Lefty sports activities columnist Mike Freeman took to the pages of USA Today on Monday to complain that basketball star Caitlin Clark obtained a shoe deal after she ended her faculty basketball profession and headed into the WNBA.
According to a number of experiences, Clark is anticipated to earn her personal signature shoe deal. CNN, for example, reported on Monday that Nike is preparing to supply the Iowa girls’s basketball star a shoe deal value as much as $28 million over eight years.
But to Freeman, that is an insult to black gamers.
In his editorial on Monday, Freeman goes on the assault, writing, “In a majority-Black league, there are currently no Black players with signature shoes.”
“If she does,” Freeman writes of Clark’s pending shoe deal, “Clark would join only three other WNBA players with signature shoes: Breanna Stewart, Elena Delle Donne, and Sabrina Ionescu. You may notice a pattern there.”
What may that “pattern” be? Those gamers are all white girls.
Cameron Brink and Caitlin Clark pose for a photograph in the course of the 2024 WNBA Draft on April 15, 2024, on the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York. (Emily Johnson/NBAE by way of Getty Images)
Freeman admits that between 1995 and 2011, each signature shoe popping out of the WNBA belonged to a black lady. But as we speak, there are three WNBA gamers with a shoe deal, and if Clark will get hers, that can make 4. And all 4 are white girls. Oh, the humanities.
Freeman goes on to level out that the present lack of a shoe deal for any black WNBA gamers “shows how Black women are being ignored in a league that they dominate.”
Naturally, Freeman didn’t tackle why it was completely nice for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” that no white feminine ever had a shoe deal for many of the existence of the WNBA.
Indeed, Freeman insists that “you are a fool” should you assume that the explanation these 4 white girls have (or are about to get) a shoe deal is as a result of they’re the league’s stars.
The columnist factors to A’ja Wilson because the prime instance of a star who doesn’t have a shoe deal. And Freeman contends it’s as a result of she is black.
A’ja Wilson #22 of the Las Vegas Aces dribbles in opposition to Jonquel Jones #35 of the New York Liberty within the fourth quarter throughout Game Four of the 2023 WNBA Finals at Barclays Center on October 18, 2023 in New York City. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
While Freeman tries to backtrack by saying Clark deserves her success, he insists, “Wilson deserves it more and has for some time. She is, after all, the best overall player in the world.”
It’s all due to racism, Freeman exclaims.
“What so much of this comes down to is a lack of respect for the Black women of the WNBA. A lack of respect for Black Americans overall isn’t something new to the marketing world. This is old hat. That doesn’t change the ugliness of it,” he claimed.
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