ESPN Contributor Says He Hopes Caitlin Clark Fans Stop Watching the WNBA Playoffs on ESPN Due to 'Their Toxicity'
As we head into the 4th quarter of 2024, it's hard to imagine Caitlin Clark not sweeping all the "___ of the Year" awards when it's all said and done. Athlete. Sportsman/Sportswoman. Breakthrough star. If this weren't an election year, possibly even Time magazine's Person of the Year. She's been just that big. Consider the following bullet points:
America hasn't been able to get enough of her. And the attention she's drawn has transformed her sport. She's given the WNBA the thing it's desperately needed, but which has eluded it since its inception. Despite the billions that have been invested over the decades. She's made the league popular. Part of the national conversation for the first time ever:
NY Post - The much-ballyhooed Caitlin Clark effect took one final bow in 2024.
Wednesday night’s Game 2 of the first round of the playoffs between the Fever and Sun drew 2.5 million viewers, ESPN announced, noting that this is the most-watched WNBA game to ever air exclusively on cable. …
Sunday’s Game 1, which aired on ABC and went up against the NFL on Sunday afternoon, a time slot that is a reputed death zone not just for sports but all other TV programming, drew 1.8 million viewers.
During the regular season, games featuring Clark and the Fever nearly tripled other WNBA games in TV viewership, averaging 1.178 million viewers compared to 394,000. …
By comparison, last year’s WNBA Finals between the Aces and Liberty averaged 728,000 viewers.
So it would follow logically that anyone who's in the business of getting people to watch WNBA games would be disappointed to see the Fever's season end. But logic doesn't apply to this situation.
The other "much-ballhooed Caitlin Clark effect" is that her career success makes people lose their damned minds. Consider this reaction by David Dennis, Jr., who sometimes appears on Sports Shouting:
Dennis likes his women's basketball the way it used to be. Without Clark or much of an audience:
That's a bizarre take from anyone who's drawing a paycheck from Disney Corp. Saying you'd rather have 728,000 viewers instead of the 1.8 million - which again, is what the Fever's last game drew on an NFL Sunday, and not a prime time Finals series - can't be going over well in the Sales Department in Bristol. Or with management, who announces another round of massive layoffs seemingly every month. If the viewership without Clark is one-third of what it is with her, it follows that the ad rates will be as well. So best of luck hitting your sales quotas and meeting payroll while your women's basketball meal ticket is taking her golf clubs out of the garage.
But I guess on some level, I get where David Dennis Jr. is coming from. To the people who've been following the league in the days before Caitlin Clark (BCC), it was like an Indie band they loved. Playing to small audiences where everybody knew everybody else. It felt intimate. There was a personal connection. They felt like they were part of something special. Then the band had a huge hit. And suddenly they started moving to bigger venues and sold out shows. All the new fans came in acting like THEY were the ones who discovered this group and ruined everything. So they lost that feeling of being in on the ground floor of a movement. Reduced to being just another face in the maddening crowd.
Oh well. There's nothing David Dennis Jr. or any of the old school WNBA stans can do. Caitlin Clark's "toxic" fans are here as long as she is. At least you still have your memories of those seasons BCC to comfort you: