The 2025 WNBA season is emerging as one of the most electrizers of recent times, and not only because of the talent on the court. From stages crowded to record audience rates, female basketball finally enjoys its deserved moment of glory. However, in the midst of all this emotion, a dark cloud of speech is close on the league, driven less by athletic analysis and more by an awkward cultural tension.

Much of that tension has concentrated around two young stars: Caitlin Clark, the phenomenon of Iowa that became the rookie sensation of the Indiana Fever, and Angel Reese, the champion of LSU, who does not apologize and now shines in the Chicago Sky. Each play, each comment and every foul they exchange is analyzed, reproduced and instantly discussed online. But why? Why these two competitors – both of great talent, fierce and centered – cause such implacable debate?

To understand it, we need to step back and unravel the narratives that have surrounded them from the university. Because what is happening now is not just about basketball. This is race, gender, the media approach and how, as a society, we choose our heroes and villains.

A rivalry that the media were desperate to create

When Clark and Reese met in the 2023 NCAA championship, it was a television dream come true: a white superstar with an unlimited shooting range against a black power that dominated the paint and spoke with the same intensity. The gestures with the hands after the game and the celebrations with incendiary gestures set the Internet. “Without class” was the word that was used to refer to Reese. “Feroz competitor” was used to refer to Clark. And so, the world of sports crowned his narrative: Reese, the villain. Clark, the gold girl.

But the truth is much more complex. These are two young people at the top of their career, competing in a league where the physicist and passion have always been a fundamental part. So why do you bother us so much to be what they are: athletes?

Jemele Hill recently addressed this imbalance in his podcast,Spolitics, denouncing the obsession of the media for customizing what a professional competition should be. “RGIII’s opinion was not sports,” he said, referring to Robert Griffin III’s viral suggestion to “hate” Clark. “His observation does not focus on basketball. It is about projecting something deeper, something personal and without verifying.”