WNBA All-Star's draw attention off court with Lynx duo 'StudBudz,' player salary conversation

NINA MOINI: Two Minnesota Lynx players celebrated the 2025 All-Star weekend by live streaming basically the entire thing on the platform Twitch. Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman took viewers inside practices and parties, picking up 500,000 views and reaching 70,000 followers to their account. A Stud Budz Sports Illustrated called it a generation defining piece of WNBA content.

So on the court, teammate Napheesa Collier broke an All-Star game scoring record. Joining me to talk about the game, plus the Twins and other Minnesota sports news are sports contributors Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson. Thanks for being here, guys.

ERIC NELSON: Happy Monday, Nina.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Glad to be here.

NINA MOINI: People also called are out to lunch a generation defining piece of content, I will say.

ERIC NELSON: Absolutely.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Clearly it was.

NINA MOINI: And people can catch that on the website mprnews.org. But, in all seriousness, the All-Star game really was a match-up between two teams that were led by Collier and then of course, Caitlin Clark. But Clark was out with an injury. So what happened in that game Wally?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, it turned into a typical All-Star game, is what happened. So Napheesa Collier and Caitlin Clark were the team captains and they drafted their team, so in other words, they picked who they wanted on their teams amongst all the players in the WNBA that were voted into the All-Star game. And as you mentioned, Caitlin Clark did not play because of an ongoing groin injury that she had been battling.

But Napheesa Collier played, she won MVP, she scored a WNBA All-Star game record, 36 points. And they had some different rules for this All-Star game. They added a 4 point shot from 28 feet out. And, oh, by the way, 65 of those were shot during the game.

So give players a chance to hoist the ball from wherever, from the parking lot and they'll do it, and they did make 20 of them. So give them credit. They made 20 of the 65 shots which is pretty good. Some teams go through a game and they can't make three pointers at that rate.

But the game really lacked defense, and as I said, it's turning into what the NBA has, which is just no defense at all. And scores in the high 100, almost 200 points a game. So I'm guessing they might tweak that a little bit next year, I know that their TV ratings were very good.

As a matter of fact, the ratings were their best ever. I think they had a 300% jump in TV ratings and the game was on ABC. So that makes a huge difference because everybody can see it. And it was also on ESPN streaming that way too. So it was a fun game. It drew a lot of attention.

And Napheesa Collier of the Lynx had a big game, so it was all good. Here's the flip of the whole thing, the players wore pregame T-shirts that said they want to be paid, basically is what it said. And pay us what we are owed.

And interestingly, because of the boom in popularity of the WNBA, the players are recognizing, hey, somebody's making money, we need to get paid more. And they certainly made a statement both on the floor and off.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and again, like you said, picking a time where they knew a lot of eyes were going to be on the sport.

ERIC NELSON: No doubt.

NINA MOINI: Moving on here to the Twins which we just had a nice story about the Twins sponsoring girls baseball, but they went this weekend to Colorado. They were playing the Rockies, who I remember you all telling me they're a dismal record this season. So how did the Twins do, Eric?

ERIC NELSON: You're too kind, Nina. It's a Rocky Mountain low out there in Denver this summer, but Minnesota lost 2 of 3 to the lowly Colorado Rockies, which isn't good because the Rockies are on pace to have the worst season in Major League Baseball history. All-Star pitcher Joe Ryan saved the Twins from a potentially embarrassing sweep in Colorado. He was outstanding yesterday in a 7 to 1 win.

Ryan gave up just 5 hits and 1 run and 7 innings, he struck out 11. Now on the flip side, there's a lot of speculation that Minnesota might deal Ryan to pare payroll. And if so, this was quite an audition for Joe Ryan. There's at least five teams I could name who would love to have Joe Ryan in their rotation.

Hopefully, if you're a Twins fan, they don't send him packing. Now tonight, Minnesota record 48 and 51 takes on the LA Dodgers, who are 58 and 42. And the Dodgers are the World Series champions, but they're slumping. They were swept at home over the weekend by the cheeseheads from Milwaukee.

Interesting angle tonight, the starting pitcher for Los Angeles is Shohei Ohtani. He's the Japanese Babe Ruth, a guy who pitches and he hits, which is extremely rare in today's MLB. He's got 34 home runs, and he's coming back from an arm injury that kept him off the mound for all of 2024, and he just started pitching a few weeks ago.

I saw him throw in person down in Kansas City and then out in Los Angeles recently, and the Dodgers are easing him back into pitching shape. So look for Shohei to probably go 3 or 4 innings tops. But I can tell you, if you ever see this guy in person, it's like going to a concert. Every time he comes to the plate or he's on the mound, everybody gets out their phones and they start recording the moment.

Now, another angle for this series involves Twins shortstop Carlos Correa. He will not experience any love out there in SoCal. In fact, he may want to bring some earplugs.

Correa most likely will be booed every time he comes to the plate, and he will hear chants of cheater throughout Dodger Stadium. That's because Correa played on the 2016 Houston team that did knock off LA in the World Series, and it was later discovered the Astros were banging on a trash can lid because they were stealing signs. It was a major scandal.

And two weeks ago when I was in LA, I saw the Astros play the Dodgers and Jose Altuve, who was Carlos Correa's teammate in Houston. It was a booze fest. Every time he came to the plate, pure venom, cheater, cheater, cheater. Although Altuve had a great series and the Astros swept the Dodgers. So Correa's probably just going to let it roll off his back. But listen for the boos tonight.

NINA MOINI: The fans don't forget. So the 3M Open which is in Blaine is happening this week. And this is a pretty important event for professional golf, isn't it Wally?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, it is. A lot of players still vying for FedEx cap points. The points you accumulate by winning tournaments or placing high in tournaments to get into their end of season tournament and get paid really big bucks. So yes, more or less, this is one of the last chances for players who are on the PGA TOUR to accumulate those points.

Tourney play begins on Thursday at the TPC. There are also practice rounds coming up on Wednesday. There's a pro-am tomorrow, so all things. Obviously, the weather is going to play a big factor in this. We know the heat is coming.

And I think that the big thing though out there is they got to hope that it doesn't rain like it did this morning because that could really throw a monkey wrench into this weekend. But there'll be 156 players starting on Thursday, only two top 25 players in the world are playing in the tournament. Maverick McNealy, he's number 17 the latest rankings and Sam Burns at number 22.

But there are some big names, Wyndham Clark, who's currently a major player on the PGA TOUR, Zach Johnson, Tony Finau who won this a couple of years ago, and Rickie Fowler recently announced that he is in the running too. So should be a lot of fun. I enjoy going out there every year. It's usually very hot and I don't think this weekend is going to be any different at all. Again, they start on Thursday out at the TPC in Blaine.

NINA MOINI: All right, guys, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much for being here, Wally and Eric.

ERIC NELSON: All right. Nina.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Thanks, Nina.

ERIC NELSON: Have a good day.

NINA MOINI: Thank you. That's sports contributors Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson.