The Indiana Fever are once again in the news over racial and cultural dynamics around the team after it took center stage during its first-round playoff loss to the Las Vegas Aces.

During the series, Aces star A’ja Wilson confronted a Fever fan after the fan pointed and shouted at her from the baseline. After the team’s exit, general manager Amber Cox claimed criticism toward Fever fans had “no basis in reality” and that no fan at the team’s arena had ever broken the code of conduct during a game.

Yet Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell, a pending free agent who could leave the team this winter, spoke about the challenges of competing for the Indiana fan base and dealing with the scrutiny brought about by Caitlin Clark’s presence on the team.

As the Fever dealt with the continued controversy, Clark joined the College GameDay desk from her alma mater, Iowa, ahead of a big matchup with Ohio State. Clark was the show’s guest picker for the week while promoting the first edition of her long-awaited Nike sneaker.

The contrast between the fallout from the Fever’s playoff exit and Clark’s presence on GameDay — alongside fellow Indianan and WNBA provocateur Pat McAfee, no less — drew the attention of host Charlotte Wilder on The Sports Gossip Show this week.

“Pat McAfee, in 2024, called Caitlin a ‘white b*tch.’ Which I could give you the context for, but it doesn’t really matter,” Wilder said. “He said he apologized to Caitlin, spoke to her separately, I think that they have done stuff together since then. I do think that it’s an interesting move for Caitlin.”

Wilder tied the decision to Clark’s previous appearance at a Morgan Wallen concert. Whereas Wallen is known to have used racial slurs in the past, McAfee’s racial commentary tied directly to Clark. The incident Wilder referenced came when McAfee delivered a bizarre presentation to kick off his show during Clark’s rookie season, attempting to illustrate the star point guard’s popularity.

Wilder seemed to suggest that because so much of the conversation around Clark and her fans centers on her race (and that many of the players who end up on the wrong side of the Fever are Black), it was a mistake for Clark to guest on a show with McAfee, who had inflamed that conversation previously.

“I get it. You want to go on College GameDay to promote your shoe,” she explained. “I also don’t think that women should be deprived of platforms that men get to have because women have better morals than men. That’s a very complicated [dynamic]. It’s just interesting to be next to Pat McAfee right now, given what is going on with her team.”

When McAfee apologized for his language, he revealed he had spoken with Clark privately. But the Fever star has since distanced herself from McAfee’s show. Though the opportunity to use the GameDay platform to promote the Caitlin 1 and represent the Hawkeyes on the show is hard to pass up, Wilder believes Clark could have been more strategic than to tie herself to McAfee so soon after the racialized drama around her team.

As is often the case around Clark, the Sports Gossip Show conversation inevitably returned to the unknowable: how Clark feels and what her values are. The hosts agreed it would be much harder to question Clark’s motivation or her alignment with McAfee if she had been more forthcoming during her rise about how she views her fans and the culture wars they fight on her behalf.

“Maybe it would have been [better], if I think Caitlin had said something a little more forceful,” Wilder added.

“We’ve just said before, if you and I were in a situation where a bunch of Black women were getting death threats and having a really hard time because of people who said they were fans of ours, I think we would say, ‘You are not a fan of mine if you are perpetuating this behavior and these actions.’ It’s not the hardest thing in the world to say.

“It feels like it’s getting to a point where, yes, it’s a much bigger problem than just Caitlin herself. I do think she could do something at the very least for her own PR. But again, there are people who don’t see it that way who are fans of hers, and they buy sneakers, too.”