More attention means more sponsors more sponsor mean more money and then high pay. Also ELI5 what the hell was with getting a technical just for clapping?
In the beginning I think people felt she hadn’t paid her dues, and not only is she a generational talent, but she’s taken a ton undue punishment from fellow players both physically and culturally. At some point people just need to acknowledge that she’s earned her place.
Wish the league would do a better job punishing the folks who get too physical.
That is exactly what I don’t get. She played Basketball her whole life. I think that shows she pays her dues. But they treat her like shit and I haven’t seen her fight back. I think she’s like on her third technical or something and I think the refs are in on it. I would love to see the ratings when she rides the wood vs when she’s on the court.
This happens a lot in professional sports. There’s always some amount of rookie hazing, and often it’s friendly, but there can be real nastiness when the rookies are particularly good. A lot of veterans feel the need to knock them down a peg like OP said. And Caitlin Clark is the best player the WNBA has ever seen, she’s had product endorsements and national recognition since she was in college.
She was out a lot of last season so you can compare with that
NBA players get techs for clapping too. Some refs get offended too quickly.
You might assume that the point of the WNBA is to showcase the sport itself, but like all sports leagues the only thing they actually care about is whether or not people are watching and/or buying merch.
I’m not going to debate whether the quality of play in the WNBA is lower than the NBA because I am not a basketball fan, I don’t really watch either. But it is pretty clear that generally speaking way more people watch the NBA than the WNBA.
So if you can’t draw via the game itself? Make the game a drama fest. Highlight every time the undisputed best player gets fouled dirty by someone else and then there is an incentive for those players to do so - getting their name mentioned in the same sentence as Clark is a PR stunt in hopes of making more stars/rivals for people to want to tune in and see. You can’t get endorsement deals when nobody knows who you are, and I don’t imagine anyone loves Clark being in the spotlight almost exclusively.
WNBA is just legit pro wrestling as far as the coverage goes. Sucks for the players but I think it’s tough to compete with the NBA either way.
I think you’re partially right. The thing is that she gets beat up and doesn’t get the calls. WNBA refs are notoriously bad. I believe that at least for the first year, she was selling out games and getting viewership. The WNBA has their golden goose and all they have to do is market it. They aren’t going to attract viewers for rough play in a way that hockey does for fights. They need to invest in the quality and exposure of their product not the rage bait. Where news gets clicks for hot takes, the WNBA isn’t making the bulk of their profits from journalism.
Ok so straight out of the gate, CC is a phenomenal shooter who puts a lot of points on the board and she puts a bunch of assists on the stats sheet. However, she puts a ton of points on the board because she is a volume shooter and she has a lot of assists (she’s I think #2 in the league right now) but she’s also a turnover machine(she’s either #1 or #2 right now). She plays dirty and has since college. There are several video compilations people have put together showing her two handed full extension just knocking players down or hitting them across the face/head. She plays the innocent/victim card any time she does something or something happens to her.
People make the comments of “look at how the defense plays right on top of her” to use as a reason why she’s the best or one of the best in the game. Defenses play her like that because she doesn’t have the ball handling skills of a Paige Bueckers or Olivia Miles. She will give up on defense as well. There was a play last week where she thought a Fever player was fouled on a turnover and instead of playing the ball until a whistle was blown, she allowed an easy layup because she was busy arguing with the ref. She is not a Top 5 player in the league, at best she’s at the bottom of the Top 10. Watch her body language on the court, her attitude is shit which is a shame.
She absolutely got eyes on the league which should be applauded but the fans aren’t staying for her. She missed most of last season and viewership was way up without her. She has never been a winner at any level yet people act like she is. I hope this helps.
Back to back to back Big 10 champion, getting back to back 2nd in the NCAA championship, and being the all time leading scorer for collegiate women’s basketball don’t really sound like she’s never been a winner. Further, per this article viewership dropped by more than 50% when she was out with an injury.
You’re just being a hater.
More attention means more sponsors more sponsor mean more money and then high pay.
Honestly depends on how much the cartel that owns basketball can keep from the WNBA, last time the NBA players got organized the cartel got Obama to talk them out of a wildcat strike.
Also there isn’t much solidarity amongst sports players, when England won the Football world cup, it was only possible because in the early rounds, multiple teams basically spent their whole game attacking Pele, without that Brazil would almost certainly have won.
