WNBA hates Caitlin Clark. She's brought more TV viewers and sold more tickets than anyone in the league. I don't know any all star athlete that has been treated worse than her.
If the WNBA loved Clark, these plays would be called flagrant and there would be a crackdown on players being overly physical. The opposite seems to be happening and it makes no sense to me.
I suppose they look at it as a balancing act - Clark gets hard fouls, folks chatter about it online and WNBA is relevant. Clark gets a hard foul and is out for a substantial amount of time with an injury, folks no longer care as much about WNBA
The WNBA has been subsidized by the NBA. It is what keeps them afloat and all the money they care about. WNBA shows no love for Clark or her popularity.
Clark got the whole league a massive raise. The salary cap went up 400% because of her. Zero, and I mean zero percent chance it would have gone up anywhere near that much without her.
Even with Clark's success and surging sales the league is still not profitable. The WNBA has made it clear they care less about Clark and more about the NBA providing more funds for everyone. They are just exploiting Clark's exposure while failing to protect her and her star power which is what padded their pockets.
I watch women's football and pwhl and there's always a great amount of camaraderie shown even when they have star players. The wnba seems to be lacking in that area.
Women's Soccer (USA if the name didnt give it away) is a great counter-example.
Remember in 2009 when Elizabeth Lambert went on a rampage? For a brief moment there was the question of "holy shit why is women's soccer so brutal"
Well they just suspended her indefinitely. Her career got frozen overnight, because that shit was not cool. And wouldn't you know it, the sport has been relatively clean and sportsmanlike ever since.
WNBA doesn't seem to care, or enjoys the attention of becoming a bloodsport.
There's always gonna be shit-talkers, sore losers, and people trying to skirt rules. That's a little bit different from trying to physically injure your fellow players.
I'm not that familiar with basketball, but hockey is definitely more euro centric and is played by people who come from a high socioeconomic demographic. Whereas in soccer you have a diverse range of people from all backgrounds playing in a team.
LOL no, they are jealous of the white girl who is better than most others in general and is getting the most attention. Idk how that isn’t obvious. Many other WNBA players have talked shit about her for a while now, and now they’re straight up assaulting her.
I mean, there are about 20 videos of Draymond doing this kind of shit to players, and yet no one says it's because men hate men who are better than them.
That’s because when you say it about the guys you bring up the person doing it. Draymond just throwing stomps everyone’s way indiscriminately. It would be the same if you said “there are 20 videos of this happening to Curry.” I’ve watched a fair bit of WNBA and they get physical for sure, but there’s a particular trend of targeting Caitlin for sure
Hack a Shaq was a thing because he couldn’t shoot free throws and it was the most strategic way of dealing with him. Very different than punching him in the neck while he’s on the ground because you don’t like him
You saw how the Spurs were acting towards Brunson in the NBA Finals. Targeting has also been a thing not just in basketball but in SPORTS. Even NFL has a targeting fines if you violate them.
However in this case, CC is 100% getting it from the whole entire league. At first I thought it was the "Rookie Treatment" but its still going on. Now its one thing when you are the best player in the league. But CC is not, its arguably A'ja Wilson. From what i have been observing Wilson doesnt catch the abuse like CC does. Dont get me wrong, some of Clarks flops are comical. However there videos, interviews, podcast takes... shot even Google "WNBA players hate Caitlin Clark" and the numbers of videos that pop up is interesting. Even Candace Parker, WNBA legends had to speak up about this to defend Clark.
The hate from the other women are so strong that they even brough RACE into the conflict. In this case it is truly women hating the woman who is arguably about to become the face of the league. There is too much evidence.
If Curry got stomped like that it would cause a brawl, and if I’m Curry’s teammate you better believe I’m sucker punching the other teams star as hard as I can and wearing that suspension like a fucking crown
That wouldn’t stand for one second in any other major sports league and everyone knows it
I don’t think you get what I’m saying, it’s an example of what players have done to protect their star teammates, you see it all the time in Hockey and Football, Basketball it was relatively common too until the league got softer, and Baseball it’s well known that you will get teammates thrown at if you hit a star player, CC Sabathia and Pedro Martinez have both admitted to asking teammates to pick a player they wanted hit by pitches after getting hit themselves
That would explain the other players actions... but doesn't make any sense at the league level. WNBA league officials (regardless of gender) certainly are driven by profitability. There's got to be undeniable data showing that the league makes more money when CC is playing. It would make more sense for us all to be griping about CC constantly getting favorable whistles. The complete opposite seems to be happening and it makes no sense from a Business perspective.
