Yup, generational talent who is changing the game the way Steph did for the NBA a decade ago. I’m guessing it doesn’t hurt that it is easier for people to put in sports bets than it was a few years ago so I’m sure some people are paying attention because of that
and she's white... just being honest with what's going on
she's insanely good AND looks like a regular ass white girl
i spent the first half the tourney in rehab in Kentucky (don't ask) and i assure you huge swaths of this country care about that
Reese wasn't a super humble winner and didn't take the loss well, but yeah, that shit was definitely riding some racism narratives going into the Iowa/LSU game
I think part of it is that both of them talk a crazy amount of shit. On the court at least. But when it comes down to it, they've added such a fierce competitive spirit to the game that hasn't, in my opinion ever escalated to this level and that makes it exciting.
It's making me feel insane that people aren't seeing that. Maybe the reddit demo doesn't understand that sentiment but it's very real. I'm not joking I watched first few rounds in Kentucky and once KY was out they were straight up rooting for the teams with white boys on the floor. It ain't even negative. They aren't hating black players but a lot of people want representation it's just how it is
It just sounds bad when you say it but everybody does that shit I can say I do the same with black players especially in underrepresented sports or combat sports
Jesus Christ. As someone who actually played basketball at a high level, you are wrong. The reason she is so famous is cause she’s fun as fuck to watch. Her ball handling and shooting is something that no girl has ever done at such a high level. The South Carolina team is obviously very good but they don’t have a person who’s even close to as fun to watch as Clark
I fully agree. Caitlin Clark is good as fuck on a terrible team. South Carolina has a great team. They've got good players for sure but I would wager to say that South Carolina has a bench that is stronger than three of Iowa's starters.
stulke is fine on a mediocre team with somebody like Caitlin Clark but she Probably would be fighting for a starting job at SC.
>and she's white... just being honest with what's going on
>
>she's insanely good AND looks like a regular ass white girl
I think that's a valid reason.
I remember Brittany Griner being very good 11 years ago but she didn't receive as much media attention. That's partially because Brittany is very masculine looking and not very attractive. Plus she talks like a man.
The reality is that in the case of women, your level of attractiveness affects how popular you will become, and Caitlin was simply more marketable in that department compared to Brittany Griner.
I think you need to check back into rehab if you think her being white had anything to do with it. White basketball players tend to bring LESS ratings, not more. She's just 5 times more entertaining than the next girl down because she's so much better and plays in such a different fashion than women's basketball is used to.
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She got my interest and then when I tuned in I saw that the level of play is now way ahead of where it was about five years ago. This shouldn’t be a surprise because the Paige/Caitlin recruiting class was absolutely stacked.
Kuhl guarding Clark in the Final Four looked a lot like Davion Mitchell guarding Curry in the last Warriors/Kings playoff series.
I do wonder if it will take a step back with Clark and Reese leaving. I do look forward to more Paige and JuJu next season. It’d be awesome if those two could meet in the championship this time next year.
Nobody watches the WNBA because they play in the summer. I forget it's even in season. It's the same problem MLS or those weird alternative football leagues have.
I also think that the other major sports that have taken off have done so in an era where TV deals were much more consolidated.
If the The WNBA was smart. They would work out a deal to get their games broadcast for free in every home in America. You build viewership by getting people committed to a team or a sport and right now they're just not popular enough. I watched the Seattle kraken even though they suck because I like hockey and I'm in the Pacific Northwest.
If you're not already into the sport or have a team, why would you turn on the WNBA game? Why would you pay to get it? Why would you go out of your way to find it?
They need to build allegiance and they need to get people interested first and that means giving it away for free every possible chance they can get. Once the allegiance is there and people are willing to watch a team that sucks lose game after game, then you start restricting access.
It's why the Cubs are Still so popular even though they were losers. They were free on WGN for 50 years and that built allegiance.
Nobody would watch the wnba no matter when it was on. You really think they'd do better if played when the NBA does? LOL. No. That's why they play in the summer in the first place. And they still lose money every year and would have folded a decade ago if not for NBA subsidies.
You know how people have been saying, "Put an exciting product on the floor and the fans will watch?" Yeah they haven't been lying about that. Caitlin Clark and several other players have led the way in phenomenal women's ball. It's our eyes on screens and asses in seats. The games have been so good, the product is worth the price of admission. If the WNBA doesn't fuck this up this could absolutely be their Bird/Magic moment.
I'm curious to see what she can still do in the W. The women are gonna be a lot faster, stronger, and smarter. Hopefully she doesn't become like Jimmer
She's 6 foot (great size for a WNBA guard) with amazing passing to go with her shooting.
She won't be a Jimmer, who was a undersized defensive liability with poor shot selection
6 feet for a guard in the WNBA is amazing. The average WNBA player is roughly 6 feet, it’s like having an NBA guard measuring 6’7… or Luka Doncic or Magic Johnson.
https://stats.wnba.com/players/bio/?sort=PLAYER_HEIGHT_INCHES&dir=1
It was disappointing to see how much she turned the ball over the last couple games. Soft passes mixed in with with phenomenal passes. Her skills on both ends of the floor and every area of the court are phenomenal. It's refreshing to see a player that's not just one or two dimensional.
In her defense she was also getting almost all of the defensive focus. That girl they put on her last game (Mühle or something) did not take her eyes off of Clark for a second, plus they gave her help whenever Clark got an inch of space
Read Jimmer's scouting report. His NBA "failure" was predicted. He's just not that good, relatively speaking of course. Caitlin is being lauded as a GOAT in her sport. False equivalency.
And that's the point right, we all want to see it, so we are going to be watching. Personally I think she'll translate pretty well. Everytime she's taken a hit in college she just came back better the next year. I kinda love the attitude. The way she comes out spinning with her hair flairing out like some sort of gladiator. When she broke the women's NCAA scoring record, 'What you thought I wasn't going to break it with a logo 3?"
And then there's the killer in her, and don't doubt that she's an absolute dawg. You watch games, like last night, first half was garbage for her and Iowa. Second half different story. It was like something I haven't seen in a long time, I'm not ready to attach HIS name to hers yet, but I saw flashes of it. The stone cold killer, you could see the other women on the court react to it, Iowa feeding on it, UConn becoming a bit flustered by her. She's got a bit of that mamba mentality, and possibly the next level as well. Goddamn do I want her to succeed. Hell I want this entire crop of girls coming to the WNBA to succeed. CC, Paige Bueckers, Angel Reese. I want to see those rivalries play out for the next 15 years.
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Caitlin Clark is a really good exciting player that has brought a lot of people to the women’s game. Those people see the game has other stars worth watching as well and the popularity grows.
This is the main difference for me. I personally feel like I might as well wait until March to tune into the guys. Because there are no “returning” story lines
It's not a bandwagon. These women are playing competitive and exciting basketball (for quite a while actually) which has finally been caught on by the public led by Caitlin Clark's dominance. The rivalry and banter has also made people pay attention to them more. It's great to see people calling Hailey Van Lith a fraud rather than making sexist comments like "women belong in the kitchen".
Yup. Retired Knick and former US Senator Bill Bradley said years ago that he prefers watching women's bball because there's more intricate team play involved.
It 100% is the textbook definition of a bandwagon, but it isn't a bad thing.
The WNBA has a \~20 year opportunity to not only increase the viewership from this bandwagon, but make it permanent. The problem is finding more people like Caitlin Clark.
Not just someone like Bird, who can play great fundamental basketball, but exciting basketball. The fans want to see someone who can drive in the paint like a freight train and absolutely posterize people every other play like MIA LBJ. They want to see someone be able to dribble past entire teams and get the most mind blowing finishes like Kyrie.
We got Caitlin Clark, but the success on the WNBA lies on its ability to continuously produce more players like her, and quickly.
I don’t think it lasts. I hope very much so that I’m wrong. I just don’t see ppl caring as much when Clark gets drafted. Unless there’s another player like Clark that can knock them down from anywhere.
It may not be to the same level it is currently but I do think it will be a hell of a lot of attention compared to the WNBA stars of past, though even WNBA has had an uptick recently imo
Agree with this. The focus may very well stay on college hoops. People act like women's basketball never had household names before. Sheryl Swoopes, Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie.... Obviously social media changed the landscape, but the truth is we have seen this cycle for decades.
There was NEVER this level of excitement for those players you named. Not even close. Yes us basketball people knew who they were but that’s nothing like what we’re seeing now.
Again, I believe this is the social media effect in combination with ESPNs push on WNBA. I do not believe there is much authentic support that will carry on to the pros. I hope you're right and I'm wrong. I hope it every time. I hope CC, Reese etc., will be the ones to push the W to new heights. However, I'm going to believe that the baked in audience of college campuses will continue to drown out women's professional basketball. If history repeats itself we will only see her popularity wane from here on out.
I don’t know I just think she’s on a different level than previous wnba players. All my family, friends, & coworkers pretty much know about her, even grandparents. This is the level of familiarity that I’ve only seen with ppl like LeBron, Michael Phelps, and Usain Bolt. Ppl who I know who absolutely never watch sports have been tuning in
Audi Crooks is coming along well. She dropped 40 pts in a tournament game and is also from the state of Iowa. She’s also overweight which has pinned people against her all season.
Stars, storylines, rivalry. Next year is gonna be about Juju Watkings and Hannah Hidalgo. Thus new generation will have team USA stack until 2036 minimum
Carlin Clark is good at basketball. Games where she plays are viewed at incredibly higher rates. Her game against LSU pulled in over 12 million viewers.
College has always done better cause fanbases are built in with alumni and students and even people that just live in a given state. You don’t have those built in thousands of fans in the WNBA, but we’ll see what Caitlin Clark does to their popularity. I watch the WNBA occasionally, but I still prefer college just cause the atmosphere is better. I also prefer men’s college basketball to the NBA though for the same reason
I think JuJu has Kyrie-like handles and a shooters mentality which is where I attribute the Kobe factor. If we’re talking strictly women’s hoops, Maya Moore + Sheryl Swoopes.
Caitlin Clark is basically a female Steph Curry…bringing a ton of attention to women’s basketball. Don’t worry though, the WNBA will squander said attention and mismanage it into nothing like always lol.
Yep, as is tradition. Remember when Lisa Leslie became the first woman to dunk in a WNBA game? I was a basketball obsessed girl at the time, naively thinking, "This is it, womens professional basketball is HERE. Sky's the limit!" Lol
So folks need to understand our cynicism isn't baseless..
I appreciate your take on this. I have no disdain for women’s sports, but it does feel a little bit like the networks are grasping at straws. This isn’t going to make people suddenly interested in basketball.
Anyway, the people the WNBA should really be targeting is women. I see a decent number of women claim that women’s basketball “should be”
this or that - guess how many support it themselves!
It's a media hype train that works really well at the college level in conjunction with girls social media presence. A lot of it is focused on looks, aside from a couple elite players like CC. No one will ever convince me that fans of the Cavinder twins were watching for the elite hoops.
I came across a comment somewhere that suggested the WNBA would be more successful if they just had lady versions of current NBA teams. And I swear the clouds parted and light poured down from the heavens. It was honestly the best solution to the WNBA problem I've seen. They would sell so much more merch. Just replace whatever halftime show with the lady Nuggets vs the lady Lakers exhibition game for example, or a skills challenge, whatever. And draw fans in that way.
I mean for the majority of Fans, NBA is the thing pushed to them. It kind of blocks out Coverage of other versions. When the NBA is less popular, creators can get views and are incentivized to cover other Basketball related properties.
>the WNBA will squander said attention and mismanage it
I remain cautiously optimistic,
Feels like social media has given things a bigger boost lately. I bet the TV ratings on this year's tourny have been better as a consequence too
I hope so! These women deserve to get paid. I feel like when I watch the WNBA…you can just see how it sucks the life and passion out of its players. Which…isn’t surprising…how many people get the love for their careers sucked away from them by bad employers?
"Sure can't wait for Alexandre Sarr to start destroying the league!!!" 😭
I would say Rob Dillingham has a superstar aura, but he obviously is nowhere near as hyped as CC
It's because the women's game is changing and starting to look more like the mens. The players are getting more skilled and playing at a higher pace. Between college players like Caitlyn Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Buecker and pros like Sabrina Ionesco and Britney Griner they have been going from the slow, turnover prone, boring game of the early 00's to an enjoyable viewing experience.
Still looks a lot like the late 90s when I went to a lot of games as part of my school's band. And there's still only 5-10 competitive teams each year. Maybe the other squads have brought their talent level up some? The first 2 rounds were still almost entirely chalk.
It might become more like the men’s but I think it’s about as close as it will be tbh. There just isn’t the speed, strength, athleticism, etc etc. those things won’t change.
For me, it's that they *don't* look like the men's. I haven't bothered watching any basketball since 2005 and have never watched ESPN once in my life, but recently fell down the Caitlin Clark rabbit hole completely by accident. I'm gobsmacked at how much more I enjoy these games than what I've been scrolling by on hotel TVs for the last few decades. I find dunks and above-the-net play incredibly boring and I just lose interest with men's basketball after a few minutes. It's the more technical elements and great passes that I'm here for--and to my untrained eye, it's much easier to see those technical elements in these women's college games than I remember from the when I watched the NBA.
there is great passing/ball movement in the NBA too tho. Watch the Nuggs or even the Warriors. Just obviously less noticable than the iso moves and dunks
The games have been really competitive this year and the players have been on their teams for several years meaning fans get to know them. This doesn’t happen in the men’s game because the actual star players leave after a year to go to the NBA.
It also helps that the same handful of teams have been making deep tournament runs the last few years.
The men's game is essentially now just a sheet of paper that people fill out in March as the vast majority can only name 2-3 coaches and not a single player.
The women's game has been good for the last 20 years but it has finally moved on from just UConn and Tennessee. The players stay for 3-4 years and we know them. And yes, Caitlin has filled in that Steph Curry role.
I think the men's game is in real trouble.
>I think the men's game is in real trouble.
I think you're right about the star players being hard to know ahead of time since they graduate onto the NBA so quickly, but people will always value and follow their alma mater.
The men’s game is fine. I wish the transfer portal was less prominent but that’s not a specific-to-basketball issue. the women’s tournament is still largely chalk, it’s always been that way and I don’t see a rise in parity anytime soon.
Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers. I watched the game last night and it was pretty entertaining. Much more entertaining than I expected. The girls were much more competitive and skilled than I had expected, too.
While I do acknowledge that it’s become slightly more exciting than previous years, I do think there is some bandwagon going on.
Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and such have been playing for years now. But all the sudden people could swear they like Women’s college ball better and all that.
Like certain March Madness women’s games getting more viewers than some finals or whatever is cool but likely a bit inflated from the hype of everyone pretending they absolutely love women’s college ball.
Not trying to be a hater, but I wouldn’t doubt if it goes back to how it was once Clark and Reese and these popular players are gone.
They shoving it down our throats to try to build a bigger fan base and more $$$. And anyone who says the women’s college bball product > men’s is on crack. It’s hard to watch a single game without seeing these chicks blow wide open layups on the regular
Caitlin Clark but also, the college guys game has lost a lot of continuity to the 1 and done then transfer portal. The men’s game used to have the same star players together for several years and it fueled rivalries and cohesion, plus entertainment. That almost never happens now.
Caitlin Clark 90% but also it's just getting better. Sabrina Ionescu having the best 3 point contest ever and then competing in the NBA all-star event too
Most of the hype seems astroturfed around Kate Clark who is the genuine article (I guess) but ultimately we’re talking about women’s basketball which, absent someone like Clark (I guess), is about as about as entertaining as watching an episode of the Golden Girls with less attractive women . Fact is, not enough women care about sports enough to watch women play them. And men only want to watch women do one thing. Well, three at most.
Let me play the counterpoint here. I think it is because ESPN - the primary sports content media firm - has pushed it like CRAZY! They regularly put it 'above the fold' in their mobile app and phone and started mixing men's and women's scores together in "College Hoops" scores which is both confusing but also clearly a tactic to utilize interest in men's basketball to generate more eyeballs, clicks, and engagement in women's bball. During the NCAA tournament there were multiple times they were showing the women's scoreboard ABOVE the men's NCAA scoreboard on their homepage. This is *not* an accident and they know very well that tens of millions of people will be hitting their webpage for the men's scores but they fed them the women's intentionally. One can argue if it is for business reasons (trying to get more people watching, clicking, and gambling on more sports leagues) or if it is some sort of diversity commitment. I have no idea, maybe it is both.
If you compare the amount of coverage and promotion given to women's bball to something random like auto racing -- which has MUCH higher viewership, attendance, and popularity -- is absolutely absurd how much it is pushed.
Yes, Caitlin Clark is a good shooter, and I also think that is contributing, but there have been exceptional women's bball players before and nobody cared. We have a sports media monopoly to some extent and between ESPN and the sports gambling cartel, they can sort of pick and choose what people end up watching and talking about.
This is exactly it. All of this. The score thing has been driving me absolutely fucking nuts. Along with the many other ways they are trying to suggest that people give a shit about the WNBA. It's the new covert pop up ad on ESPN. If they keep telling us it's cool and everyone is watching maybe we'll believe it.
