Hating Caitlin Clark for all the right reasons

Over the past two weeks, one of the biggest culture war conversations in America has had absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump, Joe Biden or the 2024 elections. Instead, it’s centered on, of all things, the WNBA. 

The discourse around Caitlin Clark, the Iowa phenom who won rookie of the month in May, has run the gamut of everything wrong with how we argue today — injecting racism, sexism, talk of “pretty privilege” and allegations of “assault” for hard fouls. Most non-sports commentators writing and discussing Clark’s controversial entry into the pros have never had an opinion about basketball until five minutes ago, but no matter — let a thousand takes bloom about a hotshot rookie on a bottom-feeding team.

The takes have been, in large part, absolutely terrible, and the behavior of some of her early adversaries has been petty and insulting. Considering that Clark’s entry into the league has led to a massive boost in ticket sales (her team leads the league in road attendance), merchandise (jersey sales are up 750 percent) and TV ratings (the WNBA has now had five games this season with more than a million viewers after not having a single one in sixteen years), there can be some acknowledgement that hey, she’s massively growing a league that had languished as an afterthought. Only two active players even had shoe deals before Clark’s arrival. For all this talk about Clark’s race being a problem, her effect on the WNBA’s finances is going to make a lot of money for a lot of players of all ethnicities.

Yet there’s one argument which should stick in the craw of any true sports fan, and that’s the idea espoused by some that Clark should be welcomed or treated with deference by her fellow athletes. It’s been a hallmark of women’s sports — not all, but many — that sets it apart from men’s sports, where the competitive factor is viewed as anathema. It’s supposed to be about everyone winning, everyone affirming each other, everyone getting ahead. Competitive fire is viewed as something unnerving, as if it’s all supposed to be about women empowering women instead of conquering their foes.

For the average male sports fan, this whole thing sounds absurd. You don’t want to empower each other, you want to destroy the opposition. And hating players with a passion — absolutely loathing them even as they’ve done nothing against you but beat the team you root for — is one of the many things that makes sports great.

Against the Celtics last night, Kyrie Irving arrived with his Dallas Mavericks to a cacophony of cursing and boos from the crowd at the Garden. It’s been five years since he left, and the fans still hate him with a passion you’ll only find in cities like Boston. And that’s a good thing! It’s what makes sports great. Would victory be so sweet if it didn’t include crushing your enemies? Of course not.

If Caitlin Clark has the kind of career many think she can, she can be the WNBA’s Steph Curry. That means winning, a ton of winning — but it also means being a lightning rod for hatred from competitors and fans alike. That’s part of the deal. And to the degree that phenomenon becomes part of women’s sports generally, the more people will want to tune in to see what happens.