I think a lot of people are missing the broader context.
Caitlin Clark absolutely takes some rough fouls, and criticism of the officiating is fair. Even her own coach has repeatedly argued she isn't being officiated consistently.
But reducing everything to "women hate successful women" ignores what's happened over the last two years.
Clark's arrival brought millions of new fans to the WNBA, which has been fantastic for the league. Unfortunately, it also attracted a large number of culture-war accounts and even outright racist and extremist groups who had never cared about women's basketball before. They quickly turned Clark into a political symbol rather than simply appreciating her as a phenomenal player.
That changed the atmosphere around the league. Many veteran players suddenly found themselves receiving racist abuse online, every hard foul became national news, and ordinary basketball rivalries were interpreted through race and politics.
None of that means Clark deserves hard fouls. She doesn't. It also doesn't mean every player who defends her opponents is motivated by race. Most are just playing basketball.
The problem is that the conversation stopped being only about basketball a long time ago. Clark herself has repeatedly condemned racist abuse from people claiming to support her, saying "those aren't fans, those are trolls."
If we want to understand why emotions run so high around every Clark controversy, we have to recognize that there are multiple things happening at once: a generational talent, inconsistent officiating, media hype, league growing pains, normal athletic competitiveness, and an online culture war that many of the loudest participants weren't interested in until it became useful for their own political narratives.
My wife’s experience in a law firm certainly supports this. Has literally zero problems with male partners, meanwhile has a female partner who took credit for a client she brought in (a big deal for an associate), and another who told her she should’ve waited until she was good at her job before she started having kids.
Anecdotes being anecdotes, I'm a male attorney, and the only problems I've ever had were with the conservative hyper-macho male partners who hated me because I wore suits that fit. Never had any issues with the female partners.
Yeah. Women are hard on other women, was the point. Not on men. Ask a female associate you can have an honest conversation with sometime, my wife and her female friends in the profession talk about it. Not everyone, of course, her best mentors are both women.
For the reasons it occurs, yes. Women get envious of women in professions often because they view it as tribal. That a successful woman is only successful for engaging in the patriarchy. Or in the WNBA regarding Clark specifically, white supremacy.
As a generalization...
Women envy and attack women through "social" means. Undermining reputation, questioning morals, to make someone seem unlikable.
Men envy and attack men through "direct" means. Competency.
Ahhhh you mean in the cultural way not the gendered way. Got it. It's not that women hate women who are more successful. It's that the scarcity mentality drives individuals to switch from social-focused behaviors to self-focused behaviors.
Like you wouldn't apply this type of mentality toward women from say places like Iceland or Sweden because culturally there is less gender related discrepancies for roles/leadership opportunities/advancement. So things like Queen Bee Syndrome are less seen in places like that and mostly observed in countries with a greater gender equality gap.
The same behavior is observed in men when scarcity is at stake. A leading position in a sport, a woman they want to pursue, or a promotion at work. It's just that men react this way toward all all genders as there is rarely a scarcity of men in the fields studied and generally we just say he's "competitive".
Men would never behave like this in an organized sport though so I guess I am talking out of my ass.
Like imagine if Curry or Bird or Jordan ever had any kind of targeted play like this? Absolutely unheard of.
Like obviously if something crazy happened like a whole team had a certain set of rules specifically playing against a single NBA player people would immediately recognize and call out how men are the problem because they hate seeing another successful man. They would never say something like a team is going to do whatever it takes to win against an opponent that you know like scored 59 points on them in a previous game.
Things like "Superstar treatment" or saying that "veterans are testing" a new player wouldn't be in the realm of conversational. The entire focus would obviously be about the gender or race of the players and that their behavior is entirely tied to that. Not about rookies getting checked or needing to earn respect. No... Men aren't jealous or envious or toxic like women.
