The Josh Innes Show - WNBA: No Clark = No Interest

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

I was irrationally set off by some random persons tweet about the WNBA. The tweet was about how the viewership for the Sky/Fever game was still great despite no Caitlin Clark...which obviously means Angel Reese is equal to Clark. The post was BS to the point that it set me off. I'm a sad person. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Breaking news coming in from Bet365, where every nail-biting overtime win, breakaway, pick six, three-point shot, underdog win, buzzer beater, shootout, walk-off, and absolutely every play in between is amazing. From football to basketball and hockey to baseball, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. Must be 19 or older, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling visit connects ontario.ca Well, here's a not so shocking development first off headline reads

Wnba ratings down 50% since Caitlin Clark injury like Like is that really a shocker? Like people are not watching the WNBA because they care about women's basketball. They're watching the WNBA because Caitlin Clark turned them on to it and you can say it's because she's white and everybody's racist and blah blah blah blah and that could be part of it. I do think that part, we talk about this all the time, the drama surrounding this thing is what made it compelling to people right? But by the way can I tell you something that's really fucking stupid? Like I get annoyed when people get really really dumb on the internet

and try to say things that sound smart, but then you're like, okay, you sound like a dipshit, right? Or they're just being dishonest, right? And maybe it is that. But here's a tweet that I saw from somebody called Daron, Darren the King James. It's got over 1200 likes, 150 comments, 200 retweets. No Clark, no problem. Reese to the rescue. Sky versus fever June 7th, 2025. Attendance 19,496. And I guarantee you that 19,496 of those people were super fucking pissed that they wasted hundreds if not thousands of dollars to see a basketball game where Angel Reese lost by 30 points and Caitlin Clark didn't play. So number one in this don't make it sound like there were 19,496 people at the game because Angel Reese was

there you know that is bullshit. Every one of their games is played outside of the United Center they played that game in the United Center because they thought Caitlin Clark was going to be there and Caitlin Clark wasn't there like II get people are delusional. I get there are people that don't like Caitlin Clark because she's white and they like Angel Reese because she's black and like II get it. I understand it. What is funny to me is when people just outwardly lie and are full of shit or maybe

Doron the King James or Darren the King James is just a dipshit which is quite possible as if he thought oh 19,456 people bought tickets that day to go to the game even though they knew that Caitlin Clark wasn't there. How about you look at some data Darren the King James and see some facts. The facts are the ticket value of that game went down like 80% when Caitlin Clark was announced to not be playing. People were spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on tickets. You could have bought tickets for $7 to get into that game when it started. So to

sit there and spin this into an Angel Reese carrying like it's bullshit and like I get mad when people are stupid either when they're full of shit or they're stupid. I get mad and this one might be both 1.92 million viewers on average cool 2.16 million viewers at its peak Angel Reese moves the needle to! You are like at some point we have to start telling stupid fucking people that they are stupid fucking people. Like I'd be curious to know what that if if Caitlin Clark would have played in that game that television number would have been double. And by the way, that game was on ABC. So almost anything you're going to put on ABC television on a

Saturday night when that was that night or afternoon. I don't remember. I think it was night. Anything you put on there is going to have a million 1.92 million people. But usually if you put sports on and it's a big enough sporting event, it will be higher than what you would have put on television on a given night on a Saturday, right? So like, I don't know what normally is on Saturday. They bury shows on Saturday. Saturday is a terrible night for television. Friday and Saturday are just not good TV nights, right? So, I don't know what would be on there.

I don't know what the normal Saturday ratings are, but I'm going to guess that whatever it is is probably higher than 1.92 million and if Angel Reese versus Caitlin Clark would have happened it would have been double that number oh and by the way if Angel Reese's team didn't get the doors fucking blown off by 30 without Caitlin Clark on the other side then maybe just maybe it would have been higher I hate stupid people and all we do is reward stupid people. This is a world of rewarding dipshits. People are stupid. People are the worst. We have to stop celebrating and rewarding people for being morons. We have to

stop having 1200 people like posts that are just like, well the data may be true. The the setup is not true. Like yes, 1.92 million people on average watched that game. Cool. They did not watch it. And by the way that I got it. Now, I gotta find the damn number. Now, I gotta see what normal Saturday television ratings are like because like I know I gotta know because I guarantee you like I am I am blown away. I'm just like I can't help myself. Like I have to fight these things, right? Let's see here. This is Tuesday TV ratings. No, I don't want to do that. Saturday TV ratings. WNBA game respectable. That game

was it on CBS or was it on ABC? I think it was on CBS. So, let's read the story. Saturday TV ratings, WNBA game respectable on CBS. Let's see. At 8 o'clock, there were 3.5 million people watching regional baseball coverage or 3.05 million people. First of all, let me play some commercials. I don't want to get into fucking ratings talk. I really don't. It's not what I'm trying to do here. It's what I'm usually against, but I'm also against dipshits. So I'm going to play a couple commercials and we'll continue. The NBA Finals are finally here and after spending the playoffs all over the PIXIX app from DraftKings, well, we're ready for the championship round and this is your last shot to win some real

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slash promos. Alright, so 18 to 49 at 8 o'clock 3.05 million people were watching Fox which was airing regional coverage. Okay, cool ABC at that time. They were watching the Connors over a million people were watching a rerun of the Connors. Let's see beach volleyball CW. Alright as we go down 830 another rerun. So W but can you show me what it was? Can you show me what a normal Saturday is like? So is a normal Saturday like you know or the Connors on like a CBS

equivalent of the Connors like what happens on there that's what I'd like to know. Can you show me like the previous Saturday like Saturday that's Saturday 6-7 give me like Saturday what would that be 6-1 or 5-31 whatever it would be someone give me some decent like the headline on a website that focuses on television ratings says respectable on CBS. This guy's spinning it like the whole world was watching fucking Angel Reese play basketball and it's not true. How do people believe this? Why don't people just look shit up? Why are people so blind on the internet? Why do they have to read something, assume it's true and like it? Why do people not do their own fucking research because they're lazy, cunty,

horrible people? I don't want to get mad about these things. I shouldn't get mad about these things, but I do because I hate stupid people and I hate people who are lazy and I hate people who spread false information because people are stupid and they consume it. Now, on the other hand, I'm a big believer in if you are someone who consumes false information, that's on you because you have every opportunity to consume the right information because you have a little thing called the internet and it's in your fucking pocket and you can find

literally any piece of data you would like to. Or you could just use common sense. If that game had a 1.92 million people, by the way, it's on CBS, being over the air still matters in these cases, and it's a live sporting event versus a rerun of **** Roseanne or not even real Roseanne the Connors. It's like so then you look at real data right so then you look at the actual data and you go to USA today and you see WNBA TV ratings down more than 50% since Caitlin Clark injury

Nationally televised WNBA viewership is down 55% since her injury fever national TV games are down 53% Since Clark's injury 1.8 million average viewers before her injury and 847,000 viewers since her injury for fever national TV games. Can you give me a little bit of data on that game against Chicago compared to what it could have been? Like that's what I'd like to know. Like if we just assume that 53% actually what was the actual percentage of National TV games? So Fever National TV games are down 53% since Caitlin Clark's injury, right? Okay, cool. So, and that 1.8 million average viewers

include now and national TV could also include ESPN and other shit, not just CBS. That number probably skyrocketed because of CBS being CBS versus like Ion is considered a national TV game, but like how many people are watching on there? But anyway, so let's just take the number 53% and say what if that number was 53% higher? That means that instead of 1.9 whatever million, you're looking at what? Now I'm trying to do fucking math. What is 53%? So you would take 53% of what 19 million, that would be what over a million more. So you would have somewhere in the neighborhood of like a million more people watching that had Caitlin Clark been playing. So

you can sit there and you can spin it as oh my god Angel Reese gets moves the needle to she doesn't no one gives a **** And by the way, no one gives a **** about the WNBA. They give a **** about Caitlin Clark and look, I'm not some Caitlin Clark Stan as you know, I don no one gives a shit about the WNBA. They give a shit about Caitlin Clark. And look, I'm not some Caitlin Clark stan, as you know. I don't even give a shit about Caitlin Clark. For the most part, I defended Angel Reese in most of this shit, so whatever. But like this fairy tale universe where all these people act like, hey, people love women's basketball now. The fuck they love women's basketball now? It'd be in the shadows still if not for Caitlin

