Love or hate Caitlin Clark. Love or hate her Iowa roots. Love or hate her because she’s white. Love or hate her because she’s straight. Love or hate the media obsession with her. Love or hate the historic TV ratings and sold-out crowds. Love or hate her interviews.
But there is one thing we all know to be true.
With Caitlin Clark joining the 2024 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team, players who have been largely ignored by the sports media at every Summer Olympics I have covered since 1984 will finally be given the spotlight they so rightfully deserve from a national and international audience.
Coming into the Olympics with national sensation Clark on the roster, I think the top stories for the Americans in Paris (and for many of the international press) were: 1. Simone Biles, 2. Katie Ledecky, 3. Kaitlyn Clark.
Maybe add a player or two more teams here — U.S. women’s soccer, U.S. men’s basketball, take your pick, but that’s the general idea. It would have been inevitable, as Clark continued to break TV ratings and attendance records in her first eye-popping month with the WNBA, just as she did with NCAA basketball. She would propel U.S. women’s basketball to a status it so richly deserves but has never reached before: coverage by broadcasters and news outlets not just in the U.S. but around the world, daily headlines, and, most importantly, far more respect from a still-male-dominated international sports media that, for decades, has focused almost exclusively on the U.S. men’s basketball team, not on the oh-so-good women’s team that hasn’t lost since 1992.
But following Clark meant following more than Clark: She would introduce the entire U.S. team to all those Olympic viewers and readers, many of whom are not sports fans and have never even watched a women’s Olympic basketball game.
Haven’t you seen Breanna Stewart compete on the past two Olympic teams? You should have been watching her this summer, as America’s interest, even obsession, with Clark brought you to the Olympics. The same can be said for Brittney Griner, assuming she’s healthy.
But unless someone withdraws or gets injured, Clark isn’t coming to Paris to allow the average sports fan who fell in love with her in Iowa and now knows the difference between ION and Prime to finally, and rightfully, watch Diana Taurasi and Jackie Young in the Olympics.
Since she’s not there, the fans aren’t there, either, because they’ll never be there. And it’s not hard to imagine how popular Clark would be globally if reporters and reporters from around the world dropped by, saw a few logo-emblazoned three-pointers fall from the sky, and hundreds more autographs left for posterity. Maybe girls in Europe and Africa would have gone crazy for her just as much as girls in the U.S. did. That’s not happening anymore, and it’s all the fault of USA Basketball, whose mission, interestingly enough, includes “promoting, growing and elevating basketball at all levels.” (That’s what Caitlin Clark’s job description looks like these days.)
With this golden opportunity to promote international women’s basketball gone, most broadcasters and reporters will likely continue to focus on the swimmers, gymnasts and track and field athletes and leave the U.S. women’s basketball team alone.
I’ve seen it all in real time. I’ve covered at least five US women’s basketball gold medal games at the Olympics, and countless women’s basketball stories at the other five Summer Olympics I’ve attended. When I’ve looked around and seen the press box half empty and wondered why, the answer I’ve always gotten from my colleagues is that the US is just too good and they don’t think the US will win. People already know the US will win. And they’re right.
But something stranger and perhaps more impactful is swirling around Clark’s oversight. Two sources with long careers in US basketball and decades of experience in women’s basketball told me on Friday that concern about how Clark’s millions of fans would react to a player who would likely receive limited playing time was a factor in the decision.
If true, it would be a rare acknowledgement by veteran members of women’s basketball that there is real tension over the multi-million-dollar sensation, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
But if players or US Basketball Association officials think that Clark’s absence from Paris means people won’t be talking about her, that’s not going to happen. You can bet that one of the first questions they’ll get at the opening Olympic press conference is, “Why isn’t Caitlin Clark here?”
And if the team misses a 3-pointer, is in trouble, doesn’t play well or, horribly, loses, Clarke’s name will soon follow and be heard all over the home front.
Speaking of #3, there seems to be this idea that Clark didn’t deserve to be on the team on merit. It’s ridiculous. First of all, the decision is subjective, so anyone can make an excuse.
But what about the stats? Clark is 13th in the WNBA in points per game (Taurasi is 15th). Clark is fourth in assists per game (Sabrina Ionescu is 8th, Kelsey Plum is 11th and Jewel Loyd is 14th, all of whom are on the Olympic team list). Clark is second in 3-pointers made, two ahead of Taurasi.
Clark recorded 150+ points, 50+ rebounds and 50+ assists in each of her first 10 games, a feat only achieved by Ionescu in WNBA history, and she also became the first rookie and just the fourth player in league history to record 30 points, five rebounds, five assists, three steals and three blocks in a single game, joining Taurasi, Stewart and Angel McCorgley.
Just hours before learning that she would not be selected for the Olympic team, Clark tied a WNBA rookie record with seven 3-pointers and scored 30 points in front of the largest WNBA crowd in 17 years — 20,333 in Washington, D.C., more than double the crowd Chicago had at the same arena the night before. Clark became the first player in WNBA history to record 200 points and 75 assists in her first 12 career games.
And then USA Basketball dumped her.
Clarke accomplished all of this while facing some of the most statistically intense defensive pressure in the league. No rookie has garnered as much attention as she has. She’s not the best player in the league, but she is clearly the most important.
She was never given a real chance to try out — the USA Basketball Association absurdly scheduled her tryout during the Women’s Final Four, when she was leading Iowa to its second consecutive national final — and now USA Basketball’s national governing body has told her simply, “No.”
No, Caitlin Clark, we don’t want you on the Olympic team.
In my 40 years covering the Olympics, I’ve seen some poor decisions in team and player selection, but this is the worst yet. But it’s probably not surprising: As we’ve known for years, the last amateurs left in the Olympics are the people who run the Olympics.
