OutKick founder Clay Travis challenged the WNBA on Monday, offering a $10 million prize to stage a “modern-day battle of the sexes” basketball game between the reigning WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces and a boys’ high school basketball state championship team.
The challenge comes as the WNBA finds itself at the center of a transgender culture debate after Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, 29, said girls should not have to compete against biological men in women’s sports.
Cunningham’s bold stance to support keeping women’s sports reserved for biological females has generated strong backing – with some women’s sports advocates even rallying outside her games – but also fierce backlash.
“If the WNBA really doesn’t believe that men are that much better than women at basketball, then the champion of the WNBA should be able to beat a bunch of high school boys,” Travis said Monday on “The Will Cain Show.”
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“If they are going to allow men to play, I think we should have an actual game. Not NBA players against WNBA players. High school boys. Let me pick a team,” the Fox News contributor said.
Travis told Fox News the head-to-head matchup would be broadcast on pay-per-view, with all profits donated to Tunnel to Towers. He predicted the game would generate millions of dollars.
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“If the high school boys win, I will give them ten million dollars. If the WNBA team wins, I will give them ten million dollars. I think we would raise tens of millions of dollars for charity, and I’m putting my money where my mouth is,” he said.
“They always talk about how they want more money,” Travis continued. “This is more money for one basketball game than has ever been paid to win in the history of the sport.”
Travis criticized WNBA leadership, saying league officials have not responded to his proposed matchup or addressed what he characterized as the “absolutely ludicrous” and “absurd” idea of allowing biological males to compete in the women’s league.
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He took aim at WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, condemning her for not publicly defending Cunningham or speaking in favor of maintaining women’s-only competition.
“It’s called the WNBA because it’s the women’s basketball association, right?” he said.
“The WNBA commissioner has not spoken out in favor of Sophie Cunningham or even just in favor of basic rules,” he said.