Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese Usher in WNBA's Golden Era

A year later, the two faced off again, this time in the Elite Eight, and Clark and Iowa got revenge against Reese and LSU. Clark scored 41 points and added 12 assists and seven rebounds in Iowa’s 94-87 win. But Iowa lost the 2024 national title game to the South Carolina Gamecocks, led by former WNBA player and current coaching savant Dawn Staley.

Thanks to their history in the NCAA Tournament and the attention they brought to the WNBA from the college game, many people began comparing Clark, a long-range-shooting point guard, and Reese, a high-motor power forward, to NBA legends Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, who famously faced off in college before invigorating the NBA in the 1980s.

In the 1970s, prior to Bird and Johnson, the NBA averaged around 8,000 fans per game and struggled to grow television coverage without prime-time slots. Sound familiar? In 1982, the same year Bird was named MVP of the All-Star Game and Johnson led his team to a championship and won Finals MVP, NBA playoff games were finally broadcast exclusively live instead of some being shown on tape delay. The league thrived on the strength of a revived Celtics-Lakers rivalry.

When Johnson appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last July, Kimmel asked him whether the WNBA’s Clark and Reese were analogous to what he and Bird were to the NBA, and if he liked that comparison. “I like that, and they are,” Johnson answered.

Then Kimmel continued to ask Johnson about how he was treated by other NBA players when he was a rookie. Many WNBA observers believed that Clark was getting targeted and roughed up by veteran WNBA players, and how unjust that was.

Johnson’s response to the question revealed that he got similar treatment back when he was a rookie. Johnson didn’t seem to believe that treatment was unjust but rather just a part of professional basketball. “Veterans are going to test you,” he said. “And if they feel like you’ve gotten more money and more publicity, they’re upset about that.”

Clearly, there are similarities between the Bird–Magic rivalry and the Clark–Reese dynamic, but it’s worth acknowledging that this modern-day comparison isn’t exactly apples to apples, contrary to what Johnson told Kimmel.

To understand the WNBA’s major breakthrough during the 2024 season, it’s worth a refresher on the vision that Engelbert had for the league once she negotiated a collective bargaining agreement months into her role as commissioner and then led the league through a pandemic bubble season in 2020.

When Engelbert addressed the media before the 2021 WNBA Draft prior to the league’s silver anniversary, she explained the ways that she believed the WNBA could market itself to newer and younger fans. “It’s finding the right narrative,” she said. “Having the right marketing, building these household names and these rivalries.”

Ever since Minnesota Lynx legends Maya Moore and Lindsay Whalen retired following the 2018 WNBA season to close the curtain on the Lynx–Los Angeles Sparks rivalry, the league had been looking for a new one to take its place.

In 2019, Breanna Stewart ruptured her Achilles tendon and was out for the season. Elena Delle Donne’s back kept her from playing consistently from 2020 through 2022. A’ja Wilson and Jonquel Jones were held back by rosters and styles of play that didn’t complement their versatile skill sets. Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird were entering the twilight of their careers and were battling injuries.

Another factor: The CBA signed in 2020 allowed for more player movement during the free-agency period and a smaller window for teams to be able to hold onto exclusive negotiation rights with top players.

But what if more player movement could create the marquee matchup the WNBA was missing?

Stewart, who had spent the first six years of her career with the Seattle Storm and won two championships with the franchise, was looking for something different and an opportunity to influence the trajectory of women’s basketball on a larger scale. During Stewart’s final season in Seattle, she lost in the WNBA semifinals to Wilson’s Las Vegas Aces, a team that was playing a more modern style with WNBA legend Becky Hammon as the new head coach.

Stewart signed with the Liberty in February 2023 after Jones, her friend and peer, had just been traded to New York a couple of weeks prior. Stewart also convinced veteran point guard Courtney Vandersloot to join her and Jones in New York. It was the first time that a group of WNBA players coordinated where they wanted to go during free agency, and as a result, the league had a superteam built to take down the Aces, the team that got in Stewart’s way the previous year.

Both the Liberty and Aces represented a new chapter in the WNBA. The new owners wanted to spend more on their players, and they could do so. Both franchises broke WNBA rules while trying to provide more and better amenities to their players. The Liberty flew charter flights when that was against league rules, and the Aces paid their players under-the-table money apart from their contracts. And voilà — a marquee matchup was born.

Stewart and Wilson were a lot like what Bird and Johnson were to each other. Their games mirrored each other as versatile forwards who could do anything and everything on the court. They played offense and defense, could score from anywhere, could rebound and handle the ball. Like both Bird and Johnson, Stewart and Wilson were all about winning rather than individual play.

In 2023, Wilson and the Aces were trying to become the first team to win back-to-back titles since the Sparks did so in 2001 and ’02. Stewart and the Liberty were trying to bring New York its first WNBA title. The Liberty were the last original franchise without one.

This all raises a question about why both Stewart and Wilson weren’t heralded in college in the same way that Clark and Reese were, and why the general public didn’t latch onto the Stewart-Wilson rivalry as the WNBA’s version of Bird vs. Magic.

The answer to that question has multiple layers. When Stewart and Wilson were playing for UConn and South Carolina, two heavyweights in modern women’s college basketball, media rights were very different. At that time, high-profile games during the regular season weren’t televised by the big four commercial networks (CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox). There also weren’t a lot of marquee nonconference matchups made for television like there are today. Also, Stewart and Wilson never met in the NCAA Tournament like Clark and Reese did.

