She's certainly crazy popular and IMO the greatest college player ever, man or woman.
She is the only reason that anyone is taking about the WNBA. Her team is averaging almost 17,000 per game. Take a look at the rest of the league. No one goes…..league average is 9000 with Indiana included. Last season the average was 6000.
Clark is obviously talented and is putting a lot of new fannies in the seats of WNBA arenas. However, she is not nearly the greatest college basketball player ever or the only reason people are talking about the WNBA. I've been a womens' hoops fan (college and WNBA) for many years and attend games. The hype over Clark is reminiscent of when Tiger came onto the PGA Tour, but Clark is not a generational talent in the way that Tiger was. There have been numerous golfers that have been proclaimed to be the next Tiger but haven't delivered on their initial hype/promise. Clark will be very good, but not a Tiger like figure. She is a prolific scorer and good passer, but does not have a total game to be a generational player. IMO, her WNBA career will not come close to Maya Moore, Lisa Leslie Tamika Catchings, Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart, Sheryl Swoopes and numerous others, except perhaps in points scored. As far as her College career, everyone focuses on her scoring record. You can score a lot when you are your team's main threat. You don't have to go back very far to find someone who was a better college player. I'd take Breanna Stewart's college career over Clark's any day. Stewart did (and still does) it all. She's an amazing defender, a leader in blocks and steals and great scorer from anywhere on the court, with lots of assists. She was the MVP of the NCCA payoffs all four years of her college career, leading UConn to the national championship all four years, and is now a WNBA superstar.
Women's sports general are not nearly as popular as their men's counterparts, but the WNBA has had a solid core of fans for awhile (at least as compared to other women's sports). There are five teams (NY, LA, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Seattle) that average 10,000 + attendance. That's comparable to, and perhaps exceeds, a couple MLB teams. Vegas has sold out every game this season and had to find a larger arena for some games. Of course part of that is the Clark effect, but it's mostly that they've won two consecutive championships. Their attendance was about 10K/game last year as that was the capacity of their arena.
It's hard to explain why Clark has caught the media's eye to the extent it has. I think it's just "the right time". Kelsey Plum broke the all time scoring record in 2017 (now broken by Clark) and had an extremely similar college career to Clark. She, like Clark, is white and was taken first overall in the WNBA draft, yet Plum didn't generate nearly this amount of hype. Neither did Stewart. I can't explain it.
PS to Kalen - Do you really think that Clark's college career was better than Kareem (Lou)?