Angel Reese On Cover Of Sports Illustrated, Makes List Of ’50 Most Influential Sports Figures’

Sports Illustrated has released its list of the 50 most influential people in sports, and while there is no shortage of perennial heavy-hitters on this list — your LeBron James-es, your Tiger Woods-es-es, and your Lewis Hamiltons — there was a fair amount of WNBA representation with Catlin Clark and Angel Reese making the list and the latter even landing on the cover.

Alright… that may be a little overkill, but I think both Reese and Clark making the list is fair.

The funny thing about lists like this is how intentionally vague they are. Is Angel Reese as influential in the traditional sense as a LeBron or a Tiger?

Absolutely not.

However, she is influential in the sense that she is a major part of the WNBA’s surge in popularity. Even if the vast majority of that popularity is because of Caitlin Clark, the league isn’t as compelling without some kind of foil for her, and Reese fits that bill.

SI didn’t rank the list from 1 to 50, which makes sense because how do you quantify influence? Although, I wish they had because it certainly would have made for some good debate if they had put Reese ahead of Max Verstappen, Connor McDavid, or even a big player in the sports world who isn’t, an athlete like Fanatics boss Michael Rubin.

Still, the list is another sign that women’s hoops is on a heater right now. In addition to Reese and Clark, Dawn Staley, Candace Parker, A’Ja Wilson, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, ESPN’s WNBA studio team, and LSU junior Flau’jae Johnson all made the list.

Hell, even Las Vegas Aces owner Tom Brady was on the list, although that was likely thanks to some other accolades.

That means that nearly 20 percent of the list had ties to women’s basketball in some capacity. This seems to be a bit much when you’re talking about all of sports, but there’s no doubt that those are all names that get attention and therefore some amount of influence.