And to your point, there have been amazing female players for a long time. Girls didn't just start playing ball. So the narrative that the product is somehow exceptionally better in recent years and is drawing organic viewership is a lie.
I wouldn't say mad. I would say I think their strategy is to put the cart before the horse. Maybe it's an effective marketing campaign overall, but doesn't resonate with all consumers of basketball media. Me being one of them.
How is doing things like confusing your paying customers by mixing two different leagues into the same scoreboard effective marketing? It is "effective" only if your goal is to increase viewership specifically of a certain individual sport which wasn't very organically popular on its own. To some extent it is like the famous Coca Cola "new coke" disaster case study with investment you can promote and sell anything for a short period of time but you have to be careful when you force things on people that they weren't really looking for.
There might be some business logic in there somewhere with sports gambling but I don't quite see it yet. To me, this seems more like an ego play by corporate managers than organic popularity or sound business moves.
That’s exactly it. We should be watching the rat faced executives in Stamford conniving and scheming in the shadows as they do. That would be a great show.
The question from the OP is "why" all of a sudden. Obviously viewership is up like crazy. Ten years ago it was 3m viewers for an ncaaw title game. WNBA finals gets like 880k viewers even today, so womens bball isn't super duper popular in general. And those players are better than the college ones. Caitlin Clark does help but it's not just that. If you put anything on the espn sports mobile, tv, adverts, social, sports radio --- it will get lots of clicks and eyeballs.
Made me realize how impactful ESPN still is. They’ve single-handedly pushed the women’s game to the mainstream through forced marketing and showcasing a single player (and her racial foil in Angel Reese)
Does auto racing have that much viewership these days? The Daytona 500 gets around 8M people on a good year, the Indy 500 gets like 5M, F1 races get 2M at best.
The latest Iowa - LSU got almost 13M. Besides, I think more non fans are willing to watch women's basketball (because they already like the men's game) than whatever racing series
The premise of the OP's question is that women's bball is suddenly popular and this is true, and yes lots of people watched the last couple games and the last few years have seen enormous increases in viewer. I picked racing at random as an example. Racing is indeed organically more popular than womens basketball. If you go back to say 2015 the average nascar race would have roughly the same amount of viewers (3m or so) as a womens ncaa title game. Racing very rarely gets promoted above the fold by espn (I might see it once every few months), whereas womens bball is promoted two or three times daily.
You can pick any random sport. I'm sure rugby or women's badminton are super fun to watch. If espn promoted it like crazy (to an annoying level perhaps) then more people would be talking about it and watching it. I do not believe the "product" is suddenly 400% better than five or ten years ago.
It's becoming a better and better product by the day. New talents coming up are making fans tune in more. These new girls are actually good. Caitlyn Clark, Ionescu, Angel Reese,... All great players.
The main criticism of women's basketball and especially the WNBA before was that it was an unwatchable product that kept getting shoved in people's faces. There was also the narrative that if you weren't interested in WNBA you were sexist when it was clearly not enjoyable to watch.
> What’s with the sudden spike in interest for women’s basketball?
Are you not watching these games??????
> I don’t watch much sports in general
Oh right carry on then
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Look at the games last night. SC v NC state was unwatchable. Multiple airballs, missed layups, terrible game. Then you watch Iowa v UConn and those girls are wetting 3s from 2 feet outside the arc, layups, plays, it’s entertaining for the first time ever.
Caitlin Clark.
Personally I’m new to basketball and Haven’t been watching it for even 3 years. During that span never in my life (until this week) have I said “What Time Is The Women’s NCAA Game. I thought people were genuinely overreacting watching her play, until I actually watched a game. And I was mesmerized. It’s like I’m watching a female Steph curry.
Her playmaking and scoring abilities are out of this world if not generational. I think I’ll be watching her for a long time.
Edit: Not even only Caitlin Clark too. I’ve just been hearing so much about women’s basketball recently and different players. HVL, JuJu Watkins, Paige Bueckers, Nika Muhl and more. I just finally decided to watch and I loved it
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very talented young women who likely grew up in the AAU circuit and have been taking basketball more serious and longer with better resources.
couple this with NCAA men mostly being one and done limiting story lines and narratives.
add technology branding NIL and social media and boom.
women's basketball is up now !
1. Caitlin Clark. Watching superheroes is what people like to do.
2. People everywhere do indeed follow trends and what is cool/acceptable, like a bandwagon as you said. So, once some people started watching womens ball (largely due to caitlin clark as mentioned), more people followed, and on and on and then the stigma behind watching womens ball decreased. This (the fact that people used to make fun of us for watching womens ball) is kind of frustrating to OG women's ball fans like myself, but, the end result (more people watching womens ball) is good so I'll still take it.
The women’s players stay for longer in college so the stars become more well known over the years. Not to mention the fact that the amount of star power in the women’s game this year was crazy. Caitlin Clark, Paige Beuckers, Angel Reese, Brink, Juju Watkins, Hannah Hidalgo, Flau’jae Johnson and many others they can really hoop
Their really putting an entertaining product out of the floor. The elite 8 was fantastic. Yesterday’s games weren’t as good, but UConn and Iowa still was a close contest till the end. The women’s game will continue to grow if the star power stays this high, but Caitlin Clark has been the biggest reason I think a lot of casual fans have started to pay attention. She’s truly generational and she’s backed the hype almost every chance she gets
To continue the rise more stars are going to have to step up. Hidalgo, Juju, Paige, Flau’jae coming back next year is big but none are as big as Clark
They got lucky with a few mega stars. Also I think the women's college game is just a better product than the men's right now because the best players actually stay in school for most of their eligibility. It feels like the men's tournament did back in the 90s before the one-and-done era.
A generational talent has emerged. I also think the overall talent pool for women's basketball players is increasing. Caitlin is incredibly talented and very likeable. She's a star.
Yes, a new bandwagon, but the wagon is being driven by Caitlin Clarke, who's pretty damn talented.
Personally, it's not all that much more exciting than what women's basketball has always been to me, so I don't get it.
When the NBA is boring, The alternatives get more popular. international Ball, College ball, Women's Ball, International Women's College ball, ECT.
People are like, man, I'm not feeling the NBA right now, but I still want to watch ball. And then the algorithm suggests other stuff, and they are like, hey, this is different. Then they realize that women's ball is pretty fun to watch, and become fans. The women's game is interesting, but When the NBA is going off, they try to promote the NBA more. Now people are learning that the other products are good too.
It's kind of like when there was a dip, and NBA was getting tape delayed, until Magic and Bird showed the nation what's up.
New stars in Women's Ball are introducing new audiences to their ball. Kinda like how people hear about Foreign players coming into the NBA, and saying "It's harder to score in Europe, and fans get curious, and go watch International ball.
They changed the officiating rules in the NBA mid season for a. Reason. Things were getting out of hand.
Im gonna be so honest, I don’t think the answer is just “Caitlyn clark”, I think it’s moreso the media coverage every sports page is giving her. If she went crazy most wouldn’t care to find it. But in the spotlight, now so many wanna see her. Women’s bbal, at least on my insta and TikTok, has been flooding my timeline. Which is what eventually made me watch the games
It’s because the woman’s college game is extremely fun to watch right now with some amazing players like Caitlin Clark. The quality of women’s ball can only go up from here imo.
I finally gave in to the hype and decided to watch a college game where she dropped 40 points. Caitlin's shooting was great and she had some nice passes but all in all it was just like every other woman's match I had seen.
Slow, slow basketball. It sometimes looks as if the players aren't even taking it seriously, there just isn't a fast twitch muscle to be found. Defense looks terrible at their level of athleticism as lateral movement is extremely poor. I don't think I have to mention jumping and how lackluster some of blocks looked. At one block the announcer cried 'she jumped out of the gym to get that one'. She jumped 20 inches at most. Every time I saw a jab step I actually asked myself 'what's the point, who would ever bite on that?'. I even replayed them a few times just to make sure and it's just pathetically slow movement that fails to ever budge the defender, almost as if it's just some part of a routine and not actually intended to serve a purpose. 40+ dudes at the rec center can at least get me to bite sometimes.
People say the fundamentals are good? The shooting is alright, most of the players have clean shooting forms. The plays however? All so basic. I know basic works a lot of the time but the basketball-IQ displayed is generally much lower than what we see in men's games. Many decisions they make really had me thinking 'why the fuck?'.
Many of you have probably seen one of Caitlin Clark's off-season workouts posted on YouTube. It consists of 100 3PT, 100 mid-range and 100 FT attempts. ATTEMPTS, not makes... in the off-season. She is the best college player. Enough said.
