Has Caitlin Clark changed the game between men's and women's sports?
For all of Caitlin Clark’s feats on the basketball court — breaking all-time scoring records, taking the Iowa Hawkeyes to two national championships and getting the Indiana Fever to the WNBA playoffs — what might be more impressive is the attention she’s captured and the sheer amount of people who want to see her play and are willing to pay top dollar to watch her dish dazzling assists and launch 3-point daggers from the logo.
In her rookie season, Clark helped the Fever achieve the best attendance in the league — over 17,000 people per game, a 265 percent increase over last season — and their televised games regularly reached over 1 million viewers per contest. Scalpers were selling tickets outside the arena. At one point in the season, they were asking $250 for a ticket that usually went for under $100, while some secondary market sellers were looking for up to $9,000, CNN reported.
Clark’s emergence alongside a new generation of exciting rookies and ultra-talented, already-established veterans has created momentum for women’s basketball and more generally women’s sports. Mainly: People are finally willing to pay more to see women’s basketball? That raises the question: Why weren’t they already?
At the heart of this question is a pretty simple answer: Men have had decades-long head starts when it comes to sports and professional sporting leagues. To put it in perspective, women were allowed to compete in the 1900 Olympics in five sports; it wasn’t until the 2012 London Olympics that women competed in all of the sports that the men were.
Similarly, in the US, experts specifically point to Title IX — the federal law that bans gender discrimination at schools receiving federal aid — and its passing in 1972 as a watershed moment for gender equality in sports. Before that, US schools had no obligation to provide the same athletic opportunities to girls that they did for boys. It broke down existing barriers to entry, allowing women not only to compete but also receive equal financial opportunity tied to sports (e.g., college scholarships ). But when Title IX solidified women’s rights into law and protected them from discrimination, the NBA was already over 20 years old.
https://www.vox.com/explain-it-to-me/397103/caitlin-clark-wnba-nba-super-bowl-tickets