Brennan tapped into some familiar talking points in a column about the incident<\/a>. The columnist argued in\u00a0USA Today that commissioner Cathy Engelbert has failed to \u201cgive Clark her due and keep her safe,\u201d while claiming, as evidence of Clark\u2019s need for such treatment, the fact that Brennan used to get \u201claughed at\u201d during the early days of the WNBA when she would bring it up to male colleagues.<\/p>\nIn a video posted to LinkedIn on Monday, Spain offered a scathing rebuttal, essentially repeating a line from their previous podcast discussion, accusing Brennan of \u201cdereliction of duties as a journalist.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would never say the \u2018NBA hates\u2019 fill-in-the-blank,\u201d Spain said. \u201cThat\u2019s describing every single player in the league as having that opinion and being a part of an agenda. She does that all the time with the WNBA, and it is frankly dereliction of duties as a journalist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spain also took issue with Brennan\u2019s claims about the league\u2019s early days.<\/p>\n
\u201cNineties WNBA games, the first couple years, still have some attendance and viewership records. It was not nothing,\u201d Spain said. \u201cIt was sunk, at one point, with intention from certain executives, and it struggled with highs and lows. But the WNBA has had moments well before Caitlin Clark that were giant, that were huge, that could have been capitalized on if the same investment and coverage and streaming services and money and everything else was where it is now.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo to presume that this never could have happened with a different player who had arrived at this very time is, to me, to intentionally erase decades of talent, of star power, and so many women who came before and helped bring us to where we are now, in service of being able to continue this narrative that Caitlin is being done wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the column, Brennan presages these critiques, writing:<\/p>\n
\u201cThese facts make some longtime WNBA players, reporters and fans (especially those from UConn) mad, even sad. I understand they wish a player like Maya Moore, Clark\u2019s favorite growing up, would have been so famous that everyone \u2014 sports fan or not \u2014 knew her name, as they do with Clark. I wish it happened too. But it didn\u2019t. Do they want the small thing to stay small forever?\u201d<\/p>\n
Brennan also cites statistics referencing other active stars who do not regularly draw the same audience or attendance as Clark has since her first game as a pro.<\/p>\n
However, Spain supposes that Brennan is less genuine in her focus on Clark, claiming that she is only making arguments about protecting and supporting the Indiana Fever phenom to sell more copies of her book.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had people ask me what Christine\u2019s intent is with all of this riding for Caitlin, with the relentless tweeting and posting and opinion piece-writing about how the league is doing Caitlin wrong and she should spin off and start her own league \u2026 and I don\u2019t know,\u201d Spain said. \u201cI have to assume that that\u2019s why she keeps writing these pieces and keeps inserting the book\u2019s title. That is the most gracious excuse I can give \u2026 for her singular focus on one player, and not on the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clearly, as a trailblazer, Brennan is being held to a high standard by those who wish to see her see the fuller picture of Clark\u2019s situation in the WNBA. However, while Spain appears to wish Brennan simply held a different viewpoint, Brennan\u2019s argument is increasingly common across sports media as Clark is continually involved in verbal and physical confrontations that go viral and make the league look chaotic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since Caitlin Clark entered the pros and helped generate a massive surge in interest and investment in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14604,21240,15816,17],"class_list":["post-47742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-christine-brennan","tag-sarah-spain","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}