Washington Mystics proprietor Sheila Johnson spoke out towards Time journal for naming Caitlin Clark “Athlete of the Year” in an interview with CNN Sport on Friday, suggesting that the publication ought to have given the award to your entire WNBA.
Johnson even instructed the choice to provide Clark the distinction would incite emotions of “racism” throughout the league.
“Why couldn’t they have put the WNBA on that cover and say, ‘The WNBA is the league of the year,’ because of all the talent that we have,” Johnson stated. “When you single out one player, it creates hard feelings, so now you’re starting to hear stories of racism within the WNBA, and I don’t want to hear that.”
Johnson went as far as to say that Clark’s consideration and the minting of the time period “the Caitlin Clark effect,” which has been related to the eye she has dropped at the league, is due to race.
“It’s the way media plays out race,” Johnson stated. “I feel really bad, because I’ve seen so many players of color that are equally as talented, and they never got the recognition they should have.”
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Iowa guard Caitlin Clark, left, appears to go the ball towards Louisville guard Morgan Jones, heart, and ahead Olivia Cochran through 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 obtained a $28 million endorsement cope with Nike in April, which was the richest sponsorship contract for a girls’s basketball participant.
“They would like to get the same kind of recognition. It all started with the whole Nike sponsorship that Caitlin got,” Johnson stated. “There are other players 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 reputation 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’ house 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. Because of this, 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 enjoying 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 instructed that the WNBA’s improve in reputation 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 through the first half in Recreation 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 almost 28 to get to the point where we are now, and this year something clicked with the WNBA, and it’s because of the draft of the players that came in, it’s not just Caitlin Clark, it’s Reese,” Johnson stated. “We have so much talent out there that’s so unrecognized, and I don’t think we can just pin it on one player.”
Johnson’s Mystics did really play a sport towards Reese’s Sky at Capital One Area this yr as effectively, on June 6. Nevertheless, 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 girl 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 reputation in a unfavorable gentle.
WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson has stated Clark being White was a “huge thing” when it got here to the rookie’s reputation
In Might, “The View” host Sunny Hostins stated throughout an episode of that present that Clark’s reputation was due, partially, 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 girl, didn’t play into her reputation within the WNBA, the place the overwhelming majority of gamers are Black and plenty of are lesbian, throughout an interview with the Los Angeles Occasions in Might. Hill additionally insisted that Clark’s reputation with these attributes is “problematic.”
Former FS1 and ESPN host Skip Bayless, who was certainly 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 symbol” because 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) through the fourth quarter at Footprint Middle. (Michael Chow-Arizona Republic)
Clark has been compelled 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 want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a White person, there is privilege,” Clark informed Time. “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.”
Johnson says she would not imagine that Clark needed to make the assertion, however that she “applauds” the phenom for doing so.
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