Kaitlin Clark and her army of fans are the most valuable business Wnba. Not the most valuable player (at least for now) … but a business is active.
The arrival of Clark in the spring of 2024 sent television ratings, attendance, the rights to the media, sponsorship and the assessment of the franchise. Overnight billionaires fought to pay $ 250 million for their own teams.
Clark proposed more than just the main points of Logo-3. She gave the League Hope.
Purpose No. 1 Wnba should be to take this huge base of fans who followed Clark from Aiova and turned them into fans of the entire league … and not only one player or team.
It doesn’t matter how or why new customers appear. Everything should take the opportunity to make them regulars, selling them on a strong product, which is already playing on a night basis.
Wnba received a victorious lottery ticket, has not seen in sports since Tiger Woods arrived at the PGA Tour.
The league should stop trying to light him in fire.
The latest evidence of self -Security proceed from the conversation between Wnba Commissioner Katie Engelbert and the star of Minnesota Nafas Colliera.
The concrete topic was contracts with a newcomer who, about $ 75,000 a year, underestimated Clark and other young talents, such as an angel of Reese and Page Bukers, who brought smaller ones – but still valuable – bases of fans and their own attention from college.
“I … asked how [Engelbert] It is planned to fix the fact that players such as Caitlin, Angel and Page, who are clearly conducting a huge income for the league, do so little during the first four years, – Collier said at a press conference. – Her answer was: “Caitlin should be grateful that she earns 16 million dollars on the court, because without a platform gives her Wnba, she would not do anything.”
Later, the ring added that Engelbert told her: “The players should be on their knees, thanking their lucky ones for the deal with the rights on the media that I received them.”
Collier transmitted the conversation as part of the screed against Engelbert about the quality of refereeing, the fines of the league to make criticism and other problems silence. All the actual points, especially the leading negotiations on the new labor transaction. Nevertheless, ranting about execution, regardless of how ruthlessly delivered, is quite common. Entertainment, yes, but it will disappear.
However, the stain is very smart. Clark's comments that she attributed to Engelbert should have been a purposeful grenade.
Clark fans were already afraid of the reception that she received in Wnba, and they have a good reason.
Hard fouls. Swery comments. The neglect of the media commentary. Olympics. Some of them can be brushed as a reality of competitive sports. No one owes expensive flowers. However, some of them are probably based on politics, or pride, or jealousy, or rivalry, or … fill in the gap. Sometimes everything in Clarke seems to be a circus of discord.
Although Clark herself never complained, many of her fans perceive – and perception quickly becomes a reality – that Clark is not completely welcome in the league.
In turn, they too.
The presence of the Wnba commissar says that Clark should be grateful, because without a league she would not do “nothing”, simply confirms the suspicion. It also plays on the old path that women -sportsmen should only be grateful for the chance to play. Is this 1972?
Of course, all this is funny. Clark conducted national campaigns to approve, while he was still in college. By her younger season, she was more popular than any Wnba player. She arrived rich.
Maybe Engelbert did not know.
The fact that the Wnba Commissioner will have an opinion about who should be grateful, who, not to mention the fact that she will unprofessionally express him to another active player is almost incomprehensible.
This is not Clark, which should thank Wnba for its approval. This is a league that should thank her for a boom in business. He must consider his blessings that she and other young charismatic stars decorate his league.
“I am disappointed with the way the Nafe characterized our conversations and leadership in the League,” Engelbert said as part of the statement. “But even when our prospects differ, my commitment to players and this work does not hesitate.”
This is not a denial of what Collier said. It also does not solve the main problem.
An absolutely worst thing that can happen to the business of female basketball is for all new fans to think that the League not only does not value their beloved player, but also openly hostile and condescending to them.
That is how you do not grow sport. They can tune in to Caitlin games (or the games of an angel and a page), but now they have a motivation to intentionally not support, not watch or take care of something or anyone else.
Wnba is suddenly not a business that longs for them as customers throughout life.
This is an enemy.
