You might love Caitlin Clark. You may hate Caitlin Clark. You might love her Iowa roots. You may hate your Iowa roots. You can like her because she is white or dislike her because she is white. The same goes for being straight. You can love the media’s fascination with her or hate it. You can love the historic TV ratings and sold-out crowds, or you can hate them. You can love her interviews or hate them.
But there’s one thing we all know to be true:
With Caitlin Clark on the 2024 U.S. Women’s Olympic Basketball Team, players who have been largely ignored by the sports media at every Summer Olympic Games I’ve covered, meaning every one since 1984, would have finally received the spotlight they deserve from an audience national and global.
Going into the Games, with national sensation Clark in the cast, I think the top stories for Americans in Paris (and for some international reporters) would have been these: 1. Simone Biles, 2. Katie Ledecky 3. Caitlin Clark.
Maybe you add an athlete or team or two here or there, US women’s soccer, US men’s basketball, take your pick, but that’s the general idea. With Clark continuing to set TV ratings and ratings records in her eye-popping first month in the WNBA, just as she did in NCAA basketball, it would have been inevitable: she would catapult US women’s basketball to a place it so richly deserves, but has never achieved – coverage from broadcasters and news organizations not just in the US but around the world, headlines every day and, most importantly, enormously increased respect from a still male-dominated international sports media that for decades focused almost exclusively on the U.S. men’s basketball team instead of the women’s, who are so good they haven’t lost since 1992.
But following Clark would mean following much more than Clark. It would have introduced all Olympic viewers and readers — many of whom are not big sports fans and have never watched an Olympic women’s basketball game — to the entire U.S. team.
Have you never watched Breanna Stewart on one of her two previous Olympic teams? You would be watching her this summer because America’s interest and even obsession with Clark would have led you there. The same goes for Brittney Griner, assuming she’s healthy.
But Clark won’t come to Paris unless someone withdraws or is injured. Clark won’t be there to bring the casual sports fan who fell in love with her at Iowa and now knows the difference between ION and Prime to finally watch Diana Taurasi and Jackie Young at the Olympics.
She won’t be there, so all those fans won’t be there, because they’re never there. And we could only have imagined Clark’s global appeal when writers and reporters from around the world showed up and watched a few 3 logos fall from the sky and a few hundred more autographs be recorded for posterity. Perhaps girls in Europe and Africa would be as fascinated as girls in America. That’s no longer happening, and it’s all at USA Basketball, whose mission statement fascinatingly includes “promoting, growing and elevating the game at all levels.” (That seems to be Caitlin Clark’s job description these days.)
Since this great opportunity to publicize international women’s basketball has been eliminated, the vast majority of broadcasters and reporters will be able to focus, as they always have, on the swimmers, gymnasts and runners, and leave the USA women’s basketball team alone.
I watched this all happen in real time. I’ve covered at least five Olympic gold medal women’s basketball games, plus countless other women’s basketball stories from the other five Summer Games I’ve attended. When I looked around and saw a half-empty press box and asked myself why, the answer I got from my colleagues was always that Americans are too good for their own good. People already know they will win. And they are right.
But something strange and potentially very impactful is brewing around Clark’s snub. Two sources, both basketball veterans with decades of experience in the women’s game, told me on Friday that concern about how Clark’s millions of fans would react to what would likely be limited playing time on a stacked roster was a factor. in the decision making.
If true, that would be an extraordinary admission of the existence of real tension that women’s basketball’s old guard has over this multimillion-dollar sensation. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
But if USA Basketball players and officials think that not having Clark in Paris means people won’t talk about Clark around them, well, that’s just not going to happen. It’s certain that one of the first questions they’ll receive at the Games’ opening press conference will be: “Why isn’t Caitlin Clark here?”
And if the team loses 3, or gets a scare, or doesn’t play well, or, hell, loses, Clark’s name won’t be far behind and will likely become ubiquitous on the home front.
Speaking of 3, there seems to be a notion that Clark didn’t deserve to be placed on the team on merit. This is ridiculous. Firstly, the decision is subjective, so you can defend anyone.
But how about some statistics? Clark is 13th in the WNBA in points per game. (Taurasi is 15th.) Clark is fourth in assists per game. (Sabrina Ionescu, 8th; Kelsey Plum, 11th; and Jewell Loyd, 14th, are all on the Olympic team list). Clark is second in 3-point shooting, two ahead of Taurasi.
In her first 10 games, Clark scored more than 150 points and had more than 50 rebounds and 50 assists, a feat previously achieved only by Ionescu in WNBA history. She also became the first rookie and only the fourth player in the league to record 30 points, five rebounds, five assists, three steals and three blocks in a game, joining Taurasi, Stewart and Angel McCoughtry.
Just hours before finding out she wouldn’t be on the Olympic team, Clark broke the WNBA rookie record by making seven 3’s and scored 30 points in front of the biggest WNBA crowd in 17 years: 20,333 in D.C., more than twice the crowd as Chicago drew the night before in the same arena. She became the first player in WNBA history with 200 points and 75 assists in her first 12 career games.
And then USA Basketball dropped her.
Clark did all this while facing the most statistically fierce defensive pressure in the league. No one received the kind of attention she received as a rookie. She’s not the best player in the league, but she’s clearly the most important.
Never given a real chance to try out – USA Basketball absurdly scheduled her tryout during the Women’s Final Four when she was leading Iowa to the national title game for the second straight season – Clark has now been informed by USA Basketball’s national governing body one simple word: No.
No, Caitlin Clark, we don’t want you on our Olympic team.
I’ve seen some bad team and athlete selection decisions in the 40 years I’ve covered the Olympics, but this is by far the worst. Then again, we probably shouldn’t be surprised. As we’ve known for years, the last amateurs left in the Olympic Games are the people who run them.
