COLUMN: Hyper-focused coverage solely on Caitlin Clark is harming natural growth of women's basketball
The Iowa women's basketball team's senior guard, Caitlin Clark, is the most recognizable face in all of college basketball.
She leads the country in scoring this season, is second in assists and is rapidly climbing the record books, having broken the Big Ten's all-time assist record in a win against Minnesota. She is also getting closer to the NCAA women's basketball's all-time scoring record, recently surpassing former Baylor great Brittney Griner for the fourth-most points in NCAA women's basketball history.
Off the court, her impact cannot be understated. When the Hawkeyes (18-2, 7-1) travel on the road, those road arenas see a 150 percent increase in attendance. The Clark phenomenon was on full display when No. 5 Iowa traveled to a sold-out Jersey Mike's Arena on Livingston campus and beat the Rutgers women's basketball team.
With all of the stardom and dazzling performances Clark provides, there is no question that she demands and deserves plenty of media attention. As the old saying goes, "There's no such thing as bad publicity" — this is especially true for a rapidly growing game like women's basketball.
But when national media focuses solely on one player and does not give the same energy to other stars within women's basketball, it can hurt the sport as a whole.
One instance that sparked this debate was when the Hawkeyes hosted the high-powered Indiana women's basketball team on January 13. The game was set to be nationally televised on Fox, since the two teams have been consistently near the top of the Big Ten and have formed a rivalry. In the days leading up to the primetime matchup, Fox College Hoops posted a promotional video on X, formerly known as Twitter, showing Clark's best highlights before her matchup against the Hoosiers (16-2, 7-1).
Fans were quick to point out that the video only featured Clark and had nothing to do with any of the players from No. 14 Indiana, a team that won the Big Ten in the 2022-2023 season and rosters a reigning All-American in Mackenzie Holmes and a lethal sharpshooter in Sara Scalia. In such a high-caliber matchup filled with numerous star players, it felt disingenuous to only feature one of them.
Even while the game was being played, Fox's TV broadcast would often leave a ticker on the screen with Clark's running stats in what would become a dominant 84-57 Iowa victory, even if she was on the bench. It was another instance of only focusing on Clark as if there were not nine other players on the court.
While it is obvious and understandable why Fox would want to highlight Clark, focusing solely on her can harm women's basketball's growing popularity because it does not allow newer fans to be exposed to other stars that they can become fans of. Hyper-focus on one player gives off the impression that the media does not want to highlight the sport itself but only the one player that provides content and gets engagements.
This is no fault of Clark's, of course. She has become a role model for young athletes nationwide and has done and said all the right things in the process. The blame is more so placed on national media outlets, who have not put in the effort to highlight some of the game's other stars.
For example, the top-ranked South Carolina women's basketball team is the lone undefeated team remaining, men's or women's, in Division I. But the Gamecocks (17-0, 5-0) receive very little mainstream coverage because they do not have a transcendent star like Clark, even though head coach Dawn Staley's squad has become one of the most dominant teams in all of college basketball.
In every sport, there are hundreds of unique stories that deserve to be told. That should not be an exception for women's college basketball. As the game continues to grow into the mainstream, all of the athletes deserve some kind of recognition for their efforts.
Does this mean to stop covering Clark altogether? Of course not. The best solution to this issue is to prop up other stars alongside Clark, thereby exposing new audiences to multiple teams and stars that they may not have known previously. That is how you organically grow a sport into a mainstream crowd.
For more updates on the Rutgers women's basketball team, follow @TargumSports on X.
To view more of Alec Crouthamel's work, follow @aleccr12 on X.
