WNBA Owner Says League, Not Caitlin Clark, Should Have Been TIME Magazine’s Athlete of the Year

A WNBA the team owner disagrees with Indiana fever star Caitlin Clark’s Athlete of the Year Award from TIME Magazine.

Washington Mystics owner Sheila Johnson went on CNN Friday morning to talk about the award and how she believes it sets a player apart.

TIME honored Clark as Athlete of the Year because of his historic season, both on and off the field: according to an IndyStar studyshe was responsible for one in six tickets sold in the WNBA in 2024, and filled both home and away arenas. More than 300,000 fans came to Gainbridge Fieldhouse (a WNBA single-season record) and opposing arenas were full throughout the season.

More: Caitlin Clark debuts on list of highest-paid female athletes in the world

Several teams, including the Mystics and Las Vegas Aces, have moved their games from their usual smaller arenas to NBA or NHL-sized arenas for Fever games throughout the season. The Fever faced the Mystics in the final game of the regular season at the home of the NBA’s Washington Wizards (quadrupling the size of the Mystics’ arena) and set a single-game attendance record of 20,744. WNBA was named the fastest growing brand in 2024 by Morning Consult, which evaluated more than 1,700 brands.

But Johnson told CNN anchor Amanda Davies that she thought TIME should not have targeted Clark specifically.

“It took the WNBA almost 28 years to get to where we are today,” Johnson said on CNN. “And this year something clicked with the WNBA and it’s because of the draft, the players that came in. It’s not just Caitlin Clark, it’s (Angel) Reese, there’s so much talent that haven’t been recognized, and I don’t think we can attribute it to just one player.

The league was already experiencing exponential growth before Clark was drafted in 2024, primarily due to the efforts of Black women like three-time MVP A’ja Wilson, New York Liberty MVP Jonquel Jones and WNBA All-Star DeWanna Bonner and Alyssa Thomas. But the young Fever star has been a catalyst for the 2024 season, as economist Ryan Brewer projects that Clark was responsible for 26.5% of the league’s economic activity in his first year.

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Some of this activity, both economic and media, stemmed from perceived rivalries, particularly between Clark and fellow Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese. The four times Fever and Sky have played in 2024 have been among the most talked about games of the season, and those games have been nearly sold out each time. The WNBA is building on this rivalry in 2025, as the Fever and Sky will play five times in the regular season, including in the season opener.

Johnson said in her CNN interview that she believed Clark was singled out because she was a white woman, which left her black colleagues behind.

Clark is the fifth athlete and second basketball player to win this award since TIME introduced Athlete of the Year in 2019. LeBron James is the only other basketball player to win this honor. Clark also joins Simone Biles, Lionel Messi and Aaron Judge as individual winners. There is precedent for multiple players to win this award, as TIME presented the award to the entire 2019 United States women’s national soccer team after they fought for equal pay in 2019.

“I want to be very diplomatic about it, and if I’m very honest, it’s just the structure of how the media approaches race,” Johnson said. “I feel really bad, because I’ve seen so many players of color that are just as talented, and they never got the recognition that they should have gotten. And I think right now, it’s time let this happen. So last night, you’re reading TIME Magazine, and Caitlin Clark was the athlete of the year. Why couldn’t they have put the entire WNBA on the cover and said “The WNBA is the league of l. ‘year’, because of all the talent that we have. Because when you continue to target a player, it creates feelings of hard feelings, so now you start hearing stories of racism in the WNBA, and I don’t want to hear that. We have to operate and become stronger as a. that league and respect all those who play it and their talents.

Los Angeles Sparks player Lexie Brown came to Clark’s defense in a series of posts on absolutely insane.”

As one of the most popular players in the league, Clark has many partnerships with outside brands, including a $3.5 million annual contract with Nike, a contract with State Farm in which she plays in national advertisements and contracts with Hy-Vee, Gatorade, Buick, Xfinity and Gainbridge.

Johnson believes the division she sees in the league started with these deals, which Clark began making while she was still in college at Iowa.

“They would like to have the same kind of recognition. It all started with the Nike sponsorship that Caitlin got. Johnson told CNN. “There are other players who say: ‘What about us?’ »

However, Clark isn’t the only player to receive these offers, appear on magazine covers or win these awards.

Reese was one of the most popular women’s basketball players in the country as a national champion at LSU before she even joined the Sky, and she will release a signature shoe with Reebok in 2026 (similar to the shoe deal Clark signing with Nike). Reese also has brand deals with Reese’s Puffs, where she has been featured on the cover of the cereal box renamed “Angel Reese’s Puffs”, posed for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, and appeared on the cover of magazines like Women’s Health . , Sports Illustrated and Adweek. She was also named Sporting News Athlete of the Year in 2023 and BET Sportswoman of the Year in 2024.

Wilson also has a brand deal with Nike for a signature shoe that will release in 2025, as well as an apparel line with the brand. Wilson has appeared in national commercials for Nike, Gatorade and Google, been on the cover of the video game NBA 2K and was named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people of 2024 in April. Wilson was also named the best athlete in women’s sports at the 2024 ESPYs by fan vote, beating out Clark, golfer Nelly Korda and tennis player Coco Gauff.

Clark also discussed how she unintentionally became a hot spot for discussions around race in the league during her interview with TIME. As a white woman from West Des Moines, Iowa, in a predominantly black league, some people following Clark’s game used her to eliminate some black players. She wanted to end these conversations.

“I mean I’ve won everything, but as a white person there are privileges,” Clark told TIME. “A lot of players in the league who have been very good have been black players. This league was kind of built on them. The more we can appreciate that, highlight it, talk about it, and then continue to make sure that brands and companies invest in the players that have made this league amazing, I think that’s very important. I have to keep trying to change that. The more we can uplift black women, it will be a beautiful thing.

Here are some other fan reactions to Johnson’s interview:

This article was originally published on the Indianapolis Star: Mystics Owner Says WNBA, Not Caitlin Clark, Should Be TIME’s Athlete of the Year