USA Basketball has left WNBA star rookie Caitlin Clark off the women’s national team roster for the 2024 Paris Olympics, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
It was a highly anticipated decision to see if Clark would be included on the roster and conversations have already stemmed from her absence.
Clark has brought unprecedented levels of attention to women’s college basketball. The 22-year-old has been a TV ratings monster over the last calendar year, breaking several viewership and attendance records from her Iowa senior season into her WNBA rookie season.
Several sports business pundits were quick to point out how Clark’s omission would negatively impact the interest surrounding the USA women’s basketball team at the Olympics and how that would affect NBC Sports’ TV ratings for the event.
The morning of the reported roster announcement, USA Today’s Christine Brennan — who has been covering U.S. women’s basketball at the Olympics since 1984 — explained why Clark did not make the cut.
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Why Caitlin Clark was snubbed from United States women’s basketball Olympic roster
USA Basketball elected to take a veteran-led team to Paris in pursuit of its ninth-consecutive gold medal.
Former WNBA MVPs A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart headline the players who made the roster. They will be joined by Napheesa Collier, Kahleah Copper, Chelsea Gray, Brittney Griner, Sabrina Ionescu, Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Plum, Diana Taurasi, Alyssa Thomas, and Jackie Young.
Nine of the 12 players who made the cut have previous experience representing the United States in 5×5 or 3×3 Olympic competition.
As a result, Clark will have to wait her turn.
Brennan explained further that while Team USA’s “stacked” veteran roster might have been the primary reason for Clark’s omission, the inevitable negative fan reaction to her being one of the last players off the bench if she was picked sealed her fate:
“Two other sources, both long-time U.S. basketball veterans with decades of experience in the women’s game, told USA TODAY Sports Friday that concern over how Clark’s millions of fans would react to what would likely be limited playing time on a stacked roster was a factor in the decision making.
“If true, that would be an extraordinary admission of the tension that this multi-million-dollar sensation, who signs autographs for dozens of children before and after every game, has caused for the old guard of women’s basketball.”
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Four-time Olympic gold medalist Lisa Leslie firmly believed that Clark should make the team in an interview with The Sporting News’ Bill Bender back in April.
“One hundred percent. One thousand percent. I can’t even let you get the question out. I don’t know how you leave the country without her,” Leslie said.
Even in a limited role off the bench, there is no denying that Clark would have been a catalyst to draw attention to the women’s national team and women’s basketball as a whole, just as she has for over a year.
