LOS ANGELES — Maybe 2024 goes down as the best draft class in WNBA history, maybe not.
Definitely its most important.
A Sparks record crowd of 19,103 came out to Crypto.com Arena on Friday night to see three of them – No. 1 overall pick Caitlin Clark and No. 2 Cameron Brink and No. 4 Rickea Jackson – spar on stage as pros for the first time, Clark’s Indiana Fever winning, 78-73.
Likely another million-plus tuned into the show on TV (ION had the game).
And another million takes on the timeline. Because women’s hoops is what everybody’s fighting about on the internet now and since the 2023 NCAA title game, when Iowa and LSU, led by Clark and Angel Reese, put on a play for 10 million TV viewers – and spurred a national debate about trash talking that you couldn’t not see.
Was that weird? Kind of. Was it a lot? For sure. But it got people’s attention, got a mind-blowing 12.3 million to tune in for the rematch in the Elite Eight in April and then 18.8 million to see South Carolina beat Iowa in this year’s national championship game.
In this new era, sports fans don’t have to be hardcore women’s basketball watchers to be able to name three women’s college players. By their first names. (I know you know about JuJu, Paige and Flau’jae.)
Clark is the headliner of this youth movement, of course. College basketball’s all-time leading scorer, the deep-shooting, dial-moving, scalding-take-spurring guard, she alternated between shooting and signing pregame Friday and then went out and shot 0-for-her-first-7 from 3-point range.
But she came alive late, scoring six of her 11 points on a pair of deep 3-pointers in the final 2:27, slapping hands with actor and fellow Iowan Ashton Kutcher. Her late-game shot-making – along with her 10 rebounds and eight assists – pushed Indiana to its first victory in six tries.
“I was due, they had to go in,” she said, the shooter’s shooter. “I had missed so many. It was time for them to go in.”
Brink – a special defender in whom Lakers fans immediately are recognizing some Anthony Davis – got the loudest cheers of all the Sparks starters when she was introduced. And then she went out and had a big fourth quarter too, scoring nine of her 15 points down the stretch to keep the Sparks (1-3) in it.
And Jackson, an agile, 6-foot-2 forward from Tennessee, scored seven of her 16 points – and of the Sparks’ 11 points – in an otherwise frigid third quarter.
When Brink went on Paul George’s podcast recently, she told the Clippers star that she has been recognized more in L.A. than at Stanford, where last season she was named the Pac-12 Player of the Year.
Veterans Dearica Hamby, Lexie Brown and Kia Nurse are the Sparks’ best players this season, but it’s Brink and Jackson who are being presented as the faces of the rebuilding franchise.
They both threw out a first pitch at Dodger Stadium. They appeared on SportsCenter together. Brink is featured among the WNBA players in the SKIMS shapewear campaign and welcomed a locker room visit from Kim Kardashian.
And Brink chopped it up with John Ireland and Ramona Shelburne on the radio Thursday and, before that, on the podcast with George, the Sparks’ charismatic new star relaying a story about making the Clippers’ famously stoic star Kawhi Leonard hehehe.
Smart. The American sports-watching audience loves its stars. Loves to love them, loves to hate them; either way, for better or worse, we pay attention. A bunch of “couch coaches” Clark’s Fever teammate Aliyah Boston called some of you.
And with this star-studded current cast of rookies, even the WNBA – for so long so poor at promoting its stars – isn’t dropping the ball.
Friday’s game was billed by the league as Caitlin vs. Cameron, as though it was Luka vs. LeBron or Steph vs. Shai.
For a long time, the WNBA was, uh, not great at marketing its stars. It’s getting better. Let’s see it continue. pic.twitter.com/LHVbWm5ruy
— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) May 25, 2024
That makes sense considering 2.45 million viewers tuned in to watch Clark, Brink and Jackson have their names called at their relatively suspense-free WNBA Draft. To see Reese unite with former South Carolina rival Kamilla Cardosa in Chicago, to see UConn star Nika Muhl selected in the second round by the Seattle Storm and Kate Martin, Clark’s Iowa teammate, get plucked out of the audience and taken by the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces four spots later.
The league registered a 14% increase in attendance – including 10 sellouts – during its opening week. TV viewership took a jump too: ESPN’s broadcast of Clark’s debut against the Connecticut Sun drew an audience of 2.1 million, the most for a WNBA game on the network. And then 1.71 million people tuned in for Clark and the Fever against New York – followed by 1.34 million for the Sparks-Aces game.
That’s the type of hype that’s hard to live up to. But these kids? Even with all the unavoidable and undeniable schooling this class is in for in the big leagues, they’re more than all right.
Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t: Clark came into Friday’s game averaging 17.8 points per game (15th most in the WNBA) and 5.8 assists (8th) – and these are her baby steps? Happening on the heels of a long, pressure-packed college season? With the future of her sport weighing on her slender shoulders? She’s gonna be fine.
Her fellow rookies have been saying enthusiastic hellos, too: Brink’s 3.7 blocked shots per game were tied for the league lead. Jackson’s confidence seems to compound by the outing. Elsewhere, Reese is averaging 8.7 rebounds (8th) to go with 12 points. Martin has been on the floor in clutch moments in Aces’ victories.
Wait until they figure out what they’re doing.