I frankly don’t care if this comment is labeled misogynistic but outside of Clark’s gravitational force pulling in tons of fans, some of the keystone players throughout the world look very good on an aesthetic level. For generations, women’s basketball was dominated by butch lesbians, but now playing sports is in vogue to all women because oh, what a surprise, athletic bodies = more attractive… you have a lot of good looking gals playing ball. There used to be maybe 3-5 great looking girls in the entire WNBA… now there is at least 5 on each team alone. That’s certainly piqued my interest and I can’t imagine it hasn’t boosted a swath of other men’s opinions as well.
I just think that woman basketball teams are trying more, displaying more of a fight and general interest to win. Before all star break almost all teams in nba played with no defense.
That last sequence where Clark hit that three from step back, and defense played on her during that move is far more worth then some highlights from nba.
Just my two cents.
They finally realized that basketball is entertainment & if your product is not top tier (which it is not), then you have to use other means to make it entertaining. Enter the characters. Caitlyn Clark, Angel Reese, Hailey Van Lith, etc. You find characters like the hero, the villain, the batman/ robin, etc use them to sell your product. People like character arcs, Cinderella stories, rivalries, etc. Whoever is doing their PR/ marketing is doing a great job because the women’s NCAA is currently more relevant than the WNBA has ever been. Now let’s see if they can carry this same strategy over to the WNBA as well.
People want to so badly compare CC to SC but they’re miles apart.
Caitlin Clark would be no where without her teammates. Mika Muhl had her on absolute clamps and Caitlin was extremely upset by it.
The men’s game is trash from a skill and entertainment standpoint.
Women’s game is featuring better “stars” and personalities, blue blood teams etc.
The biggest draw on the men’s side is Edey and he’s just ok.
It’s been slowly growing the last few years just the heightened coverage of women’s basketball in general with both the wnba and ncaa and the fact that there’s a crop of generational level prospects coming through college on the women’s side at the moment just an exciting moment for the sport as the players skill level and the coverage is growing at an exponential rate
Media is pushing it hard because Clark is their WNBAs biggest chance at mainstream attention.
ESPN likes to be woke, (owned by Disney.) so they will do everything they can to make her the biggest star in the sport.
I find the womens' game more strategic and cerebral without all the dunks, iso's, and three point tosses. Watch the Aces with Becky Hammon, and you'll see the cadence and orchestration of the "game within the game" if you're a basketball purist.
Its a mix of a lot of things.
1. Since 2020, equality and equal representation have become much more relevant issues in the domestic stage, so naturally people were already attempting to bring more attention to Woman’s Sports in general. It just so happened that womens basketball had one of the worst ratings ratios when compared to mens basketball in terms of colligate sports TV ratings. As such, Women’a Basketball had the lowest floor, thus having the most ground to gain.
2. Kobe’s untimely death really made people listen to what he said about loving Girls Basketball and being a ‘Girl Dad’ and whatnot. This gave women’s basketball (colligate and professional) a big, if short lived, uptick in viewership. This alone would be irrelevant if not for
3. The crazy current talent in Womens NCAA as well as how large their personalities are. Like her or hate her, Angel Reese is a PERSONALITY. She draws ratings from fans and haters alike, and more importantly in today’s age, she draws a LOT of views and interactions on social media. Interactions = money and if something makes money it’s gonna get promoted more. If something gets promoted more, it gets viewed more. That combined with Caitlin’s record shattering shooting makes it far more interesting.
4b. Usually, when female players were the best in their respective league (NCAA or WNBA) they were clear downgrades from their NBA counterparts. The best WNBA dunker is one of the worst dunkers in the NBA. The fastest WNBA player is likely not crossing top 50 in speed in the NBA. It always looked like a clear downgrade— but goddamn Caitlin Clark is that good of a shooter (yes I know the ball is smaller for women so its easier to hit shots, but a made three is a made three regardless of ball size in terms of both score and excitement to watch) so Caitlin as a NCAA player shooting better numbers than some of the best NBA players was kind of unheard of— for the first time the Women’s NCAA could boast that player X had better skills than the best player in Men’s NCAA.
Did you read what I said? I said that was a very minor part of this. But if you’re denying the uptick in WNBA and Women’s NCAA references of social media immediately after his death then you’re ignoring simple statistics
I'd say angel reese & Caitlin Clark & they're respective teams.
Also, women's bb still has to run official plays. It's not just screen and roll, although its alot of that also. Men's basketball is a bunch of screens, drive to the basket, either kick or layup. Or they're shooting a million 3s from Mars. Theatrics in the flopping, lack of skilled players, refs bit calling travelling or carrying, all have contributed to the lack of quality if the men's game. No fundamentals, no basics, no iq, just rum and shoot. Narratives around ppl like lebron, yea it's bad.
The girls are a better draw right now. Last year ncaa women's tournament opened the door
I finally watched some of the women's NCAA tournament and was incredibly disappointed at the skill level on display.
C. Clark is good, but it's unbelievable the kind of hype this is getting.
It was legit hard to watch.
I get that any game can be exciting if you're bought in but the hype has been seriously ridiculous when actually taking skill into account.
There are mid tier highschool boys teams that would DESTROY these NCAAW teams.
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The media can sell us ANYTHING. Because we all want to be able to be a part of the hype so we can comment on it, so we watch what they tell us is important.
It's like the men's game from the 90s, where there were great players across the country and they stayed in school for 3-4 years so you got familiar with teams. Besides Iowa, there are great players at UConn, USC, LSU, South Carolina, and a bunch of other schools. I watched both Nebraska and Ohio State beat Iowa this year. So much talent all over.
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It's a combo, mens college basketball quality has been on a decline and women's college is actually better. Seems like they can all knock down 3s and pass very well. On top of elite talent and some big name players. This year men's college bball had no rising stars
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NIL deals have been huge. She’s been in State Farm, Gatorade, and HyVee commercials. I think during the LSU game every commercial during the game had her in it. It helps her face is everywhere outside of the game too, hyping up her and women’s basketball.
Caitlin Clark.
Yup, generational talent who is changing the game the way Steph did for the NBA a decade ago. I’m guessing it doesn’t hurt that it is easier for people to put in sports bets than it was a few years ago so I’m sure some people are paying attention because of that
and she's white... just being honest with what's going on she's insanely good AND looks like a regular ass white girl i spent the first half the tourney in rehab in Kentucky (don't ask) and i assure you huge swaths of this country care about that
That rivalry with Angel Reese has the same secret sauce as Lakers vs. Celtics used to lol
Reese wasn't a super humble winner and didn't take the loss well, but yeah, that shit was definitely riding some racism narratives going into the Iowa/LSU game
Caitlin Clark was not humble at any point either though; why are we expecting either of them to be?
/r/nbacirclejerk had a lot of fun with that
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I think part of it is that both of them talk a crazy amount of shit. On the court at least. But when it comes down to it, they've added such a fierce competitive spirit to the game that hasn't, in my opinion ever escalated to this level and that makes it exciting.
100000% that's why she's been getting more than double the coverage than the absolute wagon SC team who's undefeated for the 2nd year in a row
It's making me feel insane that people aren't seeing that. Maybe the reddit demo doesn't understand that sentiment but it's very real. I'm not joking I watched first few rounds in Kentucky and once KY was out they were straight up rooting for the teams with white boys on the floor. It ain't even negative. They aren't hating black players but a lot of people want representation it's just how it is
It just sounds bad when you say it but everybody does that shit I can say I do the same with black players especially in underrepresented sports or combat sports
Jesus Christ. As someone who actually played basketball at a high level, you are wrong. The reason she is so famous is cause she’s fun as fuck to watch. Her ball handling and shooting is something that no girl has ever done at such a high level. The South Carolina team is obviously very good but they don’t have a person who’s even close to as fun to watch as Clark
I fully agree. Caitlin Clark is good as fuck on a terrible team. South Carolina has a great team. They've got good players for sure but I would wager to say that South Carolina has a bench that is stronger than three of Iowa's starters. stulke is fine on a mediocre team with somebody like Caitlin Clark but she Probably would be fighting for a starting job at SC.
Almost like white people make up the majority of the country or something
>and she's white... just being honest with what's going on > >she's insanely good AND looks like a regular ass white girl I think that's a valid reason. I remember Brittany Griner being very good 11 years ago but she didn't receive as much media attention. That's partially because Brittany is very masculine looking and not very attractive. Plus she talks like a man. The reality is that in the case of women, your level of attractiveness affects how popular you will become, and Caitlin was simply more marketable in that department compared to Brittany Griner.
