Quit trying to make Caitlin Clark a divisive figure
Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever looks on during a game against the Liberty at Barclays Center on Tuesday. Credit: Getty Images/Ishika Samant
The unofficial second half of the WNBA season started Tuesday, and still there was no word on when Catlin Clark will be back in uniform.
In case you weren’t paying attention, Clark hasn’t played with her Indiana Fever team since injuring her groin in a game against Connecticut last week. Since then, she’s missed last Wednesday’s loss to the Liberty, last weekend’s All-Star weekend that was hosted by the Fever in Indiana and Tuesday night’s game against the Liberty again at Barclays Center.
Much to-do has been made about how important Clark and her Taylor Swift-like stardom is to the league with the underlying implication being that this status has caused some friction and resentment among some of her fellow players.
In so many ways, women being jealous over the success and popularity of other women is such a tired and ridiculous narrative. Yet, many sports fans and observers refuse to let go of it, and seem to go out of their way searching for ways that Clark — even when she isn’t playing — is being disrespected by her fellow players.
This was clearly on display in the coverage of the All-Star game this past weekend. Clark, who served as coach of Team Clark even though she wasn’t playing, joined the rest of the All-Stars in wearing black t-shirts with the words “Pay Us What You Owe Us” emblazoned across the chest in white letters.
It was an incredible show of unity for a group of athletes in a sport where rookies can be paid as little as little as $72,000 and the super-maximum salary is just under $250,000.
Yet, what got the most buzz on social media was an awkward joke made by Kelsey Plum when she was asked in a post-game press conference how the idea for the shirts came about.
“The t-shirt was determined this morning. Not to tattletale: 0 members of Team Clark were present for that,” Plum said.
Plum’s comments were a joke not about Clark, but about her All-Star team and how they stayed up so late partying the night before that they didn’t make it to an early morning meeting. Instead, they were cast as a direct attack on Clark.
“You went from Motel 6 in a sketchy part of town to a Four Season in the shopping district. Stop talking,” Colin Cowherd posted on X.
Story after story ran online taking issue with Plum. One site, The Spun, even ran a story that basketball fans were “boycotting Kelsey Plum after petty behavior.”
The truth is Plum and Clark are friends and have had a connection ever since Clark broke Plum’s NCAA scoring record her senior year at Iowa. Clark, in fact, even posted a tease back at Plum on Monday, thanking her for posing in front of a Nike sign before the game. Clark is a Nike athlete while Plum wears Under Armour shoes.
There is no doubt that Clark’s popularity has taken the league to a new level and that her presence draws in fans like nothing any sport has seen before. The numbers from Saturday’s All-Star game reflected that. The game saw a drop of 36 percent in viewership from last year when Clark played as a rookie. And that’s just one of many statistics backing up what she had meant to the game.
Viewership is up by 23% over last year, attendance by 26% and merchandise sales by 40%. The league’s new $2.2 billion media rights deal starts next season and the WNBA will grow to 18 teams by 2030 with each of the three new clubs paying a $250 million expansion fee.
Clark has much to do with this. But when players guard her like the superstar she is, it is often seen as her being targeted by jealous and petty opponents instead of league officials not calling games as they should be called.
So, the cat-fighting narrative persists, except maybe by those who pay enough attention to the game to understand just what a transformative time we are witnessing and how everyone can benefit from it. Fans at Gainsbridge fieldhouse booed WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert during the MVP ceremony while chanting “Pay them! Pay them.”
It was an incredible show of unity. Every player, including Clark who makes $11 million off the court in endorsements, could be seen smiling.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
