Caitlin Clark is fast approaching LeBron James and Tim Tebow status as an all-time content driver. She is a force multiplier for attendance, social media interest, and all the other metrics pro leagues use to determine popularity. She is a comet for television viewership, the driving force behind 18.9 million viewers watching South Carolina’s win over Iowa in April in the NCAA women’s national championship game. She attracts opinions about women’s basketball from people who rarely if ever discussed the sport before.
We’re seeing all of this explode in real-time. Everyone wants a piece of Clarkonomics.
The latest debate to rage around Clark is over her exclusion from the U.S. Olympic team. As someone who covered college basketball for more than a decade at Sports Illustrated, I think the decision is correct for basketball reasons. USA Basketball’s goal is to win, and there are better American perimeter players right now, including Arike Ogunbowale, who I would have selected over both Clark and Diana Taurasi, who made the team. Kayla McBride would also be ahead of Clark on form if I were on the committee. (I also would have picked Dearica Hamby over Brittney Griner.) Reasonable people can disagree on such things.
The person who has put on a media clinic for all of these…
