SHOCKING NEWS: Coach Rachid Meziane Finally Breaks His Silence on the Collision with Caitlin Clark — “She Deserved It!” He Justifies the Foul, Dismisses the Backlash, and Ignites a FIRESTORM of OUTRAGE Across the WNBA. Fans Are Calling It the Most Tone-Deaf Statement in League History.

In a game that was supposed to showcase the best of women’s basketball, tempers flared, controversy erupted, and the conversation around WNBA officiating reached a boiling point. The Connecticut Sun’s recent matchup against the Indiana Fever, featuring star rookie Caitlin Clark, has become a lightning rod for debate about sportsmanship, refereeing, and the physicality of the league.

A Game Gone Off the Rails

The incident that set the basketball world ablaze occurred late in the game, with the Connecticut Sun comfortably leading the Fever by 17 points. Instead of winding down, the contest escalated into a series of hard fouls, heated exchanges, and ultimately, ejections. Clark, the No. 1 overall pick and one of the league’s brightest young stars, found herself at the center of the storm after being involved in a physical altercation that resulted in her receiving a technical foul—despite appearing to be the victim.

Sun head coach Rachid Meziane didn’t mince words in his post-game press conference. “They found our characters but lost our minds,” he opened, referencing the chaotic finish. Meziane criticized the decision-making on the court, particularly a late-game foul by Sun player Sophie Cunningham. “For me, it’s just disrespectful to do that foul when you’re winning by 17—completely stupid,” he said. “I did not understand when you are winning the game by 17 points and you’re doing this. To me, it’s a stupid foul. This is just disrespectful.”

Meziane also expressed confusion over the ejections of Lindsay Allen and rookie Jacy Sheldon, who he felt were unfairly penalized for their roles in the melee. “I do not know how Lindsay Allen and Jacy Sheldon got ejected from the game when they did nothing,” he added.

Players Feel the Heat—and the Frustration

The players themselves echoed their coach’s frustrations, pointing fingers not only at the opposing team’s aggression but also at the officiating crew’s inability to maintain control. “Obviously, it was a physical game tonight,” one Sun player commented. “When things aren’t managed well to begin with, it tends to get out of hand—and that’s what happened tonight.”

The players highlighted a growing trend of physical play across the league, suggesting that the lack of consistent officiating is fueling more dangerous and unsportsmanlike behavior. “This isn’t the first game this has happened,” another player said. “You can look over the course of the games in the league and see just how much more physical it is this year. When things aren’t getting called and when things are just blown out of proportion like that… we’re all competitors, we’re all going hard every single night. When you’re not managing the game properly, this is what happens.”

Caitlin Clark: The Center of Attention

Caitlin Clark, who has been under a microscope since entering the league, was visibly frustrated after the game. While she kept her comments measured, her body language spoke volumes. “Caitlin looked pissed in that interview,” noted one reporter. “She did not look happy, and at this point, I can’t blame her.”

The contentious technical foul assessed to Clark—after she appeared to be poked in the eye and pushed to the ground—left fans, analysts, and even fellow players scratching their heads. “For Caitlin Clark to get a technical when she was assaulted is the biggest buffoonery I have seen in a mighty long time,” one commentator said. “How the hell do you get poked in the eye and pushed to the ground and you get a technical?”

The incident has reignited calls for the WNBA to address its officiating standards and ensure that its rising stars are protected on the court. “Something has to be done,” the commentator continued. “The front office is definitely going to have to step up and make it their business to do what they’ve got to do. Caitlin’s technical foul has to get rescinded.”

Coaches Demand Accountability from the League

Sun head coach Stephanie White, who also addressed the media, was candid about her frustrations with the league’s officiating. “It was pretty obvious that stuff was brewing,” White said. “When the officials don’t get control of the ball game, when they allow that stuff to happen—and it’s been happening all season long—this is what happens. You’ve got competitive women who are the best in the world at what they do, and when you allow them to play physical and allow these things to happen, they’re going to compete and they’re going to have their teammates’ backs.”

