Crisis averted: Dave Portnoy not blocked by Caitlin Clark after all

Dave Portnoy’s short, online-centric nightmare is over.

The Barstool founder’s world was rocked last week when he tried to message Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark and realized his number had been blocked.

During an episode of Barstool Live, Portnoy revealed that the WNBA star had blocked him across all platforms after an interaction he had on the phone with a member of the McCaffery family.

Clark is dating former Iowa Hawkeyes star Connor McCaffery, the son of former Iowa men’s basketball head coach Fran McCaffery. Portnoy recently made some comments about the state of the Iowa basketball program, pointing out that it “took 1 year for them to go further than their entire 17-year run with Fran,” under new head coach Ben McCollum.

That comment bothered the McCaffery family, and they let Portnoy know about it through Barstool Sports personality Rico Bosco, who has a relationship with the family. Portnoy said that during a recent dinner, Bosco handed him the phone to speak to Connor’s brother, who expressed frustration about what Portnoy said about his father. The problem is, Portnoy did not know who he was talking to and presumably did not handle the conversation well as a result.

“He put a McCaffery in front of me on a cell phone, I didn’t know who I was talking to, and he was like ‘I don’t like what you guys have been saying about my dad,’ and I’m like ‘Who am I even talking to?’” Portnoy said.

After that, Portnoy says he tried to reach out to Clark, only to find that she’d blocked him on all media.

“She blocked me. Caitlin Clark has blocked me and is now not responding to me,” Portnoy said. “I was going to do a pizza review with her in Indianapolis. Blocked me. The phone went to green. I DM’d her, no response. She always responds.”

However, Portnoy returned to Barstool airwaves on Monday with shocking news: He hadn’t been blocked, after all.

“Breaking news: Caitlin Clark has responded,” said Portnoy on Monday’s Wake Up Barstool. “I said, ‘Testing, am I blocked?’ She said ‘yes, crying emoji, laughing, then no, laugh out loud. I think you sent that last text when I was flying.'”

We can all breathe easy knowing that order has been restored to the world.

Of course, there are lingering questions. Portnoy said Clark had blocked him on multiple platforms. Texting while flying wouldn’t explain why he was blocked on, say, X. Perhaps Portnoy stretched the truth on where he was blocked to make it more impactful. Or perhaps Clark caught wind of the reveal and wanted to do some damage control.

Best that we all stop thinking about it before we end up going down a conspiracy rabbit hole that isn’t worth anyone’s time.