WNBA’s Beloved 'StudBudz' Discuss Potential Interview Opportunity With Dave Portnoy

The popular live stream hosts are apparently entertaining the idea of interviewing Portnoy.
Minnesota Lynx players Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman, who run the popular Twitch streaming channel, "Stud Budz," discuss potentially interviewing Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.
Minnesota Lynx players Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman, who run the popular Twitch streaming channel, "Stud Budz," discuss potentially interviewing Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. / Screengrab on Twitter/ @StudBudzHQ

The WNBA's most popular Twitch streamers, "StudBudz," took over All-Star weekend in Indianapolis and gained countless new fans for their 72-hour all-access live stream during the festivities.

Less than a week later, however, the beloved live streaming duo—made up of Minnesota Lynx's Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman—has faced heavy criticism from the WNBA community for allegedly rubbing shoulders with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy in the wake of All-Star weekend.

Williams and Hiedeman addressed the recent backlash over their talks with Portnoy during Wednesday's live stream and discussed having him on the stream in the future. They specifically mentioned that they planned to press Portnoy about his public criticism of Chicago Sky star Angel Reese.

"Okay, so guess what? When Dave comes on, we're gonna ask him, 'Hey Dave, ‘Why are you talking about Angel like that?’" Williams said.

"Because we love her, bad," Hiedeman interjected.

"Y'all see how simple that is?" continued Williams. "Y'all all over like here like, 'No, no, no!' We don't run away from [this stuff]. ... I don't think he gonna deny it, he seem like the type of guy that's gonna stand on what he feels."

Portnoy has since issued his response to the backlash:

"People are big mad at Studbudz just cause we talked. W fans are freaking nuts. I got one of biggest megaphones in the country. I love them. I love the league. Yeah I don’t like Angel and I love Caitlin. It’s called sports," Portnoy wrote on X.

Portnoy recently made headlines for clapping back at "morons" who complained about WNBA players asking for more money, amid the union's ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations with the league.

That said, the Barstool Sports founder, who is a well-known Caitlin Clark supporter, has been very public about his "hate" for Reese in the past and even encouraged fans of Clark to "hate" Reese as well. Back in 2021, a Business Insider article also detailed multiple sexual misconduct allegations against Portnoy; Portnoy denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit for defamation against Insider, which has since been dismissed.


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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.