‘I’m Getting Hammered’: Caitlin Clark May Face Suspension Amid Dangerous Situation

The WNBA looks to leverage the buzz from the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament by having Caitlin Clark, a former University of Iowa star, excel both in scoring and gameplay.

Clark has shown improvement in the WNBA, scoring 50 points in her recent games and raising her season average to 17.3 points per game.

Despite leading in scoring for the Indiana Fever, the impact of her success is uncertain, given the team’s struggles and probable draft lottery position.

Despite featuring Clark and promising talent like Aliyah Boston, the Fever have a disappointing record of 1-8, despite their appeal as one of the league’s top attractions.

The league might face a challenge in ensuring Caitlin Clark remains on the court, as indicated by recent developments.

Clark has accumulated three technical fouls in the nine games played this season. Upon reaching seven technical fouls and serving the initial suspension, players can face a suspension for each subsequent technical foul. This would lead to one-game suspensions for the ninth, 11th, 13th fouls, and so on.

With 31 games remaining in the season, if Clark continues to collect technical fouls at the current rate, she could miss at least four games. The most recent incident occurred when Clark engaged in a confrontation with Seattle Storm guard Victoria Vivians during a match that the Fever lost 103-88. Both players received technical fouls for their involvement.

Furthermore, Fever coach Christie Sides also received a technical foul after Clark was visibly fouled under the basket, despite the referees choosing not to call it.

The average viewer isn’t tuning in to a WNBA game to see Victoria Vivians, a former player for the Fever who has yet to surpass 10 points per game in any of her six seasons in the league.

They are also not tuning in for the Storm, despite their 5-3 record in contrast to the Fever’s 1-8, as the Storm has not garnered the same level of attention as Indiana has with Clark’s debut season. Additionally, viewers are not watching for Sides, who is not considered the standout coach in women’s basketball.

The main attraction drawing viewers in is Clark. According to The Associated Press, the WNBA broadcast of the Fever’s season opener against the Connecticut Sun on May 15 set a new record for ESPN, with an average of 2.1 million viewers tuning in across ESPN’s platforms.

This marked a significant increase of well over half a million viewers from the previous high, which was WNBA legend Diana Taurasi’s debut in 2004 that attracted 1.5 million viewers.

The following match featured the Las Vegas Aces, the reigning WNBA champions, facing off against the Phoenix Mercury, where Taurasi and the currently injured star Brittney Griner, known as a diplomatic bargaining chip, played. This game only attracted 464,000 viewers.

Despite this, the combined average viewership of both games reached 1.28 million, marking a substantial 192 percent increase over the network’s average viewership for WNBA games in the previous year.

Viewership has remained strong as well. As per a report from Yahoo Sports on May 22, “[a]ll three of Clark’s games on Nielsen-rated TV have surpassed the one million viewers mark,” with the least-viewed game still attracting 1.56 million viewers.

Therefore, Clark’s required absence from games will not only impact the Fever but will also have repercussions on the entire league.

Sides has offered gentle criticism towards Clark for her tendency to accumulate technical fouls.

“We’re spending too much time talking to the officials. We’ve got to leave that alone. We’ve got to just play our game and let them do their job and not put it in their hands,” she said.

“We shouldn’t get technicals. Let me get the technicals,” the coach added.

Clark said, “I feel like I’m getting hammered, I don’t know. I appreciate Christie getting a tech too. I don’t know.”