The ‘Caitlin Clark’ effect and the rise of the WNBA
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2024
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The WNBA playoffs are underway, capping a record-breaking season: The league added teams, games saw the highest attendance ever, and television viewership skyrocketed. Many credit rookie player Caitlin Clark for drawing fans to the league after millions tuned in to watch her and rival players compete in this year's college basketball championship.
Host Elahe Izadi speaks with sports reporters Kareem Copeland and Ava Wallace about how the “Clark effect” has transformed the WNBA on and off the court.
Today’s show was produced by Sabby Robinson. It was edited by Reena Flores. It was mixed by Sean Carter. Thanks to Mark Selig.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey guys, so it's Friday and normally you'd hear an episode of our politics roundtable called the campaign moment. |
| 0:11.0 | Today, we've got something a little bit different here, but this was a big week for politics, |
| 0:16.1 | so if you want to dive into those developments, we've got a new episode of the campaign moment out today. |
| 0:22.4 | And that episode, it's only going to be available on our separate podcast feed, |
| 0:27.0 | the campaign moment. |
| 0:28.0 | So go into your podcast app, find the campaign moment, |
| 0:32.0 | and get that episode queued up for your weekend listening. |
| 0:36.5 | In the meantime, here on Post Reports, we're heading out to a basketball game. |
| 0:42.4 | All right. |
| 0:44.0 | I am headed into Capital One, into the arena. |
| 0:52.0 | That's producer Sabby Robinson. Last month she went to the |
| 0:57.0 | Capitol One arena here in DC to talk with fans who were going to a W NBA game. |
| 1:02.4 | The Washington Mystics were playing the |
| 1:05.0 | Indiana Fever, a team that has a rookie player everyone's been talking about |
| 1:09.4 | this year, Caitlin Clark. I'm honestly just really excited to see Caitlin Clark. |
| 1:16.0 | Ever since like that WMB has gotten really big I've like seen her on my for you page and |
| 1:22.0 | whatever and I'm just really excited to see her because like every single |
| 1:26.3 | clip I've seen is unbelievable and she just like plays really well and I'm so excited to see it in person. |
| 1:33.0 | That was fan Claire Van Buren. |
| 1:35.0 | She's 21 years old and was attending her first W&BRA game. |
| 1:39.0 | Stabby spoke to so many people at this game who were excited to see Clark. In fact, so many people were expected to attend |
| 1:46.5 | that the teams had to change venues from where the mystics usually play. The game set a |
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