New York CNN —The male-dominated sports media apparatus is stumbling over Caitlin Clark. He later apologized for using the slur, emphasizing that his broader thesis was that Clark’s star power created a halo around a league that’s been languishing in obscurity. “I was talking about how I hoped that the WNBA and sports media, ex-WNBA players, would show a little bit more respect to Caitlin Clark for what she has brought to the WNBA,” McAfee said on his show Tuesday. The league those women built has always been a physical one, a fact that Clark herself acknowledged in a postgame news conference. Much like Clark, the mainstream sports media is new to the WNBA.

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