# What's up with Caitlin Clark? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** basketball-nba\ **Created:** [June 21, 2025, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942 "2025-06-21T18:13:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/61 "2025-07-03T03:58:08Z")
> [@keeganst94](#): > > There are maybe 5 or 10 people in the WNBA who’s skills are vastly superior to Clark’s According to Basketball Reference, Clark last year wasn’t even close to being one of the ten best players in the league by any measure of overall value. So I guess it depends what you mean by “skills.” Her quickness, passing vision and shooting ability are generational, yes. She also set a record for turnovers that blew the old record away by miles and miles, she is an inefficient shooter, and she’s not a strong defensive player yet. She is not yet one of the league’s best players. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/62 "2025-07-03T05:41:18Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > So there are several issues here and I’m not sure it’s clear what people are addressing sometimes. > > 1. Is Caitlin Clark actually on the receiving end of dirty play / targeting by her opponents, or is it just an effect of media attention / confirmation bias, etc? > > 2. If she is, is it just because she’s talented or is there some reason people in the league are targeting her? I remember seeing a headline once from another player that said something to the effect of “I’m always going to hate girls like her” but I don’t care enough about the NBA to have looked into it, but now that it’s a thread here I am indeed a little curious. > > 3. Are the refs failing to protect her? Does the league have some reason not to protect its biggest star? Isn’t this basically like if the NFL let defensive players get away with dirty hits on Tom Brady all the time? That would never ever happen. It’s bizarre that the WNBA seems to be fine with people trying to injure their most popular player. > > 4. And I guess do right wingers rush to support her because they’ve decided for the above reasons that she’s the target of anti-white racism, ie a white girl in what’s perceived to be a non-white league is being allowed to come to harm as some sort of discouragement/retribution? 1. Unquestionably yes. This point can’t even be seriously debated. It is not confirmation bias. 2. It’s maybe 25% the talent, 75% everything else. She’s not getting roughed up as a Jordan Rules kind of thing, many of the fouls are happening when the games are already decided. Most of these fouls aren’t “body blows” hoping to wear her down or change her play style. This is not gamesmanship, it’s animosity. If you told me there was some secret bounty program happening between players on Signal or something I’d 100% believe it. 3. Egregiously, yes. I don’t seriously believe that it’s incompetence. I think the league is complict. I think they fear that being perceived as “helping” Clark would create cripling blowback from the rest of the league. If they called all the fouls they should - she’d be scoring 20-25 points a game just from the line. While they definitly have a desire to protect their star, they have to cater to the players too. And let’s face it, with Clark becoming a MAGA totem, the league may not be eager to throw themselves into that mess by protecting her. 4. Why try to reason why MAGA does anything? Trump tweets some shit and they react. It’s not sophisticated. Do we think any of the mouthbreathers in the comments are actually watching WNBA games? No. This is just an opportunity to race bait. And let’s be frank, the attacks on her probably ARE racist as hell, so MAGA can actually spout their shit from a perceived moral high ground. It sucks when terrible people happen to be right about something. But at the end of the day, they aren’t there to defend their own, they are there solely to pick a fight and make a lot of noise. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > And, as I noted upthread, she’s a white _straight_ woman in a league which is perceived by them to be full of Blacks and lesbians. Blacks and non-gender conforming women is probably more to the point. I don’t think the average MAGA cares about the lesbians so much, but a woman in a suit triggers the hell out of them. > [@RickJay](#): > > The issues of Clark being white and straight in a league that’s a little more gay than the general population and a lot more Black are, IMHO, bullshit. At the risk of pointing out the amazingly obvious, there are lots of white and straight WNBA players. We’ve discussed one of them IN THIS THREAD, Sophie Cunningham, but Cunningham has never been wildly fouled the way Clark has. This part of it is at least 98 percent right wing horseshit. I disagree. In no other context would we argue that a person’s actions aren’t racist becase they were inflicted on one person in a group and not agaisnt every person in that group they encountered. Make that spurious argument in another race thread on the Dope and you’ll almost certainly get dragged to the Pit. I don’t think her sexuality is at play at all here - at least on the court; in MAGA circles, different story - but this looks very much like racially charged bullying. It’s not universally one thing or another, nothing really is. She’s been flagrantly fouled by white players - setting aside the fact that people can be racist against their own people - some of the fouls are colored by jealousy, some by insecurity, whatever. But I think you’d have to be wilfully blind to claim that there’s minimal racism in this. You can be jealous and racist; you can be angry and racist. Clark is the figurehead. And MAGA adopting her makes it worse. If you’re a black player who feels like you’re getting the short end, you’re not going to lash out at some random player. You’re going after the big star with all the money, the big star who’s smaller than almost everyone else, the big star who can’t really afford to fight back, and the big star who’s white and from middle America and hasn’t had any of your adversity. And after you do it, you’re going to get dapped up by your team. You’re going to get memed. You’re going to be on ESPN. And the assholes on the right will get all pissed off and the assholes on the left will sing your praises. The point is, everyone will have their reasons, but if you think her color combined with the current state of politics in this country aren’t a super common one…c’mon. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > AFAICT, it started in the spring of last year, when she was playing college ball, at Iowa. Late in her senior year, she became the all-time points leader in college basketball (for both women _and_ men), surpassing Pete Maravich. I follow sports generally, but don’t follow basketball closely; it seems to me that that was the moment at which she really became nationally well-known, beyond basketball fandom. I think it started a while before that. There wasn’t a single light switch moment, she was a regular feature on late night Sportscenter during her Sophomore year for making Steph Curry-like shots from the Logo on the regular. She carried Iowa to the NCAA title game and was a monster in that tournament. While her name recognition has grown steadily, she was very well known long before the record. I think a lot of the blowback is because she’s been getting non-stop hype since she was a Frehsman and largely oversahdowed UConn, South Carolina and LSU’s championships. You can bet those coaches, especially Geno, had been talking shit about her in the locker room every week. The alumni in the league are hearing that too. Women’s basketball is a small circle. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/63 "2025-07-03T05:59:12Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > So I guess it depends what you mean by “skills.” No, it probably depends on what you mean by “vastly.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/64 "2025-07-03T12:20:37Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > If they called all the fouls they should - she’d be scoring 20-25 points a game just from the line. This was more or less the reasoning my 9th-grade gym teacher used: “If I called every foul, this would be nothing but a free-throw competition”. And it was bull when he said it, too. If the refs called all of the fouls they should, then there would be fewer fouls. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/65 "2025-07-03T16:03:58Z")
I just eyeballed it, but here are the figures. It’s true that the raw number of viewers was always higher for the Stanley Cup Finals, but that’s comparing 5-7 games to only 3. Looking at the averages: 2022, NCAA ratings averaged 1.6, final was 2.7. SCF average was 2.3, highest 2.9. 2021, NCAA average 1.5, final 4.1. SCF average 1.3, highest 1.9. 2019, NCAA average 1.5, final 3.7. SCF average 3.0, highest 4.9. (Not counting 2020 because the NCAA was cancelled\*, FTR SCF average 1.1, highest 1.7.) So my statement has to be narrowed to “in all three immediate pre-Clark years in which both competitions were held, the women’s _Final_ drew more viewers than the _average_ Stanley Cup finals match”. In only one of those three years did the NCAA have higher ratings for both the average game and the most-watched game. However, for the three-year period as a whole, the women’s Final drew more viewers than the _highest-rated_ SCF game of each year. [Cite](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/stanley-cup-final-ratings-history/) [Cite](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/womens-final-four-ratings-history-espn/) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/66 "2025-07-03T18:18:40Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > I disagree. In no other context would we argue that a person’s actions aren’t racist becase they were inflicted on one person in a group and not agaisnt every person in that group they encountered. Make that spurious argument in another race thread on the Dope and you’ll almost certainly get dragged to the Pit. We would certainly argue that the evidence they WERE racist was rather lacking, if you couldn’t actually produce any evidence beyond “that’s just how things are in America nowadays.” ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/67 "2025-07-03T19:39:27Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > We would certainly argue that the evidence they WERE racist was rather lacking, if you couldn’t actually produce any evidence beyond “that’s just how things are in America nowadays.” So your contention is that we can’t presume racism for any bad activity unless the offender openly announces their reasoning? That’ll definitely fly. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/68 "2025-07-03T20:52:17Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > So your contention is that we can’t presume racism for any bad activity unless the offender openly announces their reasoning? It’s more like… If someone never says a bad thing about any Black person except Mike Tyson, and seems fine with every other Black person they interact with or talk about, while that doesn’t _disprove_ that they’re racist, it seems like there’s insufficient evidence to establish it. That seems reasonable to say. And similarly, if Caitlin Clark is being singled out unlike other white players in the WNBA, it seems like it’s spurious to claim it’s due to racism because she happens to be white. There are ways to determine a person is racist aside from (1) they were mean to one person of a specific race and (2) they openly declare it. I think narrowing it down to those two potential criteria is unnecessarily limiting. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/69 "2025-07-03T23:09:39Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > 2022, NCAA ratings averaged 1.6, final was 2.7. SCF average was 2.3, highest 2.9. > 2021, NCAA average 1.5, final 4.1. SCF average 1.3, highest 1.9. > 2019, NCAA average 1.5, final 3.7. SCF average 3.0, highest 4.9. > > (Not counting 2020 because the NCAA was cancelled\*, FTR SCF average 1.1, highest 1.7.) > > So my statement has to be narrowed to “ **in all three immediate pre-Clark years** (bolding mine) Why include 2021 and 2022? Those were two of the four Clark years. She scored the most points in D1 all four years she played, which were from the 2020-2021 season to the 2023-2024 season, according to her stats here: > **[Caitlin Clark College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com](https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/caitlin-clark-1.html)** > > Caitlin Clark - Stats, Game Logs, Splits, and much more ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/70 "2025-07-03T23:28:15Z")
