Caitlin Clark “deserved” her Time Athlete of the Year award, ESPN sports anchor Elle Duncan wrote on X today. “Caitlin Clark deserved Time Athlete of the yr and as a member of the W it automatically amplifies the league. To suggest she’s being put on an unfair pedestal because she’s being recognized for a truly uncommon and transformational year is absurd,” she explained.
“It’s like saying ‘why hand out an MVP when everyone is so important on a team.’ Both things can be true. Sports ALWAYS honors individual accomplishments and there’s nothing unfair about that (unless it’s being used to denigrate others work),” Duncan continued.
Clark’s award set off a firestorm of commentary this week, both in support and against the achievement. On Friday, Washington Mystics owner and BET co-founder Sheila Johnson told CNN Sport Time should have “put the whole WNBA on that cover.”
“It has taken the WNBA almost 28 years to get to the point where we are now and this year something clicked with the WNBA and it’s because of the draft of the players that came in,” Johnson said. “It’s just not Caitlin Clark. It’s Reese. We have so much talent out there that has been unrecognized. And I don’t think we can pin it on just one player.”
“I want to be very diplomatic about this,” she continued. “It’s just the structure of the way media plays out race. I’m going to be very honest. I feel really bad because I’ve seen so many players of color that are equally as talented and they never got the recognition they should have. And I think that right now it is time for that to happen.”
“Why couldn’t they have put the whole WNBA on that cover and said the WNBA is the league of the year? Because of all the talent that we have. Because when we just keep singling out one player it creates hard feelings. And so now you’re starting to hear stories of racism within the WNBA and I don’t want to hear that. We have got to operate and become stronger as a league and respect everybody that’s playing and their talents.”
Clark enjoyed a phenomenal rookie year that included being named the league’s Rookie of the Year and All-WNBA first team (an honor that a rookie hasn’t received since 2008). She also been credited with increasing game attendance by 48% across the WNBA.
At the same time, Clark petitioned the WNBA to pay away team players spot bonuses based on the increased attendance. “Here’s all you need to know about Caitlin Clark: When we would go to away games, they always sold out,” said Indiana Fever president Allison Barber in September. “So [the Atlanta Dream] would normally have 3,000, 4,000 people. Now they have 17,000 people and they sold 1,000 standing-room-only tickets.”
“So when we walked into the arena, people were on that third balcony looking down at the tops of our players’ heads to watch… After a few away games, and all of the sellouts, Caitlin asked the WNBA if they would pay spot bonuses to the away team players,” she added.
The Mystics were among the teams who opted to move their games against the Fever to NBA arenas ahead of the 2024 season “due to unprecedented demand.” Fans who bought their tickets through the team’s website were allowed to keep those tickets and find similar seating in the larger arena. But fans who purchased through Ticketmaster and third-party sites like StubHub had their orders canceled and had to repurchase tickets, typically at a higher price point.
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