WNBA star Caitlin Clark has had quite a year, but not everyone is happy about her being honored for it.
After Clark, who plays for the Indiana Fever, was named Time magazine's "Athlete of the Year," Washington Mystics co-owner Sheila Johnson took to CNN to call out the magazine for its choice.
Johnson, co-founder of BET and America's first Black female billionaire, told CNN she thinks the WNBA as a whole should have been Time's choice, rather than "singling out" Clark for all the attention.
Johnson felt that Time's award effectively placed all the credit for the WNBA's growth on Clark's shoulders while ignoring all the other talent in the league.
She told CNN's Amanda Davies:
“When you just keep singling out one player, it creates hard feelings and so now you’re starting to hear stories of racism within the WNBA and I don’t want to hear that."
"We have got to operate and become stronger as a league and respect everybody that’s playing and their talents.”
Clark won the WNBA's own Rookie of the Year award in October, and her rise to prominence has been credited with exploding the WNBA's popularity, leading to enormous surges in TV viewership and game attendance.
But her higher profile has been controversial given that the predominantly Black WNBA existed for more than 20 years before Clark came on the scene, and many of its veteran players have been outspoken advocates for racial equality and LGBTQ+ rights both in and outside the sports world.
Clark seemed to acknowledge the unfairness of this in her comments to Time about her award.
She told the magazine:
“I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege."
"A lot of those players in the league that have been really good have been Black players. This league has kind of been built on them."
“The more we can appreciate that, highlight that, talk about that, and then continue to have brands and companies invest in those players that have made this league incredible, I think it’s very important."
Clark went on to say that she is making it her mission to "try to change" the racial dynamics that Johnson called out.
Given the sizable impact Clark has had on WNBA viewership and her own commitment to addressing the racial dynamics at play, many felt Johnson's comments missed the mark.
It is unfortunate that it took a white athlete to finally give the WNBA the attention it deserves. Regardless, there is no denying Clark's impact on the league's profile.
Attendance surged so much when she and the Fever played Johnson's Mystics in September that the game had to be moved to a larger arena. It ended up breaking the all-time record for attendance with more than 20,000 fans.
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