Sarah Kloepping/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Audio By Carbonatix
Doug Gottlieb upset some people Wednesday night with a gender-based criticism of female basketball referees. His complaints come on the heels of what many feel is the poor officiating that has been taking place in the WNBA this season.
His criticism of female basketball referees was precipitated by the fiasco that occurred on Tuesday during the game between the Indiana Fever and Connecticut Sun which eventually devolved into a brawl on the court.
“Players are faster, they’re better, they’re bigger, they’re stronger,” Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White said after Tuesday’s game. “They’re as good as they’ve ever been there, as athletic as they’ve ever been. The game is fast. Now, things are happening quickly. Everybody’s getting better, except the officials. So we got to find a way to remedy it. I mean, you’ve heard every coach talk about it, so I don’t know what the answer is.”
What White said was the jumping off point for the complaints Doug Gottlieb shared on his show on Wednesday.
“What Stephanie White is saying is true,” Gottlieb said. “Here’s the quiet part out loud. We have female officials in the men’s game. I had one last year who I thought was actually really good, okay? But some of them are not good enough … It’s a very, very fast, very, very physical game. And if you didn’t play it at a level, especially the men’s game is at or above the rim, and the physicality is so much greater than anything you’ve experienced as a female player … it’s so much more athletic and physical that they’re calling plays that, they’re just late and they don’t have great perspective on. And they miss them.
“And then the other part to it, and this is not what happened last night. But I think what will happen is a lot like, we’re just being honest, men and women are wired differently. They’re wired differently,” Gottlieb continued. “Women are, we can say it’s a double standard, and we can talk about how unfair it is, but they are judged differently than men are. And because of that, it breeds insecurity. And when you have some of the coaches, and a lot of the big-name players saying, ‘You stink, you’re not any good,’ constantly, and we all know that fans, any time your team loses, it’s the officials’ fault. They become over-reactive and super-defensive, and then they screw up the game by calling everything! Which is, by the way, the next step in what happens in officiating Caitlin Clark’s games.”
He went on to add that he isn’t saying he is “anti-female referee,” he is just “anti-any referee who isn’t capable of doing their job.”
"What Stephanie White is saying is true. Here's the quiet part out loud. We have female officials in the men's game here. I had one last year that was good, but some of them are not good enough."
🔉@GottliebShow pic.twitter.com/taX7fkez9L
— FOX Sports Radio (@FoxSportsRadio) June 18, 2025
Naturally, by bringing the sex of the referees into the discussion, Doug Gottlieb managed to tick a few people off. The best response, however, may have been this one…
“Not good enough? Doug, you went 4-28 last year,” someone commented on X (Twitter). “You are not good enough to coach. Just like you were not a good enough person to stay at Notre Dame when you stole classmates credit cards.Trash person giving trash takes, what else is new?”