The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Women’s Basketball Championship game was held this past Sunday. It garnered 9.9 million viewers, making it the most-viewed NCAA women’s basketball final in history. The game peaked at around 12.6 million views, double the viewership of the championship game last year. It was also the most-viewed sporting event on ESPN+ and, for the first time in decades, was aired on ABC.
This marks a momentous change in how women’s sports are viewed and female athletes are treated. First Lady Jill Biden marveled at how far women’s sports have come saying “It was such a great game…[I]’m old enough that I remember when we got Title IX. We fought so hard, right?” Biden also commented that Iowa should come to the White House, along with National Champions LSU. Angel Reese, star player and shooting guard for LSU, published a Tweet calling Jill Biden’s comments “a joke.” Reese received a lot of media attention for this tweet and for her actions during Sunday’s championship game.
Clark has won multiple National Player of the Year awards and broke several records throughout the tournament, including setting a new NCAA tournament scoring record— men’s and women’s. Clark is undoubtedly a talented player and has no reservations about showing off her skills earlier in the tournament. Clark waved her hand in front of her face when Iowa beat Louisville to enter the Final Four in reference to the “You can’t see me” hand gesture popularized by John Cena. Clark was praised for this move, getting comments from John Cena himself and several National Basketball Association (NBA) players. At the end of the championship game, Angel Reese made this exact gesture toward Caitlin Clark and received a lot of negative feedback.
Many social media users called the move classless but failed to have the same attitude toward Clark’s behavior. Reese argued in a post-game interview that the criticism is tied to who she is, “[I] don’t fit the narrative. I don’t fit in a box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto. Y’all told me that all year. But when other people do it, y’all say nothing.” Reese is Black and Clark is white. Both players have had stand-out seasons and both players made the same exact gesture during this year’s March Madness tournament, but only one has faced backlash for it. Many athletes and fans are calling out those who criticized Reese. Former Baylor quarterback Robert Lee Griffin III tweeted, “[I]f you didn’t say it was classless when Caitlin Clark did it to her opponents then don’t say it about Angel Reese either.” Others took a different approach to this argument with one women’s basketball fan account exclaiming, “Let these women trash talk!” Sports journalist Holly Rowe claims, “[U]napologetically confident young women should be celebrated NOT hated…[G]et used to it.”
Both players spoke out about the incident, Reese doubling down on her statement and Clark noting that she had “no idea” Reese was taunting her, adding that her focus was to get to the handshake line. Angel Reese commented that despite the internet controversy, she feels happy for all she has done to grow women’s basketball this year. “So, this was for the girls that look like me, that’s going to speak up on what they believe in. It’s unapologetically you. It was bigger than me tonight.”
We can all appreciate the history that has been made throughout this tournament and during the championship game. It marks a step toward women’s sports getting the respect that they earned long ago.
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