Wembanyamba or Clark?

Which of these two will have a greater impact on their league for the next decade or so?

  • Wemby

    Votes: 11 57.9%

  • Clark

    Votes: 8 42.1%
  • Total voters
    19
Wemby, and that's not even to say that he's going to have a big impact. There is and always will be a ceiling on women's hoops, sorry. That's the way it is. Every couple of years, there is a great white college player ( Kelsey Plum, Sabrina Inoescu ) and their brand is very small now. Other than being in the 3 point contest vs. Curry, Inoescu would be irrelevant now. It's kind of like hockey, if you really dig women's pro basketball, you'll find it, otherwise it's not part of the general public's sports viewing. Also, the WNBA goes from late summer into the fall, right during football season. A few generations ago, baseball was the national passtime and football has eclipsed that, even in the fall during the world series. How in the heck is Clark going to compete with that?
 
Wemby will be a global star due to be a European player, barring any major lingering injuries.

Clark, and to a lesser extent a handful of others, have dramatically lifted the relevancy of women's college basketball. The issue is going to be she has to make the WNBA relevant to the casual fan for her "star" to continue. That will be a tall, and IMO impossible, task.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Wemby will be a global star due to be a European player, barring any major lingering injuries.

Clark, and to a lesser extent a handful of others, have dramatically lifted the relevancy of women's college basketball. The issue is going to be she has to make the WNBA relevant to the casual fan for her "star" to continue. That will be a tall, and IMO impossible, task.
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I think you'll see thing kind of settle back to normal next season for college hoops. Clark has been a unicorn, he's a girl next door, serious hooper in middle America. She seemingly has all the skills, she's a great shooter/ passer, etc. Unfortunately the women's game is still played under the rim, and people just don't get exicted about put backs and short jump shots. I think JuJu Watkins can a great scorer and player, but we've seen these at the college level for decades and it just doesn't translate. In my opinion Diana Taurasi is the greatest women's player ever in terms of impact and longevity. Unless you're a hardcore women's basketball fan you may not know her.
 
wolves82 said:
Literally no one watches WNBA games, and I for one won't start. Caitlin is good, but not that good. The NBA and ESPN have tried for years to make people interested in it, and it has failed. A prime time game with Caitlin won't succeed either.

Now, if every team had celebrity coaches like Ana De Armas, Sydney Sweeney, etc. I may tune in for a few minutes.
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Her college games have pulled in big ratings not to mention attendance. Someone is watching.
 
Cedar_Point said:
Never said they didn’t play any at night.

Monday, May 20 Connecticut Sun vs Indiana Fever with Caitlin Clark. Yep, going to call
Off work to stay home and watch that one
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You picked one random game. Quickly scrolling through the schedule it appears the only other afternoon games are on the weekend.
 
y2h said:
You picked one random game. Quickly scrolling through the schedule it appears the only other afternoon games are on the weekend.
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Well you don’t “quickly scroll” very well. I counted 11 afternoon games not on the weekend
 
y2h said:
Her college games have pulled in big ratings not to mention attendance. Someone is watching.
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Everyone knows this. Women's college hoops has always been way more popular than the WNBA. This thread and my comment was about the WNBA. Try to follow along.

Caitlin has given the women's college game a big bump, no doubt. But the WNBA is quicksand and not even Caitlin can help that. Viewership will be a small fraction of the women's NCAA.
 
y2h said:
You attempted to downplay the matchup to rationalize the numbers. It had plenty of star power, it wasn't two basement teams.
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I provided context. If you took away anything other than context, maybe that says something about you.
 
Ah the old WNBA debate. ESPN is fully embedded into women's sports now and they have the rights to both the college women's game and the WNBA. The public needs to decide if it's really a thing, or just something ESPN puts on because they have the rights. And yes, you can twist numbers anyway you want. Of course the ratings were high this year, there were more women's college games on in more markets than ever before.
You will see a major push with the WNBA draft and Clark's first year in the league. And as much as they want to thank Clark for "lifting the league" up, they need to really thank ESPN. Now those who have at least followed sports from a distance knows the WNBA didn't start last year, or even 5 years ago. It's been around for over 20 years, and there has been some really good players in the league. Their major problem is and has always been interest. The NBA has supplemented this league since it's inception. I don't know that it ever changes. WNBA players want more money, better travel conditions, etc, but they can't even sustain themselves,that's why there are so few teams. At the college level through Title IX, men's and women's sports are directed to be equal. It's not that way with pro sports. It's well known that without the NBA's help, there would be on WNBA. Call it a subsidiary company of the NBA. Heck many former NBA players coach WNBA teams, including Bill Laimbeer and Michael Cooper.

