Has your playing partner's ball ever hit you?

Day 542, April 26, 2024 A lesson no-show, no-called (he had the wrong time even though the last text was confirming the time… 😛), so I used 45 minutes or so of that time to get some good work in.

Same old:

Yeah, that. It stands out… because it's so rare. And interest in Caitlin Clark will likely result in a very small bump to the WNBA or something… and then it will go back down to very low viewership numbers. Like it's always had. A small portion, yep. It doesn't help that she lost, either. Girls often don't even want to watch women playing sports. My daughter golfs… I watch more LPGA Tour golf than she does, and it's not even close. I watch more LPGA Tour golf than PGA Tour golf, even. She watches very little of either. It's just the way it is. Yes, it's a bit of a vicious cycle, but… how do you break it? If you invest a ton of money into broadcasting an LPGA Tour event, the same coverage you'd spend on a men's event… you'll lose a ton of money. It'd take decades to build up the interest. Even with interest in the PGA Tour declining.

Oh yea, now I remember reading about you on TMZ!

Of course there's not a simple or knowable answer here. But the whole Caitlin Clark phenomenon is a nice example IMO. Suddenly there was wall to wall media coverage and national attention and... the women's tournament got similar ratings to the men's and much higher ratings than the men in the final four. With every indication that there will be some portion of the uptick that remains going forward. And there's the whole element that Sue Bird brought up. That basketball needed a pretty enough white superstar guard. One who looks like the "cute little white girls" that describes most of the soccer USWNT that's been able to achieve much higher popularity than any version of women's basketball, which is dominated by black players and none of any race who could be described as little... I do think women's sports are in a good place to start taking off more though. It's really only in the coming 5-10 years that the majority of girls will start to come of age with post Title IX grandmothers (as in their grandmothers were allowed to be serious athletes). I don't follow men's or women's basketball much, but in golf for sure the women's tour has gotten much deeper over the past 20 years and only looks to keep going in that direction. I've heard the same about women's basketball. And the patriarchal attitudes that socialized girls out of sports and everyone out of women's sports fandom aren't gone but have def diminished.