Elle Duncan said Caitlin Clark should tell fans to stop using her name for their own agendas, turning a podcast appearance into another sharp turn in the coverage fight around the Indiana Fever player. Duncan framed the dispute around what Clark’s supporters are doing, not just what the media is writing.
The Sports Gossip Show comments
Duncan used The Sports Gossip Show podcast to spell out the line she wanted Clark to draw. “I would love for it to be very clear to the people who think they are her fans but are using her, if she would say, ‘stop that sh--, I don’t want it, I’m tired of it.’ As opposed to what we’ve seen, which is ‘the media makes up these narratives, the media makes up this discourse,'” she said.
She also pushed back on the idea that the backlash exists because of editorial invention. “The media highlights the stories, and they show it, but at the same time, like, the media did not make up that members of Congress are trying to get literal government intervention into whether you get fouled too hard. Like, this stuff has to stop,” Duncan said. Her point was narrower than a general media complaint: she was arguing that the Clark debate has spilled far beyond one platform or one column.
Clark’s 2024 warning
Clark gave a direct answer to that argument in 2024: “People should not be using my name to push those agendas. It's disappointing. It's not acceptable,” she said. She also added, “Treating every single woman in this league with the same amount of respect, I think, it's just a basic human thing that everybody should do.”
That makes Duncan’s call for Clark to speak out less clean-cut than it sounded. Clark already told people not to use her name as a political tool, which means the new demand is not for a new position so much as a louder version of one she has already taken.
Wednesday’s wider split
Over the weekend, Clark told that the media controls the narrative around her and is sometimes so far out of touch with what is reality. On Tuesday, a column argued that the conversation around Clark cannot shift toward basketball until players and media members fueling the hysteria acknowledge their role in creating it.
On Wednesday, Kirsten Fleming wrote that no matter how many times CC has said the thing everyone wants her to say, it is not enough. The column also said, “No matter how many times CC has said the thing everyone wants her to say, it's not enough. They demand more. They want her to respond to every drop of nonsense and give it way more oxygen than it deserves. It gives women a bad name. This isn't Bravo, it's hoops. Let her hoop.”
The practical takeaway for Clark is blunt: the argument is no longer just about coverage, but about who gets to define her public voice. Duncan wants her to confront the people using her name; Clark has already said that using her name for those agendas is unacceptable. The missing piece is still the same one, and it is the one that keeps the dispute alive: which specific people Duncan meant when she said they were her fans is not identified.