White revealed that she began warning the officials in the first quarter that the game was on the verge of getting out of hand. “They’ve got to get control of it. They’ve got to be better,” she insisted.

When asked about what steps she and other coaches could take to address the issue with the league, White sounded weary but determined. “Every year when we have our league meetings in the fall and in the spring, we say the same thing over and over and over—and nothing has changed. Outside of continuing to submit clips, continuing to talk about it… the game has changed so much. Players are faster, they’re better, they’re stronger, more athletic than ever. The game is fast now. Everybody’s getting better—except the officials. We’ve got to find a way to remedy it.”

A League at a Crossroads

The fallout from the game has been swift and widespread. Social media is ablaze with debate, with fans and analysts alike demanding accountability from WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. “Kathy is a disgrace if she doesn’t address the WNBA referee problem that happened tonight,” one fan tweeted. “It’s because they failed to protect players and take control of the game. There needs to be a change.”

As the Fever prepare for their Commissioner’s Cup Final matchup, the league faces mounting pressure to address the officiating crisis and ensure that its games are decided by skill, not by chaos. The message from coaches, players, and fans is clear: the WNBA must act—before another game spirals out of control and another star is put at risk.

Looking Ahead

For now, all eyes remain on the league office and Commissioner Engelbert. Will the WNBA take decisive action to improve officiating and restore confidence in the fairness and safety of its games? Or will more nights like this one become the new normal?

One thing is certain: the players, coaches, and fans aren’t staying silent. And neither is Caitlin Clark.

SEE MORE: Caitlin Clark’s impact on the WNBA could eclipse ‘a billion dollars’

The impact of the Indiana Fever star goes well beyond the basketball court. In her second season, Clark is also changing the league’s bottom line.

When the WNBA returned to action last week, Ryan Brewer, like many who follow the league, was curious to see how Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark might top her rookie-of-the-year season.

Yet the interest of Brewer, an associate professor of finance at Indiana University Columbus and an expert at valuations, goes beyond Clark’s box-score averages. After Clark’s phenomenal popularity spiked attendance and merchandise sales and drew historic television ratings wherever the Fever played in 2024, Brewer was asked by the Indianapolis Star to evaluate her economic impact on the WNBA. He determined Clark was responsible for a staggering 26.5% of all WNBA economic activity last season, including revenue from merchandise, ticket sales and television.

When Brewer crunched the numbers to analyze her potential impact in 2025, he arrived at a valuation that “is quite impressive,” Brewer said.

“If things just go as they were, and we have an expanded season of 22 home games with modest inflation, I’m looking at $875 [million],” Brewer told NBC News. “And I could easily see that eclipsing a billion dollars on the economic impact of Caitlin Clark this year.”

The WNBA’s 29th season opens at a time when its basketball is impossible to untangle from its bottom line. And Clark has played a propulsive role in both.

For the first time since 2008, the WNBA expanded this season to add a 13th team, the Golden State Valkyries. Next season, two more will debut in Toronto and Portland. As the WNBA’s footprint grows, so do its coffers. In 2026, the league will enter the first year of an 11-year media-rights deal worth a reported $2.2 billion overall that is expected to triple its current media-rights revenues. (One of the media partners is NBC, which shares a parent company with NBC News.)

Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark against the New York Liberty on July 6, 2024, in Indianapolis.Darron Cummings / AP file

Anticipating the arrival of the new media revenue, the players union opted out of its collective bargaining agreement with the league last October and will spend the upcoming months negotiating a new deal that the union hopes will lead to higher salaries.

Clark earned $76,535 as a rookie and this season will receive a slight pay raise, amounts dwarfed by her endorsement portfolio that reportedly includes an eight-year, $28 million deal with Nike. It would be “impossible” to pay Clark what she is worth to the league, her agent told ESPN in February. That could be because although viewership across women’s sports was already on the rise by the time Clark emerged as a superstar at the University of Iowa, her popularity has supercharged the WNBA’s own.

While an average of 17,035 fans attended the Fever’s 20 home games — more than the city’s NBA team, which shares the same arena, averaged over 41 games — overall WNBA attendance increased from an average of 6,615 in 2023 to 9,807. Last season, as Fever games produced the most-watched WNBA games ever on ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, CBS and NBA TV, leaguewide viewership also broke records, including an average of 1.2 million per ESPN broadcast.

