The WNBA’s Officiating Problem Is Bigger Than Caitlin Clark

More than 24 hours later, the individual fouls have been endlessly clipped, remixed and scrutinized. Tuesday’s game between the Fever and Sun finished with five technicals, three players ejected, two flagrant fouls and one huge mess. (One of those technicals was retroactively upgraded to a flagrant, and the mess became large enough to feel like two separate messes, but who’s counting?) Yet, to focus on the specific fouls is to miss a key part of why the ensuing conversation matters for the league.

It's not about how opposing teams handle Caitlin Clark. It’s about the need for better, fairer, more consistent officiating across the entire WNBA.

There is nothing as universal in sports as complaints about the refereeing. But that frustration is so consistent and widespread that it has begun to feel like something more in the WNBA. It’s not just griping about a few bad calls. It’s a pattern of mistakes that are hampering the quality of play and the growth of the game. What happened on Tuesday felt like a particularly illustrative example. But it’s not an isolated one.

“When the officials don’t get control of the ball game, when they allow stuff to happen, and it’s been happening all season long … this is what happens,” Fever coach Stephanie White said to reporters after the game on Tuesday. “You’ve got competitive women, who are the best in the world at what they do, right? And when you allow them to play physical, and you allow these things to happen, they’re going to compete.”

Much of the attention focused on a sequence around Clark midway through the third quarter: Jacy Sheldon swiping at her face while guarding her on the perimeter, followed by Marina Mabrey knocking her to the ground after the play was dead. (Sheldon was assessed a flagrant one; Mabrey and Clark both received technicals along with Sun veteran Tina Charles.) That was eventually followed in the closing seconds of the game by Fever guard Sophie Cunningham taking matters into her own hands with a hard foul on Sheldon. It sparked a scuffle that resulted in three ejections.

It’s not hard to find mistakes in that initial sequence. (Namely, with Mabrey’s technical: It was later upgraded to a flagrant two, but it should have been clear in the moment that it was a flagrant, and it may have stopped tensions from rising had it been called accordingly.) But it’s not just about how those specific calls were handled. It’s about everything that led up to them. This is a game that should have been called more tightly from the beginning. (Which should have been obvious even before tip-off: Indiana and Connecticut’s last meeting was a similarly tense game that ended with a chipped tooth for Cunningham.) There were several hard plays that went uncalled in the first half. And it was that lenience that laid the way for the mess in the second.

The game is physical. WNBA players are not in need of protection or paternalistic coddling. But they do need better refereeing, and that’s an overarching, structural issue far more than it is a problem with individual officials.

Compare this system to its fraternal counterpart. NBA referees are salaried employees of the league. WNBA referees are paid by the game and generally work NCAA games in the winter. There are some major underlying differences: The NBA’s season is twice as long and, of course, its budget is larger by an order of magnitude. The WNBA cannot (and should not want to) follow everything that it sees in the NBA. But it’s not hard to see the difference between six-figure salaried employees and contractors paid a few hundred dollars a night who then adjust to calling a different rulebook five months of the year.

The differences are not just about pay. The NBA issues a Last Two Minute report for every game that is close late in the fourth quarter. The WNBA has no equivalent. The NBA maintains an off-site replay center in Secaucus, N.J.: Any call that goes to a replay review is seen by someone removed from the action. The WNBA has its replays handled on the court by the same referees who made the initial call. It creates a resource gap that is hard to miss.

Refereeing is a difficult, thankless job, no matter the league. Mistakes are inevitable. Even a hypothetical perfectly called game will likely still result in a bit of griping. But it’s the responsibility of the league to foster the best officiating that it possibly can. That’s a matter of recruitment, of training, of resources, of pay. It’s hard to argue that the WNBA is setting up its referees for success. It’s certainly not a new problem. (Don’t forget the league had to issue a statement acknowledging a pivotal missed call in Game 4 of the 2016 Finals … before issuing a statement acknowledging another pivotal missed call four days later in Game 5.) But the subject has garnered more attention as the league has gotten bigger.

It’s drawn complaints from across the WNBA. Aces coach Becky Hammon unloaded her frustration at the referees over the weekend. “I feel like some of these are dangerous plays and have to be looked at,” she said, citing a hit that Las Vegas star A’ja Wilson took to the head, which her coach believed should have been a flagrant two. (It was called a common foul. Wilson has now missed several games in concussion protocol.) Sparks guard Kelsey Plum laid into the referees the week before. “There were multiple shots at the end of the game, either going into the third, into the fourth, where they're just coming and f---ing swinging, and they just don’t call anything,” she said. And the league is less than a year removed from poor officiating that marred an otherwise electric 2024 WNBA Finals.

What happened between the Sun and the Fever on Tuesday was embarrassing for the league. But it’s not isolated, and it’s not about one player, and it’s not about one set of referees. It’s a structural problem for the entire WNBA.