There’s no denying that Caitlin Clark is the biggest star in the WNBA right now.
Say what you want about one player not being responsible for the league’s growth, but the numbers speak for themselves. Teams regularly sell out games when Clark comes to town, and even have to move their matchups with the Indiana Fever to bigger arenas due to demand from fans who want to see Caitlin Clark. That’s not happening with any other player.
Her appeal can also be seen in the ratings for the NCAA women’s basketball championship ratings. Last year, the women’s championship drew more viewers than the men’s game, with a record 18.9 million viewers tuning in to watch Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes take on the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Meanwhile this year, without Clark, the women’s championship drew only 9.8 million viewers, nearly half of what it got last year. That was far less than the 18.1 million viewers who tuned in to the men’s championship game between the Florida Gators and the Houston Cougars, despite the women’s game featuring UConn superstar Paige Bueckers.
Of course, anytime the discussion of Clark’s superstar status comes up, the subject of race usually isn’t far behind. As a white superstar in a league that’s mostly black, there are always accusations that Clark is only popular because of her race. (It can’t have anything to do with Clark breaking pretty much every rookie record on the books during her first season in the WNBA).
And during a recent discussion with David Letterman on his Netflix show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Clark acknowledged that she has “privilege” as a white player in the WNBA:
“I definitely have privilege. I’m obviously white. But I think I’m somebody that grew up a huge fan of this league. I grew up watching this league, going to games, supporting this league. So I know where this league comes from. A lot of black women that grew up making this league what it is. And that’s kind of the shoulders that we stand on.
So I think that was something I’m very aware of, and something I’m very thankful for. And they definitely deserve all their credit, and the more we can give credit to them, the better. I’m very aware of that, and I know that, and I think there is responsibility in acknowledging that.”
Clark made similar comments, acknowledging her “white privilege,” during an interview with Time for her Athlete of the Year feature last year:
“I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege. 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.”
Of course saying that she’s popular because of “white privilege” discounts just how good she really is. Like I said, she’s broken pretty much every record in the books already, and other white superstars of college basketball like Bueckers haven’t had brought in near the viewers that Caitlin Clark has.
Seems like explaining away her popularity and success as “white privilege” is totally dismissing what a talent Caitlin Clark is, both on and off the court, and is just an easy scapegoat to explain away the problems that have existed for the WNBA long before Caitlin Clark arrived on the scene.
