I was watching the highlights of the Indiana vs. Connecticut game the other morning because I still don't watch the games as they happen for the most part (sorry girls) and while watching those I realized very quickly that every time Caitlin Plays, dozens of YouTubers will make montage videos about her. Hell, even when she doesn't play, which was the case a week ago during her injury recovery, the videos of her simply signing autographs at stadiums would end up with millions more views than footage of the actual games that she was on the sidelines for.
This is all fine with me but it really sheds a light on how most people aren't really all that interested in watching a WNBA game, they are just watching for Caitlin Clark.
When Paige Bueckers was drafted earlier this year it appeared as though we might have another media darling on our hands as they really pushed to make Paige the next coming of the amazing sort of play that we have come to expect from Caitlin.... you need only look in the background of the above picture to see how quickly that sentiment has waned unfortunately.
I think that for Paige, and really any other number 1 draft pick that the media decides to latch onto in the hopes that she become the next great thing in women's basketball, has really got a tough battle for themselves coming into this league. When Paige came onto the team and didn't immediately convert the Wings into a championship level team, the fans started to tune out almost immediately.
Paige has gotten better as the season has gone on but at the end of the day her team has only won 2 games out of 13 and it is kind of hard to stay excited when that happens. I would be like getting to see Michael Jordan do something awesome in every game in the 80's but his team always loses. It kind of loses its shine after a while.
Bueckers however, is no Jordan. Caitlin might be the female equivalent of him but in the case of Paige, she has struggled a bit, to say the least. She averages 17.7 points a game, and had a game high of 35 vs the Phoenix Mercury back in June as well a good amount of assists and actually a much lower turnover rate than even Caitlin normally has. So why isn't she getting the sort of attention that Clark is getting?
Well I think there are two reasons: 1, she doesn't appear to be as good as Caitlin is for starters, namely in the way that she doesn't drain 3's from "downtown" on a regular basis, and 2, her team is really bad.
If Caitlin had been put on a team that even after she hit her stride had failed to win almost all of their games, I think that the media and the fans would have lost interest over time as well.
I forgot one very big reason why Paige isn't getting the love that CC gets: There is only so many sets of eyes available as far as WNBA fans are concerned.
This is a graph from Statistica, whom I believe is reasonably accurate in all non-political information, and that is the TV viewers of ALL WNBA games on a weekly basis. 2024 is the one furthest to the right. It's a pretty big jump for sure, but is it enough to spread it around so that others get a lot of attention as well? I don't really think so.
Most of this viewership is for Indiana Fever games too even though they kind of gloss over that because it would be "mean" to point out the obvious I guess. As far as attendance is concerned, the Dallas Wings play in a stadium that is on a college campus and have no dedicated arena of their own. I think maybe the hope was that Paige's inclusion would bring a bunch more attention to justify the move they are making downtown in Dallas but looking at the attendance pictures I wonder if they are regretting that decision.
I'm not here to rain on anyone's parade, perhaps the move will make attending games more convenient and it will change. I hope so as I have come to really enjoy the WNBA and even though my friends make fun of me for having this opinion, I enjoy it more than the men's pro basketball. Perhaps this is I'm stupid and the action is slowed down to a pace that I can more easily follow :)
Why am I talking about Paige though? It is mostly because I feel bad for the girl. She got about all the "media darling" attention that she is going to and it just didn't stick. In her last game, which Dallas actually won she only managed 10 points in 30 minutes of play in a 3-10 including 2 missed 3 pointers. At least she was 100% from free-throw range, I guess.
I would like to see this girl do well and I think it would be amazing if there were reason for some sort of new rivalry between her and Caitlin, but a friendly one the likes of which Bird and Magic had going on in the 80's for the NBA. A reasonably friendly and rooted in absolute excellence rivalry would be awesome.
The media would be all over this as well because the feud between Caitlin and Angel Reese has become stale because I believe it has been thoroughly proven that Reese is not on the level that Caitlin is.
In the meantime the Wings have secured ANOTHER 1st round draft pick and perhaps that can result in Paige having better options on the hardwood or in a way, having someone to pass to. Perhaps that is what it will take for her to shine. I would imagine that her window of opportunity is pretty small here though. There just aren't enough fans in total for people to be sitting around and waiting for a result for years on end.