A video of Caitlin Clark in her first workout with new coach Stephanie White for a season that is six months away went viral this week, attracting nearly two million views in the first hours after being posted. Not since Allen Iverson has a practice been scrutinized by so many. Yet Ms. Clark’s haters don’t seem to be going away.
The Indiana Fever posted the 59-second video showing Ms. Clark working on her ball handling and short-range jump shooting skills. The 2,000 likes and more than 500 comments indicate that interest in Ms. Clark isn’t diminishing heading into her second year in the WNBA. Yet, despite the league’s record-setting year in attendance and television viewership during her rookie season, she remains a lightning rod at the intersection of race, sports, and culture.
She continues to receive backlash from an article that accompanied her selection as Time Magazine’s Athlete of the Year. The owner of the Washington Mystics, Shelia Johnson, suggested during an interview on CNN the whole WNBA should have been on the cover instead of just Ms. Clark.
Ms. Johnson went on to say the “Caitlin Clark effect” is a product of how “media plays out race,” she said. “I’ve seen so many players of color who are equally as talented and they never got the recognition that they should have. Right now, it is time for that to happen.”
It’s a refrain many WNBA players expressed throughout Ms. Clark’s rookie season, which included cheap shots both on and off-court. Much of the discussion centered on race and whether her notoriety was a product of her being a straight white female benefitting from the efforts of Black players before her. Ms. Clark attempted to address that in the Time Magazine article.
“I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege,” Ms. Clark told Time. “A lot of those players in the league that have been really good have been Black players. This league has kind of been built on them. The more we can appreciate that, highlight that, talk about that, and then continue to have brands and companies invest in those players that have made this league incredible, I think it’s very important. I have to continue to try to change that. The more we can elevate Black women, that’s going to be a beautiful thing.”
Her comments drew immediate backlash from many conservatives. Former Fox News host Meghan Kelly accused her of “apologizing for being white.” Ms. Johnson said she’d rather more past and current WNBA players be recognized than just one person — and so would some of those players. “There are other players saying, ‘What about us?’” she said.
It is worth noting, Time Magazine recognizes the “Athlete of the Year,” not the league of the year. Ms. Clark certainly qualifies. She began the year still in college, leading Iowa back to the women’s NCAA national championship game which drew 18.9 million viewers and ranked as the second most-watched women’s sporting event not part of the Olympic Games.
She set the Division 1 career scoring record for men and women in the process and became the first overall pick by the Indiana Fever in the WNBA Draft. As a pro, she was named the WNBA Rookie of the Year after setting a rookie record for assists and most three-pointers in a season.
The Fever, a team that failed to make the playoffs the previous season, appeared in the most-watched WNBA games ever broadcast on ABC, CBS, ESPN, and ESPN2. The league’s overall attendance jumped to its highest level in more than two decades and every time the Fever showed up, the games were moved to NBA and NHL arenas to accommodate the crowds.
Oh, and the regular-season final between the Fever and Ms. Johnson’s Mystics at Washington D.C. set a new WNBA single-game attendance record of 20,711 when the game was moved from the 4,200-seat Entertainment & Sports Arena to Capital One Arena.
Meanwhile, every team now travels on a private charter and the league signed a new $2 billion media rights deal, prompting the WNBA players union to opt-out of their collective bargaining agreement in search of higher salaries.
It’s admirable to many that Ms. Clark cares about the history of the league and those who came before her and lets her play do most of her talking. “The only opinions I really care about are the people I love — my teammates, my coaches, the people inside our locker room,” she said, “the people I see every single day and I know have my best interest at heart.”