So back to this thread's original question, I think a decade from now, Wembyana's impact will be much more felt than Clark. Clark can be a good solid WNBA player, but she's not going to dominate like she does at the college level.
 
wolves82 said:
Everyone knows this. Women's college hoops has always been way more popular than the WNBA. This thread and my comment was about the WNBA. Try to follow along.

Caitlin has given the women's college game a big bump, no doubt. But the WNBA is quicksand and not even Caitlin can help that. Viewership will be a small fraction of the women's NCAA.
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In women's college basketball you already have built-in (potential) fanbases between alumni and fans of the football and men's basketball programs. A good attraction or a winning program can have some immediate gravitate to pull people in.

In the WNBA you have...??? I'm honestly kind of surprised Clark hasn't walked back on not using the extra year of eligibility. She would be a bigger star with more celebrity at Iowa next year than playing in the WNBA. About the only positive I see is getting sent to a place (Indiana) where she may be able to at least have that "gravity" locally due to being in a big basketball state.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
In women's college basketball you already have built-in (potential) fanbases between alumni and fans of the football and men's basketball programs. A good attraction or a winning program can have some immediate gravitate to pull people in.

In the WNBA you have...??? I'm honestly kind of surprised Clark hasn't walked back on not using the extra year of eligibility. She would be a bigger star with more celebrity at Iowa next year than playing in the WNBA. About the only positive I see is getting sent to a place (Indiana) where she may be able to at least have that "gravity" locally due to being in a big basketball state.
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I think inherently the best players want to play with and against the best. Money aside, and she's going to make more money than she can spend, at least in the short term until we see how she translates to the next level. Part of her popularity is that she is from Iowa and the midwest. While Indiana is a big basketball state, not sure I'd say that automatically makes the Fever must watch. It's still the WNBA, it's still women's basketball and frankly most even ardent basketball fans couldn't tell you much about the Indiana Fever, who've been around for a long time.
 
Clark appears to be on the verge of a $20+ million deal with Nike that includes a signature shoe.

I think there's been maybe a dozen women to ever have their own shoe, and only a couple that do at the moment. Dollar value has to be unprecedented for a women's basketball player.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Clark appears to be on the verge of a $20+ million deal with Nike that includes a signature shoe.

I think there's been maybe a dozen women to ever have their own shoe, and only a couple that do at the moment. Dollar value has to be unprecedented for a women's basketball player.
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She is the greatest basketball player in history, bar none.
 
OldSoulon said:
She is the greatest basketball player in history, bar none.
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She would flat-out embarrass players like Jordan, Bird, Magic, Kareem and Pistol Pete.

Joking aside, women's basketball has come a long way since I was in school, but a top-level boy's high school team could still beat the best D1 college woman's team.

Does anybody remember the beat down of the world champion United States Woman's Soccer team by a bunch of U15 boys from Dallas? 5-2! Expect something similar if an elite HS boys team played the South Carolina woman's team.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Clark appears to be on the verge of a $20+ million deal with Nike that includes a signature shoe.

I think there's been maybe a dozen women to ever have their own shoe, and only a couple that do at the moment. Dollar value has to be unprecedented for a women's basketball player.
Click to expand...
I believe the final number was $28 mill, but an 8 year contract, so while that's likely more than any WNBA player ever, that equates to about $3.5 mill per year.
While this is great for now, I feel there is a very low ceiling for WNBA player shoes. Heck most high school girls will wear the guys shoes, I'd guess Curry's is probably the most popular. And guys would never wear a women's endorsed shoe, at least not for now. Maybe in another 25 -30 years. We'll see how all this plays out.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Clark appears to be on the verge of a $20+ million deal with Nike that includes a signature shoe.

I think there's been maybe a dozen women to ever have their own shoe, and only a couple that do at the moment. Dollar value has to be unprecedented for a women's basketball player.
Click to expand...
I believe the final number was $28 mill, but an 8 year contract, so while that's likely more than any WNBA player ever, that equates to about $3.5 mill per year.
While this is great for now, I feel there is a very low ceiling for WNBA player shoes. Heck most high school girls will wear the guys shoes, I'd guess Curry's is probably the most popular. And guys would never wear a women's endorsed shoe, at least not for now. Maybe in another 25 -30 years. We'll see how all this plays out.
 
14Red said:
I believe the final number was $28 mill, but an 8 year contract, so while that's likely more than any WNBA player ever, that equates to about $3.5 mill per year.
While this is great for now, I feel there is a very low ceiling for WNBA player shoes. Heck most high school girls will wear the guys shoes, I'd guess Curry's is probably the most popular. And guys would never wear a women's endorsed shoe, at least not for now. Maybe in another 25 -30 years. We'll see how all this plays out.
Click to expand...
Wrong

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Sabrina Ionescu's Nike basketball shoes are all over NBA courts this season.
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