I’ve Got The Fever
Caitlin Clark & The Michael Jordan Effect
I found myself in Indianapolis this past week for work. Though it is the 17th most populous city in the U.S., when you come from the East coast it feels half as populated as the Jersey shore during Memorial Day weekend. The city is wide, clean, and I got in on Sunday the 19th, a week before Indianapolis becomes a shit show for the Indy 500 according to locals. I figured I would take it easy, that there would be nothing going on as far as nightlife, and that I could finally catch up on some rest and reading that is severely lacking at home (a 2-year-old and a 2-month-old aren’t necessarily conducive to relaxation).
I woke up on Monday the 20th, my birthday, and went for a nice run on a trail hugging the White River. It was beautiful. I felt rested, healthy, and attended my meetings with a clear and fresh head. My plan was to finish up my meetings, attend the one-hour work event happy hour, grab dinner at the famous St. Elmo’s steakhouse, maybe wash my steak down with ONE martini, and call it a night. As so often happens, my plans went to shit.
I was drinking a cocktail at the work event when I overheard someone say that the Indiana Fever were playing a home game in a couple of hours. I, like most of you, had no idea what that meant. I asked him if the Fever were a local AAA baseball team and he said, “No, dude, it’s the team Caitlin Clark plays for.” Like everyone on planet earth, I was enthralled with the tail end of Caitlin Clark’s college career and my enthusiasm waned as she graduated to the WNBA. So, let’s get the misogyny out of the way - I do not, or better yet, did not pay attention to the WNBA a mere week ago. I know the New York Liberty exist, but that’s about it. With the NBA playoffs, the Stanley Cup, the New York Yankees, and Scottie Scheffler being arrested the morning of the PGA Championship, my brain has only so much room to keep track of all the male sports. The WNBA might have been the furthest thing on my mind.
I said, “Fuck it” and started looking up tickets. Attending a WNBA game alone on my 34th birthday was the last thing I had on my bingo card, but there I was. To no one’s surprise, the nosebleed tickets were $6. I decided to splurge for the lower section, twenty rows up, for a whopping $40. Based on ticket prices alone I had low expectations, and that was without the baggage of my male brain already comparing women’s basketball to men’s. I made this joke in my head, “They deduct $10 bucks off the ticket price for every dunk there won’t be.” It was mean. I still laughed.
If any of my readers are WNBA fans I apologize. But my reactions to the WNBA are not some fringe, psychopathic, incel, scumbag, Far Right, misogynistic thoughts. I love women. I am surrounded by them (I’m married to one and have two). I want them to succeed. I just don’t have the burning fire, the Fever if you will, to watch them play basketball. It’s like buying the Land Rover instead of the Range Rover (I assume, I’m too broke to afford either). I want the super charged engine, I want the amenities, I want the dunks and the athleticism that the NBA has to offer. It is what it is. I decided, at the very least, that if the game sucked I would have a funny story to write. Well, my dear readers, the game did not suck. So, let’s get into it.
I walked from the work event to the arena fortified by another cocktail (okay fine, a third) and was surprised at how wild the atmosphere was. There were thousands of excited fans, the majority of which were kids (young girls to be exact). This was something you don’t always see at the men’s game. Sure, there are plenty of kids at a men’s game, but there are also thousands of drunk, sweaty, gross dudes whose entire life is predicated on the outcome of the game. There was no undercurrent of fandom rage but rather an overarching sense of joy. These people were here to watch and enjoy basketball, not to vicariously live out their lifelong failed fantasies of being a pro athlete.
I snagged a beer, took my seat, and again was enthralled at how loud and wild the introductions were. When I say Caitlin Clark got a pop louder than Lebron, I mean it. I’ve seen Lebron play in Cleveland (his home state) and the cheers for him were but a mere whisper compared to the rabid applause Caitlin Clark received. And this was in an arena that was not sold out. The first three decks were packed, the last remaining deck had a drizzle of fans. If the game lived up to half the energy the stadium had pre-game, I was in for a show.
On the opening tip there was a foul and I burst out laughing. A foul on the opening tip? Women, amiright? But that was the last time I laughed condescendingly at these women who would rip my heart out and eat it on a basketball court. That’s because the game was fucking awesome. Plain and simple.
There are plenty of differences in the men’s and women’s game. For example, travels! The WNBA calls travels! It was a breath of fresh air watching a woman who clearly carried the ball for three steps get whistled for it. The men get about twelve steps nowadays. There was also movement without the ball. I understand the men’s game thrives off setting up one on one matchups, but half the time you watch the men’s game it looks like eight guys standing around a fire watching two guys cook. There are more airballs in the women’s game. I could go with the misogynistic take that women just don’t have the strength to get the ball near the hoop, but that would be a lie. There were more airballs because the women don’t take off on defense. The women force bad shot selection by getting in the grill of their opponents. I wouldn’t go as far to say I’d rather watch the WNBA than the NBA, but the product is there and it is damn good, especially live.
