At 22 years old, university basketball player Caitlin Clark continues to panic the scorers. The Iowa Hawkeyes point guard lost in the NCAA tournament final this weekend, but her exceptional play attracted a record 18.7 million viewers in the United States. A figure that exceeds the audience for the men’s NBA finals and even the Football World Cup.
Published on: 04/10/2024 – 4:35 p.m.
5 mn
Caitlin Clark single-handedly is revolutionizing women’s basketball in the United States. Standing at 1.83 meters tall, the Iowa Hawkeyes university player continues her performances on American courts. In the space of a few weeks and thanks to her extraordinary talent, she turned all eyes on the university tournament called “March Madness”.
Even if it failed to win the title by losing on Sunday April 7 against the University of South Carolina (87-75), it made a little more history by generating a record audience. The final match attracted 18.7 million viewers, with a peak audience of 24 million, the ESPN channel announced on Monday.
This audience is without equivalent for a basketball match, men’s or women’s, professional or university, since 2019 in the United States. Caitlin Clark and her teammates have generated more excitement than the NBA matches played in recent years.
According to ESPN, only the Olympic Games or the American football championship have been able to attract a higher number of viewers since 2019. For comparison, in December 2022, the final of the Men’s Football World Cup between Lionel Messi’s Argentina and Kylian Mbappé’s France in Qatar attracted 16.78 million viewers ahead of Fox, the English-language broadcaster (nine million additional viewers followed the Spanish-language broadcast of the final).
This craze relies a lot on Caitlin Clark, 22 years old. The player delighted university basketball with her astonishing statistics (30 points in the final, 41 including 9 three-point baskets in the quarter-finals against the Louisiana players).
The one who was named player of the year also became at the beginning of March the best scorer in the history of the NCAA, the most prestigious university league, men and women combined, by exceeding 3,667 points. The day after this performance, NBA star LeBron James personally congratulated her.
CONGRATS @CaitlinClark22 on becoming the All-Time leading scorer!! 🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣. 🙏🏾🫡👑
— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 3, 2024
“She is the women’s Steph Curry. She can throw better than me,” said another star player of the American championship Luka Doncic in an interview shared by different media on social networks.
Doncic says he watched part of the Iowa-LSU women’s game last night. Asked whether Caitlin Clark reminds him of him, he smiled and said she’s more like Steph Curry. “She shoots it better than me, that’s for sure. pic.twitter.com/wlvcZfQUuG
— Brad Townsend (@townbrad) April 2, 2024
Legions of fans
The phenomenon is such that legions of fans, the “Clarkies”, have crossed the United States throughout the season to roar at each of his three-point baskets and his unpredictable and luminous passes which transcend his partners.
“She has become the face of college basketball (…), the name that everyone recognizes,” summarizes Meredith Geisler, visiting professor of sports management at the School of Business at George Washington University, for AFP. . “Until a few years ago, the women’s (college basketball) tournament was largely neglected.”
For the expert, Caitlin Clark’s notoriety goes “far beyond” basketball fans and her contribution to “increasing interest in women’s basketball or women’s sport in general” is unprecedented – comparable to that of Serena Williams or the American women’s soccer team when it won its first World Cup in 1991.
The athlete also has 1.8 million followers on Instagram and 265,000 followers on TikTok. “It’s really great to be able to be a role model for all these girls, but also these boys,” said the player born into a sports family.
Even at the sponsorship level, Caitlin Clark is playing in the big leagues: taking advantage of the historic opening of university sports to athlete remuneration, she has already signed contracts with major brands like Nike or Gatorade.
A passage into the professional world
The basketball player, who has never won the university championship, will now move into the professional world of the WNBA (Women’s NBA) next season. She should be selected first in the draft on April 15, presumably by the Indiana Fever, where ticket prices are already soaring for certain matches.
Its presence within the professional league will undoubtedly, according to Meredith Geisler, increase the exposure of a championship which lives in the media and economic shadow of the NBA but whose interest has grown in recent seasons, thanks to players who have star status in the United States like Sabrina Ionescu (New York Liberty) or A’ja Wilson (Las Vegas Aces).
“The WNBA will take inspiration from other sports and learn to benefit from the presence of a superstar” with the support of the NBA with which it is associated, she believes. “You’re going to have more corporate partners, more sponsors, more viewers. And when the broadcast rights are renegotiated, when Caitlin (Clark) helps them grow, the numbers are going to go up even more.”
Heading to the Olympics?
While we wait for her professional debut, Caitlin Clark could be the sensation of the summer. The young player is applying for a place on Team USA which will compete in the Paris Olympic Games (July 26 – August 11). Former pillar of the junior national team with whom she has already won three gold medals, she was called up for an internship with the national team in April, but she missed this meeting due to her crazy NCAA adventure.
However, this package does not compromise its chances of being selected. As she pointed out in an interview for USA Today Sports, it’s one of her goals: “Growing up, your dream is always to be part of the national team. Many of the players who are part of the selection are my idols. I watched them since I was little and I love I always wanted to be like them.”
With AFP
