Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy called the racism claims against Angel Reese “bullsh–t” and attacked the WNBA for giving “credence” to an “internet rumor” while claiming all the league does is “s–t on” Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever.
The WNBA announced on Sunday that it had launched an investigation into alleged racist comments from a fan or fans toward Reese during Saturday’s season opener between the Fever and Sky, which Indiana won, 93-58.
Portnoy was at the game on Saturday and said during a more than three-minute video, which he opened by saying, “Can’t believe I’m making this video,” that there were no racial comments made toward Reese.
Warning: Graphic Language
“Today I see online, starting last night, just salty trolls, and I don’t even know actually if they’re just Chicago Sky fans, I think they’re just trolls. They’re people who just hate Caitlin Clark,” Portnoy said. “They’re trolls and they’re like, ‘Of course the Indiana Fever are making monkey sounds and other racist sounds at Angel Reese,’ which is total garbage, totally made up.”
The sports media personality also claimed that he had seen videos that had been made of him that were doctored by fans online.
Portnoy described the crowd as a “nice crowd” that is made up of “little girls, families, ladies” at Fever games.
“Listen, I was at the game. If there was somebody being racist or saying s–t, I would be stunned beyond belief if that was the case,” he said.
He then took aim at the WNBA for its statement and the investigation it opened into the matter, which Portnoy viewed as painting Fever fans in a negative light.
“Unless something happened, which I know it didn’t, for them to acknowledge this and kind of paint Indiana Fever fans,…” Portnoy said. “And say ‘we’re investigating the hate,’ by acknowledging ‘we don’t condone hate’ and not seeing that this was an internet rumor founded of complete bulls–t… you’re lending credence to this.
“There was none of that. It was a great crowd, a positive crowd. Yeah, Angel Reese deserved to get her ass booed when she attacked Caitlin on a normal foul. Other than that, what are you talking about?”
Things between Clark and Reese reached a crescendo in the third quarter when Clark made a hard foul on Reese while she was going for a layup.
Reese went down to the floor hard and got back up quickly to try to approach Clark, but her teammates kept her back and the Fever star walked away from the scene.
Clark was assessed a flagrant foul and Reese and Aliyah Boston were handed technical fouls.
“Talk about killing the golden goose,” Portnoy said, complaining about the league’s treatment of Clark and the Fever. “You guys are lucky you have Caitlin Clark, you are lucky you have the Indiana Fever. It makes the league relevant. All you do is s–t on them.”