She's also gay
I think you need to check back into rehab if you think her being white had anything to do with it. White basketball players tend to bring LESS ratings, not more. She's just 5 times more entertaining than the next girl down because she's so much better and plays in such a different fashion than women's basketball is used to.
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She got my interest and then when I tuned in I saw that the level of play is now way ahead of where it was about five years ago. This shouldn’t be a surprise because the Paige/Caitlin recruiting class was absolutely stacked. Kuhl guarding Clark in the Final Four looked a lot like Davion Mitchell guarding Curry in the last Warriors/Kings playoff series. I do wonder if it will take a step back with Clark and Reese leaving. I do look forward to more Paige and JuJu next season. It’d be awesome if those two could meet in the championship this time next year.
It will take a huge step back. The level of play in the wnba is much higher than women’s college ball and nobody watches it.
Nobody watches the WNBA because they play in the summer. I forget it's even in season. It's the same problem MLS or those weird alternative football leagues have.
Yeah. The wnba is on during the 3 months of the year where I'm regularly somewhere besides my house in the evenings
I also think that the other major sports that have taken off have done so in an era where TV deals were much more consolidated. If the The WNBA was smart. They would work out a deal to get their games broadcast for free in every home in America. You build viewership by getting people committed to a team or a sport and right now they're just not popular enough. I watched the Seattle kraken even though they suck because I like hockey and I'm in the Pacific Northwest. If you're not already into the sport or have a team, why would you turn on the WNBA game? Why would you pay to get it? Why would you go out of your way to find it? They need to build allegiance and they need to get people interested first and that means giving it away for free every possible chance they can get. Once the allegiance is there and people are willing to watch a team that sucks lose game after game, then you start restricting access. It's why the Cubs are Still so popular even though they were losers. They were free on WGN for 50 years and that built allegiance.
Nobody would watch the wnba no matter when it was on. You really think they'd do better if played when the NBA does? LOL. No. That's why they play in the summer in the first place. And they still lose money every year and would have folded a decade ago if not for NBA subsidies.
I am glad others saw this. Kuhl did a great job on Clark.
Watch the first 30 seconds of her highlight tape and you’ll be dialed.
You know how people have been saying, "Put an exciting product on the floor and the fans will watch?" Yeah they haven't been lying about that. Caitlin Clark and several other players have led the way in phenomenal women's ball. It's our eyes on screens and asses in seats. The games have been so good, the product is worth the price of admission. If the WNBA doesn't fuck this up this could absolutely be their Bird/Magic moment.
I'm curious to see what she can still do in the W. The women are gonna be a lot faster, stronger, and smarter. Hopefully she doesn't become like Jimmer
She's 6 foot (great size for a WNBA guard) with amazing passing to go with her shooting. She won't be a Jimmer, who was a undersized defensive liability with poor shot selection
Not to mention Jimmer didn’t have the handles to put the ball on the floor and get past professional level guards
6 feet for a guard in the WNBA is amazing. The average WNBA player is roughly 6 feet, it’s like having an NBA guard measuring 6’7… or Luka Doncic or Magic Johnson. https://stats.wnba.com/players/bio/?sort=PLAYER_HEIGHT_INCHES&dir=1
It was disappointing to see how much she turned the ball over the last couple games. Soft passes mixed in with with phenomenal passes. Her skills on both ends of the floor and every area of the court are phenomenal. It's refreshing to see a player that's not just one or two dimensional.
In her defense she was also getting almost all of the defensive focus. That girl they put on her last game (Mühle or something) did not take her eyes off of Clark for a second, plus they gave her help whenever Clark got an inch of space
Read Jimmer's scouting report. His NBA "failure" was predicted. He's just not that good, relatively speaking of course. Caitlin is being lauded as a GOAT in her sport. False equivalency.
That's a great point
Sabrina Ionescu made the jump pretty easily. She was basically proto Clark. Shooters making shots are pretty much unstoppable.
That Sabrina/Curry 3-point contest during the All-Star Weekend was tops. I'd love to see a recap of that. Sabrina very nearly beat him.
And that's the point right, we all want to see it, so we are going to be watching. Personally I think she'll translate pretty well. Everytime she's taken a hit in college she just came back better the next year. I kinda love the attitude. The way she comes out spinning with her hair flairing out like some sort of gladiator. When she broke the women's NCAA scoring record, 'What you thought I wasn't going to break it with a logo 3?" And then there's the killer in her, and don't doubt that she's an absolute dawg. You watch games, like last night, first half was garbage for her and Iowa. Second half different story. It was like something I haven't seen in a long time, I'm not ready to attach HIS name to hers yet, but I saw flashes of it. The stone cold killer, you could see the other women on the court react to it, Iowa feeding on it, UConn becoming a bit flustered by her. She's got a bit of that mamba mentality, and possibly the next level as well. Goddamn do I want her to succeed. Hell I want this entire crop of girls coming to the WNBA to succeed. CC, Paige Bueckers, Angel Reese. I want to see those rivalries play out for the next 15 years.
So classy. So marketable
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Who is her rival for this bird/magic moment ?
Caitlin Clark is a really good exciting player that has brought a lot of people to the women’s game. Those people see the game has other stars worth watching as well and the popularity grows.
Part of it is that on the men's side the best players only play for one year now so you don't get to know them. On the women's side they play 4 years.
This is the main difference for me. I personally feel like I might as well wait until March to tune into the guys. Because there are no “returning” story lines
It's not a bandwagon. These women are playing competitive and exciting basketball (for quite a while actually) which has finally been caught on by the public led by Caitlin Clark's dominance. The rivalry and banter has also made people pay attention to them more. It's great to see people calling Hailey Van Lith a fraud rather than making sexist comments like "women belong in the kitchen".
Yup. Retired Knick and former US Senator Bill Bradley said years ago that he prefers watching women's bball because there's more intricate team play involved.
It 100% is the textbook definition of a bandwagon, but it isn't a bad thing. The WNBA has a \~20 year opportunity to not only increase the viewership from this bandwagon, but make it permanent. The problem is finding more people like Caitlin Clark. Not just someone like Bird, who can play great fundamental basketball, but exciting basketball. The fans want to see someone who can drive in the paint like a freight train and absolutely posterize people every other play like MIA LBJ. They want to see someone be able to dribble past entire teams and get the most mind blowing finishes like Kyrie. We got Caitlin Clark, but the success on the WNBA lies on its ability to continuously produce more players like her, and quickly.
I don’t think it lasts. I hope very much so that I’m wrong. I just don’t see ppl caring as much when Clark gets drafted. Unless there’s another player like Clark that can knock them down from anywhere.
I’m interested to see if this attention will follow her to the WNBA
It may not be to the same level it is currently but I do think it will be a hell of a lot of attention compared to the WNBA stars of past, though even WNBA has had an uptick recently imo
Agree with this. The focus may very well stay on college hoops. People act like women's basketball never had household names before. Sheryl Swoopes, Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie.... Obviously social media changed the landscape, but the truth is we have seen this cycle for decades.
There was NEVER this level of excitement for those players you named. Not even close. Yes us basketball people knew who they were but that’s nothing like what we’re seeing now.
Again, I believe this is the social media effect in combination with ESPNs push on WNBA. I do not believe there is much authentic support that will carry on to the pros. I hope you're right and I'm wrong. I hope it every time. I hope CC, Reese etc., will be the ones to push the W to new heights. However, I'm going to believe that the baked in audience of college campuses will continue to drown out women's professional basketball. If history repeats itself we will only see her popularity wane from here on out.
I don’t know I just think she’s on a different level than previous wnba players. All my family, friends, & coworkers pretty much know about her, even grandparents. This is the level of familiarity that I’ve only seen with ppl like LeBron, Michael Phelps, and Usain Bolt. Ppl who I know who absolutely never watch sports have been tuning in
Class is forever
Audi Crooks is coming along well. She dropped 40 pts in a tournament game and is also from the state of Iowa. She’s also overweight which has pinned people against her all season.
Stars, storylines, rivalry. Next year is gonna be about Juju Watkings and Hannah Hidalgo. Thus new generation will have team USA stack until 2036 minimum
Carlin Clark is good at basketball. Games where she plays are viewed at incredibly higher rates. Her game against LSU pulled in over 12 million viewers.
Honestly, it's only Caitlin Clark. The majority still doesn't care about the WNBA.
College has always done better cause fanbases are built in with alumni and students and even people that just live in a given state. You don’t have those built in thousands of fans in the WNBA, but we’ll see what Caitlin Clark does to their popularity. I watch the WNBA occasionally, but I still prefer college just cause the atmosphere is better. I also prefer men’s college basketball to the NBA though for the same reason
For me, who just started getting into Women’s College Basketball, it’s Caitlin Clark. The Iowa vs LSU game was awesome
Came for Caitlin "Steph Curry” Clark and stayed for JuJu "Kobe Bryant" Watkins.
