Caitlin Clark has brought legitimacy to the WNBA with her extreme talent and marketability. The WNBA was a running joke that lost money for two decades straight before Caitlin burst upon the scene. The silky smooth shooter from Iowa is solo carrying the entire league. Not just her entire team, but the entire league. Caitlin is the reason the players now fly private. She has brought exponentially more viewers to the sport. She is more popular and talented than entire rosters. The Anne Hathaway lookalike has the lethal touch of Danny Ainge. She sparks the same rage in her opponents as Ainge. Fans from around the world love her like Boston loves Larry Bird.
The average price of a ticket for a WNBA game is about $30. The average price of the ticket for Caitlin’s lone trip to Dallas was a staggering $1500. Fans were left stunned and upset by Caitlin missing the game due to a minor groin injury. Their $1500 ticket suddenly reduced back down to the Chicago White Sox Tier pass it truly is; fans showed up begrudgingly to this tepid affair. This was a truly bizarre event. It was the most quiet sellout arena imaginable. The vibe was sort of sour, like a Guns N Roses show marred by an Axl Rose meltdown that causes the show to be cut short. Everyone in that stadium came to see Caitlin play. When she didn’t, they milled around dejectedly in the Caitlin Clark jerseys. The crowd was 75% female, a staggeringly high number for an athletic event. The percentage of Caitlin jerseys was even higher than that. The result of the game was an afterthought. The result of the previous game was unknown to nearly the entire audience. Who the Dallas Wings played next was also unknown. This was 20,000 people who wanted to see The Notebook in theatres and accidentally walked into Platoon. “I’m just really sad we won’t get to see Caitlin,” one buxom blonde crooned as she walked into the venue with her boyfriend.
“It’s the entire reason we came!”
The boyfriend’s eyes were filled with pure anguish as he watched his $3000 night torn asunder. If only he had waited until the Wings following game, he would have saved himself over $2900!
Caitlin’s groin injury cast a powerful light upon the fragility of the WNBA. Despite all the chest-thumping and claims of legitimacy, this league is still very much a one person show. This is a league that relies on one star so heavily she sells out every arena she goes to like prime Metallica. The league’s answer to this is to push lame and boring astroturfed media campaigns. The primary and most contemptible one being the “Angel Reese is marketable” lie.
The WNBA has been given a golden goose. The absurd power level and importance of Caitlin was clearly illustrated in the American Airlines Center on Friday. 20,000 people sat around uninterested listening to wretched rap music blasted in between constant stoppages in play. The league still lacks truly powerful top end athletes. Remember, this is a league that markets itself as just as good, entertaining, and legitimate as the NBA. It has shown itself to be a catty, Mickey Mouse product time and time again. 17% of all flagrant fouls in the entire league were called against players taking cheap shots at Caitlin Clark. The jealousy and envy shown consistently against Caitlin is repulsive. The same people justifying these tawdry cheap shots also keep saying Angel Reese is marketable. Go figure.
Clark was hilariously omitted from the Team USA Olympic roster, despite being the best and most important player in the WNBA already as a rookie. The five person, all female, National Team Player Selection Committee embarrassed itself tremendously with the purposefully snubbing of Clark. All five of these women were unable to bring honor and attention to the game. Caitlin has done more for Women’s Basketball in one college game than those broads did in their entire careers. Caitlin is being hazed and slighted by people who never contributed nor built anything. They were living in open squalor before Caitlin arrived. Now they sneer at Caitlin “this is my dirt patch!”
The WNBA was nothing before Caitlin Clark arrived. The bizarre bait and switch sellout at AAC was a brutally transparent display just how little progress the league has made outside of Caitlin. The vile, nasty behavior of the WNBA’s athletes towards Clark have soured many casual fans on the sport. The shallow, catty nature of these actions make the stuff Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn did on the Bad Boy Pistons in 1989 look tame. Laimbeer and Mahorn were warriors… dirtbag animals… but warriors and agitators. Even within the context of dirty play they were just trying to get an edge in the game. The cheap shots taken at Caitlin have nothing to do with the game. They are as frequent as they are grotesque. The dopes committing these fouls do not care about the fact Caitlin has changed their lives for the better. They were flying commercial before she got to the league. They would rather tear her down and live in ruin than succeed with her.
The fans feel that. It is very obvious. They feel the jealousy, they see the cowardly acts. They understand her peers openly dislike her even though she is the only reason nearly every fan is there. It is a hard sell to then watch two “teams” revel in the glory of their betters. The fact that the jealousy and hatred is that apparent renders the contest bereft of value. No one can empathize with these athletes who have been whining for legitimacy constantly then act so clearly amateur. For years the WNBA has been painted by both the league itself and stooge networks like ESPN as top end competition to be compared to men’s sports. To watch the ladies of the WNBA consistently fumble the bag night after night is staggering. All they had to do was shut up and stay out of Caitlin’s way while she 1v9’d. The fact they did the opposite of that has made a sea of boring, faceless players even more forgettable. Every hack in the league is taking cheap shots at Caitlin and none of them can even harness a heel image. The league’s inability to be honest with itself or its audience will prevent it from parlaying the success of Clark into long-term mainstream legitimacy. Much like Riot Games in 2012, they think the good times are never going to end. Even if you catch lightning in a bottle and something is very popular, it is not indefinite.
The WNBA is riding an absurd high right now. They are at the strongest point they have ever been in as a league. It is all due to one woman from the Midwest. She sells out entire arenas solo. She is as important to Women’s Basketball as Flash is to StarCraft. Yet this paragon is dismissed by the very people that benefit the most from her ability. The entire thing rankles. Everyone who has failed at making the WNBA watchable for years resents Caitlin for saving their sport. It is hard to watch those people talk about how great they are after they take cheap shots at their mealticket.
20,000 people begrudgingly watched the Dallas Wings lose to the Indiana Fever on Friday. The players seem unaware of how tenuous the success of the league actually is. The reason the arena was sold out still was because Clark was not ruled out until hours before the contest. Had she had a more severe injury the ticket market would not have gone crazy. Unless the WNBA figures out how to protect their star instead of malign her, they might go back to flying commercial sooner rather than later.
