A hard foul, some dumb comments, and hot takes. The WNBA never had it so good.

When Chennedy Carter hip checked Caitlyn Clark to the ground you would have thought she mugged the Pope.

Hot takes were everywhere, including Pat McAfee, who did what Pat McAfee does, say something dumb which he would then have to apologize for.

All of this should make the WNBA ecstatic.

As the late, great, promoter P.T. Barnum (allegedly) stated: "There is no such thing as bad publicity." and this new-found attention being paid to women's round ball is only a good thing for them. This kind of anger, and debate, and (let's be honest here) fainting couch drama, is typically reserved for the NFL, or College Football, or the NBA or other sports that, until now, actually mattered to the general populace.

Prior to this the WNBA was a league that, when you saw it mentioned, surprised you that it was still a going concern. "Wait, THEY'RE still around? I admit to not being the biggest of WNBA fans. I pull for the Aces but have only watched a handful of playoff games. I think A'ja Wilson is the hands-down best player in the league, and I think the Aces are still going to win it all, for the third time in a row.

Outside of that? Well, I remember that Lisa Leslie used to be really good and a handful of others, but for a long time I could not have picked any WNBA player out of a lineup. That changed, a little, after the formation of the Aces (I'm a fan of Las Vegas so I'm also a fan of their teams [Except the Raiders]) I started to pay some attention. And the Griner saga was pretty sad/interesting etc. What we did find out during all of that mess was that these players were so low-paid that some had to compete over in Europe in the off-season to make ends meet.

This, of course, drove outrage from those corners of sports and mainstream media who don't quite understand economics, and it led to even more fainting couch OpEd pieces about the terrible unfairness of it all. The problem with all of these pieces was that they ignored the biggest point: It was 100% fair. It was fair because almost no one was watching. The WNBA (I had to go look this up FWIW) at one time had a TV deal on Oprah's little known, and even less watched, network OWN. There were less people tuning in to watch WNBA games than Tuesday evening MAC College football games.

Does this lead to the WNBA trying to do a better job or marketing? Of trying to use social media to improve their brand?

Of course not. It led to several more fainting couch think pieces about how all of us who like sports SHOULD be watching the WNBA lest we find ourselves attending anti-suffrage meetings in the future trying to revert women back to some Butker fantasy state. The problem was not the lack of quality in WNBA play, it was you, you misogynous twit.

But then something happened. The players started getting better. Some real stars started emerging (A'ja, Griner and several others) the quality of play improved and then this rookie class emerged and now here we are. I'm not going to spend any time on this blog speculating whether it was the draft class, or Caitlyn Clark, that is responsible for the sudden boost in interest in WNBA basketball. I will only say this, Clark has certainly been the face of the increased interest but the other players (Brink, Reese, Cardoso etc.) are also playing roles. The quality of basketball talent within the WNBA is higher now than it's ever been, 

As such the quality of play is increased, as has fan interest. The result of this is that media interest and idiocy have increased as well. Anytime the media gets involved, in anything, the hot takes and straight out dumb takes come out of the woodwork as every media personality in the world wants to get up on their platform and remind the world that they, themselves, occupy the moral high ground while everyone else grovels at their feet. This is all done for clicks, views and the hope that people will be either enraged, or overjoyed. You just don't want them to be bored.

That's the lesson that the WNBA needs to take away from all of this. Keep this momentum going. Don't let the fans get bored.

Because if they do, all of this is for nothing.