Former Fox Sports analyst Emmanuel Acho delivered one of the hottest takes of a WNBA season that has been filled with them when he said on his Speakeasy show that the WNBA would be better off without Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark.
“The W, at this junction in time, would be better without Caitlin Clark, because she is a bigger distraction than she is an additive,” he said. “Caitlin Clark has gotten the WNBA over the necessary threshold they needed. Now people are watching. Now we realize, oh, there’s talent in the W — talent that’s actually even greater than Caitlin Clark… Caitlin got the necessary eyes there. But now that the eyes are there, we don’t necessarily need her anymore.”
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Now, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith is weighing in, and he isn’t holding back.
“Absolutely, positively insane,” Smith said of the take.
“Caitlin Clark is the cash cow,” he continued. “I don’t care what numbers you see the WNBA making; they’re nothing compared to the numbers Caitlin Clark generates for the WNBA.
“That’s just the truth. You know, she comes into the league, and 2 weeks later, after years and years of flying commercial, they get chartered— they get chartered flights the moment she arrives into the league. You’re talking about salaries that range anywhere from $100,000 to, if they’re lucky, $300,000 in the WNBA. Caitlin Clark is making over $16 million because of the endorsements she gets off the court. When she goes to an arena, she packs the house.
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“When they talk about their bloated attendance numbers, they feed off of her and her contribution.”
He’s not alone
Smith isn’t the first one to acknowledge the reality of Clark’s economic impact on the league. WNBA legend Lisa Leslie voiced a similar sentiment at the onset of the 2026 campaign.
“Never in the history of the WNBA have we had a player force teams to get into larger arenas,” she said. “I’ve never seen that happen. If you’re the GM, you’re obviously supposed to be bringing in money. That’s revenue. I’m going with Caitlin Clark.”
Clark’s impact on the floor is gargantuan, but her impact of it is even larger. There’s no reality where the WNBA, or basketball at all in the States, is better off wihtout her superstardom.
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The post ‘Caitlin Clark is the cash cow’: Stephen A. Smith says the quiet part out loud appeared first on The Comeback: Today’s Top Sports Stories & Reactions.
