ESPN star Ryan Clark and Barstool owner Dave Portnoy have been part of a massive feud over a WNBA show.
The First Take star Clark has been in bust-ups with numerous star personalities over the last few months.
Minnesota Lynx star teammates Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman turned heads with a 72-hour All-Star stream on their Twitch channel Studbudz.
The stream received plenty of praise, including from Barstool’s Portnoy, who is a super fan of Caitlin Clark.
However, when there was a tease that StudBudz might collaborate with Portnoy, critics came after the channel, given Portnoy’s past slamming of Angel Reese.
One of the critics is Ryan Clark, who spoke about the situation on Tuesday’s episode of his The Pivot podcast.
“When I think of the StudBudz sitting with Dave Portnoy, I think of priorities,” Clark said.
“If your priority is to build the StudBudz as big as you possibly can, then why wouldn’t you invite on someone who has built one of the biggest platforms of new media in Barstool?
“But there’s also: who do you serve? We had Andrew Schultz on, and he wanted to have a conversation about what he said, why it wasn’t intended as it was taken.
“Dave Portnoy is not going to do that. Not only did he call Angel Reese a classless piece of sh*t after the NCAAs, he’s continued to double down on his dislike and disdain for her.
“And he’s exactly, if you’re servicing the WNBA viewers, he’s exactly what you don’t want.”
Clark added that Portnoy and his fandom of Clark “makes people hate her fans or dislike her fans because they do feel like they have caused this division between two players who are actually elevating the game, and you can’t compare in playing styles.”
Portnoy took notice of Clark’s comments and responded on social media.
“Ryan Clark can’t go two days without talking about me,” he wrote on X on Wednesday.
“I shouldn’t dignify his existence because I know he’s a race baiter BUT apparently he’s mad I have opinions on a pro athlete while he’s out here attacking guys wives.”
Portnoy’s last sentence referenced Clark bringing up former NFL teammate Robert Griffin III’s wife into a row.
Clark has been a star analyst on ESPN since 2015[/caption]
The bust-up was also about women’s basketball, as Clark dismissed Griffin accusing Reese of “hating” rival Caitlin Clark and suggesting his comments were less valid because Griffin’s wife, Estonian heptathlete Grete Sadeiko, is white.
Clark has since apologized to Griffin for mentioning his wife in their feud.
The former Pittsburgh Steelers safety has feuded with Portnoy, Griffin, and Cam Newton in just the last two months.
It will be worth monitoring whether Clark reacts to Portnoy’s rebuttal.
