Washington Mystics proprietor Sheila Johnson spoke out towards Time journal for naming Caitlin Clark “Athlete of the 12 months” in an interview with CNN Sport on Friday, suggesting that the publication ought to have given the award to your complete WNBA.
Johnson even advised the choice to offer Clark the honor would incite emotions of “racism” throughout the league.
“Why couldn’t they’ve put the WNBA on that cowl and say, ‘The WNBA is the league of the yr,’ due to all of the expertise that now we have,” Johnson mentioned. “If you single out one participant, it creates arduous emotions, so now you’re beginning to hear tales of racism throughout the WNBA, and I don’t need to hear that.”
Johnson went as far as to say that Clark’s consideration and the minting of the time period “the Caitlin Clark impact,” which has been related to the eye she has delivered to the league, is due to race.
“It’s the way in which media performs out race,” Johnson mentioned. “I really feel actually unhealthy, as a result of I’ve seen so many gamers of colour which can be equally as proficient, and so they by no means acquired the popularity they need to have.”
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Iowa guard Caitlin Clark, left, seems to be to cross the ball towards Louisville guard Morgan Jones, heart, and ahead Olivia Cochran in the course of the first half of an Elite 8 school basketball sport of the NCAA Event, Sunday, March 26, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photograph/Stephen Brashear)
The proprietor additionally griped about the truth that Clark acquired a $28 million endorsement cope with Nike in April, which was the richest sponsorship contract for a girls’s basketball participant.
“They want to get the identical sort of recognition. It began with the entire Nike sponsorship that Caitlin acquired,” Johnson mentioned. “There are different gamers saying, ‘What about us?’”
Johnson is the Vice Chairman of Monumental Sports activities & Leisure, which additionally owns the NBA’s Washington Wizards and NHL’s Washington Capitals. Her Mystics instantly capitalized on Clark’s recognition to web historic ticket gross sales on the finish of the common season this yr.
The Mystics’ season finale towards Clark’s Indiana Fever was moved from the Mystics’ dwelling venue, the Leisure and Sports activities Area with simply 4,200 seats, to the Wizards’ venue, the Capital One Area, which has a most capability of 20,356 for basketball video games. Consequently, the Sept. 19 sport between the Fever and Mystics was the most-attended WNBA common season sport in historical past, with 20,711 followers in attendance.
The Las Vegas Aces pulled off the same transfer once they hosted the Fever on the bigger T-Cellular Area for a July 2 sport as a substitute of taking part in within the comparatively smaller Michelob ULTRA Area. For that sport, 20,366 followers confirmed up, representing the highest regular-season single-game attendance since 1999.
Nonetheless, Johnson opted to publicly denigrate and undermine the eye that Clark will get within the CNN interview. Johnson additionally advised that the WNBA’s improve in recognition was additionally due to different WNBA rookies from the 2024 season, together with Chicago Sky star Angel Reese.
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) and Connecticut Solar ahead DeWanna Bonner (24) alternate phrases in the course of the first half in Sport 2 of a first-round WNBA basketball playoff sequence, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Uncasville, Conn. (AP Photograph/Jessica Hill)
“It has taken the WNBA virtually 28 to get to the purpose the place we are actually, and this yr one thing clicked with the WNBA, and it is due to the draft of the gamers that got here in, it is not simply Caitlin Clark, it is Reese,” Johnson mentioned. “We’ve got a lot expertise on the market that is so unrecognized, and I do not assume we are able to simply pin it on one participant.”
Johnson’s Mystics did truly play a sport towards Reese’s Sky at Capital One Area this yr as effectively, on June 6. Nonetheless, that sport solely fetched 10,000 attendees – fewer than half the quantity on the sport that featured Clark on the finish of the season.
Johnson, the primary Black lady to have a stake in three skilled sports activities groups, is only one of many figures in sports activities and media to quote race for Clark’s recognition in a unfavourable gentle.
WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson has mentioned Clark being White was a “big factor” when it got here to the rookie’s recognition
In Might, “The View” host Sunny Hostins mentioned throughout an episode of that present that Clark’s recognition was due, partly, to “white privilege.”
Journalist Jemele Hill insisted it was “naive” to say that Clark’s race as a White particular person, and sexuality as a straight lady, didn’t play into her recognition within the WNBA, the place the overwhelming majority of gamers are Black and lots of are lesbian, throughout an interview with the Los Angeles Instances in Might. Hill additionally insisted that Clark’s recognition with these attributes is “problematic.”
Former FS1 and ESPN host Skip Bayless, who was considered one of Clark’s harshest critics main up the beginning of her WNBA profession, admitted that he pretended to not be impressed by her talent out of “guilt,” and never eager to stir racial division. He went as far as to recommend that Clark had turn out to be a “right-wing image” as a result of the truth that she is a White participant excelling on the sport of basketball.
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June 30, 2024; Phoenix, Ariz.: Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) is fouled by Phoenix Mercury guard Sug Sutton (1) in the course of the fourth quarter at Footprint Middle. (Michael Chow-Arizona Republic)
Clark has been pressured to reply questions on her race and alleged racism by her followers a number of occasions since coming into WNBA this yr, together with within the Time journal profile that Johnson criticized.
“I need to say I’ve earned each single factor, however as a White particular person, there may be privilege,” Clark instructed Time. “Plenty of these gamers within the league which have been actually good have been Black gamers. This league has sort of been constructed on them.”
Johnson says she would not consider that Clark needed to make the assertion, however that she “applauds” the phenom for doing so.
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