Looking A Gift Horse In The Mouth, Jealousy In The WNBA

I vividly remember when Tiger Woods burst onto the scene. As a sports fan, I had heard of Tiger and had watched highlights of some of his amateur tournaments. However, when he won his first major, the Masters in 1997 by 12 strokes, I was hooked. Like millions of others, I was mesmerized by watching him play. I tuned in to tournaments specifically to watch him, and he rarely disappointed.

Tiger possessed star power, which is distinct from simply being excellent. His charisma attracted people who were not even golf fans to watch tournaments. As a black golfer, Tiger garnered universal appeal, and his race was never an issue. People of all races were captivated, and racism was never a part of the discussion.

Tiger’s influence on golf was not limited to his performance on the course. His star power substantially increased purses, TV exposure, and endorsements, benefiting every golfer involved. Even when he was outperforming them, his fellow players recognized and appreciated his positive impact on the entire tour.

The WNBA has the opportunity to do something similar, perhaps not on as large of a scale, but an opening is there. Unfortunately, it appears that in the WNBA, the inmates are allowed to run the asylum while the referees look the other way, and the league officials sit on their hands.

Caitlin Clark is a white, straight woman. She, like Tiger, has charisma and star power, but unlike Tiger, she has received much pushback because she is white. The majority of the players in the WNBA are black, and many are lesbian or something other than heterosexual. Because of those facts, through her first nine games, Clark has endured what can only be described as a mugging, and both the game officials and the league seem content to look the other way.

Clark entered the league fresh from an outstanding run playing for Iowa in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. The buzz she created and the crowds she drew were exactly what the WNBA needed. For the WNBA to carry forth the momentum created by the buzz around the star they need the former University of Iowa star both scoring and on the court.

After a rough start against some of the league’s toughest defenses, Clark appears to be adjusting well to the higher talent level in the WNBA. After a few shaky performances at the beginning of the year, she has scored 50 points in her last two games, as reported by ESPN, raising her points-per-game average to 17.3 for the season.

The performance is good enough to make her the top scorer for the Indiana Fever. However, it’s still up for debate what that actually proves, given that the team that had the first pick this year seems to be on track for the draft lottery for the first pick next year. Despite being one of the league’s top draws due to Clark and the 2023 first-round pick Aliyah Boston, the Fever have a poor record of 1-8.

According to the New York Post, Clark has received three technical fouls in the first nine games of the season. If she gets four more, she will be suspended for a game. After the first suspension, every other technical foul will result in another suspension. This means she will be suspended for one game after her ninth, 11th, 13th fouls, and so on. Technical fouls are usually given for unsportsmanlike behavior such as aggressive taunting or excessive complaining to a referee.

However, in this case, much of Clark’s complaining may be justified. A few games ago, one of her opponents was so anxious to “get a body on Clark” that while shooting free throws, she left after her first attempt and rushed over to “body up” Clark, totally forgetting that she still had her second free throw to shoot.

Clark has 31 games left this season. If she continues to receive technical fouls at the same rate, she will end up missing at least four games. The most recent technical foul occurred after Clark confronted Seattle Storm guard Victoria Vivians during a 103-88 loss for the Fever on Thursday night. Both players were hit with technical fouls for the confrontation.

During the same game, Fever coach Christie Sides also received a technical foul after Clark was clearly fouled under the basket, but the referees chose to ignore it. It was actually good to see Sides come to Clark’s aide. Her strategy for handling Clark’s game was already being called under question when, in one game, she only allowed her to take eight shots.

The truth is, casual fans are not tuning into a WNBA game to see Victoria Vivians, a former Fever player who hasn’t managed to score over 10 points per game in any of her six seasons in the league. Nor are they tuning in to watch the Storm—a team that may be 5-3, compared to the Fever’s 1-8, but which hasn’t captured the audiences that Indiana has during Clark’s first year in the league.

They are also not tuning in to watch Clark being manhandled and mauled by jealous players while the refs ignore the obvious. The Associated Press reported that ESPN achieved its highest-ever rating for a WNBA broadcast during the Fever’s season opener against the Connecticut Sun on May 15. The broadcast drew an average of 2.1 million viewers across ESPN’s platforms, well over half a million more viewers than the previous high, which was WNBA legend Diana Taurasi’s 2004 debut, which drew 1.5 million viewers.

The average viewership for her first two games was 1.28 million, which is 192 percent higher than the network’s average viewership for WNBA games last year. Viewership has remained high as well. According to a May 22 report from Yahoo Sports, all three of Clark’s games on Nielsen-rated TV have attracted over one million viewers, with the lowest-rated game still drawing 1.56 million viewers. Therefore, Clark’s mandated absence from any games will not only hurt the Fever but also the entire league.

Coach Sides gently reprimanded Clark for her tendency to accumulate technical fouls. She explained:

“We shouldn’t get technicals, let me get the technicals. We’re spending too much time talking to the officials. We’ve got to leave that alone. We’ve got to just play our game and let them do their job and not put it in their hands.”

After receiving her third technical, Clark was frustrated by the way the referees were calling the games. After Thursday’s game, she told reporters:

“I feel like I’m getting hammered, I don’t know. I appreciate Christie getting a tech too. I don’t know.”

The WNBA needs to address this situation quickly. Especially, with loud-mouth pundits like Sunny Hostin of The View and others wrongly claiming that Clark’s popularity is based on the fact that she is white and privileged. These claims seem to be empowering some players to take advantage of the situation and to target Clark as if it’s true.

The WNBA has been given a great player, a player who could drastically improve the league’s financial future and image. By allowing these things to transpire, they are looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Tiger was a black golfer that all races were big enough to embrace. Why is it that the liberal left can’t seem to understand that Caitlin’s talent and charisma are unique and that they should stop creating an atmosphere of hate?

You can be great and not be a star. Caitlin Clark is both, let’s hope the WNBA realizes that before they dribble this opportunity away.