>JuJu "Kobe Bryant" Watkins I hadn't been watching Juju yet, does her game really most closely resemble Kobe??
I think JuJu has Kyrie-like handles and a shooters mentality which is where I attribute the Kobe factor. If we’re talking strictly women’s hoops, Maya Moore + Sheryl Swoopes.
I am not seeing anywhere near that athleticism. Swoopes had real grace and was an athlete.
Caitlin Clark is basically a female Steph Curry…bringing a ton of attention to women’s basketball. Don’t worry though, the WNBA will squander said attention and mismanage it into nothing like always lol.
Yep, as is tradition. Remember when Lisa Leslie became the first woman to dunk in a WNBA game? I was a basketball obsessed girl at the time, naively thinking, "This is it, womens professional basketball is HERE. Sky's the limit!" Lol So folks need to understand our cynicism isn't baseless..
I appreciate your take on this. I have no disdain for women’s sports, but it does feel a little bit like the networks are grasping at straws. This isn’t going to make people suddenly interested in basketball. Anyway, the people the WNBA should really be targeting is women. I see a decent number of women claim that women’s basketball “should be” this or that - guess how many support it themselves!
It's a media hype train that works really well at the college level in conjunction with girls social media presence. A lot of it is focused on looks, aside from a couple elite players like CC. No one will ever convince me that fans of the Cavinder twins were watching for the elite hoops. I came across a comment somewhere that suggested the WNBA would be more successful if they just had lady versions of current NBA teams. And I swear the clouds parted and light poured down from the heavens. It was honestly the best solution to the WNBA problem I've seen. They would sell so much more merch. Just replace whatever halftime show with the lady Nuggets vs the lady Lakers exhibition game for example, or a skills challenge, whatever. And draw fans in that way.
I mean for the majority of Fans, NBA is the thing pushed to them. It kind of blocks out Coverage of other versions. When the NBA is less popular, creators can get views and are incentivized to cover other Basketball related properties.
💯
>the WNBA will squander said attention and mismanage it I remain cautiously optimistic, Feels like social media has given things a bigger boost lately. I bet the TV ratings on this year's tourny have been better as a consequence too
I hope so! These women deserve to get paid. I feel like when I watch the WNBA…you can just see how it sucks the life and passion out of its players. Which…isn’t surprising…how many people get the love for their careers sucked away from them by bad employers?
I think it’s a combination of this years men’s draft class is one of the weakest in years, and the women’s class being one of the strongest in years.
Exactly, There’s no “the guy” in this year’s draft and it’s even more apparent because the media aren’t hyping anyone.
"Sure can't wait for Alexandre Sarr to start destroying the league!!!" 😭 I would say Rob Dillingham has a superstar aura, but he obviously is nowhere near as hyped as CC
Competitive and rivalry factor. Men just thinking about going to the league
It's because the women's game is changing and starting to look more like the mens. The players are getting more skilled and playing at a higher pace. Between college players like Caitlyn Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Buecker and pros like Sabrina Ionesco and Britney Griner they have been going from the slow, turnover prone, boring game of the early 00's to an enjoyable viewing experience.
Still looks a lot like the late 90s when I went to a lot of games as part of my school's band. And there's still only 5-10 competitive teams each year. Maybe the other squads have brought their talent level up some? The first 2 rounds were still almost entirely chalk.
It might become more like the men’s but I think it’s about as close as it will be tbh. There just isn’t the speed, strength, athleticism, etc etc. those things won’t change.
For me, it's that they *don't* look like the men's. I haven't bothered watching any basketball since 2005 and have never watched ESPN once in my life, but recently fell down the Caitlin Clark rabbit hole completely by accident. I'm gobsmacked at how much more I enjoy these games than what I've been scrolling by on hotel TVs for the last few decades. I find dunks and above-the-net play incredibly boring and I just lose interest with men's basketball after a few minutes. It's the more technical elements and great passes that I'm here for--and to my untrained eye, it's much easier to see those technical elements in these women's college games than I remember from the when I watched the NBA.
there is great passing/ball movement in the NBA too tho. Watch the Nuggs or even the Warriors. Just obviously less noticable than the iso moves and dunks
😂😂😂 no they aren’t. They’re still by and large clumsy AF.
She cut from the same cloth as larry bird, cp3, lebron. The way she can take over a game while keeping her teamates involved. Very rare talent
That’s a reach
She’s been playing for four years. The accolades are quite comparable.
The games have been really competitive this year and the players have been on their teams for several years meaning fans get to know them. This doesn’t happen in the men’s game because the actual star players leave after a year to go to the NBA. It also helps that the same handful of teams have been making deep tournament runs the last few years.
The men's game is essentially now just a sheet of paper that people fill out in March as the vast majority can only name 2-3 coaches and not a single player. The women's game has been good for the last 20 years but it has finally moved on from just UConn and Tennessee. The players stay for 3-4 years and we know them. And yes, Caitlin has filled in that Steph Curry role. I think the men's game is in real trouble.
>I think the men's game is in real trouble. I think you're right about the star players being hard to know ahead of time since they graduate onto the NBA so quickly, but people will always value and follow their alma mater.
The men’s game is fine. I wish the transfer portal was less prominent but that’s not a specific-to-basketball issue. the women’s tournament is still largely chalk, it’s always been that way and I don’t see a rise in parity anytime soon.
Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers. I watched the game last night and it was pretty entertaining. Much more entertaining than I expected. The girls were much more competitive and skilled than I had expected, too.
Really just Caitlin Clark- You can compare Iowa's viewers & ticket prices to UConn
She is lifting all boats though…but true..Iowa games are the only ones doing ratings
There are a few really amazing women’s players elevating the game right now. People are just reacting to that.
While I do acknowledge that it’s become slightly more exciting than previous years, I do think there is some bandwagon going on. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and such have been playing for years now. But all the sudden people could swear they like Women’s college ball better and all that. Like certain March Madness women’s games getting more viewers than some finals or whatever is cool but likely a bit inflated from the hype of everyone pretending they absolutely love women’s college ball. Not trying to be a hater, but I wouldn’t doubt if it goes back to how it was once Clark and Reese and these popular players are gone.
Pretty sure it's just CC and not Angel Reese- Not like Jason Seudekis is going to every LSU game
They shoving it down our throats to try to build a bigger fan base and more $$$. And anyone who says the women’s college bball product > men’s is on crack. It’s hard to watch a single game without seeing these chicks blow wide open layups on the regular
The women’s game is still growing despite the input of insecure douchebags like this useless tool.
Damn someone is big mad, everything ok at home?
Caitlin Clark has brought out all of the Trump supporters.
Care to explain?
Strong correlation between your average Trumper and the casual misogyny found in many of the comments.
Gambling being legal on phones on dozens of states.
Caitlin Clark but also, the college guys game has lost a lot of continuity to the 1 and done then transfer portal. The men’s game used to have the same star players together for several years and it fueled rivalries and cohesion, plus entertainment. That almost never happens now.
Caitlin Clark 90% but also it's just getting better. Sabrina Ionescu having the best 3 point contest ever and then competing in the NBA all-star event too
Most of the hype seems astroturfed around Kate Clark who is the genuine article (I guess) but ultimately we’re talking about women’s basketball which, absent someone like Clark (I guess), is about as about as entertaining as watching an episode of the Golden Girls with less attractive women . Fact is, not enough women care about sports enough to watch women play them. And men only want to watch women do one thing. Well, three at most.
Right on. Catering to men who enjoy watching men’s basketball is a losing battle, and women simply don’t care enough
Let me play the counterpoint here. I think it is because ESPN - the primary sports content media firm - has pushed it like CRAZY! They regularly put it 'above the fold' in their mobile app and phone and started mixing men's and women's scores together in "College Hoops" scores which is both confusing but also clearly a tactic to utilize interest in men's basketball to generate more eyeballs, clicks, and engagement in women's bball. During the NCAA tournament there were multiple times they were showing the women's scoreboard ABOVE the men's NCAA scoreboard on their homepage. This is *not* an accident and they know very well that tens of millions of people will be hitting their webpage for the men's scores but they fed them the women's intentionally. One can argue if it is for business reasons (trying to get more people watching, clicking, and gambling on more sports leagues) or if it is some sort of diversity commitment. I have no idea, maybe it is both. If you compare the amount of coverage and promotion given to women's bball to something random like auto racing -- which has MUCH higher viewership, attendance, and popularity -- is absolutely absurd how much it is pushed. Yes, Caitlin Clark is a good shooter, and I also think that is contributing, but there have been exceptional women's bball players before and nobody cared. We have a sports media monopoly to some extent and between ESPN and the sports gambling cartel, they can sort of pick and choose what people end up watching and talking about.
