Caitlin Clark’s “value” to the WNBA is greatly exaggerated

Steve Hartman: “If you’re actually talking about who the ‘most valuable’ player in the WNBA is, it should be unanimously Caitlin Clark because she generates a lot of viewership. Being valuable to the WNBA means you’re someone who makes us money. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the best player, but it does mean you’re the ‘most valuable’ player, and no one has ever embodied ‘value’ to a league better than Caitlin Clark.”

Veejay Huskey: “I object to the ‘value to the league’ thing. She is ‘valuable’ to the Fever, she was not valuable to the league.”

Hartman: “She wasn’t valuable to the league?”

Huskey: “The ‘value to the league’ is a false narrative to make it seem like she’s really helping to build the league. Look at the ratings. People watch the Fever games. People don’t really watch all those other games. Look at the differences between the ratings of the Fever games and all those other games. Don’t tell me she’s an ‘asset’ to the league when she’s an asset to the Fever and their brand. That’s fine, she can be, but this narrative that she’s an asset to the league? How many people watch the Mystic games??”

Hartman: “How many people talked about the WNBA before it came along?”

Huskey: “They’re not talking about the WNBA, they’re talking about YOU and Angel Reese. They’re not talking about the league. If they were, we’d be talking about the Liberty. We’d be talking about Breanna (Stewart); we’d be talking about (A’ja) Wilson. We’re not doing that.”

Hartman: “The bottom line is they fill the stadiums. Maybe there’s not the full transfer to the rest of the league because people who test the WNBA see a lot of what you just said with Angel Reese. She shoots 41% as a big. That seems impossible when most of your shots are literally under the basket. When you first watch this league, you realize the ‘selling point’ of the women’s game is that they play the ‘fundamental’ game well. They play under the basket. It’s not all spectacular and they realize they don’t shoot that well. You see botched layups, you see the kind of missed shots in the WNBA that would get you kicked out of the league if that happened in the NBA. You can’t play in the NBA if you can’t hit that shot and that’s commonplace in the WNBA.

You can talk about three-point shooting – right now Caitlin Clark is barely over 30% (.332). Everyone seems to be fascinated by this Caitlin Clark thing: “I’m going to watch it because everyone else is” – whether that will have any ripple effects, I don’t know. Right now she is the “most valuable” player in this league. She may not even be a top 25 player in this league, but in terms of her value to this league, they’ve been given an opportunity they’ve never had before and may never have again.”

Huskey: “I look at the ratings. People don’t watch other games, so I try to figure out what that ‘value’ is. For the Fever, for their brand, yeah. And then you have to have a villain, so Angel Reese is the villain, and everyone looks at the Chicago Sky. Either them or Angel, that’s what people talk about. The best team in the league is the New York Liberty. Can any radio host, without looking, tell me three starters from their offense? We want to create this narrative that I just don’t agree with. I just look at the facts and numbers, and when I look at the Fever games and then the ratings for the rest of the league without the Fever or the Sky, I’m like, ‘OK, where does that league value come from?’ You still can’t draw 7,000 if it’s not Angel Reese or Caitlin Clark. “This game was watched 500,000 times, but the Chicago Sky and Fever game had 1.5 million viewers. Who played in that game? Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark.”

Hartman: “How long do you think this will take?”

Huskey: “After this year, because of the young lady from UConn (Paige Bueckers) and Juju (Watkins) coming. This is just for now. It was created as a narrative, it was created as a story. America loves ‘good guy versus bad guy.’ I don’t think these two ladies really dislike each other. We were told to do it this way, so now we have to pick a side.”

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