Clay Travis Offers Las Vegas Aces $10 Million to Beat a Boys High School Team, Then Proposes an All-Trans Franchise

Since Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham said in July that women's sports should be reserved for biological women, the fallout inside the WNBA has kept expanding. Coaches picked sides, fans staged rallies outside arenas in Seattle and Minneapolis, and the fight has spilled into a very literal money question: can the best team in the league beat a bunch of high school boys.

On Monday, OutKick founder Clay Travis raised his long-standing wager from $1 million to $10 million. The offer, first made in 2023 and rejected by the Aces then, now dares the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces to play a boys' high school state championship team of Travis's choosing. Win or lose, Travis says he'll pay $10 million to whichever team comes out on top, according to Fox News and Breitbart.

"If the Aces beat my team, I will give them $10 million," Travis wrote on X. "If the boys win, I will give them $10 million to distribute as they see fit to their team members." Travis told Fox News' Will Cain the game would air on pay-per-view with proceeds going to Tunnel to Towers, a charity that provides mortgage-free homes to families of fallen soldiers, police officers and first responders. He later extended the same $10 million offer to a WNBA all-star squad.

Ten million dollars represents close to a third of the Aces' estimated $33 million in annual revenue. As of Monday afternoon, according to American Greatness, the Aces had not accepted or publicly responded to the offer, and the matchup remains hypothetical.

The precedent Travis and Breitbart both cite

Breitbart pointed to a real-world data point from 2017, when the U.S. Women's National Team, fresh off a World Cup title, lost 5-2 to an FC Dallas boys' academy squad, not the U.S. men's national team, just a group of male teenagers in an MLS development pipeline. No money was on the line in that game. Breitbart's argument is that a state-title-caliber boys team, or even a solidly above-average one, would be a heavy favorite against WNBA players, given post-puberty physical advantages in speed, strength and vertical leap.

American Greatness cited an X post from Grok, the AI chatbot on X, estimating a boys team would be roughly a -1500 to -2000 favorite, putting the Aces' win probability at 5 to 15 percent. That's an AI-generated estimate, not a betting line from a licensed sportsbook, and it should be read as such. The physiological argument at the center of the broader sports debate holds that after puberty, male athletes typically have measurable advantages in speed, power and size that don't disappear with training.

The trans-team pledge

The wager escalation came the same day Travis reacted to Golden State Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase, who told reporters she supports trans women playing in the WNBA. "I'm all about women, little girls deserving to play, and that includes trans women," Nakase said, according to Breitbart. Nakase joins Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White, Portland Fire coach Alex Sarama and Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve as WNBA coaches who have publicly backed inclusion of trans athletes or declined to take a firm stance against it.

In response, Travis floated buying a WNBA expansion franchise he'd call the Nashville Balls, describing it as "the most inclusive women's/men's team in WNBA history" and pledging it would be "100% trans." "It's cruel and inhumane to not allow my trans team to compete," he wrote on X, adding the team would "never lose" and "some games we may not even be scored against." Former college swimmer Riley Gaines amplified the challenge on X, asking the league directly whether it would accept the offer and calling any refusal hypocritical given coaches' public comments.

The coaches quoted in these stories are not saying anything close to what Travis's satire implies. Nakase, White, Reeve and Sarama have talked about inclusion and biological uncertainty in general terms, not about accepting a men's team into the league. White told reporters she doesn't feel "educated enough from a scientific standpoint" to comment definitively, which is a hedge, not an endorsement of male competitors in women's basketball.

None of this is close to happening. The WNBA has not commented on Travis's $10 million offer or the trans-franchise pledge, and no source shows the league engaging with either proposal. The Aces have not accepted the wager. There's no expansion process underway that could produce a "Nashville Balls" franchise, and Travis's team would need WNBA board approval to exist at all, something the league controls entirely regardless of what any coach says in a press conference.

Cunningham remains the only current WNBA player publicly stating that women's sports should exclude biological males. Fan rallies outside Fever road games have continued into August, and the debate over trans inclusion in women's basketball shows no sign of resolving through official league policy. The next test is whether any WNBA front office, or Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, responds on the record to a wager that's now sitting at $10 million and climbing.