{"id":762560,"date":"2026-07-14T14:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/762560\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T14:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:59:09","slug":"people-are-analyzing-why-caitlin-clark-gets-more-hate-than-cameron-brink-or-paige-bueckers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/762560\/","title":{"rendered":"People are analyzing why Caitlin Clark gets more hate than Cameron Brink or Paige Bueckers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caitlin Clark\u2019s WNBA career<\/a> has become one of the most scrutinized storylines in American sport, with every foul, comment, and reaction around the Indiana Fever guard pulled into a much wider debate.<\/p>\n

Her popularity has helped bring record attention to the league, but it has also made her a lightning rod in conversations about race, sexuality, media coverage, and what some people expect from the WNBA\u2019s biggest young stars.<\/p>\n

Caitlin Clark takes a blow to the throat, and officials don’t call a foul<\/p>\n

In an OutKick column, Bobby Burack argued that Clark receives a different level of criticism than Cameron Brink or Paige Bueckers because she refuses to become a culture-war figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem, for many around the league, is that Clark refuses to play the role expected of her,\u201d Burack wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a straight White woman who has declined to turn herself into a vehicle for the racial and sexual activism that increasingly defines the league\u2019s public image.\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate followed a CNN discussion in which former ESPN host Cari Champion rejected the idea<\/a> that race explains some of the hostility directed at Clark.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo suggest that it is intentional or that people are being racist towards her leaves out a long history of women who have supported this league and started this league who were Black,\u201d Champion said, as per OutKick.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very disrespectful to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Brink and Bueckers are treated differently<\/p>\n

Burack contrasted Clark with Brink, who has repeatedly spoken about privilege in women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could go way deeper into this, but I would just say growing the fan base to support all types of players,\u201d Brink said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will acknowledge there\u2019s a privilege for the younger White players of the league.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not always true, but there is a privilege that we have inherently, and the privilege of appearing feminine.\u201d<\/p>\n

She later made a similar point to Interview magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve tried to be vocal about this and acknowledge there\u2019s such a privilege, marketing-wise, being White and blonde,\u201d Brink said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does really bother me seeing athletes and players who are consistently putting up crazy stat lines and not being rewarded by brands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bueckers has also spoken publicly about race and opportunity in the WNBA.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The WNBA] was built on a lot of Black women,\u201d Bueckers said, via Yahoo Sports. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely right for them to get the same equal opportunity as everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark remains different<\/p>\n

Burack argued those comments help explain why Brink and Bueckers are received differently by some critics.<\/p>\n

\u201cViewed through that lens, the acceptance of Brink and Bueckers makes more sense,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBoth have repeatedly signaled they are, in fact, anti-racists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark, by contrast, has mostly kept her public focus on basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaitlin Clark has chosen a different path,\u201d Burack wrote. \u201cShe\u2019s a basketball player. That\u2019s all she\u2019s ever claimed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The column also pointed to Jemele Hill\u2019s 2024 comments to the Los Angeles Times as part of the broader conversation around Clark\u2019s popularity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would all be very naive if we didn\u2019t say race and her sexuality played a role in her popularity,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caitlin Clark\u2019s WNBA career has become one of the most scrutinized storylines in American sport, with every foul,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-762560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}