Just what in the name of all that’s holy is wrong with the Indiana Fever’s management and the WNBA? The Fever have Caitlin Clark on their roster, the number one draw in the entire league, the player who has, like no one in the league’s history, brought in fans and improved the fortunes of the league and every player, and they pull a stunt like this?
Read more Artificial Intelligence and the Devil
Graphic: X Post
It’s reminiscent of satirical police photo lineups with nine white guys and a single black guy.
Just days after choosing Fever rookie Raven Johnson over generational superstar Caitlin Clark to front the promotional graphics for Sunday’s matchup against the Seattle Storm, Indiana took the court and let the box score settle the discourse.
Indiana secured a commanding 89-78 victory over Seattle, though the real story unfolded in the stark contrast between the league’s forced promotional face and the team’s actual focal point, which was a marketing mishap made all the more hilarious by the sudden absence of the team’s other primary star, Aliyah Boston.
In the previous game, Clark scored 30 points. She’s more than capable of running up even higher scores, but she selflessly provides assists for her teammates and more. In the game where she wasn’t promoted, she scored 21 points—outpacing all her teammates and also handed out ten assists and seven rebounds. Those rebounds are more significant in that she’s not a center.
It’s not as though performances like those are rare for Clark:
Graphic: X Post
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.
Read more Remember the Maine weirdo
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.
Is this jealousy? Certainly. A woman enters the league right out of college and immediately begins setting records and filling the stands. She immediately landed multi-million-dollar endorsement contracts, and that’s not only because she’s an outstanding athlete, but she’s also attractive, articulate, and, by all accounts, a genuinely nice, engaging person. And I believe I mentioned she’s more than willing to pass the ball, giving her teammates scoring opportunities?
So, what’s the problem? Clay Travis, who the WNBA and Fever ought to mark, explains:
Graphic: X Post
Could it be that simple—and self-defeating? 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.
Stranger things have happened.
Become a subscriber and get our weekly, Friday newsletter with unique content from our editors. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription.
Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
Read more Peggy Flanagan wants to prosecute you