Caitlin Clark is lovable. It’s okay to detest Caitlin Clark. You may adore her Iowan heritage.
You can detest her Iowan heritage. Because she is white, you may find her attractive or repulsive.
The same holds true for sexual orientation.
You can either adore or despise the media’s obsession with her.
Either you love or loathe the historic TV ratings and sell-out crowds.
You may find her interviews endearing or offensive.
With Caitlin Clark on the 2024 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team, players who have been largely ignored by the sports media at every Summer Olympic Games that I’ve covered, which is every one since 1984, would have finally received the spotlight they deserve from a national and global audience.
With national hero Clark on the team heading into the Games, I believe the main narratives for the Americans in Paris (as well as a good number of foreign media) would have been these: Simone Biles first, Katie Ledecky second 3. Caitlin Clarke.
That’s the overall idea; you might add an athlete or two here and there, such as the United States women’s soccer team or the United States men’s basketball team.
It would have been inevitable if Clark had kept breaking attendance and TV ratings records in her first eye-popping month of the WNBA, as she had in NCAA basketball:
she would have propelled American women’s basketball to a level of prominence that it so richly deserves but has never attained:
coverage from broadcasters and news organizations across the globe.
However, to follow Clark would have meant to follow far more than just Clark. She would have presented the complete U.S. squad to all those readers and watchers of the Olympics, many of whom are not great sports fans and have never watched a women’s Olympic basketball game.
Have you never seen Breanna Stewart play for either of her two past Olympic teams? Because of America’s fascination—even obsession—with Clark, you would have been watching her this summer.
In the event that Brittney Griner is well, the same applies.
However, Clark will not be traveling to Paris unless someone cancels or gets hurt.
Clark is not going to be there to finally and correctly show Diana Taurasi and Jackie Young at the Olympics to the casual sports fan who fell in love with her at Iowa and now knows the difference between ION and Prime.
Since her fans are never present, none of them will be there since she won’t be. And as writers and reporters from all over the world descended and seen a few logo 3s fall from the sky and a few hundred more autographs being captured for history, one could only have anticipated the worldwide appeal of Clark.
Little girls in Africa and Europe might have been equally enthralled as American girls were.
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