Caitlin Clark, one of many most-followed skilled ladies’s basketball gamers and a fan favourite, won’t be on the Group USA Girls’s Basketball 2024 Olympic roster, in accordance with stories. The transfer to go away Clark off of the 2024 Olympic workforce is sparking controversy from media leaders and followers, signaling a possible draw back of The Caitlin Clark Impact for ladies’s sport. Whereas Clark has undoubtedly boosted fandom in ladies’s basketball, to actually witness The Caitlin Clark Impact drive significant progress 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 far more frequent at each the collegiate {and professional} ranges of play. Caitlin Clark’s skilled workforce, the Indiana Fever has skilled an infinite enhance in dwelling attendance, surpassing their collective 2023 dwelling attendance whole of 81,336 throughout the first 5 dwelling video games of the 2024 season with a complete dwelling attendance of 82,857. Inside the first three weeks of the 2024 season, general league attendance was up by 40 p.c in comparison with 2023’s last common (6,615). The Indiana Fever has the biggest enhance from 2023 (+12,504).

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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 completely rallying behind one athlete, and in flip neglecting the wealthy historical past of the league and its veteran gamers. Nevertheless, the duty for this pattern would 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 recreation viewing or participant/workforce 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 had been already on the rise in the course of the 2023 season, predating Clark’s entry into the league. Some consultants consider that the WNBA holds important leverage to safe its personal tv deal for the 2025 season and past, given the constant viewership progress.

Nevertheless, sustainable progress hinges on new followers embracing everything of the league relatively than fixating solely on one participant. The latest expressions of dissatisfaction from Caitlin Clark’s fanbase following the Group USA roster announcement, which embody calls to boycott ladies’s Olympic basketball contests, pose a big risk to the ladies’s basketball group. Historically, the Olympic Video games have offered a uncommon alternative for heightened visibility and protection of ladies’s sports activities, with viewership and protection figures for ladies’s occasions typically rivaling or surpassing these of their males counterparts.

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A number of consultants in ladies’s sports activities, together with Jemele Hill and Sarah Spain, assert that Olympic roster spots are earned via constant efficiency relatively than recognition or social media presence. Sustaining this customary is essential for upholding the integrity of the game and making certain a excessive degree of play on the court docket. Notably, securing a place on Group USA’s Girls’s Basketball roster is very 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 general 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 general progress.

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 all the elite ladies athletes who shall 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.