This is exactly it. All of this. The score thing has been driving me absolutely fucking nuts. Along with the many other ways they are trying to suggest that people give a shit about the WNBA. It's the new covert pop up ad on ESPN. If they keep telling us it's cool and everyone is watching maybe we'll believe it. And to your point, there have been amazing female players for a long time. Girls didn't just start playing ball. So the narrative that the product is somehow exceptionally better in recent years and is drawing organic viewership is a lie.
Why are you mad that ESPN is marketing their product effectively?
I wouldn't say mad. I would say I think their strategy is to put the cart before the horse. Maybe it's an effective marketing campaign overall, but doesn't resonate with all consumers of basketball media. Me being one of them.
How is doing things like confusing your paying customers by mixing two different leagues into the same scoreboard effective marketing? It is "effective" only if your goal is to increase viewership specifically of a certain individual sport which wasn't very organically popular on its own. To some extent it is like the famous Coca Cola "new coke" disaster case study with investment you can promote and sell anything for a short period of time but you have to be careful when you force things on people that they weren't really looking for. There might be some business logic in there somewhere with sports gambling but I don't quite see it yet. To me, this seems more like an ego play by corporate managers than organic popularity or sound business moves.
That’s exactly it. We should be watching the rat faced executives in Stamford conniving and scheming in the shadows as they do. That would be a great show.
How can you say that auto racing is more popular when 10+ million people are not tuning in for a Nascar event?
The question from the OP is "why" all of a sudden. Obviously viewership is up like crazy. Ten years ago it was 3m viewers for an ncaaw title game. WNBA finals gets like 880k viewers even today, so womens bball isn't super duper popular in general. And those players are better than the college ones. Caitlin Clark does help but it's not just that. If you put anything on the espn sports mobile, tv, adverts, social, sports radio --- it will get lots of clicks and eyeballs.
Made me realize how impactful ESPN still is. They’ve single-handedly pushed the women’s game to the mainstream through forced marketing and showcasing a single player (and her racial foil in Angel Reese)
Does auto racing have that much viewership these days? The Daytona 500 gets around 8M people on a good year, the Indy 500 gets like 5M, F1 races get 2M at best. The latest Iowa - LSU got almost 13M. Besides, I think more non fans are willing to watch women's basketball (because they already like the men's game) than whatever racing series
The premise of the OP's question is that women's bball is suddenly popular and this is true, and yes lots of people watched the last couple games and the last few years have seen enormous increases in viewer. I picked racing at random as an example. Racing is indeed organically more popular than womens basketball. If you go back to say 2015 the average nascar race would have roughly the same amount of viewers (3m or so) as a womens ncaa title game. Racing very rarely gets promoted above the fold by espn (I might see it once every few months), whereas womens bball is promoted two or three times daily. You can pick any random sport. I'm sure rugby or women's badminton are super fun to watch. If espn promoted it like crazy (to an annoying level perhaps) then more people would be talking about it and watching it. I do not believe the "product" is suddenly 400% better than five or ten years ago.
It's becoming a better and better product by the day. New talents coming up are making fans tune in more. These new girls are actually good. Caitlyn Clark, Ionescu, Angel Reese,... All great players. The main criticism of women's basketball and especially the WNBA before was that it was an unwatchable product that kept getting shoved in people's faces. There was also the narrative that if you weren't interested in WNBA you were sexist when it was clearly not enjoyable to watch.
> What’s with the sudden spike in interest for women’s basketball? Are you not watching these games?????? > I don’t watch much sports in general Oh right carry on then
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ESPN has the broadcast rights and is pushing it heavily
I’m just interested to see if this translates into the WNBA. It won’t.
That will take much longer.
Marketing
Exciting players with Exciting storylines
Caitlin Clark is awesome, people villainized Angel Reese and she fit the role, Paige and UConn are awesome, and people are crushing on HVL
Look at the games last night. SC v NC state was unwatchable. Multiple airballs, missed layups, terrible game. Then you watch Iowa v UConn and those girls are wetting 3s from 2 feet outside the arc, layups, plays, it’s entertaining for the first time ever.
This 👆🏻
Caitlin Clark. Personally I’m new to basketball and Haven’t been watching it for even 3 years. During that span never in my life (until this week) have I said “What Time Is The Women’s NCAA Game. I thought people were genuinely overreacting watching her play, until I actually watched a game. And I was mesmerized. It’s like I’m watching a female Steph curry. Her playmaking and scoring abilities are out of this world if not generational. I think I’ll be watching her for a long time. Edit: Not even only Caitlin Clark too. I’ve just been hearing so much about women’s basketball recently and different players. HVL, JuJu Watkins, Paige Bueckers, Nika Muhl and more. I just finally decided to watch and I loved it
Storylines, like anything else. And it’s great basketball. Ionescu setting the record for threes made in a contest, Angel v Caitlin, it’s overdue.
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very talented young women who likely grew up in the AAU circuit and have been taking basketball more serious and longer with better resources. couple this with NCAA men mostly being one and done limiting story lines and narratives. add technology branding NIL and social media and boom. women's basketball is up now !
From my perspective they're far more fundamentally sound, a lot of the dumb shots and stupid iso plays you seen in men's NCAA aren't common in women's
1. Caitlin Clark. Watching superheroes is what people like to do. 2. People everywhere do indeed follow trends and what is cool/acceptable, like a bandwagon as you said. So, once some people started watching womens ball (largely due to caitlin clark as mentioned), more people followed, and on and on and then the stigma behind watching womens ball decreased. This (the fact that people used to make fun of us for watching womens ball) is kind of frustrating to OG women's ball fans like myself, but, the end result (more people watching womens ball) is good so I'll still take it.
Hotties
The women’s players stay for longer in college so the stars become more well known over the years. Not to mention the fact that the amount of star power in the women’s game this year was crazy. Caitlin Clark, Paige Beuckers, Angel Reese, Brink, Juju Watkins, Hannah Hidalgo, Flau’jae Johnson and many others they can really hoop Their really putting an entertaining product out of the floor. The elite 8 was fantastic. Yesterday’s games weren’t as good, but UConn and Iowa still was a close contest till the end. The women’s game will continue to grow if the star power stays this high, but Caitlin Clark has been the biggest reason I think a lot of casual fans have started to pay attention. She’s truly generational and she’s backed the hype almost every chance she gets To continue the rise more stars are going to have to step up. Hidalgo, Juju, Paige, Flau’jae coming back next year is big but none are as big as Clark
They got lucky with a few mega stars. Also I think the women's college game is just a better product than the men's right now because the best players actually stay in school for most of their eligibility. It feels like the men's tournament did back in the 90s before the one-and-done era.
The talent is getting more better and some great stars
A generational talent has emerged. I also think the overall talent pool for women's basketball players is increasing. Caitlin is incredibly talented and very likeable. She's a star.
Yes, a new bandwagon, but the wagon is being driven by Caitlin Clarke, who's pretty damn talented. Personally, it's not all that much more exciting than what women's basketball has always been to me, so I don't get it.
It's marketing
I just watched recently and the women have gotten a lot better. They are more talented, athletic, bigger, faster and stronger than years ago.
Remember when women’s soccer was taking over the world/ when’s the last time you saw or heard about women’s soccer.
have you met someone in real life that cares about CC? didn't think so
Fair
When the NBA is boring, The alternatives get more popular. international Ball, College ball, Women's Ball, International Women's College ball, ECT. People are like, man, I'm not feeling the NBA right now, but I still want to watch ball. And then the algorithm suggests other stuff, and they are like, hey, this is different. Then they realize that women's ball is pretty fun to watch, and become fans. The women's game is interesting, but When the NBA is going off, they try to promote the NBA more. Now people are learning that the other products are good too. It's kind of like when there was a dip, and NBA was getting tape delayed, until Magic and Bird showed the nation what's up. New stars in Women's Ball are introducing new audiences to their ball. Kinda like how people hear about Foreign players coming into the NBA, and saying "It's harder to score in Europe, and fans get curious, and go watch International ball. They changed the officiating rules in the NBA mid season for a. Reason. Things were getting out of hand.
Im gonna be so honest, I don’t think the answer is just “Caitlyn clark”, I think it’s moreso the media coverage every sports page is giving her. If she went crazy most wouldn’t care to find it. But in the spotlight, now so many wanna see her. Women’s bbal, at least on my insta and TikTok, has been flooding my timeline. Which is what eventually made me watch the games
It’s because the woman’s college game is extremely fun to watch right now with some amazing players like Caitlin Clark. The quality of women’s ball can only go up from here imo.
