May 23, 2025
Locked On Women’s Basketball: WNBA rivalries
By The Next
A look at the tension within the game
On the latest episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, Cassandra Negley of Yahoo Sports joins host Jackie Powell to discuss the latest discourse surrounding WNBA rivalries. The pair talked about what makes healthy rivalries and how hate speech against any player or team shouldn’t be a part of these battles shaping the league.
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First, they zeroed in on perhaps the most-talked about matchup, between the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky.
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“I think they are [rivals] for a few reasons. I mean, historically, this has been a rivalry. I went back, and in the 2018 Indiana Fever schedule announcement, it actually says Indiana begins and ends the season with its I-65 rivalry against Chicago. And we like threw out rivalry a lot when we’re talking about proximity, but that’s part of it, right?” Negley said. “And then I think Angel and Caitlin, these two bigger-than-life personalities in women’s basketball, because of the era that they came in, like them going to those two teams so close to each other, I think there is a little bit of a rivalry there. It kind of cemented it to me when I was in the arena and they announced the Indiana Fever for warm ups, and then Chicago comes out without an announcement, and there’s kind of some light boos from the crowd. Like the fans dictate sports, and they’re dictating in that moment like, oh, we don’t like you.”
Later, they dove into how to promote these rivalries without hate speech becoming a factor.
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“It’s hard for any league to handle something that is really a national problem,” Negley said. “I think the one thing that I would love to see from a media perspective, from a fan perspective, is really thinking about what you’re reading or watching or viewing. It’s this weird game of modern telephone where someone is saying that as fact, and that’s just not the case.”
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