AS THE MOST POPULAR FEMALE ATHLETE EVER, CAITLIN CLARK MUST GO ON STRIKE
She was voted ninth by players choosing All-Star teams and is mistreated by an WNBA commissioner who allows thug tactics — and it’s high time Clark reminds everyone who is running women’s basketball
Can she stop wrapping her strained groin and listen up? Caitlin Clark, it finally is time to go on strike. Does she know she could extract her $11 million in annual endorsement deals, pull a group of players from a high school, market an exhibition series and sell far more tickets than the WNBA? A league that thinks it can exist otherwise — expanding to 18 teams with Cleveland, Philadelphia and Detroit, all because of her — might cease to exist and jail the competitors who assault her on the court.
Women’s basketball should be reminded that Clark runs the sport and controls every waking hour. No one else matters, including WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who didn’t even mention Clark when she said Monday, “Great demand for WNBA franchises. There was huge demand. Really proud of what my team has done and looking forward to future conversations as the league continues to grow.”
The only reason the league is overflowing would be Clark. Television ratings drop by more than half when she is injured and doesn’t play. When she sat Tuesday night during the Commissioner’s Cup game, the second-biggest story happened when the halftime performer, Red Panda, was injured after falling from her unicycle eight feet above the ground. If that can happen, why can’t Caitlin remind Engelbert and the rest of the league to stop taking her for granted.
Armed with the biggest profile of any female athlete who has competed on Planet Earth, Clark might be worth $1 billion to the WNBA. It’s criminal activity that she makes just $78,066 from the Indiana Fever. The biggest question is whether all players are underpaid, but her? Go away and demand a whopper salary from ultra-expansion and larger media fees. In a fraud even bigger than the competitors who thug away at her, Clark was the victim of voting prejudice that indicates many players — Blacks, Gays — don’t like the Catholic girl from West Des Moines. They were asked to vote for players worthy of the All-Star Game. The fans placed her where she belonged, in first, with a record 1,293,526 votes.
Her colleagues placed her ninth among guards, ignoring her average of 18.2 points and 8.9 assists a game.
Again, please revolt.
“Absolutely PURE JEALOUSY that @WNBA players voted Caitlin Clark the 9th best guard,” broadcaster Dick Vitale wrote. “Some day they will realize what she has done for ALL of the players in the WNBA — chartered planes, sold out crowds, improved ratings. No doubt she is THE BEST thing to happen to the WNBA.”
Remember what Charles Barkley said after LeBron James defended Clark? Let’s republish. “LeBron, you are 100 percent right on these girls hating on Caitlin Clark. Y’all petty, girls,” he said. “I expect men to be petty 'cause we're the most insecure group in the world. Y'all should be thanking that girl for getting y'all ass-private charters, all the money and visibility she brings into the WNBA. Don't be petty like dudes! What she's accomplished, give her her flowers! She bringing all y'all this money to the table, but y'all being petty. Caitlin Clark, thank you for bringing all that money and shine to the WNBA.”
In her mind, she ignores the bitterness. The game is July 19 in Indianapolis. “It's cool that fans get to be a part of it and have impact on the game,”Clark said. “It's going to be special to do it here in this city. Trying to make it the best All-Star that the WNBA has ever had. It's certainly a cool honor.” Clark and Napheesa Collier will pick teammates.
The fans get it. The media get it. The distrustful do not. She has been sidelined since last week with a groin issue, but the Fever beat the Minnesota Lynx in the Cup final. “I went from never being an All-Star starter to captain,” she said. She must stay positive when so many are bonkers negative. Her Fever teammate, Sophie Cunningham, took shots at certain expansion cities as an unrequested favor to Clark.
“You want to listen to your players, too. Where do they want to play? Where are they gonna get excited to play and draw fans?” Cunningham said. “I do think Miami would have been a great (location). Nashville is amazing. Kansas City, amazing opportunity. I'm not so sure what the thought process is there, but at the end of the day, you want to make sure you're not expanding our league too fast. It's kind of a hard decision-making situation. But man, I don't know how excited people are going to Detroit or Cleveland.”
At this point, Clark will play anywhere. But to reassert her position atop the league, she should attempt an escape. Sunday, Los Angeles guard Kelsey Plum saw a fan wearing a Caitlin jersey when her team was playing the Chicago Sky. “You can’t be wearing that in the gym,” she said. “Next time, do better.” Then we saw Plum playing the Fever. When Clark, in street clothes, was advising her teammates, Plum pointed at her and told an official.
“Oh, my God,” Clark said.
It wasn’t long ago when Nelly Korda, the world’s No. 1 female golfer, raved about her. “To see the influence she has on people, bringing people out here, and how amazing of an influence she is for sports, that was really cool to see firsthand,” Korda said.
Is she bigger than Taylor Swift? She will last longer in her profession. Is she bigger than Allisha Gray, Sabrina Ionescu, Skylar Diggins, Natasha Cloud, Paige Bueckers, Kelsey Mitchell and Brittney Sykes? They were voted ahead of her by players.
“I don’t really care about it. I don’t know why,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “One of my things and we talk about this all time, we control the things that we can control, and we keep the main thing the main thing.”
Caitlin Clark always is the main thing, even in ninth.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.