Caitlin Clark, Christine Brennan and the way racial stereotypes persist in media coverage of the WNBA

The “Caitlin Clark effect“or the impact of a ponytailed rookie phenom from the American heartland on women's basketball is real: the 2024 WNBA season is in ruins Viewership, attendance and merchandise sales records.

However, Clark had no likelihood to fight for the championship title.

The Connecticut Sun defeated Clark's team, the Indiana Fever, in the primary round of the playoffs with a two-game win, ending their record-setting season as Rookie of the Year.

And it could possibly be just the most recent chapter in a sophisticated, racially diverse saga.

During the primary game of the series Sun guard DiJonai Carrington's fingers hit Clark in the attention when Carrington attempted to dam a Clark shot.

During the media availability the following day, USA Today columnist Christine Brennan recorded and posted an exchange between her and Carrington.

In the short clip, the veteran sportswriter asks Carrington, who’s Black, if she intentionally hit Clark in the attention eventually night's game. Although Carrington insisted that she had not intentionally hit Clark, Brennan remained adamant and asked the safety guard if she and a teammate had laughed concerning the incident. The questions sparked outrage on social media, in line with statements from the Players' Union And the league, Media personalities speak out and more.

Click on the pause button here.

As a long-time sports journalist covered the WNBA – and as journalism Scientist who studies women's sports and fandom – I admit that in the first place glance Brennan's query looks like normal sports journalism.

After all, most baseball fans haven't seen it yet A scribe asks a pitcher if he intentionally beaned a batter?

But Brennan's questions weren't asked in a vacuum. The rise of a young, white superstar from the heartland has created many recent WNBA fans to decide on a side that moves along racial lines. Brennan's Critics claim She represented an issue that has dogged black athletes for a long time: that they’re aggressive and undisciplined.

Because of this, their defense Her questions — and her unwillingness to acknowledge the complexity — have left this professor disillusioned in one among her journalistic heroes.

Brennan and far of the mainstream sports media, particularly those who cover skilled women's basketball, still appear to have a racial blind spot.

The emergence of a black, queer league

When the WNBA was created in 1997 following the success of the US women's basketball team, which won the Olympic gold medal in 1996, it did so under the supervision of the NBA.

The NBA went for it market his recent productpartly to a white, heterosexual fan base.

The plan didn't work.

While the league experienced suits and starts in attendance And TV rankings Over its lifespan, the demographic makeup of its players is undeniable: the WNBA is, by and enormous, a black, queer league.

In 2020, the Women's National Basketball Players Association reported on this 83% of its members were coloured people, with 67% Self-identification as “Black/African American.” Although gender and sexual identity weren’t officially reported, a “significant proportion” discover as LBGTQ+, in line with the WNBPA.

In 2020, the league's diversity was celebrated as players competed in a “bubble” in Bradenton, Florida as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. She protested against racial injustice, helped unseat a U.S. senator which also owned Atlanta's WNBA franchise, and urged voters to oust former President Donald Trump from the White House.

Racial tensions are bubbling to the surface

In the midst of all this, the WNBA has more attention than ever before. And without mincing words: The fan community has “has become whiter” since Clark’s debut last summer, because the Wall Street Journal identified in July. These white spectators of faculty women's basketball have focused their attention firmly on skilled sports, due largely to Clark's popularity on the University of Iowa.

Money can also be flowing into the league through a lucrative media rights deal And recent sponsorship partners.

While the rising tide following Clark's move to the WNBA definitely lifts all boats, it also brings detritus to the surface in the shape of Racist insults from the stands and on social media.

After the Sun cleared the fever, All-WNBA forward Alyssa Thomas, who rarely speaks beyond sound bites, said in a Press conference after the sport: “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced the racist comments from the Indiana Fever fan base in my 11-year career. … I’ve never been called what I’ve been called on social media and there’s no place for that.”

Echoes of bird and magic

In “Manufacturing permitEdward Herman and Noam Chomsky argued that media in capitalist environments exist to not report the news impartially, but to bolster dominant narratives of the time, even in the event that they are false. They suspected that the majority journalists work to support the establishment.

In sports, this sometimes involves light through what media scholars call “the stereotypical narrative” — a reporting and writing style that relies on old tropes.

Scientists who study sports media have found that reporters work routinely fall back Racial stereotypes. For example, coverage of black quarterbacks within the NFL as less intelligent and more naturally gifted would proceed impeding the progress of black quarterbacks.

In Brennan's coverage of the Carrington-Clark incident, there seem like echoes of the best way the media covered Los Angeles Lakers point guard Magic Johnson and Boston Celtics forward Larry Bird within the Eighties. reported.

The battles between two of the game's biggest players – one black, the opposite white – were a A stroke of luck for the NBAleading the league to financial sustainability.

But for a lot of reporters who relied on the dominant narrative of the time, the 2 stars also served as stand-ins for the racial tensions of the post-civil rights era. In the Eighties, Bird and Magic weren't just playing hoops; They were “the embodiment of their races and living symbols of how blacks and whites lived in America.” as scholars Patrick Ferrucci and Earnest Perry wrote.

Media watchdogs of the Magic Bird era often relied on racial stereotypes that ultimately distorted each athletes.

For example, Bird and Johnson were treated otherwise journalistically early of their careers. In Ferrucci and Perry's article, they explain how the coverage of Bird “fitted perfectly into the dominant narrative of the time…showing hard-working and intelligent play that succeeded despite a lack of athletic ability” than the “flashy” Lakers and Johnson won, they wrote, it was due to “superior skills.”

When they lost to Bird's Celtics, they were “overloaded.”

The framework is significant

Let's return to Brennan.

Few have done more for young women within the sports media industry than Brennan. She has time, energy and money cared for and supported Young women try to interrupt into the sphere. She used her platform to do that expand coverage of ladies's sports.

Brennan defended herself in a protracted interview on the podcast “Good Game with Sarah Spain”:

“I find [critics are] I'm overlooking the undeniable fact that what I'm attempting to do, what I'm doing, which I clearly understand as a journalist, is asking questions and bringing things to the general public in order that athletes then have the chance to reply to current or topical issues.

I don't think Brennan Carrington asking concerning the foul was an issue. What was necessary was to persist with the narrative.

Addressing racial stereotypes is not any longer just concerning the language used. Brennan's video of her persistent questioning pitted Carrington against Clark. One could argue that the stereotype of the overly physical, aggressive black athlete was also used.

At best, Brennan has a blind spot to the toll racism has on black athletes today — particularly within the WNBA. Worst case scenario, she becomes engrossed on this drained idiot.

A blind spot might be addressed and seen. However, an unconfirmed racist narrative will persist.