The Downside Of The Caitlin Clark Effect

Caitlin Clark, one of many most-followed skilled ladies’s basketball gamers and a fan favourite, is not going to be on the Staff USA Ladies’s Basketball 2024 Olympic roster, in line with reviews. The transfer to depart Clark off of the 2024 Olympic group is sparking controversy from media leaders and followers, signaling a possible draw back of the Caitlin Clark impact for girls’s sport. Whereas Clark has undoubtedly boosted fandom in ladies’s basketball, to actually witness the Caitlin Clark impact drive significant development within the sport, newer followers ought to look past solely supporting one participant.

Many have cited the Caitlin Clark impact as one of many driving forces behind the rise in recognition, fandom, and viewership of ladies’s basketball over the previous two seasons. Offered out arenas have gotten way more widespread at each the collegiate {and professional} ranges of play. Caitlin Clark’s skilled group, the Indiana Fever has skilled an infinite improve in house attendance, surpassing their collective 2023 house attendance whole of 81,336 inside the first 5 house video games of the 2024 season with a complete house attendance of 82,857. Throughout the first three weeks of the 2024 season, total league attendance was up by 40 p.c in comparison with 2023’s closing common (6,615). The Indiana Fever has the most important improve from 2023 (+12,504).

Linear and streaming tv viewership has additionally seen comparable spikes. 4 weeks into the season, 4 out of the highest 5 most considered 2024 WNBA video games have featured the Indiana Fever:

1. Could 14 – Indiana Fever @ Connecticut Solar (ESPN2) – 2.12 million
2. Could 16- Indiana Fever @ New York Liberty (ABC) – 1.71 million
3. Could 18 – Connecticut Solar @ Indiana Fever (ESPN) – 1.56 million
4. June 1- Chicago Sky vs Indiana Fever (ESPN) – 1.5 million
5. Could 18 – Los Angeles Sparks @ Las Vegas Aces (ABC) – 1.34 million

Draw back of the Caitlin Clark Impact

Regardless of the clear proof of rising fandom, attendance, and viewership, newer followers are inadvertently undermining the game by solely rallying behind one athlete, and in flip neglecting the wealthy historical past of the league and its veteran gamers. Nevertheless, the accountability for this pattern does not solely relaxation on new followers’ shoulders. For many years, ladies’s sports activities and the WNBA have suffered from insufficient protection, leaving little alternative for constant sport viewing or participant/group publicity.

Notably, the WNBA lacks a standalone main tv deal, with its ESPN settlement bundled with the NBA, producing roughly $40 million in income for the league however leading to fewer prime-time televised occasions. Whereas Caitlin Clark has undoubtedly contributed to elevated viewership, it is important to notice that ladies’s sports activities protection and viewership have been already on the rise throughout the 2023 season, predating Clark’s entry into the league. Some specialists consider that the WNBA holds important leverage to safe its personal tv deal for the 2025 season and past, given the constant viewership development.

Nevertheless, sustainable development hinges on new followers embracing everything of the league reasonably than fixating solely on selling one participant. The current expressions of dissatisfaction from Caitlin Clark’s fanbase following the Staff USA roster announcement, which embrace calls to boycott ladies’s Olympic basketball contests, pose a major risk to the ladies’s basketball neighborhood. Historically, the Olympic Video games have supplied a uncommon alternative for heightened visibility and protection of ladies’s sports activities, with viewership and protection figures for girls’s occasions usually rivaling or surpassing these of their males counterparts.

A number of specialists in ladies’s sports activities, together with Jemele Hill and Sarah Spain, assert that Olympic roster spots are earned via constant efficiency reasonably than recognition or social media presence. Sustaining this normal is essential for upholding the integrity of the game and guaranteeing a excessive stage of play on the courtroom. Notably, securing a place on Staff USA’s Ladies’s Basketball roster is extremely aggressive, as demonstrated by the exclusion of dominant WNBA gamers like Arike Ogunbowale, who’s averaging 26.6 PPG this WNBA season, which is sweet for second total within the league. If newer followers fail to familiarize themselves with extra of the WNBA and its many proficient skilled gamers, their opinions could stay uninformed and hinder the game’s total development.

Caitlin Clark could have loads of alternatives to earn an Olympic roster spot in future years. Till then, new followers ought to spend time supporting the all the elite ladies athletes who will probably be representing the USA within the 2024 Olympic Video games, as this help undoubtedly helps develop the sport for all gamers, together with Caitlin Clark.