By Rich Lowry
Tuesday, June 04, 2024
By all means, let’s take a star who is drawing new attention to a women’s sports league that
could definitely use it, and make her into a hate figure.
If her critics have their way, this will be the fate of
Caitlin Clark.
Of course, Clark is the former University of Iowa
basketball legend who has now embarked on her rookie season in the WNBA with
the Indiana Fever, generating new interest in a league that has survived for
almost two decades but hasn’t set the world on fire.
The other WNBA players don’t like Clark very much, an
animosity exemplified by a flagrant foul against Clark by a player with the
Chicago Sky last weekend.
The old Rodney Dangerfield line is, “I went to a fight
and a hockey game broke out.” Well, the body check of Clark was worthy of an
NHL game, and her former LSU rival now on the Sky, Angel Reese, cheered the
takedown lustily.
As a hyped newbie, Clark is inevitably in for some rough
treatment from longer-tenured opponents, but she shouldn’t get abused for the
offense of being a bright new star — or for, according to her more perfervid
detractors, being too white or attractive.
On The View, co-anchor Sunny Hostin accused
Clark of benefiting from white privilege, pretty privilege, tall privilege, and
straight privilege.
That’s a lot of alleged privilege and still leaves out
the most important — shooting- and passing-ability privilege.
If Caitlin Clark were a pedestrian player, no one would
know her name. It’s her ability to make long-distance “logo threes” and her
extraordinary pass-making skills that make her exceptional.
The sports commentator Jemele Hill has complained that
Clark’s “race and her sexuality played a role in her popularity” and that she’s
symptomatic of how black players are “erased.”
A player for the Las Vegas Aces, A’Ja Wilson, has said
much the same thing.
These interpretations are non-falsifiable. Testing the
proposition would require a black LGBQT+ player becoming the highest-scoring
college basketball player of all time — in both the men’s and women’s game —
and averaging an insane 31.6 points per game in her final season. Since only
Clark has achieved this, there’s no way to make a comparison. But it seems
likely that if Clark’s non-white, non-straight hypothetical equal pulled this
off, she’d probably get a Nike contract, too.
For anyone who values the WNBA, it is self-sabotaging to
treat Clark as a white interloper. She’s an incredible draw and an invariably
courteous emissary for the game. She has inspired girls around the country and
patiently signs their signs, jerseys, and sneakers.
Her Iowa team didn’t just routinely sell out at home, but
sold out on the road against teams that were otherwise meager draws. The
Caitlin Clark effect led to the women’s college championship game this year
easily drawing more viewers than the men’s championship.
It’s not as though the WNBA is in a position to turn its
back on a potential generational talent. If the league has been making gains,
it still badly lags the NBA. The clinching game of the WNBA championship last
year averaged 889,000 viewers and the postseason averaged 470,000 viewers; in
contrast, the clinching game of the NBA finals averaged 13 million viewers and
the post-season 6.4 million. The WNBA generated about $200 million in revenue
in 2023, whereas the NBA generates roughly $10 billion.
Caitlin Clark isn’t going to make up this disparity
(she’s a point guard, not a miracle-worker). Anything to draw more people to
the game should be profoundly welcome, though. Clark so far has struggled, at
least by her standards. She is 16th in the league in points per game. But she’s
played only eleven games so far. Already, she scored 30 points in one game, and
she’s the fastest WNBA rookie to 150 points, 50 assists, and 50 rebounds.
Who knows if she will eventually be the GOAT of the WNBA,
but she’s certainly not the villain.
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