Caitlin Clark is a phenomenon. Her impact on women’s basketball cannot be understated. Iowa became a viable brand with Clark at the controls. Her Steph Curry-esque playstyle was mesmerizing—pairing absurd shooting from beyond the arc with crafty passing to take the country by storm.
That momentum hasn’t slowed down since reaching the WNBA. Clark has the 80s rockstar appeal—when she’s in town, the arena sells out. The Indiana Fever increased their attendance by over 300%, which was over four times greater than that of every other franchise.
The 23-year-old often draws comparisons to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson for helping spark a newfound interest in a sport that desperately needed a spark. FOX Sports analyst Colin Cowherd thinks the league should put the entire media machine on Clark and offer an exclusive package exclusively for Fever games.
“If I were the WNBA, I would consider a separate television package on just Caitlin Clark games,” Cowherd said. “I would’ve had two packages: a WNBA package and a separate, let’s say, 15-18 Caitlin Clark package for HBO, FOX, could be anybody. The league wasn’t ready for her last year—they just weren’t prepared.”
As financially prosperous as that would be for the WNBA, their desire should be to grow the game as a whole. It’s commissioner Cathy Engelbert’s job to help prop up other stars, not to cater to one, albeit large, sector of the fanbase.
With the likes of Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins coming in the near future, the league will have an ideal crop of young talent to push to the moon over the next decade.
