00:00I want to get to your book here on her game, and I've asked the same question to people, and
00:06they seemingly just can't give me the answer here.
00:09Why is it so difficult for the WNBA to have Kaitlin Clark as the face of this league when they've
00:17got the Golden Goose right in front of them?
00:19Why is it so difficult for that league to understand this?
00:24Dan, I address this in the book. You know me as a journalist. I address everything and talk about these
00:29issues, and that book is very much up to date, but it was her first season.
00:35The paperback includes the second season, but now here we are in year three of the Kaitlin Clark era, and
00:40even by saying that, if I put that on Twitter or if I say that, people get mad at me.
00:44The Kaitlin Clark era. I mean, the lack of understanding of the magnitude of the moment is astounding to me.
00:52The numbers are undeniable.
00:55You know, facts are facts, and when Kaitlin Clark disappeared last year due to injury, and of course, that was
01:02so unusual.
01:02She'd never been injured except one game in high school, and then to have her miss all but 13 games
01:07last year.
01:07When she disappeared, Dan, more than half the TV audience also disappeared with her. That is unprecedented. Tiger Woods didn't
01:15have that.
01:16Michael Jordan didn't have that when he went to baseball or when he retired. You know, that's how big a
01:21deal Kaitlin Clark is to the WNBA, and it is understandable.
01:25There are lots of factors. It is a 74 percent black league that never got the attention that it deserved
01:33from the mainstream sports media, and I know this because I would cover it.
01:36I was covering the 96 Atlanta Olympics. At 99, I was a sideline reporter and analyst for Lifetime TV's coverage
01:44of about, I guess, seven, eight WNBA games back then.
01:48So I cared, and I was covering it, and for the Washington Post and then USA Today absolutely covered the
01:54issues involving the WNBA.
01:56I've been there the whole time, and I'd get laughed at if I was on radio shows, not by hosts
02:02like you, but by callers.
02:03Oh, why are you covering women's basketball? Guys, you know, saying they're just rolling around on the floor. It's just
02:08jump balls.
02:09And I would defend it back in the 90s, and those men would just kind of laugh and hang up.
02:16All right. Well, those guys or their sons are now the ones who are buying the number 22 jerseys and
02:23wearing them not only to the game, but to the grocery store and the gas station.
02:28That's the sea change. And so while we understand that a black league, a majority black league, you and I
02:34have never spent a second as a black person.
02:36I say this on my book tour all the time for the book, that it is, we don't know.
02:41But what we do know is this, the spotlight shining on Caitlin Clark is now shining on all these players,
02:47Asia Wilson, Kelsey Mitchell in Indiana, so many others who never got the attention they deserve.
02:53And they're getting it now because Caitlin Clark is there, the attention magnet, drawing people in, drawing men who never
03:00would have cared about women's basketball.
03:01And I know this because I see them on my book tour in Iowa and Indiana and Maryland and Chicago,
03:07everywhere.
03:07They tell me this as they're buying five books for their granddaughters.
03:10These men care about Caitlin Clark and rearrange their evenings to watch her games on TV.
03:17That's such a breakthrough moment. And the WNBA doesn't need to hate that.
03:21They can love that because all these other players are making more money.
03:25They got charter flights because of Caitlin Clark, the new collective bargaining agreement, in large part because of the TV
03:31interest and the sponsor interest drawn in by Caitlin Clark.
03:35And that's that's those are the facts. And I detail all of that in the book.
03:39And yet still, there seem to be very some very hurt feelings, which enough, enough of that.
03:44These are strong women. They can handle it. And let's hope that this younger generation, they do.
03:49They appreciate Caitlin Clark much more than the older players who will age out over the next few years.
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