When Caitlin Clark doesn’t get her appropriate oversaturation of media coverage, her fans don’t like it. With the dynamic rookie embarking on her first playoff run, the WNBA tweeted, “THE STAGE IS SET,” and asked fans to predict which of the eight WNBA playoff squads will win the championship.
The photo featured members from each team. The Indiana Fever representative wasn’t Cailtin Clark, who has shattered her share of rookie and league records and catapulted to the face of the league during her first WNBA season.
Caitlin Clark Wins AP 2024 WNBA Player of the Year
She was also named the Associated Press 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year, pulling away after a wrist injury prematurely ended Angel Reese’s season.
Clark’s very capable backcourt mate, Kelsey Mitchell got the nod on the poster, which almost caused X to melt down from the heat directed at the WNBA for leaving CC off the picture.
How do you not put the woman responsible for record TV viewership when she’s on the court as a featured person on your promotion for the playoffs?
Proof of her lofty status is in the ticket sales. The tickets for the opening round, Game 1 Indiana Fever vs. The Connecticut Sun playoff game on Sunday went for $178. In comparison, the tickets for the four WNBA Finals games in 2023 cost an average of $105 a piece.
Some Clark fans were so upset by the omission that they accused the WNBA of (reverse) racism.
One X user wrote, “Racism is real, but it’s the reverse of what many think.
Jason Whitlock, who has flip-flopped back and forth concerning his praise and criticism for Clark, went to the WNBA, a league he has basically painted as a group of angry Black women who hate heterosexuals and whites in several rants.
“This is hilarious,” Whitlock wrote on X. “The WNBA is embarrassed by its savior because she’s the wrong color and has a boyfriend.
It’s called the “Caitlin Clark Effect,” and the game played in Connecticut had a huge contingent of traveling Fever fans that were just as loud as the home team.
Caitlin Clark Shoots 4 of 17 In Dismal WNBA Playoff Debut
Clark couldn’t provide the crowd with much as the first half of her first playoff game was poor and it didn’t get any better.
Her team trailed 46-38 at halftime and she was 0-for-6 from three-point range and hit just 11 percent of her overall shots from the field.
The physicality of the game seemed to wear Clark down, as she even had a rare miss at the charity stripe and looked gassed from early on. Indiana as a team missed 14 of its first 17 three-point attempts.
The game was a complete blowout to the dismay of thousands of fans as Connecticut romped 93-69.
Clark and Kelsey had their worst shooting games of the season at the wrong time. The duo, the most prolific long-range shooting tandem in the league, shot a combined 4-for-23 from three-point range. Clark finished with just 11 points and was 4-of-17 from the field.
It was a disappointing playoff start for Clark and Fever fans, who were already salty entering the game. Expect the physical play against Clark to be an issue for her fans, who love to complain when things don’t work out their way.
Caitlin Clark Fans Want The League To Feature Her More: Jason Whitlock Says They’re Still Hating
Clark fans and supporters have expressed their discontent with the way the WNBA has promoted Clark and handled the way other players have treated her throughout the season.
They didn’t appreciate her omission from the 2024 Olympic Team, and with her arrival, the Fever made the franchise’s first playoff appearance since 2016. So most Clark fans also feel she is a legitimate MVP candidate, despite the monster season A’ja Wilson has posted.
Once Whitlock set it off, the Clark contingent followed with a flurry of highly-critical and accusatory posts against the league.
One X user wrote, “Not having Clark on this graphic is yet another example of the WNBA having no clue what they’re doing in regards to marketing the product.”
Another wrote, “the fact that Clark isn’t on the graphic should prove to everyone that WNBA is jealous of her success.”
“This is like the NBA leaving out Michael Jordan, and thinking they’re virtuous for doing so,” said an X user.
Some blatantly accused the league of racism.
“The wnba needs to die until it can stop its blatant racism,” an X user named @Kologar wrote.
The consensus opinion by those commenting was that “The whole league deserves to fold after purposely leaving Caitlin Clark off of the graphics,” as one X user wrote.
Whitlock’s comment is interesting because he’s blaming Clark’s poster snub on his running theme that the league dislikes her because she’s white and heterosexual.
Meanwhile, Jemele Hill caught flak on social media at the beginning of the WNBA season, for saying that Clark’s meteoric rise can be attributed to the fact that she’s white and heterosexual.
Jemele Hill on Caitlin Clark’s success:
“We would all be very naive if we didn’t say race and her sexuality played a role in her popularity. While so many people are happy for Caitlin’s success — including the players; this has had such an enormous impact on the game…”
Hill received plenty of backlash for her comments from X users who dismissed her comments as typical race-baiting.
What these comments reveal are the many opinions that fans and media have concerning Clark, and usually there’s two sides of the fence. People such as Sheryl Swoopes try to temper the fanaticism and legendary media hype that Clark has inspired.
Then people such as Shannon Sharpe, Charles Barkley and, to a larger extent, Whitlock blame the league and the players for failing to ride her wave and acknowledge her influence.
They all predict that the WNBA’s refusal to put Clark on the pedestal she deserves will ultimately hurt the league’s ability to sustain this current fanbase and viewership explosion. Seventeen of the 20 most-viewed WNBA games this season featured Clark and the Fever.
Caitlin Clark Has To Shake Off Game 1 and Save The Series
With a maximum of two games left in the series, Clark and Mitchell have to get their acts together and bring their “A” shooting game in Game 2, or it will be an early exit for the Fever.
Related: Caitlin Clark’s First Rookie Triple-Double In WNBA History Overshadows Sabrina Ionescu’s 22 Points
Clark fans might want to spend less time criticizing the league for not kissing the ring and more on rooting for their team, which has its back against the wall against a veteran Connecticut Sun team with Clark’s nemesis, DiJonai Carrington, Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner capable of taking over a game.
