Commissioner’s Cup champions WITHOUT Caitlin Clark – Do Indiana Fever really Need her?

Caitlin Clark: WNBA star says people weaponizing her name is 'disappointing' | CNN

The Indiana Fever just won the 2025 WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Championship after their 74-59 defeat over the Minnesota Lynx on July 1. As a result of this, the Fever roster will be splitting a $500,000 prize among themselves.

Many within the women’s basketball community didn’t give Indiana (who is 8-8 on the season) to beat the 14-2 Lynx in this game, if only the Fever were handicapped by not having star guard Caitlin Clark, who is still sitting out because of a groin injury.

And things didn’t look good for Indiana in the early going, as Minnesota outscored them 20-12 in the first quarter. But it was all Indiana after that, led by a balanced offensive attack that saw five players (Aliyah Boston, Natasha Howard, Kelsey Mitchell, Aari McDonald, and Sophie Cunningham) all score in double-digits.

As the game was winding down, Fever fans took note of a scheduled video on ESPN’s YouTube account, which was captioned, “🚨 FULL REACTION: Lynx Dominate Fever to win Commissioner’s Cup | The Wrap Up 🏀”.

While this was clearly a placeholder that someone forgot to erase or edit, ESPN seemed to think the Lynx were going to have no problem handling the Fever.

X user @CClarkReport posted a screenshot of the ESPN video’s thumbnail, which is already making waves on social media.

It wasn’t until after the game ended that ESPN changed the video’s title to “🚨 FULL REACTION: Fever stun Lynx to win Commissioner’s Cup | The Wrap Up 🏀”.

While some might take this scheduled video caption from ESPN as disrespect, the Fever will ultimately get the last laugh. In fact, they’ll be laughing straight to the bank with their share of that $500,000 bonus.