The Gentrifying of Women's Basketball

EPISODE 89: What it's like when America finally desires your favorite thing.

You should know that Morgan Murphy has seen some things in the world of entertainment.

She’s a standup who’s written for Abbott Elementary and Modern Family and 2 Broke Girls and Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon and Crank Yankers and she is also, per her own analysis, “the Joe Buck of anal.” (We’ll explain.)

But the whole reason I’ve been thinking about Morgan is because she is also the biggest and most informed women’s basketball fan, both college and pro, that I have ever met in my life.

Morgan was actually there, in person, as a record 18.7 million Americans tuned in to watch South Carolina destroy Iowa and Caitlin Clark in the women’s national title game. Which was the biggest basketball audience in the history of ESPN — bigger than any NBA game.

And on Monday, Caitlin is gonna get drafted No. 1 overall by the Indiana Fever. Which means that this metrically transcendent, industry-shifting, record-shattering superstar is gonna enter a WNBA that also had its most watched season in 21 years, just last year.

And there are some fans, like Morgan Murphy, who’ve been watching women’s hoops for even longer than that. For longer than 22-year-old Caitlin Clark has been alive.

And what I wanted to find out is what it’s like when America finally, finally starts caring — and arguing! — about the thing you love the most.

DKN/YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

Happy Friday,

Pablo