Did all the sports pages in the 1990s begin their NBA articles by saying "Of course everyone's watching the NBA because of Jordan, but let's all pretend to care about these other teams"?
Yes, the WNBA, PWHL, and NWSL fan bases and sports writers have a strong social/political stance. It's aggressively progressive because a lot of fans tend to... not be. Clark is certainly in the top 10 current players, and can be fun to watch, but her fans seem a little surprised that other players are just as good or better than CC.
As a WNBA fan, I appreciate the eyeballs and wallets that Caitlin Clark is bringing, and it's obvious that the league is maybe 10 years ahead of where it would be because of her. At the same time, I don't agree with what I am seeing/hearing in your coverage, which is that we should treat women's basketball as 50% CC and 50% the other 143 players. I'm worried that we may be getting to a point where fans who pre-date Clark are going to see the acceleration of attention and money she has provided as more likely to undermine the league. The slow recovery of the last few years under the careful management and growth of the stable fan bases in Minnesota, Las Vegas, and New York has seemed sustainable. The rocket fuel of what's happening in Indiana has seemed like, well, a fever.
Did all the sports pages in the 1990s begin their NBA articles by saying "Of course everyone's watching the NBA because of Jordan, but let's all pretend to care about these other teams"?
Yes, the WNBA, PWHL, and NWSL fan bases and sports writers have a strong social/political stance. It's aggressively progressive because a lot of fans tend to... not be. Clark is certainly in the top 10 current players, and can be fun to watch, but her fans seem a little surprised that other players are just as good or better than CC.
As a WNBA fan, I appreciate the eyeballs and wallets that Caitlin Clark is bringing, and it's obvious that the league is maybe 10 years ahead of where it would be because of her. At the same time, I don't agree with what I am seeing/hearing in your coverage, which is that we should treat women's basketball as 50% CC and 50% the other 143 players. I'm worried that we may be getting to a point where fans who pre-date Clark are going to see the acceleration of attention and money she has provided as more likely to undermine the league. The slow recovery of the last few years under the careful management and growth of the stable fan bases in Minnesota, Las Vegas, and New York has seemed sustainable. The rocket fuel of what's happening in Indiana has seemed like, well, a fever.