Watch Clay Travis of ‘Outkick’ explain why he thinks Caitlin Clark has become one of the most polarizing athletes in sports history, as Clay believes it’s entirely because she’s ‘White and heterosexual’ in a sport that has historically mostly been ‘Black and lesbian.’
Check out the segment above as Clay details how the media is refusing to chalk up Clark's plight to 'racism', saying there's no other reason why she's the most hated player in the league by her peers despite Clark single-handedly taking a largely irrelevant league and turning it into a mainstream American sport.
Clay Travis: “Caitlin Clark is White and straight in a league that is primarily minority and lesbian. I told you this was going to be an issue, and now you got everybody acknowledging it all over the place. The average WNBA player does not like Caitlin Clark because she is White, because she is straight, and because now she is rich and getting a lot of attention. There is a great deal of resentment about that.
I can never remember any male athlete ever entering into a new league and being treated like this. I don’t remember it in the NFL, I don’t remember it in the NBA, I don’t remember it in Major League Baseball... I can’t remember a celebrity athlete coming in with a big fan base that is lifting tons of attention, and theoretically going to make everybody a great deal of money and people are just losing their minds over it.
Probably the best analogy you can make for Caitlin Clark’s impact in the WNBA in my life as a sports fan would probably be Tiger Woods coming onto the PGA Tour. There have been other athletes that are super famous that come into leagues – Tim Tebow, Yao Ming – but Tiger Woods is the best analogy right now to Caitlin Clark. But even that isn’t perfect because there was already a lot of PGA fans, but Tiger Woods took golf to another level. Everybody who was a professional golfer started to make a ton of money more because Tiger Woods was a rising tide that lifted all boats.
The difference is Tiger Woods almost immediately established himself as one of the five or six best golfers in the entire PGA Tour even as a 19-year-old. His dominance immediately translated to the world of golf and he was the best golfer for a generation. Even for those of you who are diehard Caitlin Clark people, Caitlin Clark has not come into the WNBA and immediately been one of the five or six best players. She’s not playing at an incredibly high level but she’s bringing a whole new audience that didn’t care about the WNBA at all for about 30 years.
There were some bumps along the road, Fuzzy Zoeller I think, but by and large, everybody welcomed Tiger Woods with open arms to PGA. I cannot think of any player out there that has been a rookie and has come in and been as hated as we have seen for Caitlin Clark in the WNBA.
Why is that? Why is she hated? Some people are hated because they’re kind of jerks. Not Caitlin Clark. I don’t think Caitlin Clark has ever really said anything remotely controversial in her whole career as a public figure. Caitlin Clark is hated because she’s White and because she is heterosexual in a league that is to a large extent Black and lesbian.
Some people say ‘WELL, ALSO SHE’S REALLY PRETTY!’... I think Caitlin Clark is good looking, I don’t think Caitlin Clark is Anna Kournikova. She is not Olivia Dunne. She is not so good looking that she would be famous even if she wasn’t an athlete on Instagram.
They’re tearing Caitlin Clark down because she’s a minority. She’s a White woman who’s heterosexual. I said this on social media and I believe Caitlin Clark’s boyfriend or fiancé has liked tweets saying the same thing... She needs an enforcer. She needs a brute that will wreck people if they wreck her. What’s interesting is none of her teammates are standing up for her because I don’t think they like her either because they don’t like the fact that she’s White and straight. She’s actually the minority here and she’s being treated unfairly based on this. It’s unfair because Caitlin Clark, no matter what her race or sexual preference is, she is the WNBA’s version of Steph Curry. Clark is the ‘rising tide lifts all boats’, everybody gets to fly charter flights now after 30 years of not doing it and these women are tearing her down, which is so counterproductive.
We’ve created an entire generation that only thinks White people can be racist, and the only racism we talk about is White, primarily to Black, but occasionally White to Hispanic, or White to Asian, and any other racism people just pretend doesn’t exist. It would change everything in this country if we would just have public figures come out and say, ‘You know what? White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic people can all be racist, judging anybody by their race or their sexuality is wrong, and we should not do it.' People say that I’m ‘racist’ for saying that! Every one of those groups knows that they can be racist.
Caitlin Clark’s race and sexuality has something to do with the way she’s being treated. Otherwise, what would it be? Jealousy based on what? Jealous because she’s too good looking? I don’t think it’s that. It’s because she’s White, she’s straight, and she’s rich. If Caitlin Clark had the exact same game and she was Black and she was a lesbian, then there would be no criticism of her inside the WNBA.
They should get an enforcer. It would be incredibly brave and heroic by the standards of the left, Dawn Staley included, if they could find a man pretending to be a woman to run around and wreck people, and protect Caitlin Clark like it’s hockey. Go find Dennis Rodman, put him in a wig, claim that he's ‘trans’, put him in a sports bra... He would be very ‘brave’, and he could just run around and wreck chicks like he used to do protecting Michael Jordan. He’d probably average 50 rebounds a game in the WNBA and everyone at ESPN would have to name him ‘Woman of the Year.’"
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