Grant Williams, who’s at present on the bottom on the Paris Olympics, referred to as out the sharp disparity in media protection between the boys’s and ladies’s basketball groups.
“The distinction between the boys’s vs girls’s postgame is disrespectful and the ladies deserve higher,” Williams wrote on X shortly after the U.S. women beat Australia to advance to the gold medal sport.
If we actually wish to transfer the W sport ahead it’s not simply upto followers it’s additionally the protection they obtain. Being behind the scenes right here at Olympics the distinction between males’s vs girls’s postgame is disrespectful and the ladies deserve higher. Internationally and domestically!
— Grant Williams (@Grant2Will) August 9, 2024
The truth is that the U.S. girls’s basketball group is among the most dominant groups on the Olympics. They’ve received 60 consecutive Olympic video games, have led by double-digits for practically all the match, and can go for an eighth straight Olympic gold medal on Sunday.
The roster consists of a number of the sports activities greats: Diana Taurasi, the WNBA’s all-time main scorer; A’ja Wilson, the indeniable finest participant within the WNBA; Kelsey Plum, who broke the all-time NCAA Division I scoring file; Sabrina Ionescu, the most effective shooters on the planet; Breanna Stewart, as embellished an athlete as any — and the record goes on.
Nonetheless, when the group’s greatness is talked about, many individuals’s first intuition is to carry up the participant who’s not on the roster: Caitlin Clark.
It’s an comprehensible intuition. In spite of everything, Clark has introduced unequalled consideration to girls’s basketball this 12 months, with WNBA viewership and ticket gross sales each at an all-time excessive. It’s additionally indeniable that had Clark made the roster, there could be extra media protection of those video games.
And, from a basketball standpoint, she may have simply made the roster — after a considerably sluggish begin to her rookie season, she hit her stride within the weeks main as much as the midseason break, and is now averaging 17.1 factors and a league-high 8.2 assists per sport on the 12 months. Final month, she even broke the WNBA’s single-game help file with a 19-assist outing towards the Wings.
Daybreak Staley, the present coach of South Carolina’s girls’s basketball group and a member of the USA Basketball Olympic committee, not too long ago acknowledged that Clark would have seemingly made the roster had she hit her stride a bit of bit sooner.
“As a committee member, you’re charged with placing collectively the very best group,” Staley mentioned. “Caitlin is only a rookie within the WNBA. She wasn’t enjoying dangerous, however she wasn’t enjoying like she’s enjoying now. If we needed to do it yet again, the best way she’s enjoying, she’d be in actually excessive consideration of creating the group.”
However, there’s no purpose for USA Basketball to worry the choice an excessive amount of — not from a basketball standpoint, anyhow. That’s as a result of Group USA has been steamrolling their opponents, most not too long ago defeating Australia by 21. They look like a shoe-in for gold, and everybody has performed their position practically completely.
The continuity on the roster is clear, as is the the buy-in from all twelve gamers on the roster. A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart have been two of essentially the most dominant gamers of the Olympics, and Jackie Younger has been wonderful on each ends of the ground. All twelve gamers have been common contributors, and the group’s defensive connectivity has been plain.
So, whereas one may argue that Clark ought to have been on the roster, the gamers on the roster are clearly doing their job and profitable basketball video games. Olympic choice choices shouldn’t be made with marketability in thoughts — they need to be made purely from a basketball perspective. When the U.S. roster was assembled, Clark was simply starting her skilled profession.
If there’s an absence of pleasure about this U.S. girls’s basketball group, it’s not as a result of the chosen gamers aren’t thrilling to look at — it’s as a result of these gamers haven’t been sufficiently coated all through their careers to the identical extent as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and a number of the youthful gamers within the sport. Their tales haven’t been informed on the nationwide stage, a minimum of not on the scale and with the eye that Clark’s has.
That’s to not say there haven’t been particular person media entities and reporters who’ve devoted their lives to this protection — as a result of there actually have been revolutionaries on this subject. This protection simply hasn’t benefited from the identical stage of monetary funding.
From a basketball perspective alone, Kahleah Copper is as thrilling because it will get. Kobe Bryant referred to as Jewell Loyd the Gold Mamba for purpose. When Sabrina Ionescu is feeling it (which is commonly) her three-point taking pictures is nothing wanting spectacular. And when you’re a basketball purist, you’ll be mesmerized by Jackie Young’s two-way excellence.
Grant Williams famous that after the ladies’s sport, there have been “3-4 media shops pushing the sport ahead”, whereas after the boys’s video games, there have been between 60 and 80 media shops doing postgame protection.
“Viewership isn’t the battle, it’s the advertising and marketing,” he wrote.
He additionally importantly famous that if folks had acknowledged Diana Taurasi’s greatness, they wouldn’t have questioned this system’s resolution to call her to the Olympic roster.
A part of which is why i’m saying that if there was higher advertising and marketing folks would then perceive why DT was picked over her. Nobody questioned Larry hen making the dream group roster at his age together with his again damage and his efficiency. That’s as a result of ppl knew him to be a legend! https://t.co/7RPD8T5Csq
— Grant Williams (@Grant2Will) August 9, 2024
The excellent news is that previous points with media protection are nonetheless correctable. The 12 gamers on the U.S. girls’s basketball roster are gifted, marketable, and value investing in. Their video games are participating, as are their personalities — when given the possibility to meaningfully showcase themselves.
Most significantly, they’re on the point of an Olympic gold medal — this system’s eighth straight — and plenty of of them will quickly contend for a WNBA championship. It’s not too late.
Caitlin Clark will quickly be the most effective gamers on the planet, if she’s not already. She’s virtually a lock for the following Olympics. However, her ascension within the sport also needs to spur followers and media alike to study in regards to the older gamers who’ve lengthy been doing this — the gamers who’ve been hitting deep threes, meting out loopy passes, and enjoying this sport at an elite stage for a really very long time.
Unsure you realize these gamers? A fantastic place to begin could be tuning into the U.S. girls’s group gold medal sport on Sunday.
