Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso played on different teams during their standout college basketball careers.
Reese won a women’s college basketball championship in 2023 with the LSU Tigers, while Cardoso and the South Carolina Gamecocks knocked off Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in April.
Now, Reese and Cardoso have joined forces as rookies playing for the Chicago Sky. While Clark’s preseason debut with the Indiana Fever was made available to view via the WNBA app on May 3, there was conveniently a hiccup with the broadcast of Reese and Cardoso’s game taking place the same day.
The WNBA apologized for its app incorrectly listing the Sky’s preseason matchup with the Minnesota Lynx as being available to watch and attempted to clarify its broadcast schedule, saying the Fever’s preseason opener was the only game the league planned to broadcast.
However, fans were still unhappy that the game was not readily available.
“Ridiculous,” one fan said. “It really shouldn’t be that difficult to stream 11 preseason games.”
A fan inside the Lynx home arena decided to step in and help make the game accessible to as many people as possible.
“Would y’all want me to try and stream the game on here?” X user @heyheyitsalli asked. “No promises on the quality but i can try.”
The social media user then started a spur-of-the-moment livestream, which attracted a massive audience.
While the livestream’s viewership numbers varied throughout the day, as of May 6, the video had more than 600,000 total viewers, with the post itself garnering 2.5 million views. heyheyitsalli shared a screenshot on May 3 showing the stream had racked up 173,381 live viewers at the time.
“Y’all these are some of THE WILDEST numbers WOW,” they wrote.
One of the livestream’s viewers was three-time national championship-winning coach Dawn Staley, who was tuned in to catch Kamilla Cardoso’s big game. She even tipped Alli $100 for being gracious enough to pick up the slack where the WNBA fell short.
“I didn’t mind watching with my peeps. Let’s keep raising h e dbl hockey sticks to get changes made,” said Coach Stalley.
Flau’jae was also spotted on the livestream, likely cheering for her former teammate, Angel Reese.
“Imagine your NCAA National Championship winning Head Coach @dawnstaley having to watch your player’s 1st game on an Instagram live. In all seriousness, this is so problematic and unacceptable it’s embarrassing,” an X user tweeted. “@WNBA ain’t no way you think this can keep happening and losing support by the minute.”
Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve shared the same sentiment as many fans. During the postgame press conference, she said that times are changing, and although it’s understandable that the league wants to weigh the costs and put money toward valuable players, Caitlin Clark isn’t the WNBA’s only valuable player.
“Certainly, Caitlin’s first game, they were gonna value. I’m all for that, I get it. People want to see that, but they also want to see… it’s not just about Caitlin,” said Reeve.
She continued, “This isn’t Caitlin’s fault in any way. It’s more, you know, the recognition that there’s general excitement about the WNBA in ways that we haven’t seen before. And so we have to capitalize to really ensure that this is a movement.”
The WNBA caught wind of the impressive numbers (and the complaints), and the Sky’s next preseason game, is scheduled for May 7, is now slated to be available through WNBA League Pass. It originally was not scheduled to be televised.
The game is also expected to be televised in local markets.
