Iowa's Caitlin Clark brought millions of eyes to women's college basketball as she broke records and won championships, but WNBA star A’ja Wilson is not impressed and claims that Clark's success is all about pro-white racism.
Clark is going into her first WNBA season after racking up more viewers for the 2024 NCAA women's basketball championships than ever before. Viewership soared to 14.2 million sets of eyes, an 89 percent surge, according to the Deadline.
Thank you @CaitlinClark22 pic.twitter.com/FVEyn5I5mZ
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) April 8, 2024
Along the way she racked up a long series of top records, such as the college all-time scoring record.
Clark and her great rival, LSU's Angel Reese, were two of the biggest boons to women's college basketball in history.
But all this great success seems to have elicited sour grapes from one long-time WNBA star.
Las Vegas Aces superstar A’ja Wilson -- a two-time WNBA champion, two-time league MVP and two-time WNBA Defensive Player of the Year -- is dismissive of Clark's achievements and thinks that the main reason people are so interested in Clark is because she is white.
"I think it’s a huge thing," Wilson said of Clark's popularity, according to the Associated Press.
"I think a lot of people may say it’s not about Black and White, but to me, it is. It really is because you can be top-notch at what you are as a Black woman, but yet maybe that’s something that people don’t want to see," Wilson added.
"They don’t see it as marketable, so it doesn’t matter how hard I work," she complained. "It doesn’t matter what we all do as Black women, we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug.
"That’s why it boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is."
Clark has been hounded by claims by leftist sports columnists that her popularity is more about race than her seemingly undeniable successes. And one reason is her $28 million deal with Nike which caused many leftists to accuse Nike of ignoring veterans for this rookie.
USA Today columnist Mike Freeman, for one, blasted Nike in April for giving Clark a shoe deal when several black WNBA stars had not gotten deals of their own.
In fact, Wilson was one of those stars Freeman mentioned in his April attack on Clark.
Nike just might be trying to squirm out of that criticism. On Saturday, Wilson made the announcement that she was getting her own shoe deal with Nike this year. She is also getting a deal with Gatorade.
There is one big reason that Clark had an edge over other long-time WNBA stars. As Fox Sports noted, Clark has had the benefit of big-dollar name, image and likeness (NIL) deals that college athletes are now allowed to sign. So, Clark already has deals with advertisers, deals and contacts that others did not have.
Clark is not alone in having this advantage. Her college rival, LSU's Angel Reese, and LSU teammate Flau’jae Johnson, both of whom are black, also have these deals.
But beyond all this, Clark is an amazing talent and it is her talent that brought her such recognition. Not her race. If Clark was a middling player, but was still being showered with praise, maybe Wilson and the detractors would have a point. But Clark now has some of the top college records in history. And she has earned them.
Just like she's earned everything else.