The WNBA, as a private company, does not disclose revenue figures, a league spokesperson said. Yet the league reported last year that its merchandise sales through Dick’s Sporting Goods had increased by 233% over the previous season. A spokesperson for Fanatics, the WNBA’s official e-commerce partner, said that Clark ranks in the top 20 of its top-selling athletes across all sports, and sixth among all basketball players, including the NBA.

The rising tide associated with Clark continued to lift other boats: All WNBA merchandise sold by Fanatics increased by more than 500% last season versus 2023, the spokesperson added.

Clark’s effect shows few signs of abating in 2025. Earlier this month, 1.3 million viewers tuned in on ESPN to watch an Indiana preseason game played at Clark’s alma mater, Iowa — an audience that was bigger than all but two NBA preseason games on ESPN since 2010 (and both of those games included LeBron James), per Sports Business Journal.

Of this season’s 10 bestselling WNBA games on StubHub, all 10 involve the Fever, according to a spokesperson for the online ticket retailer. When the Fever are the visiting team, the average price of tickets sold jumps by 140%. And the average price of a ticket to catch Clark and Indiana on the road this year is $312, according to the company.

Clark is “not just driving demand for the Fever, she’s elevating interest across the entire league,” Adam Budelli, a StubHub spokesperson, said in a statement.

Last year, Sportico pegged the value of the Fever franchise at $90 million, slightly less than the estimated league average. Yet in Brewer’s analysis, the net effect of Clark’s presence drove his valuation of the Fever to closer to $340 million. Brewer also calculated that Clark’s presence, should the interest in her performances be maintained, would result in an economic impact of approximately $41 million to the city of Indianapolis.

Clark wasn’t the only rookie last season to draw significant interest to the league. Her rivalry with Chicago’s Angel Reese, dating to college, led an average of 2.5 million viewers to watch their May 17 matchup, the most ever for a WNBA game on ESPN. Yet as Brewer analyzed attendance and viewership figures from the 2024 season, these indicated that Clark’s influence was singularly responsible for the surge of new interest in the WNBA.

Of the 24 WNBA-related broadcasts that drew at least 1 million television viewers last season, 21 involved her, according to an analysis by Sports Media Watch that included the league’s draft and All-Star Game. All three WNBA games that drew more than 20,000 fans included the Fever.

“It’s important to recognize that there is this rival and there are other rivals, but Caitlin Clark is illuminating the sport,” Brewer said. “She particularly is the one who’s driving in a new kind of demographic that is reaching new kinds of people from the traditional WNBA fan base that is causing this growth rate and also accelerating interest in corporate sponsorships.”

To analyze her economic impact, Brewer in part created models that projected the WNBA’s attendance for last season based on the league’s growth in the years pre-Clark. He then compared it to the actual attendance change and found about 60% of that increase is attributable to Clark.

“Her ability to fill up stadiums is amazing,” he said.

And that interest has been felt strongly in Indianapolis, where a $78 million practice facility solely for the Fever is under construction.

In 2024, after Indiana drafted Clark No. 1, Visit Indy, a nonprofit that promotes tourism to the city, sprung into action. It placed paid advertising throughout Iowa, including on social media, to test whether Clark’s die-hard collegiate fans might have an appetite to make the trip to Indiana to watch her as a pro. Soon, visits to pages on Visit Indy’s website dedicated to the Fever increased by 501%, said Chris Gahl, Visit Indy’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer. Fever home games also corresponded with a bump in booked hotel rooms in the city, he said.

Part of Gahl’s job is to persuade those in charge of booking large, corporate meetings and conventions to host them in Indianapolis. Last year, he found a new way to entice nearly 50 planners to check out the city for the first time: Taking them to a Fever game.

The planners, who were predominantly women, “would not have traveled here and visited here were it not for the invitation for them to come see a home Fever game,” Gahl said.

“An Indiana Fever home game is a very hot ticket.”