Clark and Reese also had something Stewart and Wilson did not — name, image and likeness opportunities. While Stewart and Wilson were building their careers and personal brands in the WNBA, the NCAA implemented a policy in June 2021 that allowed student-athletes to be paid via endorsements, sponsorships and marketing partnerships.

NIL gave both monetary and exposure opportunities to women’s basketball players they had never received before, opening the door for more coverage of women’s college basketball players.

Brands didn’t see as much value in women’s sports figures until the NIL era, which produced players such as Clark, Reese and upcoming WNBA talents Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins.

Also, the WNBA simply wasn’t ready to market players like Stewart and Wilson when they came into the league. Before Engelbert’s arrival, intentional marketing of the league alongside and at the women’s NCAA Tournament wasn’t a given. Now it is a no-brainer for Engelbert and her chief marketing officer, Phil Cook.

Stewart and Wilson were years into their careers when the WNBA underwent a massive digital transformation in upgrading its website and mobile app. According to Engelbert, the league went from a one-person marketing department to a staff of more than 20 people. These changes all went into effect before Clark and Reese were drafted.

In 2024, the vision that Engelbert had conceived years ago was at last being fully realized. The league could lean into household names and really nurture its rivalries.

Not only were Clark, Reese and a star-filled rookie class coming into the league, but the WNBA also was going to get games between the Liberty and Aces that had real stakes. New York and Las Vegas could advance the storytelling and transform the marquee matchup into a full-fledged rivalry. The fan bases had bought in. And after losing the championship to the Aces on their home court, the Liberty had revenge at top of mind.

While on the court, it’s Stewart and Wilson who most resemble Bird and Johnson, especially since the Fever haven’t made it back to a WNBA Finals yet, and the Sky are simply looking to make the postseason, the Clark–Reese dynamic recalls some of the racial tensions that took hold during the peak of the Bird–Johnson rivalry.

Both in the early 1980s and now in the 2020s, racial tensions are high in the United States. Bird played for the Boston Celtics, an organization located in a city that a few years prior endured a desegregation crisis in its public schools. Clark plays for the Indiana Fever in Bird’s home state. Johnson played in Los Angeles, and Reese plays in Chicago, two major cities in blue states.

Caitlin Clark 2024 WNBA stats

Angel Reese 2024 WNBA stats

Clark and Reese were treated much differently by some media outlets, however. Television pundits didn’t react when veteran Alyssa Thomas threw Reese to the ground, but if a player was physical with Clark, that was another story.

“The reason why that doesn’t spark as much conversation isn’t just that [Clark] is a bigger star than [Thomas], it’s because it’s a Black-on-Black incident, and you don’t have that dynamic that people can comment on, and also exaggerate and make the entire story sometimes,” sports commentator Bob Costas said on CNN.

This same favoritism and desire to protect and praise a player by some media also was present during Bird’s day. This white savior-type energy that accompanied Bird has also followed Clark. And just like Bird had the utmost respect for Black players, so does Clark. Growing up, her favorite player was Moore. But fans on the internet (something that didn’t exist in Bird’s day) often used Clark’s name to harass others last season.

Tensions rose during the Fever’s 2024 first-round playoff series against the Connecticut Sun. When former Sun guard DiJonai Carrington accidentally poked Clark in the eye, a media member asked if it was intentional, fueling online vitriol in Clark’s name.

Some Clark fans also have harassed Reese. On her podcast “Unapologetically Angel,” Reese explained that fans have sent her death threats, followed her around and made nude deepfakes that they’ve sent to her family members.

Later that year, Clark went on the record with Time magazine to publicly address the bad-faith actors that have jumped to her side. “Just stop,” Clark said. “Because that’s not who I am.”

Engelbert’s vision came with growing pains, which she failed to address properly during a CNBC interview last fall. “There’s no more apathy. Everybody cares,” she said in response to a question about tamping down online harassment. “It is a little of that Larry Bird–Magic Johnson moment if you recall from 1979, when those two rookies came in from a big college rivalry, one white, one Black. And so we have that moment with these two.”

Engelbert received a ton of flak for those comments, including from the league’s players’ union. “This is not about rivalries or iconic personalities fueling a business model. This kind of toxic fandom should never be tolerated or left unchecked,” the statement read.

While Engelbert apologized privately to players and then publicly addressed her comment during a press conference at the WNBA Finals, it remains to be seen how the league is going to handle on this issue moving forward.

With the dominant play of Stewart’s Liberty and Wilson’s Aces and the attention that Clark and Reese attract, the WNBA is in its Bird–Magic era — or better yet, its golden age. The league unveiled a rivalry-centric schedule of games for 2025. On the first Saturday of the regular season, the Aces will take on the Liberty in Brooklyn, where New York will be presented with its championship rings, and hours later, Reese’s Sky will pay in Indiana against Clark’s Fever.

This is an era in the WNBA when, at last, the league is marketing its household names properly and making sure to promote games of consequence. Beginning on May 17, we will see that strategy continue to unfold.

Athlon's 2025 WNBA team previews:

Aces | Dream | Fever | Liberty | Lynx | Mercury | Mystics | Sky | Sparks | Storm | Sun | Valkyries | Wings