Imagine you are running a sport league or are involved in it and for the entire time that it has been in operation it has lost a ton of money every single year. Yet, for some stupid ass reason there are social pressures to keep it open so you and all your wealthy friends just keep on plugging money into it for nearly 2 decades.
Then, someone comes along and totally changes all of that. They have a great deal of fame, charisma, and just impressive marketability that they build on their own and once they end up in your league, not only is the population watching that one player but they are also watching all of the players. For the first time since your league was opened up you are profitable, people are watching, and you now have access to lucrative television contracts and other cities are really excited about joining your league that most of the world had forgotten even exists.
How would you treat that person that single-handedly managed to completely turn your failing enterprise to the forefront? Would you treat them like gold or would you do everything in your power to diminish and outright dismiss and deny the impact they have had on your league?
Bewilderingly, the WNBA has gone for the 2nd option over and over again.
When CC was able to convince the higher ups to get chartered flights for the teams instead of riding commercial (probably in coach class as well) the entire league should have been singing her praises. Instead, the league, the union, and the media attempted to state that she had nothing to do with it.
When attendance rose to levels that nobody ever thought was possible for the WNBA and other teams needed to book out larger stadiums (normally the men's stadiums) for the weeks that Clark's team, Indiana, were visiting, the media, the league, and the other players did everything they could to avoid talking about the glaringly obvious fact that this was happening ONLY because of Caitlin Clark.
When the hard fouls started happening on her over and over, the league refused to punish the persons guilty of obvious flagrant fouls, the refs refused to eject players from the game, and the media ran cover for them all. If you so much as pointed out that these were horrible, pre-meditated, and intentional hard fouls meant to hurt Caitlin, you would be dismissed as a racist.
All the while Caitlin never complained in public and even remained calm and spoke out trying to protect the officials. Of course she is probably contractually obligated to do this, but she never had an outburst to give anyone the impression that she was just out there pulling a LeBron and lying down anytime anyone touched her.
The WNBA and the media has spent a ton of time basically ignoring Caitlin's accomplishments and if this was anyone else, it would be shouted from the mountaintops that this one person is shattering basically every single record that has ever existed for a offense-oriented player.
instead, they focus on others who have fans asking themselves, "who the hell is even that?"
If you don't know who Angle Reese is, get in line. The only reason why anyone knows who this girl is was specifically because the media manufactured a rivalry between her and Caitlin Clark. If this perceived rivalry wasn't talked about, nobody would know who Reese even is other than a woman that routinely misses easy shots including wide open layups and she gets bit rebound numbers because she misses, than catches, her own shots. It still counts in the record-books so why not?
I know why not, because the girl is terrible and both of the teams she has played for have been near the bottom of the table.
But she gets player of the week back-to-back.
in the meantime Caitlin Clark put up these numbers in the same time period
Angel Reese averaged 14 points a game. Ok, a lot of those were free throws and almost all of them were re-shots of her own shot. The fact that she is a lot taller than those around her leads to her easily getting the ball and tossing up chili pepper shots until one eventually goes in. 14 points is just 7 baskets.
In the meantime Clark, who is much shorter, puts up twice as many points including a ton of 3-pointers but f**k it! Let's give the award to someone who appears to barely know how to play the game at all and is relying on her size almost exclusively to even have a contract.
Let's look at one of the most damning facts here too. Reese has less than 4 assists per game, meaning that she isn't even looking to her teammates to get baskets. She is just doing things for herself. Do you know how hard it is to play an entire basketball game and have less than 4 assists?
I am almost rooting for Caitlin to just get fed up one day and say, "right, I'mma head out" and just not play anymore. The WNBA viewership will plummet and well that's when they will BLAME Caitlin for ruining it.
The WNBA still has a novel, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here, but they are squandering it. it's almost like the want it all to fail .
