On Monday, OutKick Founder Clay Travis announced that he is upping the ante and offering a $10 million wager to the WNBA: Your champion team vs. a boys’ high school state championship team.
If the WNBA wins, Travis pays them $10 million. If the boys win, the league pays Travis $10 million.
“Important announcement: I am upping my offer, 10 million dollars for a head-to-head basketball game between the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces and a boy’s [sic] high school state title team of my choice,” Travis wrote. “If the Aces beat my team, I will give them $10 million.”
He added, “If the boys win, I will give them $10 million to distribute as they see fit to their team members. Game on pay-per-view with all profits donated to Tunnel 2 Towers to provide mortgage-free homes to families of deceased soldiers, police & first responders.”
The wager is an enhancement of Travis’ 2023 challenge, in which he offered the Aces $1 million to face “A good, state championship caliber, high school boys’ team.”
In reality, it wouldn’t take a “state championship caliber” team of boys to defeat the WNBA champs. It’s reasonable to assume that a merely better-than-average team of boys would at least prevail, if not embarrass the Aces.
There is an historic parallel to Travis’ challenge.
In 2017, the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT), who were fresh off one World Cup win and only two years away from a second, were thoroughly routed by the FC Dallas U-15 boys’ team, 5-2.
Note: it was not the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) U-15 squad that accomplished this feat; it was just a team of male teenagers from an MLS squad.
No money was on the line when the FC Dallas boys beat the USWNT in their prime; that would be different if the WNBA accepts Travis’ challenge.
If they do, they’ll probably need to call NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for a cash loan.