Clark. And you can question why she's brought it to light whether it's because she's white whether it's because Ains race whatever the reality is she's the golden goose and they all hate the golden goose and they're all going to eat themselves and it's going to be a thing of beauty. I cannot support dipshits and the people running the WNBA from their sham little deal they did where they had to find the racist monkey noises and all this shit to the fact that like the rest of the league seems to hate Caitlin Clark and all this shit. They will kill themselves. They've been given a moment. They've been given a gift. They have been given a road and that road's name is Caitlin Clark. God gave Caitlin Clark to you and you're not going to know what to do with her because

you're fucking stupid. You're morons. You're already up against it because your women's sports would struggle to get a male of the viewership anyway. Speaking of, they opened up one of those lady sports bars, the sports bras. They're going to open up one of those in St. Louis. For fuck's sake, the Hooters downtown just closed and we're over here like, guess what? You can come in and watch women's basketball in this bar. St. Louis, the only place where the UFL is viable and one of the handful of cities where a women's sports bar, I don't think it's going

to succeed at all. But this is a weird fucking town. Towns that don't have the NFL are so weird, dude. When like, go to a place like Detroit Detroit's got four major sports or or Philly's got four major sports Chicago's got like 500 major sports, New York you go to a place where it's just baseball and hockey and Spitefully people go to the UFL which they don't anymore that thing has died What you want to talk about hilarious the only place that cares about the UFL at all is St. Louis. St. Louis is like the permanent host of the UFL Championship game because it's the only place they can get attendance and

back-to-back years the fucking St. Louis team fails to even get into the championship. There will be 13 people at the championship game on national television this weekend and it's going to be hysterical but like this is one of those towns where there's soccer. There's Major League Soccer, which was a hot thing for five minutes until they started sucking and the Battle Hawks, which were a hot thing for five minutes until people realized it's a waste of time. And like then you've just got baseball and hockey. It is a fascinating world to live in a town where there aren't four major professional sports. And then

they like they list these teams as major sports like I'm watching the news the other day and there's some fundraiser for tornado shit and it's well the four major sports teams in town there are not four major sports teams in town there are two major sports teams in town and a soccer team and a fucking ufl team there are not four major professional sports leagues in this town, but we are going to have a ladies sports bar now so if you want to sit around and watch the fever take on the dream with your fellow Subaru driving lesbian friends, then that's going to be a place. I'm fascinated by the idea that people think this is going to be long term viable.

What's going to happen is these sports bras are going to close and then it's going to be blamed on men despite the fact the whole angle of this sports bra as they call it is to watch women's sports that you're telling men you don't really want them in there that's when it fails because you're taking half of your clientele potentially and telling them to fuck off then you're going to be like well, why didn't this work? Why was this? It's because of sexism. It's a perfect storm. It's the

same reason why the perfect storm happens when people don't care about Lady Ghostbusters. So turn it on men and say, well men didn't like lady ghostbusters because they are sexist. And you're like, well no, I just didn't want to see it. Oh, it's because you're sexist. You can't handle a woman busting ghosts. You know, busting makes ladies feel good too. And then of course you can spin it. Anywho, all that to tell you that I really got irrationally set off by that fucking tweet from that dude when I saw that. People are morons and then the people that like it are even...

I struggle with stupid people. I just need to put myself around people that I think are smart, which is like a handful of people. Anyway, more to come.