Caitlin Clark fouled Angel Reese in a WNBA game. And less than a week later, it directly led to Ryan Clark revealing to the world that his oldest daughter is biracial.
For now that seems to be the final chapter in what has been truly one of the most totally bizarre and improbable feuds in the history of sports media between Ryan Clark and Robert Griffin III. At least we hope.
I mean seriously, read that lede and then try to build a Mad Lib that could somehow compare to it. Patrick Mahomes gets called for an intentional grounding penalty and it leads to Brian Windhorst revealing that his real name is actually Armin Tamzarian? What are we doing here!?
But while the dust finally appears to be settling in this RGIII-Ryan Clark fiasco, the damage has been done on all sides. This became about way more than a foul in a WNBA game. This became about settling personal scores, airing vendettas, and going where no sports debate should ever go. And in the annals of sports media feuds, it’s hard to remember one so ludicrous and so self-destructive.
RGIII’s new persona
This all started with Robert Griffin III opining that Angel Reese hated Caitlin Clark on a personal level based on her reaction to the flagrant foul in the Indiana Fever’s season-opening win over the Chicago Sky. The WNBA is capitalizing on the very real life rivalry between Clark and Reese that dates back to their college days when Reese’s LSU beat Clark’s Iowa to win a national championship. That’s great, rivalry sells!
The take itself really wasn’t explosive enough to have started all of this. But the fact that it did probably says more about RGIII’s post-ESPN persona and the lack of equity he has to be taken seriously than anything else. He has waded into controversial waters with his heavily condemned opinion about Jackie Robinson breaking the baseball color barrier. And the fact that he couched this take with a heavy dose of “I’m the only one brave enough to say it” was an invite to have someone, anyone, come take him on.
While it played into RGIII’s pattern of engagement bait, at least he didn’t go through with saying it was a “safe space.”
Fast forward to after Ryan Clark’s comments about RGIII and you can see that Griffin succeeded with his original challenge to the sports media. His response to Clark is the pinned tweet on his X profile (with an astonishing 32 million views) and he and his wife also tried to sell her booty bands off of the controversy.
While RGIII tried to position himself as being above the fray and taking the high road, it also exposed the truth that he has plenty of enemies in sports media, especially it seems among his former ESPN colleagues. And it shows that he is the latest person who has figured out how to play the notoriety game in 2025 by commenting on any hot-button political, cultural, or sporting issue and then trying to maximize it for all it’s worth. Given his social media activity in the last year, this is probably far from the last time that we see RGIII in a controversy like this.
What was Ryan Clark thinking?
Unlike what we’ve seen recently from RGIII, ESPN analyst Ryan Clark has always positioned himself as someone who takes his work and his media career very seriously. He is one of several personalities that has launched his own podcast in The Pivot and tried to build that show and himself into a self-sustaining brand outside of ESPN.
This is someone who openly has talked about his recent contract negotiations with ESPN and how valuable he viewed himself to the network. Not just that, but also the importance of his podcast. In March of last year, Clark talked glowingly about his personal show-changing culture.
“Because we’re changing culture, and we’re creating a place for athletes to tell their own story to control their own narrative,” Clark continued. “We have changed things culturally. When people walk up to us, nothing makes me feel better than when they can point to specific episodes that have changed their lives in some way. And you want me to give that up and that ownership to be an employee? And I’m gonna be good enough to make you realize you can’t stop me, and you still want me. And, like, that happened.”
You can see that Ryan Clark clearly sees himself as someone who should be an authority on more than just sports. He routinely comments on politics and he’s even had Andrew Schulz on his podcast.
So for Clark to go so far out of bounds with his personal attack on RGIII by bringing his wife’s skin color into the conversation defied belief. He didn’t just go too far, he went into another universe. Once word started traveling around social media that Clark also had a biracial daughter, he issued this social media post that left everyone speechless.
How was this all real life?
The damage done to Ryan Clark and his brand can’t be overstated because of the events of the past week and just how far and how personally he took a feud over someone’s opinion about a common basketball play. And unfortunately for Clark, this will follow him, whether it’s on ESPN or The Pivot.
Ryan Clark has worked for a long time to build up his credibility as an NFL analyst and social commentator. For the most part, his work on television has been great and he has been a standout. But now it seems like it’s all unraveled so quickly, something we’re also seeing right now with Bill Belichick. And it’s going to take an equally long time to build it up again.
The WNBA also still exists
Also lost in all of this is the all-too-familiar refrain of the WNBA and its star players being co-opted by bad actors and hot-take artists who only use the league and its star power to benefit themselves. We saw it all last season with the absurd amount of off-court drama constantly taking center stage, and we are seeing it once again this year.
Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever are legitimate title contenders. That should be the story! That is what people want to see and talk about, not two football guys debating interracial marriage. The WNBA has never been better positioned with great teams and great stars all over the place. And as last year’s ratings proved, it’s a deeper league than just one person. Although Caitlin Clark’s ratings impact is generational, the league as a whole is being built up in a way like never before.
And yet, it’s all too easy for people like Robert Griffin III or Dave Portnoy to come in and capitalize on the success of Clark and women’s basketball. It’s all too easy for Stephen A. Smith to comment only when there’s something that is juicy enough for his attention that can make it onto First Take.
Hopefully what we’ve seen this week between Ryan Clark and Robert Griffin III is not a sign of things to come, or it’ll be another exhausting spring and summer for anyone who is actually a real fan of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, or the WNBA.