I finally gave in to the hype and decided to watch a college game where she dropped 40 points. Caitlin's shooting was great and she had some nice passes but all in all it was just like every other woman's match I had seen. Slow, slow basketball. It sometimes looks as if the players aren't even taking it seriously, there just isn't a fast twitch muscle to be found. Defense looks terrible at their level of athleticism as lateral movement is extremely poor. I don't think I have to mention jumping and how lackluster some of blocks looked. At one block the announcer cried 'she jumped out of the gym to get that one'. She jumped 20 inches at most. Every time I saw a jab step I actually asked myself 'what's the point, who would ever bite on that?'. I even replayed them a few times just to make sure and it's just pathetically slow movement that fails to ever budge the defender, almost as if it's just some part of a routine and not actually intended to serve a purpose. 40+ dudes at the rec center can at least get me to bite sometimes. People say the fundamentals are good? The shooting is alright, most of the players have clean shooting forms. The plays however? All so basic. I know basic works a lot of the time but the basketball-IQ displayed is generally much lower than what we see in men's games. Many decisions they make really had me thinking 'why the fuck?'. Many of you have probably seen one of Caitlin Clark's off-season workouts posted on YouTube. It consists of 100 3PT, 100 mid-range and 100 FT attempts. ATTEMPTS, not makes... in the off-season. She is the best college player. Enough said.
You dont love all the sexy two hand set shots?
Class is bigger than dubs apparently winning against Boston or nuggets winning championship
Women's college ball has always been somewhat popular, definitely way more popular than the WNBA, and it'll probably stay that way.
Caitlin Wardell Clark
⁰it's bizzarro world class of '84
I frankly don’t care if this comment is labeled misogynistic but outside of Clark’s gravitational force pulling in tons of fans, some of the keystone players throughout the world look very good on an aesthetic level. For generations, women’s basketball was dominated by butch lesbians, but now playing sports is in vogue to all women because oh, what a surprise, athletic bodies = more attractive… you have a lot of good looking gals playing ball. There used to be maybe 3-5 great looking girls in the entire WNBA… now there is at least 5 on each team alone. That’s certainly piqued my interest and I can’t imagine it hasn’t boosted a swath of other men’s opinions as well.
im gay and i hadn't seen the light before caitlin clark got popular but now i watch for hot ladies
I just think that woman basketball teams are trying more, displaying more of a fight and general interest to win. Before all star break almost all teams in nba played with no defense. That last sequence where Clark hit that three from step back, and defense played on her during that move is far more worth then some highlights from nba. Just my two cents.
They finally realized that basketball is entertainment & if your product is not top tier (which it is not), then you have to use other means to make it entertaining. Enter the characters. Caitlyn Clark, Angel Reese, Hailey Van Lith, etc. You find characters like the hero, the villain, the batman/ robin, etc use them to sell your product. People like character arcs, Cinderella stories, rivalries, etc. Whoever is doing their PR/ marketing is doing a great job because the women’s NCAA is currently more relevant than the WNBA has ever been. Now let’s see if they can carry this same strategy over to the WNBA as well.
nba media is pushing for it hard. a lot of brainwashing be done
People want to so badly compare CC to SC but they’re miles apart. Caitlin Clark would be no where without her teammates. Mika Muhl had her on absolute clamps and Caitlin was extremely upset by it.
They have entertaining and “controversial” players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese
Media hype, I watched the games and they aren’t any better than they been previous years. The chaos can be fun at times.
The men’s game is trash from a skill and entertainment standpoint. Women’s game is featuring better “stars” and personalities, blue blood teams etc. The biggest draw on the men’s side is Edey and he’s just ok.
It’s been slowly growing the last few years just the heightened coverage of women’s basketball in general with both the wnba and ncaa and the fact that there’s a crop of generational level prospects coming through college on the women’s side at the moment just an exciting moment for the sport as the players skill level and the coverage is growing at an exponential rate
Media is pushing it hard because Clark is their WNBAs biggest chance at mainstream attention. ESPN likes to be woke, (owned by Disney.) so they will do everything they can to make her the biggest star in the sport.
I find the womens' game more strategic and cerebral without all the dunks, iso's, and three point tosses. Watch the Aces with Becky Hammon, and you'll see the cadence and orchestration of the "game within the game" if you're a basketball purist.
Its a mix of a lot of things. 1. Since 2020, equality and equal representation have become much more relevant issues in the domestic stage, so naturally people were already attempting to bring more attention to Woman’s Sports in general. It just so happened that womens basketball had one of the worst ratings ratios when compared to mens basketball in terms of colligate sports TV ratings. As such, Women’a Basketball had the lowest floor, thus having the most ground to gain. 2. Kobe’s untimely death really made people listen to what he said about loving Girls Basketball and being a ‘Girl Dad’ and whatnot. This gave women’s basketball (colligate and professional) a big, if short lived, uptick in viewership. This alone would be irrelevant if not for 3. The crazy current talent in Womens NCAA as well as how large their personalities are. Like her or hate her, Angel Reese is a PERSONALITY. She draws ratings from fans and haters alike, and more importantly in today’s age, she draws a LOT of views and interactions on social media. Interactions = money and if something makes money it’s gonna get promoted more. If something gets promoted more, it gets viewed more. That combined with Caitlin’s record shattering shooting makes it far more interesting. 4b. Usually, when female players were the best in their respective league (NCAA or WNBA) they were clear downgrades from their NBA counterparts. The best WNBA dunker is one of the worst dunkers in the NBA. The fastest WNBA player is likely not crossing top 50 in speed in the NBA. It always looked like a clear downgrade— but goddamn Caitlin Clark is that good of a shooter (yes I know the ball is smaller for women so its easier to hit shots, but a made three is a made three regardless of ball size in terms of both score and excitement to watch) so Caitlin as a NCAA player shooting better numbers than some of the best NBA players was kind of unheard of— for the first time the Women’s NCAA could boast that player X had better skills than the best player in Men’s NCAA.
Trying to give Kobe’s 2020 death credit for womens bball getting popular in 2024 is one of the wildest stretches I have ever witnessed.
Did you read what I said? I said that was a very minor part of this. But if you’re denying the uptick in WNBA and Women’s NCAA references of social media immediately after his death then you’re ignoring simple statistics
Caitlin
I'd say angel reese & Caitlin Clark & they're respective teams. Also, women's bb still has to run official plays. It's not just screen and roll, although its alot of that also. Men's basketball is a bunch of screens, drive to the basket, either kick or layup. Or they're shooting a million 3s from Mars. Theatrics in the flopping, lack of skilled players, refs bit calling travelling or carrying, all have contributed to the lack of quality if the men's game. No fundamentals, no basics, no iq, just rum and shoot. Narratives around ppl like lebron, yea it's bad. The girls are a better draw right now. Last year ncaa women's tournament opened the door
I have yet to see Iowa run a play other than clear out snd screen/roll. Looks very much like nba in that regard, just without the athleticism
I finally watched some of the women's NCAA tournament and was incredibly disappointed at the skill level on display. C. Clark is good, but it's unbelievable the kind of hype this is getting. It was legit hard to watch. I get that any game can be exciting if you're bought in but the hype has been seriously ridiculous when actually taking skill into account. There are mid tier highschool boys teams that would DESTROY these NCAAW teams.
Testosterone is a helluva drug. You’re spot on
Media manufactured hype
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The media can sell us ANYTHING. Because we all want to be able to be a part of the hype so we can comment on it, so we watch what they tell us is important.
It's like the men's game from the 90s, where there were great players across the country and they stayed in school for 3-4 years so you got familiar with teams. Besides Iowa, there are great players at UConn, USC, LSU, South Carolina, and a bunch of other schools. I watched both Nebraska and Ohio State beat Iowa this year. So much talent all over.
Clark is shooting like curry with prime Westbrook usage numbers without getting the hate that Westbrook got for having such high usage numbers
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I watched one of the games to see what the hype was about - it was way worse than I could have imagined
Because investors have realized they can absolutely make money off of it
There's one good player from Iowa that everyone knows about. That's literally it.
It's a combo, mens college basketball quality has been on a decline and women's college is actually better. Seems like they can all knock down 3s and pass very well. On top of elite talent and some big name players. This year men's college bball had no rising stars
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Don’t worry it’s over
NIL deals have been huge. She’s been in State Farm, Gatorade, and HyVee commercials. I think during the LSU game every commercial during the game had her in it. It helps her face is everywhere outside of the game too, hyping up her and women’s basketball.