Rob Parker: “This is not about Caitlin Clark, this is about all the other women sports fans who have not helped make this what it should be, and what I’m talking about is the WNBA. So that Caitlin Clark would have a place to come and make the money she deserves to make. She’ll make her money off the court because she’s that good and that marketable, but she won’t make her money as a basketball player like guys get a chance to. Most of the great WNBA players have to go to Europe to make money.
I hear all the time ‘IT AIN’T FAIR! THEY DON’T TREAT THE WNBA LIKE THE NBA! THEY DON’T PAY THE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY!’... WOMEN could change that overnight. WOMEN, not men, by supporting the WNBA. For whatever reason, they have refused to support the WNBA. TV executives look at numbers. Wrestling can be fake until the cows come home, but if the number is big, it’s on primetime television. When Caitlin Clark plays this year the numbers are big. But when it came to the WNBA? This league has been around for 28 years. Everybody thinks Caitlin Clark is going to be the savior of the WNBA – she won’t. Not if women don’t start going to the games, watching the games, and supporting this league. The league has been around for 28 years and the average attendance from last year was 6,614. They blame the guys, that it’s OUR fault that their league isn’t succeeding. Could not be more untruthful. It is NOT based on us.
Has a woman ever invited you on a date to go to a WNBA game? No, they want to go to the NBA game. It’s a shame that Caitlin Clark doesn’t have an outlet for someone who is so electric, who is going to set the all-time college scoring record for men and women, and pass ‘Pistol’ Pete Maravich. Incredible. And there is no viable place at home? She’ll have to go abroad to make real money. When Brittney Griner was caught in Russia, she was playing basketball over there to make money because there’s not enough money here. All these great players are playing in half-empty arenas for little pay. If it wasn’t for the support of the NBA, would it be around? It wouldn’t even be around.
They’re marketing it but the women have to embrace it. You can’t complain about not getting stuff, and it’s ‘not fair’. Everything is a numbers game, it’s real simple. The WNBA has missed the mark and mostly because women haven’t embraced it. I’m being hard on women because I think YOU can change this. Where is your messiah? HERE SHE IS. CAITLIN CLARK IS YOUR MESSIAH! GO TO THE TEMPLE AND WATCH HER IN THE WNBA! DON’T LET THIS BE A COLLEGE FAD AND AS SOON AS SHE GOES TO THE WNBA YOU STOP GOING! Indiana has the first pick in the WNBA Draft – they better sell out that building. And when she goes around the rest of the league, they better sell out that building. She better not be playing in front of 4, 5, and 6,000 people. The WNBA’s messiah has arrived, but are women up to the task? I’m not sure they are.”
Watch Rob Parker of Fox Sports Radio’s The Odd Couple discuss news of Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark declaring for the WNBA Draft on Thursday, and calling on women to start supporting a WNBA that has historically struggled to capture female fans.
The WNBA has been an unprofitable league during its 28-year existence despite the emergence of the most elite talent their sport has ever seen the last decade, and the WNBA’s attendance continues to underwhelm. NBA commissioner Adam Silver, whose league fully backs and subsidizes the WNBA, said during a 2018 interview that the WNBA’s biggest marketing problem is that young women don’t support the sport in large numbers, and that their biggest demographic is actually ‘older men who like fundamental basketball.’
Check out the segment above as Parker piggybacks on Silver’s concerns over the WNBA’s lack of female backing, saying Clark, who many believe is the greatest female basketball player of all time, is the ‘messiah’ that all female fans should be flocking to support next year in the WNBA if they really want to see more equality in the sport when it comes to player salaries and television coverage.
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