New head coach Kara Lawson is officially kicking off a new era for USA Basketball. For her first training camp since taking over the women’s national team, Lawson has called up 10 debutants, headlined by Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and JuJu Watkins. The camp will take place from Dec. 12–14 in Durham, North Carolina. Its main purpose is to evaluate talent as newly appointed USA women’s national team managing director Sue Bird begins building the roster for the 2026 FIBA World Cup.

But there seems to be a problem for a few. When USA Basketball released its official training camp roster on X, Caitlin Clark’s photo was nowhere to be seen — and that didn’t sit well with journalist Christine Brennan, author of On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women’s Sports.

“This is so interesting: if USA Basketball really wanted to go all out promoting WBB, bring new fans in and get unprecedented attention for a team that dropped in TV viewership at the Paris Olympics, they would have added the photo of one other player to this graphic. But no,” she said on X.

The popularity of Team USA on the international stage is a big reason the WNBA even exists today. The all-time Olympic women’s basketball viewership record came on August 4, 1996, when NBC aired the U.S. women’s team defeating Brazil 111–87 in the gold-medal game in Atlanta. That prime-time broadcast averaged a staggering 23.4 million viewers and never dipped below 19.5 million at any point during the game. That iconic 1996 roster — featuring legends like Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, and Dawn Staley — played a major role in laying the foundation for what would eventually become the W.

But in recent years, the viewership for women’s basketball at the Olympics has been steadily slipping. When you look at the average numbers for the last four gold-medal games, the trend is hard to ignore:

• 2024 (Paris): 7.8 million viewers
• 2021 (Tokyo): 7.9 million viewers
• 2016 (Rio): 8.1 million viewers
• 2012 (London): 10.2 million viewers

One of the biggest reasons last year’s Olympics drew such low viewership for the USA women’s basketball team was the simple fact that the women’s gold-medal game didn’t get a prime-time slot. But there was another major factor that fans couldn’t stop talking about — the team didn’t include Caitlin Clark. Her absence became one of the most heated debates of the entire summer, and leading the charge in Clark’s defense was none other than Christine Brennan.

And now that Clark is finally making her USA camp debut, Brennan still isn’t happy with the way the Fever guard is being treated. She continued on X, saying, “I’ve covered the Olympics and US sports national governing bodies (NGBs) for 40+ yrs and plan to be covering them for many more. An NGB’s mission is to win medals but also grow its sport. USA Basketball utterly failed to grow WBB at the 2024 Olympics. This is a continuing story.” 

Well, this is where Christine Brennan’s argument starts to feel a bit contradictory. The graphic includes Kelsey Plum, Kahleah Copper, and Jackie Young — three players who just helped Team USA win Olympic gold in Paris. If the mission is to win gold medals, then USA Basketball is clearly still doing its job at an elite level.

Yes, the viewership dipped during the last Olympics, but the signs were already there that the drop wasn’t about Caitlin Clark alone. We believe that the game could have easily pushed past the 8-million mark even without Clark if it had been given a prime-time slot instead of tipping off at 9:30 a.m. ET.

But there’s no denying the obvious. If Caitlin Clark plays, the viewership is going to jump. Her impact is that big. Clark has always dreamed of representing Team USA, and now that she has sort of taken her first step toward that goal, we can’t wait to watch her play for the national team during the FIBA World Cup (should she remain healthy and make the final roster).

That said, Caitlin Clark isn’t just influencing viewership anymore. Apparently, her presence has even led to the end of a 13-year relationship.

How Caitlin Clark May Have Influenced Steph Curry’s Under Armour Exit

Earlier this month, one of the biggest surprises in the sports business world dropped — Stephen Curry was ending his 13-year relationship with Under Armour and taking the Curry Brand forward independently. And believe it or not, one of the major reasons behind this split was Caitlin Clark.

According to Bloomberg’s Kim Bhasin and Randall Williams, one of the biggest reasons behind Stephen Curry’s split with Under Armour was actually Caitlin Clark. The 4-time NBA champion pushed hard to bring Clark into the Curry Brand, viewing her as a generational talent who could elevate everything he was building. But Under Armour’s offer,  a 4-year, $16 million deal,  simply wasn’t enough.

Nike came in with an 8-year, $28 million contract and the promise of a signature shoe, and made Caitlin Clark a part of their team. he massive gap between the two pitches reportedly frustrated Curry, who has always emphasized pushing women’s basketball forward through Curry Brand initiatives and his equal-gender Curry Camp.

The first player the Curry Brand ever signed was Azzi Fudd, who will soon make the jump to the W — a clear sign of Stephen Curry’s commitment to investing in women’s basketball. So when Under Armour couldn’t close the deal on Caitlin Clark, the strain on the relationship was almost inevitable.