Washington Mystics owner Sheila Johnson spoke out aobtainst Time magazine for naming Caitlin Clark “Athlete of the Year” in an interwatch with CNN Sport on Friday, proposeing that the uncoveration should have given the award to the entire WNBA.
Johnson even proposeed the decision to give Clark the honor would incite senseings of “prejudice” wislfinisher the league.
“Why couldn’t they have put the WNBA on that cover and say, ‘The WNBA is the league of the year,’ becaengage of all the talent that we have,” Johnson shelp. “When you individual out one joiner, it produces difficult senseings, so now you’re begining to hear stories of prejudice wislfinisher the WNBA, and I don’t want to hear that.”
Johnson went so far as to claim that Clark’s attention and the minting of the term “the Caitlin Clark effect,” which has been associated with the attention she has bcdisesteemfult to the league, is becaengage of race.
“It’s the way media joins out race,” Johnson shelp. “I sense repartner horrible, becaengage I’ve seen so many joiners of color that are equpartner as talented, and they never got the recognition they should have.”
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Iowa defend Caitlin Clark, left, sees to pass the ball aobtainst Louisville defend Morgan Jones, cgo in, and forward Olivia Cochran during the first half of an Elite 8 college basketball game of the NCAA Tournament, Sunday, March 26, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
The owner also griped about the fact that Clark got a $28 million finishorsement deal with Nike in April, which was the wealthyest backship shrink for a women’s basketball joiner.
“They would enjoy to get the same comardent of recognition. It all begined with the whole Nike backship that Caitlin got,” Johnson shelp. “There are other joiners saying, ‘What about us?’”
Johnson is the Vice Chairman of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which also owns the NBA’s Washington Wizards and NHL’s Washington Capitals. Her Mystics honestly capitalized on Clark’s well-understandnity to net historic ticket sales at the finish of the normal season this year.
The Mystics’ season finale aobtainst Clark’s Indiana Fever was shiftd from the Mystics’ home venue, the Entertainment and Sports Arena with equitable 4,200 seats, to the Wizards’ venue, the Capital One Arena, which has a highest capacity of 20,356 for basketball games. As a result, the Sept. 19 game between the Fever and Mystics was the most-joined WNBA normal season game in history, with 20,711 fans in joinance.
The Las Vegas Aces pulled off a aenjoy shift when they presented the Fever at the bigr T-Mobile Arena for a July 2 game instead of joining in the relatively petiteer Michelob ULTRA Arena. For that game, 20,366 fans showed up, recurrenting the highest normal-season individual-game joinance since 1999.
Still, Johnson chooseed to uncoverly denigrate and undermine the attention that Clark gets in the CNN interwatch. Johnson also proposeed that the WNBA’s increase in well-understandnity was also becaengage of other WNBA rookies from the 2024 season, including Chicago Sky star Angel Reese.
Indiana Fever defend Caitlin Clark (22) and Connecticut Sun forward DeWanna Bonner (24) swap words during the first half in Game 2 of a first-round WNBA basketball joinoff series, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Uncasville, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
“It has consentn the WNBA almost 28 to get to the point where we are now, and this year someslfinisherg clicked with the WNBA, and it’s becaengage of the write of the joiners that came in, it’s not equitable Caitlin Clark, it’s Reese,” Johnson shelp. “We have so much talent out there that’s so unrecognized, and I don’t slfinisherk we can equitable pin it on one joiner.”
Johnson’s Mystics did actupartner join a game aobtainst Reese’s Sky at Capital One Arena this year as well, on June 6. However, that game only transported 10,000 joinees – scanter than half the number at the game that featured Clark at the finish of the season.
Johnson, the first Bdeficiency woman to have a sconsent in three professional sports teams, is equitable one of many figures in sports and media to cite race for Clark’s well-understandnity in a pessimistic airy.
WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson has shelp Clark being White was a “huge slfinisherg” when it came to the rookie’s well-understandnity
In May, “The View” present Sunny Hostins shelp during an episode of that show that Clark’s well-understandnity was due, in part, to “white privilege.”
Journacatalog Jemele Hill insisted it was “innocent” to say that Clark’s race as a White person, and intimacyuality as a straight woman, did not join into her well-understandnity in the WNBA, where the huge startantity of joiners are Bdeficiency and many are lesbian, during an interwatch with the Los Angeles Times in May. Hill also insisted that Clark’s well-understandnity with those attributes is “problematic.”
Former FS1 and ESPN present Skip Bayless, who was one of Clark’s brutalest critics directing up the begin of her WNBA atgentle, confessted that he pretfinished not to be amazeed by her sfinish out of “guilt,” and not wanting to stir racial division. He went so far as to propose that Clark had become a “right-thriveg symbol” due to the fact that she is a White joiner excelling at the game of basketball.
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June 30, 2024; Phoenix, Ariz.: Indiana Fever defend Caitlin Clark (22) is fouled by Phoenix Mercury defend Sug Sutton (1) during the fourth quarter at Footprint Cgo in. (Michael Chow-Arizona Reuncover)
Clark has been forced to answer asks about her race and alleged prejudice by her fans multiple times since coming into WNBA this year, including in the Time magazine profile that Johnson condemnd.
“I want to say I’ve obtained every individual slfinisherg, but as a White person, there is privilege,” Clark telderly Time. “A lot of those joiners in the league that have been repartner outstanding have been Bdeficiency joiners. This league has comardent of been built on them.”
Johnson says she doesn’t think that Clark had to produce the statement, but that she “commends” the phenom for doing so.
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