Indiana Fever star and 2024 WNBA rookie of the year Caitlin Clark was the guest this week on New Heights, the podcast hosted by Jason and Travis Kelce.
And, of course, the topics ranged from discussing being a Kansas City Chiefs fan to opining about Travis Kelce’s girlfriend, pop superstar Taylor Swift.
Clark cleared up speculation that she, like many others who have become Chiefs fans since the Kelce-Swift partnership, isn’t a bandwagon fan. She also said that Kelce is her favorite player.
‘I had family in Kansas City and I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, which is only three hours from Kansas City, so that’s just the closest NFL team,’ Clark said. ‘My dad was a big Chiefs fan growing up. People think I’m like a bandwagon Chiefs fan, I’m like, ‘No, I was there before Patrick (Mahomes) and Travis.’ We were ride or dies, so we’ve been big fans.’
Clark said she turned her mother into a ‘Swiftie,’ the term given to die-hard fans of the Grammy winner, after taking her to a concert.
‘My mom was begging me to take her,’ Clark said. ‘She was like, ‘I gotta go, everybody is talking about it.’ I’m like, ‘OK, OK,’
‘Turned my mom into a full Swiftie. Two of my cousins were there. Good time!’
While women’s sports, especially the WNBA, have grown in popularity and viewership, Clark was asked about collegiate sports.
Clark set the NCAA all-time scoring record while at Iowa in March, and she parlayed that into numerous endorsement opportunities and becoming the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft. During the episode, she was asked about the transfer portal.
‘The transfer portal is crazy – especially in football. That’s where I think it’s gotten the craziest,’ Clark said. ‘It’s kind of sad. You lost a little bit of that amateurism of college sports … but also, it’s the world we’re living in.
‘Now we got people on their fourth school in their seventh year. It’s getting egregious.’