Jason Whitlock of Blaze TV’s Fearless says the WNBA’s recent skyrocket in popularity centered around the rookie campaign of Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever will be short-lived if the league continues letting a ‘cheap’ and ‘dirty’ brand of ‘goonish’ basketball run roughshod.
Check out the segment below as Whitlock details why the 'Caitlin Clark Effect' on the ratings will turn into a mass exodus of alienated fans if the WNBA doesn’t showcase a more marketable brand of basketball that doesn't have its most coveted asset being hunted down by ‘angry feminists’ on the court every game who hate everything Clark stands for.
Jason Whitlock: “Someone put a video out over social media about what the WNBA was like ‘before Caitlin Clark’. It’s a fair argument that what Chennedy Carter did is not remotely unusual for the WNBA. Then I saw people push out a video of ‘HEY, A WEEK AGO ALYSSA THOMAS HORSE-COLLARED ANGEL REESE TO THE GROUND! HOW COME YOU GUYS WEREN’T COMPLAINING THEN?? HOW COME THAT WASN’T A BIG DEAL?? YOU JUST WANNA PROTECT CAITLIN CLARK! THIS IS THE WAY THE WNBA HAS ALWAYS BEEN! IT’S ALWAYS BEEN A ROUGH AND PHYSICAL LEAGUE!’... You know what my reaction to that is?
That’s why I didn’t watch the WNBA...
I don't want to see a bunch of tatted-up angry lesbians do roller derby on a basketball court. I don't want to see it, no one wants to see it. No one wants to see women behaving like thuggish men. I'm just sorry, that's a fact. I don't watch women's UFC; I don't watch women's boxing. I don't like it. I don't like women that like to fight.
When I see videos over social media of women pummeling each other in street fights, I click off and move away, and say I never want to be around those people. I don't want to be around women who are comfortable fighting. That's just me and I think that's most men. We have a different set of expectations for women. When I watched Caitlin Clark in a college environment, when I watch women's college basketball, I don't want to see a bunch of fighting, and there's a lot less of it in college basketball. It almost never happens. We had the one little incident where Kamilla Cardoso, playing for Dawn Staley -- she shoved Flau’jae Johnson, the LSU guard, to the ground and then the women all came together and nothing happened. There were no other punches thrown. It was called a ‘melee’ but nothing really happened. These videos of angry lesbians fighting each other; it's why I don't watch the WNBA. It's why the league has lost money for 27 straight years. It's why the ratings have been awful, and it's why this new rookie class was greeted as a breath of fresh air because they presented themselves as feminine women on Draft night.
If they want to revert to the violence, trust me, they're going to run us away -- the people that had never paid attention to the WNBA, because we have two different sets of expectations from men and women. They call that ‘sexism’, I call it a normal mindset. Men and women are not the same, and if the WNBA wants to continue to be a league that mimics the behavior of men, and if all the women are going to tat themselves up and beat themselves up on the court, I'm not going to watch.
When you watch a lot of women in sports, whether it's soccer, or whether it's basketball, there is an over-aggression that's a part of these sports. It's like ‘man, that that seemed aggressive for no reason.’
When you turn hyper-aggressive in any sport, and when you cross the line in any sport in terms of physicality, who's normally doing that? Is it Michael Jordan? Is it Kobe Bryant? Is it Magic Johnson? Is it the most skilled players, or do they have what they have in hockey...GOONS. Guys with limited amount of talent who it's their job to be enforcers, and they get involved in most of the extracurricular dirty stuff.
Brittney Griner for a while was maybe the most dominant women's basketball player, but she's not skilled, she’s just big. So when you lack skill and talent, you turn hyper-aggressive, and the next thing you know you’re Draymond Green. And this isn't a knock on Draymond Green, it's Draymond Green maxing out his limited talent and so he's overly aggressive. So is Dillon Brooks. Dennis Rodman was not skilled, he was overly aggressive. He played harder and rougher than everyone else to compensate for his lack of skills.
So when the women turn hyper-aggressive and hyper-physical, what they're actually doing is waving a giant flag to say ‘I DON’T HAVE ANY REAL TALENT OR SKILLS, I HAVE TO MAKE UP FOR IT BY BEATING PEOPLE UP!’... People don't want to see that, they just don’t. I don’t blame them for not wanting to see that.
Angel Reese is on TV saying ‘I MADE THE WNBA POPULAR! HOW COME THEY’RE NOT HONORING ALL THE WOMEN BEFORE US THAT LAID THE GROUNDWORK??’... Because you weren’t any good. You weren't very skilled. This young woman [Caitlin Clark] is highly skilled. There are some other young women in that league that are skilled as well, but they come in that rough male packaging that no one wants to see. I'm just sorry. If the WNBA wants to remain a niche league for angry feminists and lesbians, and have everybody ignore them, have at it. I was perfectly happy never watching the WNBA. I'll be perfectly happy never watching the WNBA again.
I've been attracted to the WNBA because of Caitlin Clark, and because I thought the league and the players, the smart ones at least, were ready to embrace a more marketable style of basketball, a more feminine style of basketball. I'm not saying they can't be physical at all, but if they want to turn this into literally roller derby, they better find some more attractive women willing to put on little tiny shorts and revealing outfits, put some roller blades on them, and then they can roll around a rink and knock each other over and do a bunch of dirty stuff. People will watch that. But as long as the league is dependent on women who have tatted themselves up, women who many look like little dudes out there, they got to tamp down the physicality, and the cheap and dirty stuff.”
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