Caitlin Clark’s impact has been lauded across hemispheres, and Geno Auriemma decided to defuse it. Ever since Clark arrived in the league, her ‘Caitlin Clark effect’ has been synonymous with Michael Jordan’s impact in the NBA. She has been termed the revolutionary that the WNBA needed. However, Auriemma is not in agreement, as the UConn boss drew up a Tiger Woods parallel to showcase what Clark needs to do to truly get to that level.
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“Now maybe there was a transformation in terms of how much attention was being paid, yes. How much the league is valued? Yes,” Auriemma said on the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch. “But it’s not like when Tiger came on the PGA Tour. He changed the PGA Tour forever. Why? Well, there was so much money that came to the PGA Tour but in addition, he won every tournament. That’s the big difference. And I knew this was gonna happen and unfortunately, that’s where we are.”
Woods was the golfer who made the sport cool. Before Tiger, golf was often considered more of a leisure activity among the masses rather than a serious sport, as ratings and attendance struggled. But Woods arrived on the scene and changed everything, winning five Masters, four PGA Championships, three US Opens, and three Open Championships for multiple Career Grand Slams. For Caitlin Clark, however, winning the big one always leads the conversation.
She missed out on the NCAA championship title despite two consecutive appearances and an offensive prowess that became the talk of the women’s basketball world. In the previous two years in the WNBA, although her team went to the playoffs, it returned empty-handed.
While Clark does not have the ring to show, the numbers do not lie, even when comparing them to Woods. In the five years of 2013-18, Tiger battled through injuries; the PGA Tour viewership fell by 18% while the attendance fell by 11%. When he returned in 2018, the ratings for the British Open were up 38%. Now compare that with Clark.
Her rookie season in Indiana saw the WNBA ratings rise by 170% to 1.19 million viewers on ESPN. All three of the most-watched and most-attended games featured Clark. Naturally, considering the comparable and arguably better numbers for Clark, NFL reporter Scott Dochterman pushed back on Geno Auriemma’s claim.
“Before CC arrived, the WNBA’s last game with 1 million viewers was in 2008. The Fever had 21 during her rookie year, including the top 16. CC set rookie records for points (769) and assists (337),” he wrote. “CC has 6 career games with 30+ points/10+ assists. No. 2 has 1. That’s Tiger.”
Clark’s biographer Christine Brennan agreed.
“Adding another significant number: the Fever’s average home attendance in CC’s rookie year was better than the average home attendance of five NBA teams,” she wrote. “I covered Tiger the length of his career. CC absolutely is Tiger for a league that needs it even more than men’s golf did.”
In addition, Woods and Clark are an apples-to-oranges comparison when it comes to achievements. Golf is an individual sport while basketball is a team sport. And the system ensures the best players in the draft end up on the worst teams in the league. Fever had not reached the playoffs in almost a decade when Clark arrived. And they managed to get there in her rookie year itself and have continued to do so ever since. But if she really wants to quiet the talks, all she needs is a ring to show for it.