. . . "Could the resentment and the assaults be due to anti-white racism and the fact that Clark isn’t a lesbian? Clark’s presence in the league has dramatically raised the salaries of every player and equally dramatically increased the exposure of women’s professional basketball, yet the league and her own team seem determined to undermine her and, in so doing, undermine women’s basketball.
. . . "Outkick’s Clay Travis is right. This is marketing 101. You bring fans into the stands by marketing your stars, or in this case, the star, the young woman who has single-handedly made the WNBA a sort of going concern.
"And how has the League treated her? They’ve all but openly encouraged not fouls, but assaults on Caitlin Clark, which have resulted in multiple injuries, and now her own team is snubbing their number one draw—it’s not even close—in their marketing. That doesn’t mean you never feature other players, just that you have a clear, and fiscally responsible, sense of who puts posteriors in the stands.
And how did the featured Raven Johnson do? Not well:
Thrust into the spotlight as the unexpected "poster child" for the Fever in the WNBA’s promotional rollout, Johnson’s on-court production miserably failed to match her sudden marketing billing.
In 17 minutes of action off the bench, Johnson failed to register a single point, dropping a giant goose egg on the stat sheet.
While her defensive energy contributed to the team’s depth, a scoreless night highlighted the utter absurdity of the league elevating a backup guard over the most prolific scorer in basketball history, especially on a night when the team was already missing its star center.
"That’s right. The Fever, missing its star center, Clark picked up some of the rebounding slack.
"The WNBA and Indiana Fever don’t have to listen to me. I’m not a noted and read sports writer, and particularly not a fan of women’s basketball, but I do pay attention to cultural issues, and this sort of treatment of a woman who is already playing a major role in the history of women’s sports is worth examining." . . .More...
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