Dave Portnoy was surprised last week when he tried to message Caitlin Clark and found out she had blocked his number. However, now, it looks like that brief online drama is over.

Just days earlier, Dave Portnoy made comments about Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball that upset the Fran McCaffery family, who are close to Caitlin Clark. Because of that, he thought Clark had blocked him on social media. But when he returned to Barstool on Monday, he revealed he hadn’t been blocked after all.

Dave Portnoy recently shared an update on X, saying, "Breaking News: turns out I’m not blocked by Caitlin Clark," after posting a clip from Monday’s “Stock Up, Stock Down” episode and clearing up the misunderstanding.

“I said, ‘Testing, am I blocked?’ She said ‘yes, crying emoji, laughing, then no, laugh out loud. I think you sent that last text when I was flying,'” he explained.

So in the end, there was no drama between Caitlin Clark and Portnoy, and everything is good between them.

But to understand how this mix-up even started, we need to go back to what led Portnoy to believe he was blocked in the first place.

How Dave Portnoy Ended Up Thinking Caitlin Clark Blocked Him

Before the Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball reached the Elite Eight in 2026, Dave Portnoy criticized Fran McCaffery, saying Ben McCollum had more success this March than McCaffery ever did at Iowa.

"I don’t want to tattle but my college basketball expert @Return_Of_RB told me the grass isn’t always greener on the other side in regards to Iowa firing Fran McCaffery," Portnoy wrote on X.

"Said it was the wrong move. It took 1 year for them to go further than their entire 17 year run with Fran," he further added.

In the end, the comment upset the McCaffery family, and they passed the message to Dave Portnoy through Rico Bosco.

During a dinner, Bosco handed Portnoy a phone to speak with one of McCaffery’s sons, who was unhappy with what was said about his father, but since Portnoy didn’t know who he was talking to, the conversation didn’t go well.

“He put a McCaffery in front of me on a cell phone, I didn’t know who I was talking to, and he was like ‘I don’t like what you guys have been saying about my dad,’ and I’m like ‘Who am I even talking to?’” Portnoy said.

After that, Dave Portnoy said he tried to reach Caitlin Clark but believed she had blocked him everywhere. But why would this post create tension between them?

It's because, Clark is dating Connor McCaffery, Fran McCaffery’s son, and they’ve been together since April 2023.

“She blocked me. Caitlin Clark has blocked me and is now not responding to me,” Portnoy said.

“I was going to do a pizza review with her in Indianapolis. Blocked me. The phone went to green. I DM’d her, no response. She always responds.”

Still, there are some questions. Dave Portnoy said he was blocked on multiple platforms, which doesn’t fully match the idea that it happened while Caitlin Clark was flying to Indianapolis. Maybe he exaggerated, or maybe Clark later tried to fix things.

Do you believe this was just a misunderstanding, or was there more going on behind the scenes that we still don’t know?

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Written by

Sauramita Debbarma

Edited by

Siddharth Rawat