Columnist Gregg Doyel suspended, won’t cover Indiana Fever WNBA games, newspaper says

The leading sports columnist at the Indianapolis Star can’t cover the biggest sports story in town this summer.

Gregg Doyel, a longtime voice at the newspaper, will not be allowed to cover the Indiana Fever, which drafted Caitlin Clark last month, the Star confirmed Tuesday. The newspaper’s decision followed an awkward moment at Clark’s introductory news conference last month in which Doyel made a heart gesture with his hands, mimicking something Clark has done with her family, and told her he was happy she was in Indianapolis.

“Indianapolis Star sports columnist Gregg Doyel will not be covering the Indiana Fever,” Star spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton wrote in an email to The Washington Post.

The paper did not offer any details, saying it does not comment on personnel matters. According to a person with knowledge of the situation, Doyel will not attend Fever games in person this season but may still write about the team. Earlier Tuesday, Bob Kravitz, a former Star columnist, reported on Doyel’s ban on his Substack newsletter and said Doyel is in the midst of a two-week suspension. The person familiar with the situation confirmed the suspension to The Post and added that it is unpaid.

Reached for comment, Doyel referred The Post to the Star.

The punishment for Doyel creates an unusual situation in Indianapolis, where one of the best-known sportswriters in the market can write about the city’s most important sports story only from a distance. Clark captivated the country during a stunning senior year at Iowa in which she drove record-setting viewership of women’s basketball and spikes in ticket sales wherever she played.

The Fever snapped her up with the first pick of the WNBA draft, bringing with her a flurry of excitement. About 6,000 fans packed the Fever’s arena just to watch the selection. She was introduced in Indianapolis to the local media April 17, when her interaction with Doyel quickly became national news.

“You like that?” Clark asked after Doyel made the heart gesture with his hands.

“I like that you’re here,” Doyel replied

“I do that at my family after every game,” Clark said, to which Doyel responded, “Start doing it to me and we’ll get along just fine.”

Doyel, who has a history of being a lightning rod on social media, apologized in a subsequent column. “In my haste to be clever, to be familiar and welcoming (or so I thought), I offended Caitlin and her family,” he wrote. “After going through denial, and then anger — I’m on the wrong side of this? Me??? — I now realize what I said and how I said it was wrong, wrong, wrong.”

A Fever spokesman did not reply to a request for comment. A WNBA spokesman declined to comment when asked whether the league or the team had spoken with the Star about Doyel.