To put it into perspective, the Indiana Pacers are firmly in the NBA playoffs at this moment as a projected No. 6 seed with a 47-35 record. Those are selling at $1,220.

Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever debut is selling for more than double that of an NBA courtside seat at a playoff game. That is transcendent.

It doesn’t stop there, either. Clark is part of a surge in ticket prices across the WNBA and is leading the way paving this new path. Per Forbes, the Fever’s matchup with the Minnesota Lynx is seeing tickets go for $615.

Forbes has also discovered that the Indiana Fever are a player in each of the ten most expensive games this season. So, if you draft her, the fans are certain to come.

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Caitlin Clark is reportedly nearing a major deal with Nike that will include her own signature shoe

Caitlin Clark is reportedly joining forces with Nike for a major deal and new shoe.

If you’re a fan of new Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, you’re about to be able to wear her signature shoe when you play basketball.

The Athletic’s Shams Charania, Mike Vorkunov and Ben Pickman reported on Wednesday night that Clark is nearing an eight-figure endorsement deal with Nike that will include the sportswear giant making a Clark-inspired Nike shoe.

The trio reported that Under Armour and Adidas also offered Clark deals before she chose to sign with Nike and that Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry was part of Under Armour’s pitch to Clark.

However, Clark had an NIL deal with Nike in college and will now transition to a more formal arrangement with the company.

Clark was picked first overall on Monday night by the Fever in the 2024 WNBA Draft after her stellar career at Iowa. She’ll begin her WNBA career against the Connecticut Sun on May 14 on the road.

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Caitlin Clark’s WNBA draft selection headlines largest WNBA TV audience since 2000

Just another TV viewership record for Caitlin Clark.

The Caitlin Clark effect was alive and well on draft night.

With Clark’s No. 1 overall selection to the Indiana Fever as the main draw, ESPN enjoyed record TV viewership numbers. Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports reports that the 2024 WNBA draft reeled in 2.45 million viewers on Monday night.

That figure more than quadrupled the audience of 572,000 viewers during the 2023 WNBA draft. Per Cydney Henderson of USA TODAY Sports, the audience peaked at 3.09 million viewers.

Per Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, it also represented the largest TV audience for a WNBA telecast of any kind dating back to the year 2000. The Memorial Day game between the New York Liberty and Houston Comets in 2000 on NBC drew 2.74 million viewers.

Over the following quarter century since that Liberty vs. Comets contest on Memorial Day in 2000, no other no WNBA telecasts, including playoff and Finals games, has cracked the one million viewer mark, according to SMW.

Those TV ratings indicate that the Clark craze is likely to continue. All of this bodes well for the WNBA’s broadcast partners such as ESPN, Amazon, Ion and NBA TV. It looks like they are about to cash in on spiked viewership once more with Clark.

For the WNBA, Clark’s arrival into the league comes at a critical and picture-perfect time, too.

The league’s current broadcasting rights expire after the 2025 season. Currently, the WNBA pulls in $60 million a year for its rights fees vs. $2.7 billion annually for the NBA.

Early on, Clark’s ability to move the needle for the WNBA is obvious and apparent.

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