She came to the WNBA with heightened expectations after making women’s college basketball her own personal video game. Could Caitlyn Clark carry the hopes and dreams of an entire sports league hungry for recognition and the need for casual fans to pay attention on her shoulders?
This was too lofty a goal for a young woman just out of college. The WNBA does have a slew of athletically gifted and graceful athletes like Breanna Stewart, Angel Reese, and the ageless Diana Turasi. Were they not ever worth watching?
The answer is a resounding no, but the WNBA has been subjected to an unfair, outdated, and misogynistic argument amongst its detractors for years. The league would never reach the popularity of the other more established sports leagues because the quality of play will never match the quality of said other leagues like the NBA and the NFL.
The league hoped someone would waste those beliefs and act as a savior for the WNBA and women’s sports in general.
Enter Caitlyn Clark stage right.
Caitlyn Clark is an athlete who suffers no fools. She’s intense, driven, and motivated to steamroll anyone and anything that gets in her way. Some find her approach jarring, arrogant, and completely self-serving, including one of the WNBA’s most decorated veterans. For example, during a recent game in which Clark’s Indiana Fever team took on the Seattle Storm, Clark was angerly shoved by Storm guard Skylar Diggins-Smith.
Diggins-Smith represented the type of veteran player that sought to intimidate rookies and force them to earn their stripes. If Diggins-Smith had been paying attention, she would have realized that angry shove was unwarranted and uncalled for. It was done out of pure jealousy.
Quite frankly, Caitlyn Clark is the best thing to happen to the WNBA and women’s sports in general in a long, long time. Need proof? Sports Illustrated recently reported that through mid-June the WNBA has averaged 1.32 million viewers across the networks of its media partners. That is up from a figure of 462,000 viewers a year ago. 94% of the league’s arenas are at full capacity, a 77% increase from this time last year.
Most importantly, Clark has vastly improved the league’s level of play to historic proportions. Take, for instance, the two games she played after the Olympic break, in which she averaged 26 points and 9.5 assists per game numbers that are absurd for the WNBA.
What I most admire about Clark is something that can hardly be quantified, her intensity. In the game against the Seattle Storm. Clark was whistled for an unnecessary technical foul for punching the backboard after a play. Most athletes would be thrown off their game after such misfortune. Clark, however, is a rare breed. She thanked the referee for calling the technical foul, as it motivated her to play harder and prove she was the best player on the court. She undoubtedly was.
Clark is not perfect. She tends to be arrogant, as evidenced by her primal screaming and the dismissive wave above her head towards Diggins-Smith in that game. However, she clearly represents to the WNBA what Larry Bird and Magic Johnson represented to the NBA 45 years ago. A seminal talent who got people other uninterested in woman’s basketball to pay attention.
When all is done, she may be the best thing to happen to women’s sports. She’s on her way.
