Indiana Fever chooses Caitlin Clark as number one in the WNBA draft | Basketball | Sports

The American professional basketball league awaits the most talented promotion in recent times. Leading the new batch of WNBA players is Caitlin Clark, the player who has revolutionized women’s college basketball since her Iowa team and aspires to mark an era in the professional league. As expected, Clark has been chosen first in the selection of new players, the draft. Indiana Fever won the lottery to have the right to the first choice, which this time came with its own name. The expectation is so great that Indiana has already sold out tickets for the entire season, something that a WNBA team has never achieved before.

Caitlin Clark was the first chosen at the gala held this Monday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York). She will wear number 1 in Indiana. She will become a WNBA player next month, fulfilling the dream she had since she was a child. “I got a little anxious before the election,” Clark said with a laugh in her first statement after being elected and after hugging her parents and siblings and Iowa coach Lisa Bluder. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment since I was in second grade, and it’s taken a lot of work, a lot of ups and downs, but more than anything, I’m just trying to soak it in. I’ve earned it, that’s why I’m so proud,” added Clark, who was wearing a white Prada jacket and skirt.

In elementary school, Caitlin Clark wrote a list of her goals and dreams that included one day playing in the WNBA. Her mother Anne still has the piece of paper Clark wrote it on. “It’s pretty special, looking back on that sheet I was able to score a lot of goals,” Clark told the Associated Press on Sunday.

The Iowa star took advantage of his presence this weekend in New York to make a surprise appearance on the comedy television show Saturday night Live, in another proof of her almost unprecedented popularity in women’s sports.

After leading the Iowa Hawkeyes to their third consecutive Big Ten championship (one of the groups in the first university division), the guard led her team to the national championship final, but was defeated for the second year in a row. Along the way, if anything, he has managed to be more popular than any male college player and set college basketball’s all-time scoring records: 3,951 points over his career.

The April 7 finale shattered viewership records for women’s college basketball. It had an average of 18.9 million viewers, with peaks of 24 million, almost quadruple that of the final two years ago, before the Caitlin Clark phenomenon broke out. Not only did it surpass the 14.8 million of the men’s final, but it was the most watched basketball game in the United States of the last five years, even surpassing the NBA finals. And it became the second most watched sporting event in history in the United States, excluding the Olympic Games.

Television networks have already reorganized their coverage for the new women’s professional basketball season, with Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever at the center. Of the team’s 40 games, 36 will be broadcast nationally and through the team’s partners. streaming, starting with the season opener at Connecticut on May 14. Last season, only 22 of the team’s games were broadcast nationwide. The Fever will appear eight times on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, as well as eight times on ION and twice on CBS. Additionally, the Indiana team will appear 13 times on NBA TV, four on Prime Video and once on CBS Sports Network. The women’s league just closed its most watched season in 21 years, with an average of 462,000 viewers per game on ABC, ESPN and CBS.

The WNBA awaits Clark’s arrival with an expectation comparable to that raised by Frenchman Victor Wembanyama in the NBA last year. In Indiana they are eagerly awaiting her. This Monday, fans requested almost 17,000 tickets to witness the draft at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, home of the Fever and the Indiana Pacers of the NBA. Tickets to see the draft live in New York were over in 15 minutes.

Due to her style of play, she is compared to Stephen Curry and there is speculation that she will have an impact on women’s professional basketball similar to what the Golden State Warriors star caused in the NBA. It is very difficult for her to be able to propel the team to the top positions in the short term on her own.

This year has been a great promotion of players. Also fulfilling the forecasts, Cameron Brink, from Stanford University, has been selected in second place by the Los Angeles Sparks. Brink’s godmother, Sonya Curry, is precisely Stephen Curry’s mother. “I FaceTimed Steph five minutes before the show started. draft and he told me to have fun,” Brink said.

The third place has also fulfilled the expectations: Brazilian Kamilla Cardoso, NCAA champion after defeating Caitlin Clark’s team in the final with South Carolina, has been selected by Chicago Sky. Angel Reese, whose rivalry with Clark fueled the passion for the college league, has been somewhat relegated to the seventh position because his outside shot is poor and his height is not enough to play center in the professional league. He will share a team with Cardoso. “I’m excited to play with Kamilla, who I’ve been fighting since high school,” Reese said after being chosen.

Two French players have made it into the top 10 positions of the draft, in a clear commitment to the internationalization of the competition.

In any case, the current players in the league are not impressed. Diana Taurasi, 41, the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer, comparable to LeBron James, left a message to the rookies in an interview on ESPN by Scott Van Pelt (known as SVP). “Look, SVP. Reality is coming. We all go through that. That happens in the NBA, and you’re going to see it on this side. “You seem superhuman playing against 18-year-old girls, but you are going to come with women who have been playing professional basketball for a long time,” she told him.

Washington star Elena Delle Donne, twice the WNBA’s best player, was friendlier. “Diana is like Kobe (Bryant),” she told ESPN.

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