Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Why is everyone in that league, not everyone, why are a lot of players in that league at
00:08the root of it, Mike?
00:09So upset that this girl is bringing notoriety, money, I mean, it's not just her that got
00:15them the charter flights.
00:17They should have had that probably a long time ago, but I'm sure it helped that she
00:20was coming into the league.
00:21But there is so much to gain, Mike, and it seems like, like, they're not, a lot of girls
00:26aren't happy about it.
00:27That doesn't make any sense to me.
00:30It's the same thing that I wrote about back in February, we're seeing reflected in the
00:33college game when she was elevating the audience for the college game.
00:37And let's not forget here, a couple of years ago, before Caitlin Clark made the final four,
00:44they were happy if they got a 5 million audience for the championship game of the women's final
00:48four.
00:49They were happy.
00:505 million.
00:51Okay, that's a good number.
00:52That's what they were looking for.
00:54When Caitlin Clark played in it last year against Angel Reese and LSU, they got 10 million.
01:00And when they played, and she played it this year against Camila Cardoso and South Carolina,
01:06they got 18 million.
01:08That's three times the audience.
01:11If that's what's out there, look, you don't try to get mad because, oh, why weren't you
01:16watching us all along?
01:17Hey, the audience wasn't.
01:20You can't explain a phenomenon, Mike.
01:24Why were the NBA finals of the 1970s on tape delay?
01:28They just were.
01:29The audience wasn't there.
01:31Magic and Bird come along, all of a sudden, it's magical, and everybody's watching.
01:36It's just sometimes that's how it works.
01:39Joe Namath comes along in 1969, and the NFL goes from a very watchable league, a lot of
01:47fans, to the most powerful sports entity in the world.
01:52All of that happens because a certain player at a certain moment draws people in, and enough
01:59of those people stick around that everybody's boat is elevated.
02:04Right now, for the WNBA, that person is Caitlin Clark.
02:09Don't try to explain why everybody wants to watch her play.
02:12I put in my column today, look, Sarah McLachlan is a magnificent musician.
02:18She's a musical genius.
02:19I've seen her in concerts.
02:20She's fabulous.
02:21She's had her records.
02:22She's tremendous.
02:23Taylor Swift is a musical genius.
02:25She's fabulous, but when Sarah McLachlan goes on the road, she's playing 5,000-seat arenas
02:35and packing them.
02:36When Taylor Swift comes to town, she's back-to-back on stadium nights selling 80,000 tickets.
02:43It's just how it is.
02:44You embrace it, and then everybody gets wealthier as a result.
02:49That's not happening in the WNBA.
02:52No one at any level in that league is embracing what she can do for them.