Caitlin Clark is a good player, with the makings to become one of the best. She made her WNBA debut with a solid rookie season, puting up impressive numbers. This isn’t the last time fans will see her in the post season, and it might be the only time she gets knocked out early. The Indiana Fever are a young promising team that, in the off season can grow into a legitimate powerhouse.
The Fever and Clark have been fun to watch, and they’ve brought a new vigor to the game. The growth from last year to this year from just ticket sales has been immense. But all growth isn’t good growth. With this massive influx of new fans to the league. Some of which are the same people who just last season would make fun of the league or women’s basketball. They don’t bring anything to the game besides their love of one player and their blind racist hatred for others.
Sports is a competition, and competition breeds rivalry. Legitimate sports trash talk is apart of the game. These are professional players who have been playing basketball fort most of their lives. They’ve heard all the ways jealous men say “girls can’t ball” and other things of that nature. While it is sexist, unfortunately it has become a common thing for these types of people to say. It doesn’t bring anything valuable to the game aside from a cheap laugh.
The vitriol, racism, and misogynistic comments that have nothing to do with the game shouldn’t be accepted. The players in the league should be treated with the same respect that is given to their male counterparts. After their victory over the Fever which completed their two game, first round sweep. Five time WNBA All-Star Alyssa Thomas stated that in her 11 year professional career she hasn’t experienced the type of racial comments and threats from the Fever fan base.
The toxcisity of this new group of “fans” who only care about their basketball darling hurts not only the game, but players and real fans of the sport. Recently Dijionai Carrington, a guard on the Connecticut Sun who was named the “Most Improved Player” this year. Recieved death threats in addition to the racist and misygonistic and homophobic comments on her social media platforms.
The WNBA after the first round of playoffs issued a statment, reguarding the new toxcisity. Some fans say it’s a little too late, and these issues should’ve been addressed not only by the league but by the WNBA’s newest sensation earlier on in the season. These fans who started making their presence known, were using Clark’s name to push their racist and homophobic agendas. Clark brushed off the claims, saying she was just there to focus on basketball.
After her comments were made some players and fans didn’t appreciate the way she handled the situation. In a case like this were the league is propping up a player to potentially become the “face,” there are higher standards that they have to hold themselves to. Carrington posted on X that some players don’t have the luxury of staying silent and ignoring the “noise.”
It’s telling when the collective fan bases of the other WNBA teams breathed a sigh of relief when the Indiana Fever were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs. Citing that, we can finally watch these games in peace, and not have to be bombarded with the racial hate from the Clark clan fan base when trying to support your team or even just the game.
An incident early on during game one of the Sun, Fever playoff series caused an uproar with fans. Carrington who was making a play on the ball inadvertantly struck Clark in the face. It resulted in a no-call and the Clark clan was livid. You can tell when people don’t truly understand the dynamics of basketball especially at the professsional level. These women are going to get bumped and they are going to bump. Basketball is a physical sport, and playoff basketball is more intense. But most if not all professional players are not actively trying to hurt or even injure other players.
Racist fans repeatedly called Carrington and other Black players “thugs” in an attempt to paint a narrative around these players and the game. The media is also implicated in the way they’ve reported on the league. A lot of the reporting has been one-sided and very bias towards Clark. Where reporters and journalist alike try to create a narrative to spark and highten the racial tension. During an interview the commissioner of the league Cathy Engelbert side-stepped the question when asked about the racial tensions in the league. She said that rivalries are good for the game. And yes, they are, but as along as they don’t turn into something ugly.
Recently The Los Angeles Times was compelled to change a bias headline stoking the flames of an issue that simply wasn’t there. It’s been noted that some veteran players were upset at the extra media attention that Clark recieved even before playing her first game. They were happy that WNBA league was getting more viewership, but the reporting was very one-sided. It’s a disservice and it truly minimizes all the hard work that these atheletes put in. ESPN loves to use Clark in their headlines, and recently has become almost unwatchable and unreadable at times with their coverage.
Some of the reporting can also be dangerous. When Carringtion was asked about the play that some fans have deemed “eye-gate” the reporter tried to word the question in a way that put Carrington in a corner. But Clark herself along with other basketball players and analyst called the play a regular basketball play. There was no malicious intent behind it. While most reasonable people who have watched the clip, that has been circulating for the past few days can see that it was just that a regular play that ended up as unfortunate accident. It definitely didn’t warrant the backlash that Carrington recieved from the new racist fanbase.
Hopefully the next season will be just as exciting if not more, especially with the addition of the expansion teams in Portland, Golden State and Toronto. Best of luck to Clark next season, and hopefully she can get some well deserved rest finally. It’s been a long year for her, from playing infront of 50k screaming fans in college to becoming the number one draft pick to crushing rookie records. And maybe, we’ll get more than one direct statment condeming the actions of the the Clark clan.