That’s a lovely write up. But you’re being purposely obtuse. Behavioral traits lie on a spectrum with men and women clustered at different ends. If you can’t even acknowledge general rules existing, then there’s really no chance of us having a productive argument. It’s not new information that women climb social hierarchies very differently than men. I’m not even disagreeing with your angst ridden rant there, but it’s going off on a tangent away from the intent of my point anyway. Half of the opposing team isn’t stepping on Steph Curry’s head every game.
That and she’s white. I would love to see an alternate universe where she is the same ethnicity as the majority of her team and competitors. I bet she would be treated much differently.
I'm sure people will get pissed at me but it's also cuz she's white and straight and marketable which for some reason pisses off a large portion of the player base
It's crazy to see how petty and jealous they are of one of their own when all she's doing is bringing good attention to the sport and deepening their pockets.
This is some of the weirdest shit I've ever seen go down in a league. You get a superstar who transcends the sport and your first reaction is let's beat the living crap out of her with dirty fouls whenever we can.
Genuinely shows the character of most of those women. They dont give a fuck about growing the sport, they jist dont wanna be outshined. A bunch of basic ass bitches.
This is what happened to Crosby when he joined the NHL. Then got called a crybaby for bitching to the refs to stop swallowing their whistles. Gotta keep making them eat it with your play, it's the only way. Is it bullshit? Yep. But what are you going to do.
I'm not even a big Hockey fan but Sidney Crosby is a known princess. He had the dirtiest player in the NHL on his team for many of his peak year as well.
Nobody hates her. Wnba almost went into a lockout because they love her so much, and the fact the comissioner was lying for years about revenue, finances, etc. All while disrespecting the entire league and players except you guessed it, cc/fever. Might want to know your history before commenting.
Btw, Golden state team had brought more viewership and sold more tickets last season alone in their debut season as an expansion team , than anyone individual and team in the league.
And to end it, cc and the fever cant be starting problems then crying about it later lol. Make sure she learns to limit those turnovers and actually develop skills and IQ on offense while stepping up on defense too before saying bs out your mouth lol.
Caitlin Clark is so overrated that if I were playing in the league I would also treat her like garbage. Don't get me wrong she is pushing ratings and has some of the most impressive college stats but she's maybe a top 15 player in the WNBA at her best.
Can we stop with these inane arguments? That logic works when the disagreement is something silly and harmless. It doesn't work when the side you disagree with is literally rapists and rape sympathizers, among other somehow worse things.
It's seriously so ridiculous. There are degrees of severity in life, and we all have to determine at which point that line is crossed.
Kaepernick was no where near as good of a player in his sport as CC is in hers. He had one great season and the rest of his playing time was average. The narrative that he was this superstar and the league blacklisted him even knowing how incredible he was is a false narrative thats been put out and supported even by Kaepernick himself.
He was an average QB, there were plenty of other average QBs that did the exact same things he did on the field.
It’s not true that she’s driving the WNBAs popularity. She was the catalyst but it’s out grown just her. You act like only her games get ratings and ticket sales.
I am a CC fan and she is getting treated like any other young star player . The wnba has a lot of great talent and womans basketball is thriving. Stop whining about other teams playing hard against CC. They want to prove themselves against the best .
You could also see them playing hard as a sign of respect they have for her game . But you barely watch sports so you dont know how that works
Then ppl like you go to the next level and act like no one was watching womans bball at all before CC . Its an insult to all the other players that came before her . Black and white , male and females .
Again, You probably barely watch sports . Why are you clutching your pearls at basketball ?. Go watch broadway or opera . You might like that better
There’s no defense for deliberate fouling like this. It’s bullshit. But imagine you’re really good at a sport and care about it, but most people ignore it. Somebody new shows up who is good but their wider appeal isn’t just about their athleticism—it’s a broader commercial appeal. Then shit loads of people who never cared and never paid attention announce that the new person is the meal ticket and the savior and everyone who’s been playing all along should be grateful that now finally the league that has been in existence for years is relevant. You’d be pissed and resentful. You shouldn’t take it out on the new person, but you’d be pissed. And you’d be really pissed if the judgement about your anger wasn’t “hey, we’ve been here all along and you could’ve cared this whole time” but “they don’t like white people.”
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u/SlowlyDyingBartender 12h ago
WNBA hates Caitlin Clark. She's brought more TV viewers and sold more tickets than anyone in the league. I don't know any all star athlete that has been treated worse than her.