It’s official. Caitlin Clark will now call the Indiana Fever her WNBA professional basketball home. The big question now is whether her unprecedented impact on women’s college basketball will be replicated in the WNBA.
Thanks to her, women’s college basketball saw an unusual increase in viewership for the 2023-2024 season. That excitement culminated in the Final Four, where an average of 14.2 million viewers watched Iowa State defeat her UConn to advance to her second consecutive national championship game. That was 1.9 million more viewers than Iowa State’s win over LSU in the Elite Eight. In the national championship game, an average of 18.7 million viewers watched South Carolina defeat Iowa and deny Clark the national championship.
To put those numbers into perspective, the men’s national championship game UW vs. Purdue averaged 14.8 million viewers, nearly 4 million fewer viewers than the women’s final.
By comparison, both games featured National Players of the Year (Clark and Zach Eady), and both lost to better teams. While the individual stats were exceptional, the team needed an out-of-this-world performance to overcome the headwinds presented by UW (men’s) and South Carolina (women’s).
Many would like to believe that women’s college basketball has arrived and earned its place alongside the men’s game. Unfortunately, such thoughts may not be true.
It was Caitlin Clark who elevated women’s college basketball last season. Her sharp passes into the paint and the unprecedented range of her 3-point shots made her a sight to behold. She credits the more measured speed of the women’s game compared to the men’s game and the level of interest that makes up for playing “under the rim” rather than “above the rim” (which the men’s game provides). collected.
With Clark leaving for the WNBA to join the Indiana Fever with the No. 1 pick, the women’s college game faces the same headwinds that the men’s game traditionally faces in competing for ratings.
Over the years, women’s colleges have had a number of star players, with 15 of them scoring over 3,000 points during their collegiate careers. However, scoring alone is not enough to drive an entire sport. Clark was a generational player and person on and off the court.
The Iowa State native chose to play at the state university. She stayed in school for four years, which is common in women’s competition. The availability of NIL revenue makes her jumping into the WNBA early even less appealing. Clark will make more of her income in the NIL (estimated at $3.1 million) than her salary as a WNBA player. In fact, her sponsorship contract as a WNBA player will undoubtedly far exceed her WNBA salary.
By comparison, Edie also stayed in school for four years, a much more unusual phenomenon for high-end male athletes. He also chose not to take advantage of the transfer portal to choose a path to the Final Four, choosing to remain at Purdue and work to get them to the “promised land.” Even if he fell short, his efforts were worthy of praise.
Clark and Eadie will be absent from their respective teams. Neither Iowa nor Purdue appear capable of repeating their title wins in 2025. What is even more worrying is that the women’s game will return to relative obscurity compared to the men’s game.
Elevating the women’s college game to the status it has this season will require more generational talent like Clark. But by definition, such talent only appears once in a generation.
Going forward, Clark plans to use her skills and talents to advance the WNBA, just as she did in the women’s college game. She will be a strong member of the U.S. women’s basketball team at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She will always be remembered for taking women’s college basketball to unprecedented heights of prominence, and we probably won’t see her doing it again for a while. Dew.
Rather than mourn what the women’s college basketball world loses with her graduation, we should all focus on what she accomplished during her season at the University of Iowa and the excellence she inspires young women’s basketball players to achieve. We should celebrate how we set a new standard. Such a legacy will be enjoyed by both the WNBA and all women’s professional sports for many years to come, and what one person can accomplish for the benefit of the many. prove.
Sheldon H. Jacobsonis a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A data scientist, he uses his expertise in data-driven, risk-based decision-making to evaluate and inform public policy.
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