Because Clark’s team wasn’t IN the Final Four in her first two years, of course. I’m not going to redo the math, but the ratings for 2018 and 2017 were in the same general neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/71 "2025-07-04T00:05:55Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Because Clark’s team wasn’t IN the Final Four in her first two years, of course. The whole point of the hype surrounding her is that she is the tide that raises all boats. Her presence in college increased interest in the sport in general, which led to increased viewership even when her team didn’t make the final four. > [@](#): > > I’m not going to redo the math, but the ratings for 2018 and 2017 were in the same general neighborhood. Of course you won’t bother. Because then you’d have to include the Stanley Cup Finals ratings for those years, which were much higher. Here’s the viewership in millions of viewers for the three years before Caitlin Clark: | Year | WF4 Avg | High | SCF Avg | High | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 2019 | 2.438 | 3.689 | 5.333 | 8.723 | | 2018 | 2.442 | 3.536 | 4.786 | 6.588 | | 2017 | 2.722 | 3.827 | 4.668 | 6.985 | [Women’s Final Four](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/womens-final-four-ratings-history-espn/) [Stanley Cup Finals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Cup_Finals_television_ratings) This is why your original claim struck me as absurd on its face: > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > In the three years _before_ Clark, the women’s Final Four drew more TV viewers on average than the Stanley Cup Finals. Would you describe the NHL as a “nothing sport with zero fans”? But then again, if “more TV viewers” means “barely over half the viewers”, then sure. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/72 "2025-07-04T17:33:58Z")
Wow, there really is no limit to the amount of nits you’ll pick to avoid having to admit that what you said was stupid, misogynistic, and wrong, is there? If your point is that nobody cared about women’s basketball before Clark came along, then you need to compare the ratings for the tournaments before she came along to the ratings while she was playing, but not in the Final Four. And I have demonstrated that there was no dramatic increase during those two years; the dramatic increase only came once Clark was actually playing in the Final Four. All your last post did is demonstrate that _the NHL_ was apparently more popular in the last decade than it is now. I don’t know or care anything about hockey, so I don’t know why their ratings have crashed in the last few years. Maybe everyone is watching women’s basketball instead. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/73 "2025-07-04T17:38:08Z")
never mind ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/74 "2025-07-04T22:09:34Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I don’t know or care anything about hockey Clearly. Maybe don’t march in with pronouncements involving comparisons to hockey, then. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/75 "2025-07-05T00:10:30Z")
Your pathetic goalpost moving only makes you look like even more of an idiot, dude. First, yoy said that women’s basketball was “a nothing sport with zero fans”. I proved that wasn’t true, and then you said “oh, what I really meant is that it wasn’t popular before Caitlin Clark”. I proved that wasn’t true, and then you decided that, although I’d proved that women’s college basketball is actually as popular as the NHL, what was REALLY important is that that wasn’t true eight years ago! Maybe you should just learn to STFU when grown-ups are talking, rather than going so far out of your way to embarrass yourself. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/76 "2025-07-05T00:22:23Z")
I’m out. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/77 "2025-07-05T00:42:45Z")
[Moderating] > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Maybe you should just learn to STFU when grown-ups are talking, rather than going so far out of your way to embarrass yourself. This is a personal attack, and therefore, this is a Warning. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/78 "2025-07-05T01:23:05Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > First, yoy said that women’s basketball was “a nothing sport with zero fans”. I proved that wasn’t true, and then you said “oh, what I really meant is that it wasn’t popular before Caitlin Clark”. It was obviously what I really meant because I clearly stated exactly that. Let’s go to the videotape: > [@EllisDee](#): > > The (generally deserved) hype around Clark in college massively boosted interest in college women’s basketball. Previously an utterly nothing sport with zero fans, all of a sudden people were so interested that you’d see SportsCenter covering it in the top of the A block. All (and only!) because of Clark. I submit that there’s no way any reasonable person could read that and interpret it any other way. Obviously I was talking about previous to Clark. You can tell because of how I explicitly stated it. > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I’d proved that women’s college basketball is actually as popular as the NHL During a carefully cherry-picked sampling when NHL ratings happened to be at all-time, historic lows. Not to mention the fact that even in good times, NHL ratings don’t really qualify it to be considered one of the “big four” sports in the US. But that’s another topic. But sure, in your mind, before Caitlin Clark NCAA women’s basketball was a very popular sport. That’s why there’s always been so many threads here in the game room devoted to the topic. Go peddle your white knight accusations of misogyny somewhere else. Reality does not agree with your take. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/79 "2025-07-05T17:51:27Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > So your contention is that we can’t presume racism for any bad activity unless the offender openly announces their reasoning? That’ll definitely fly. \You can presume anything, but there is a lack of evidence to support this specific presumption. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942/80 "2025-07-05T19:45:04Z")
As an example of how ridiculous some of the outrage around Caitlin Clark has gotten, I saw a short on YouTube about how a bunch of people are angry that some less-qualified player was chosen over Clark for the WNBA All Star Game. Clark is captain of the Eastern Conference team. Not only was no one chosen over her, but she’s been given a place of honor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-caitlin-clark/1019942.md?page=5)