So there are WNBA players out there who feel overshadowed by Caitlin Clark, and apparently the commissioner needed a guy from a whole different sport just to remind her who pays for the lights.
Sports Business Journal dropped this yesterday and I’ve read it four times because I keep waiting for the part where it makes sense. Alyssa Thomas buried a fist into Caitlin Clark’s throat on June 24th. No foul called. Not even a common one. Per SBJ’s sources, the commissioner watched that tape and decided it was fine, wasn’t gonna suspend anybody, no wait, she full on defended it, that’s actually what happened here.
Wild.
The Commissioner Needed Another League’s Boss To Tell Her To Do Her Job
Took a phone call from Adam Silver, who runs a completely different league, to fix that. He watched the same tape, saw a clear flagrant, felt bad for Clark, and told Cathy Engelbert she had to act. So NOW she acts. Flagrant 2, one game, a thousand dollar fine, after somebody else’s commissioner had to walk her through her own rulebook.
The league’s calling that specific detail “absolutely false.” Fine. Maybe it is.
Three Full Seasons And She Has Shown Up Exactly Zero Times
Nobody’s disputing this part. Engelbert has not been to a single Fever home game in Indianapolis since Clark got drafted. Three full seasons. ZERO times. You could throw a rock in that building on any given night this year and hit a sellout crowd, and she still hasn’t found the door.
How do you even explain that one. What’s the actual excuse, I want to hear it.
Per people close to her, she’s walking a tightrope. Doesn’t want to look like she’s playing favorites toward Clark, and at the same time trying to keep happy the players who apparently feel overshadowed by her.
Overshadowed. That’s the actual word being used. Which, if that’s the bar for favoritism now, I don’t even know what we’re…
Okay.
19 Of 22 Isn’t A Coincidence, It’s A Monopoly
Being overshadowed by somebody usually means they took something from you. So let’s go check what Caitlin Clark actually took.
19 of the WNBA’s 22 million viewer games this season had her on the floor. The league went from 2008 to her rookie year, almost 16 years, without a single audience that big. The Fever set the all time single season home attendance record the year she showed up, three of the biggest crowds this league has ever drawn came in her games, and none of that is a coincidence.
Overshadowed By Caitlin Clark Is Rich Coming From Players Cashing Her Checks
This same year, the players got a new CBA that took team salary caps from 1.5 million to 7 million dollars. Nobody’s telling me that jump happened because the Connecticut Sun were selling out arenas. You know exactly whose audience wrote that check.
I get it, I really do. Nobody wants to be the vet who put in eight years watching a third year player soak up every camera in the building. That’s a real feeling and I’m not gonna pretend it isn’t.
But you cashed the check.
And to be fair to Alyssa Thomas here, that’s not even her actual complaint. She’s saying Engelbert went quiet while she was getting death threats over the foul, and whatever you think of the hit itself, that part’s legitimately messed up, I’m not gonna clown her for saying it.
Can’t protect her best player without a phone call. Can’t be bothered to watch her play. And somehow still finds the time to worry about hurting the feelings of players getting paid off that same player’s audience.