There were more similarities than differences between the WNBA and NBA if I’m being totally honest. After a blocked shot in a crucial point of the game there was almost a fight. Two women got chest to chest (breast to breast?) almost ready to throw haymakers. It got the crowd, and me, fired up. The refs were putrid. I had to apologize twice to a family next to me for cursing at the zebras (how was that a fucking foul?) And the women, like the men, are in a constant state of bitching at the refs. It doesn’t matter if the call was right or wrong, there was constant complaining. I know it’s been like this for a while but the players in both leagues seem to have gone full soccer in their whining.
The women’s game is very physical. There were rough fouls, players hitting the deck left and right, Caitlin Clark even got hurt at one point (which really killed my over 22 points bet). Maybe the biggest similarity between the two games was the cost of merch. During halftime I went to get some swag for my girls (okay fine, me) and spent quadruple what the tickets cost me on two jerseys, a sweatshirt, and a hat.
But something that is now unequivocal in my mind is that Caitlin Clark is a mega-star. Every time the ball is in her hands the fans hold their breath. If she drains a shot, the crowd goes insane. If she misses there is an even louder ‘oooooooh’. She is an electric factory. She plays the game like Stephen Curry. She can pull up from anywhere and drain threes that I would certainly miss (and I mean miss as in airball miss – even with all my male strength 😉).
It's almost like the gods wanted me to go to this game because the week following, like clockwork, there was article after article (and interview after interview) about how the reason Caitlin Clark is a star is because she’s white, tall, straight, and pretty. The View’s Sunny Hostin made the case that she is “more relatable” to more people because she’s white. I don’t want to burst Sunny’s bubble here but the majority of the people in the USA are white. I know that’s a shameful fact, but again, it is what it is. I’d like to burst her bubble a bit further by mansplaining educating miss Hostin on the Michael Jordan effect.
Now, I don’t know if Miss Hostin knows this but Michael Jordan is black. She probably doesn’t know this either, but he is my favorite human being to ever walk the planet. I have been a Michael Jordan stan since I can remember. I had posters of him all over my walls, I bought all the books, had all the jerseys, watched all the games (even though I was like 9 when he retired). The NBA before him had grossly low ratings and even though he struggled his first few years (like it seems Caitlin Clark is doing in her first few games compared to her college career) the ratings began to rise. When Michael Jordan began winning championships the entire NBA ratings, regular season and finals, sharply spiked. They stayed that way and then dipped hard when he retired the first time. They rose to astronomical numbers when he returned, then declined again on his second retirement, and have been declining since he retired for good. Lebron James and the bevy of NBA stars today still can’t recreate the Michael Jordan viewership numbers.
What that tells me is that true stars make professional sports leagues. And true stars can come in any shape, form, or skin color. When a true star presents themselves you don’t ask questions about what makes them a star, you just sit back and watch it unfold. You let a rising tide lift all boats. You know who else Jordan made into stars? Everyone who he played against, and especially the ones who played him well. Dijonai Carrington played pretty lights out defense against Clark at the game I went to and I’m sure she will be a star in the coming years simply for checking Caitlin Clark (and for also being pretty - what a shame!).
Over the years there have been tons of complaints about why the WNBA hasn’t grown. Most pundits believe it is because the entire world is made up of misogynistic women haters. Normal people are just used to the men’s game and the most athletic men will always be more athletic then the most athletic women. Again, it is what it is. But what the WNBA has really been missing is their Michael Jordan effect. The WNBA is at the precipice of having that in Caitlin Clark and it doesn’t matter what her skin color or sexual orientation is. If I was a WNBA fan (which I’m turning into) or player (which I could never fucking be because these women are so damn good) I would embrace all of it.
In a perverse way the Sunny Hostin comments will only draw more eyes to the sport because that’s what mega-stars do. They attract all the hate and all the glory and turn up the level of the game. All the mouth breathers that are voicing their hate for Caitlin Clark should be secretly hoping that her career turns out to be Michael Jordan’s if they want the WNBA to become massive in the mainstream. People tuned in to watch Michael Jordan win or lose – but they always tuned in. People can keep loving or hating Caitlin as much as they want while she changes the WNBA for the better, providing eyes on the game that people have ignored for a decade.
P.S. – The game I was at caused some controversy in itself. The WNBA game was televised on main ESPN (a feat in itself) and it pushed back the start time of an NHL Playoff game (a sport dominated by WHITE MALES!) Talk about the Caitlin Clark effect…
P.P.S. – It doesn’t hurt the popularity of your sport to get degenerates involved. I bet the Fever money line and lost a nail biter. Here’s my reaction.
P.P.P.S. - I was so inspired by the game I may turn into Marv Marinovich and have my girls doing layup lines before the age of five.
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