Last week, fans of women’s sport didn’t enjoy the taste of the poisoned apple.
For years they have sought further exposure for female athletes, and in many ways, the last half-decade has been a boom period for them. Just look at the Matildas arguably becoming Australia’s team with their World Cup run.
It’s been similar in the United States, with sports like women’s college volleyball gaining stunning TV audiences, more attention on their successful football team and, largely thanks to the greatest scorer of all-time, a massive rise in women’s basketball interest.
But attention isn’t always a good thing.
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Caitlin Clark, the 22-year-old sharpshooter, became a household name for her exploits at the University of Iowa and has taken her talents to the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, drawing massive crowds and TV ratings in the process.
It has been an overwhelmingly positive story, inspiring girls across the country to try and shoot logo threes so they can be like Caitlin.
But, as with any major story in America, it has devolved into a culture war. This time sparked by one particularly bad foul.
During last weekend’s game against the Chicago Sky, Clark was bumped to the floor by opposition guard Chennedy Carter, who appeared to yell “you a bitch” at the same time.
It was, bizarrely, only upgraded to a flagrant foul after the game and the immediate reactions – Carter being celebrated by her Sky teammates, Clark hardly being helped by hers – created a massive furore.
It was a cheap shot. And illegal. And, according to a bunch of male sports analysts who’ve barely had any interest in the WNBA until Clark came along, it was about jealousy.
“There are girls — young ladies — in the WNBA who are jealous of Caitlin Clark,” ESPN’s megabucks yeller Stephen A. Smith said.
“She is a white girl that has come into the league. She has burst onto the scene. She hasn’t proven herself yet. It’s not even about them thinking they’re better than her because they probably know it at this particular juncture because they’ve been playing on a level she just arrived to.
“Where the resentment comes in is the hard work, the commitment, the dedication, the pounding of the payment, the being on the grind. All of these years trying to uplift this brand that is the WNBA and is women’s professional basketball, and all of their efforts were in vain until this girl comes along and take the league by storm — takes sport by storm — in college and has accomplished in a short period of time what they haven’t been able to.
“One would think that folks would be smart enough to recognise and appreciate that about Caitlin Clark, piggyback off of that to their benefit, and praise her and support her for it while competing on the court against her and trying to take her out.”
Few were interested in defending Carter, who has a history of bad behaviour – trying to fight a teammate, being suspended indefinitely for refusing to play in the second half of a game, briefly playing at a second club before moving overseas and then trying to return to the WNBA – but few knew that history when they waded into the Clark debate.
They just saw a cheap shot and decided there could be no sports-related reason it would happen. Which is strange, because aggression is a part of almost every sport, especially when you’re talking about a highly-rated talent coming into the league.
But you can’t truly talk about the Caitlin Clark story without talking about race.
Clark is white, in a heavily African-American sport. This is part of the reason for her popularity; in the same way that diverse representation in media allows more people to see themselves reflected back through the TV screen, more people are interested in Clark being an incredible shooter because of her race.
This element of the story reached a bizarre flashpoint when Pat McAfee, the NFL punter turned wrestling commentator and friend of Aaron Rodgers, bizarrely talked up Clark while calling her “one white bitch”.
Complaining about those who are suggesting it’s more than just Clark making the WNBA popular right now – and there are a number of other reasonably well-known rookies, though none on Clark’s level – McAfee said: “I would like the media people that continue to say, ‘this rookie class, this rookie class, this rookie class.’ Nah, just call it for what it is, there’s one white bitch for the Indiana team who is a superstar, and is it because she stayed in Iowa and put an entire state on her back and took a program from nothing to a multiple-year success story?
“Is it because she would go on to break the entire points records in the history of the NCAA … Is there a chance that people just enjoy watching her play basketball because of how electrifying she is, what she did, what she stood for, how she went about going for what she went for, maybe.
“But instead, we have to hear people say that we only like her cause she’s white and she’s only popular because the rest of the rookie class is doing what they’re doing. Well that’s a bunch of bulls–t and we think the WNBA, more specifically, their refs, need to stop trying to screw her over at every single turn.”
‘There’s one white b*****’ | 00:36
The extraordinarily bad choice of words only drew attention away from McAfee’s less-than-nuanced take, which was a prime example of how the debate became simplified – and stupid.
Because it’s not just race that makes the Clark story so complicated; it’s gender. And male commentators talking about women’s sport often default to gendered stereotypes.
Let’s look closer to home, and Collingwood’s young superstar Nick Daicos. He came into the AFL with a large profile, due to his famous dad Peter and successful brother Josh, and has exceeded expectations by nearly winning a Brownlow Medal in his second season.
Daicos, like many exciting young players, was physically tested in the early going; former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire called for the AFL to punish taunting, saying Daicos was the victim of “pure bullying”.
But there was no suggestion that rival AFL players were jealous of Daicos, in the same way jealousy has become the buzzword around Clark. Primarily because one is a man, and one is a woman.
That doesn’t mean that jealousy isn’t part of the Clark story – she is a way bigger star than her WNBA record warrants, because having rushed from college into the pros, she has not done a whole lot. (Clark is a great shooter but is clearly exhausted by the pace her career has gone at over the last three months, and is still finding her game at the top level.)
It is a natural human emotion to be jealous of someone who you may feel is getting attention you deserve – and pro athletes naturally have an ego. They want to be superstars, like Clark already is.
But to assume it’s the only reason Clark is being targeted is simply false.
“There was an incident recently,” the legendary US sports commentator Bob Costas explained recently on CNN. “Alyssa Thomas, who happens to be African-American, grabbed (rookie) Angel Reese by the throat and threw her to the floor.
“Flagrant 2, ejected from the game. The reason why that doesn’t spark as much conversation isn’t just that Caitlin Clark is a bigger star than Alyssa Thomas.
“It’s because it’s a black-on-black incident. And you don’t have that dynamic that people can comment on, yes, but also exaggerate and make the entire story sometimes.”
He added: “I’ve seen it in every sport. A newcomer is tested and, to some extent, resented.
“It would be foolish to say resentment and jealously are not part of the mix, because those are human emotions. But to elevate that above everything else and discard everything else in a complicated dynamic, that’s the wrong way to go.”
Former ESPN host Cari Champion, who is African-American, replied: “No-one cared about the WNBA when women of a certain colour were beating up and bruising each other, because it’s been happening since the league’s inception.
“We have this star, this person that people love, they want to protect her, so now the new fans, the new analysts and the new people have so much to say.
“I’m livid, my blood is boiling about this topic, because it’s so simple to make women vs women a conversation … there should be more layers to this sport.
“If you’re really gonna welcome yourself to the WNBA and cover it and talk about it, can we be more than just jealous? Can there be some real, true competition? Can they just be athletes?”
Of course, nuance doesn’t have a place in most high-profile sports debates, because the media ecosystem does not reward it. That is a bigger problem than just the Clark story, but it must be pointed out.
And unfortunately this is what can happen when you get the attention you’ve been asking for. A complicated story involving race, gender and women’s sport – three things the most highly-paid sports analysts in America will rarely have an in-depth understanding of – gets dumbed down.
It’s not all doom and gloom. The attention, no matter how poorly thought out much of it is, will help the WNBA grow long-term. The league has already improved the conditions for its players this season and more money from the next TV deal should help that again.
So there are positives. You just have to deal with the negatives that come with them.