‘Shameful’ Caitlin Clark feud addressed as Unrivaled’s $2m record shows WNBA’s biggest star not missed

Marina Mabrey has finally addressed *that* on-court skirmish with Caitlin Clark during the 2025 WNBA season.

In the Indiana Fever‘s 88-71 victory over the Connecticut Sun in June, Clark was poked in the eye by Sun guard Jacy Sheldon.

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With the WNBA superstar getting up to confront her opponent, Mabrey jumped in and shoved Clark to the floor as the exchange became hostile.

Both Clark and Mabrey were assessed technical fouls, Sheldon’s foul was upgraded to a flagrant and Sophie Cunningham — the Taekwondo black-belt who leapt to her Fever teammate’s defense in the ordeal — was ejected.

Eight months on from the incident, the 29-year-old sat down on Sue Bird’s podcast Bird’s Eye View and shared remorse about how she reacted in the hear of the moment.

“I am 100 percent aware. I know when I went too far with things, and it’s like shameful,” Mabrey told Bird and fellow guest Aaliyah Edwards.

“It’s like, really, Marina, that was ridiculous. So, for example, the Caitlin thing.

“When the play was over, and everyone was like, that was obvious that my emotions of us losing, and losing and losing, and then she’s like low-key punking our team on top of it, like, that was too far. That was too much.”

“Then on the flip side, when we were in Indiana, everyone’s booing us, it feels like s***, we end up losing by like 25,” she added.

“And it’s like, ‘Marina, that’s your fault, buddy. You can’t do that.'”

Unrivaled continues to set records

Estimated to have generated north of $27 million in revenue in its inaugural season, the 3-on-3 women’s basketball league Unrivaled is midway through its second installment.

It is projected to surpass $40 million in revenue due to sponsorships and a six-year media-rights deal with TNT, even without a star name like Clark, who has turned to media broadcasting in the offseason.

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With WNBA stars such as Paige Bueckers, who also took part in Unrivaled’s 1-on-1 tournament but suffered an early exit, and Angel Reese making a surprise return to Rose BC, the 2026 season has also been a huge success.

Unrivaled’s eight-week season is staged in Miami in an arena that houses a maximum capacity of approximately 1,000 fans.

But this year, the league decided to go on the road to Philadelphia.

Doing their tour stop in Philly – a city that has been deprived of women’s basketball since 1998 – in January the league brought in over $2 million in ticket sales, merchandise and sponsorships.

Clearly, the city of Philadelphia has an appetite for women’s basketball, so much so that it drew a crowd of 21,940 at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

It set a new attendance record for the arena which also hosts the NBA team Philadelphia 76ers and NHL franchise Philadelphia Flyers.

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“It was unbelievable,” Unrivaled co-founder Napheesa Collier said. “I mean, just the energy even when we announced it was crazy.

“The city is clearly ready for professional women’s basketball.” 

Fortunately for Philadelphia, a WNBA franchise is on its way after commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced it would host one of three new expansion teams that will enter the league by 2028, with Cleveland and Detroit the others.

South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley, who was a member of the Philadelphia Rage on its inaugural roster in 1996 when the American Basketball League formed, is excited for basketball to return to the City of Brotherly Love.

“There’s been years and years of debate,” Staley said. “The debate is over now, Philly has shown up in a big way to let everybody know we’re ready and 2030 can’t get here quick enough.” 

Unrivaled is heading to the Big Apple

Due to the huge success from that tour stop, Unrivaled has announced that it is moving its March 2 semifinals games to the 18,000-capacity Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York – the home of the Liberty and the Brooklyn Nets.

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“We’ve been in conversations with Barclays for a while,” Unrivaled CEO Alex Bazzell told Front Office Sports on Friday. “We had already built a relationship.

“Candidly we were looking at potential stops for next year, so we’re in active dialogue with numerous venues across the country. This just so happened that the Nets were out of town.

“Coming off the heels of Philly, the excitement around it, we look at this as an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.

“This is very much a pop-up. “We’re not going to judge our success the same way we would Philly. But of course we want to sell as many seats as possible.” 

This is just the next step to growing Unrivaled, with the league reportedly already engaged in conversations with other arenas in some of North America’s biggest cities.

“Our goal is to be anywhere from six to eight tour stops next year,” Bazzell added. “Which means each team would go on roughly two trips.

“It’s good for the league in terms of exposure. We would essentially be playing every weekend or every other weekend somewhere.”  

This season will culminate in a final on March 4 – location TBD – with a prize pool worth $600,000 to be split between those on the winning team.

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