“The media doesn’t really know how to react. They’re chippy, like how men play basketball.”

The WNBA has seen a meteoric rise in popularity this season, which is of course in large part thanks to the influence of Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark. But in the eyes of FS1 personality Colin Cowherd, media outlets have lagged behind when it comes to covering Clark in the same way that the NBA is covered.

There hasn’t been any issue with the volume of coverage around the WNBA, as nearly every major outlet has quickly caught onto how quickly the sport has taken off from a viewership standpoint this season.

However, there have been several instances this season where stories that would perhaps be overlooked in an NBA game were highly discussed by media outlets covering the WNBA. That’s been particularly obvious when it comes to some of the narratives around how Clark has been treated by her peers around the WNBA, along with the fouls that Clark has been on the receiving end of.

In a conversation with Mollie Cahillane of Sports Business Journal, Cowherd expressed his concerns about how Clark and the WNBA as a whole is being covered by the media. He said the media are “lost” when it comes to their coverage.

“The media doesn’t really know how to react. She’s great,” said Cowherd. “The media’s lost. People parachute in [with] strong opinions. They’re just women playing basketball. They’re chippy, like how men play basketball, that’s how basketball is played. Get over it. It’s so insane. They’re all fine — we’re not. They’re fine. It’s embarrassing.”

There is plenty of credence to Cowherd’s point here. In just about every sport, we see rookies get tested by veterans early on in their careers.

Former Los Angeles Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball is a great example. Back in 2017, he played against Patrick Beverley in his NBA debut back in 2017, and Beverley was quite adamant about making Ball’s debut as miserable as possible by talking trash before and during the game.

The Beverley-Ball dustup was a brief story. But it didn’t receive anywhere close to the amount of attention that numerous interactions between Clark and fellow WNBA players have drawn.

As the WNBA continues to grow in the future, hopefully media members will begin to see that the players, including Clark, have just as much mental toughness and don’t need to be protected any more than their NBA counterparts are.