Clark could usher in new era
When Caitlin Clark comes to town, it’s an event. Sold-out crowds, sneaking into side doors of hotels and police escorts.
Clark and the Iowa women’s basketball team are box office. Every game is a home game thanks to thousands of fans who created a sea of black and yellow at Hawkeyes games all over the country. When they made an appearance in Evanston on Jan. 31, one person told me, “she’s like the Beatles.”
“Every single game, I play and it’s all sold out. So it’s not something you ever take for granted. I think it’s kind of crazy people are screaming my name so much. It’s not something you really ever get used to,” Clark said after the 110-74 win over Northwestern.
When Ohio State upset Iowa a couple of weeks before, a record crowd of 18,660 was in attendance.
With Clark in the building, Northwestern women’s basketball also broke their attendance record with an announced crowd of 7,039 — a sellout. Before Clark and her assigned police escort took the court for warmups, young children lined the bleachers alongside the entryway where she was expected to emerge. Dressed in Clark basketball jerseys and shirts down to their ankles, they waited with bated breath and smartphone cameras already recording to get an up-close view of the star.
“WE LOVE YOU, CAITLIN!” They screamed as she quickly walked to the court, seemingly unbothered by the piercing squeals.
Clark — the first player in NCAA Division I history to have 3,000 career points and 1,000 career assists, who is just eight points away from the NCAA women’s career scoring record — is projected to be the first pick in the 2024 WNBA draft should she opt to forgo her final year of eligibility. Though it’s not a subject she will talk about right now.
“The WNBA can wait. I’m just focused on college right now,” she said.
But even if Clark won’t indulge her growing fan base with a peek into what she could be thinking about her future, everyone else is talking.
And while I find a lot of it interesting, one particular part of the discourse is the oft-repeated idea that she will take “a pay cut” to play in the WNBA.
That incorrect understanding likely comes from the new name, image and likeness deals in college athletics being thought