By Mark Halpern
Just about every sport has a face of the league that is chosen not only by the fans by analysts and coaches, players too. For Caitlin Calrk she didn’t ask for this honor but, has taken it with a grain of salt and has had to put on her best face no matter what the situation is. Let’s face it even the best gets beaten once and awhile.
The face of a League comes with more responsibility than one person really wants to take on both physical and mentally. Caitilin Clark wasn’t chosen by her color, race/religion or just talent alone. A players off time is closely watched as we have seen with changes to social media. You get in trouble with Federal/State/County police it goes into bad publicity for the league and I am sure against any deal you have in place. A ton of players don’t want the off-court Paparazzi when they are having bad moments. I understand this trust me and no matter what they do whether the Greatness they show on the Court or the Horrors we learn through a simple misunderstanding to Felonies that this particular player would rather the rest of the world knows about it.
The WNBA has a lot of great talent whether current players now to the greats like Lisa Leslie of the past. It’s never about one person such as Michael Jordan, Pattrick Mahomes, Caitilin Clark or Derek Jeter and these players know as the face of an entire league. Hese players are willing to make sure they live a Clean and non-Hazardous life style so that means NO Bad Publicity whatsoever or you can lose not only your career but players around you as well.
One particular person who would love this honor but, only if she could write the conditions to what she wants it to be like is Angel Reese. There is no clear question as she is a dam good Basketball player. She has shown throughout her college career and almost half way through her rookie season why she is such a good player. Reese plays hard every single night she is active. She makes plenty of good plays and is a good teammate but she has a bad attitude and causes more problems than the league would like but sometimes even the troubled are good too. Reese has battled Clark through out college and again in just the beginning of this year’s league and when the two of them face off people are watching. Reese stands out because she chooses to and that’s her own fault because there is not a day she is not in the news/social media for some wrong reason on her end. This is the difference.
The WNBA has been losing close to $10 million a year over the last 4 years and close to $50 million this year alone and the question is why? The sport is popular to watch for not just girls but everyone. Women’s sports have been gaining more and more attention but still not brining in bigger advertisers and better ratings to get this league into the non-negative balance sheet it has. With this years rookie class and what’s in the league now I believe that this League will turn it around on both ends of the court. There can be plenty of voices in a league and many players can reach the top but, there can be only one Face.
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