In 2024, every other week, Caitlin Clark would receive an egregious foul. As a talented rookie, the WNBA claimed that it was her fate to be thrown around in the league, and everyone has their welcome-to-the-league moments. “The game has always been physical,” Liberty star Natasha Cloud said. Even commentator Rebecca Lobo claimed, “I don’t think the veterans have been anything other than trying to stop Caitlin and trying to slow her down as competitors.” The lack of practical refereeing made things worse, as the whistle is rarely friendly to Clark.
Clark’s bruising stop-start rookie campaign has been shaped in large part by the relentless physicality she’s faced, resulting in multiple injuries and sidelining her for all but 13 games of the 2025 season. Her absence has been a blow not just to the Indiana Fever but to the momentum of the entire WNBA. With her return date still uncertain, the spotlight on the rough treatment she’s endured has only intensified. Yet in the face of mounting scrutiny, players and league veterans continue to insist Clark’s welcome to the league hasn’t been a special case; it’s the same trial by fire every much-hyped rookie must endure.
However, Clark’s teammate Sophie Cunningham has dropped a bomb. She has revealed what the conversations regarding Clark were like in her Phoenix Mercury days. She said on the Show Me Something Podcast with her high school best friend, West Wilson, “I know the talks that Phoenix had in the locker room of like, ‘No, we’re gonna prove her. We’re gonna show her what the W is.’ You know what I mean? And like I get it to a certain extent, and like every rookie coming into the league, that’s how you’re going to treat them. But there’s just more for her.”
The data backs her up. Clark drew 4.5 personal fouls per game in 2024, which was more than every rookie in the league. That was the number of fouls she received, and as we know, multiple fouls went unnoticed throughout last year and even when she played this year. Along with that, players fouling Caitlin Clark accounted for 17.1% of all flagrants that season. There are so many incidents that reflect the same sentiment. The Chennedy Carter foul last year and the Jacy Sheldon controversy this year are examples of something that has gone essentially unchanged.
Cunningham further reflected after being on her team for half of a season, “So it’s her second year, and like now being on her team and like seeing it, I’m like, what are people doing? It’s just too much. Too much. Like, it’s just that I’m over it. And if I’m saying it’s too much, then it’s probably too much.”
Cunningham, known across the league as an “enforcer,” showed exactly why she earned that reputation during a heated contest against the Connecticut Sun. In the game’s final moments, Cunningham escalated tensions when she brought down Sun guard Sheldon, igniting a brawl that resulted in ejections and a flurry of technical fouls. The scene turned chaotic, with Cunningham acting as a spark for her team, a move she felt was necessary in the moment. From orchestrating a hard-edged welcome for Clark to calling out the excesses of that treatment, it underscores just how over the mark and unchecked the atmosphere around Clark has become. Even the league’s self-appointed tough players are starting to draw the line, signaling that the situation may have tipped past what’s traditionally accepted as fair initiation for new stars.
Cunningham Becomes Frank on Clark as the Face of the WNBA
One can take any metric when it comes to popularity. Fans flock to watch her even when she is not playing. She signed hundreds of autographs before their recent game against the Chicago Sky. Clark turns every city into her home ground, and kids fanboy and fan girl over her like no other. Just the other day, when she attended a ribbon-cutting in Des Moines, a kid fist-bumped her and later said, “I am never rewashing my hands.”
However, even with an impact like this, the doubters remain. By her peers, she was voted the ninth-best guard in the league. In a recent anonymous player poll by The Athletic, Clark was chosen by 53.8% of players as the most likely to become the face of the league within five years. However, it means 48.5% of people did not think that, which is a significant amount considering just how popular Clark currently is.
Cunningham had something to say to the ‘haters’ as she said, “And it pisses me off when people are like she’s not the face of the league. Who would be? What?”
That’s the premier issue that denies that Clark is the face of the league or will be in the next few years. There is no player even close to where Clark is right now. She received 1,293,536 fan votes for the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game, which is the most of any player in a single year in league history. A June 2025 sports analytics report named Clark “the most-talked-about female athlete from any sport on social media” in 2024. When it comes to money, she brought in over 25% of WNBA league revenue in 2024 and is expected to be valued at over a billion dollars in 2025. No player in basketball can boast such impact.
Cunningham further said, “There are good, well-known people in our league. I’m not discrediting them. Like, we have a lot of badasses in our league. Like hell yeah to that. I’m all for that. But when people try to argue that she’s not the face of our league, they’re missing the point. Yeah. Or if our league would be the same without her. You’re dumb as S*** Yeah. You’re dumb as f*** ”
That is frank as it gets. There are other rising stars like Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers and popular veterans like A’ja Wilson and Napheesa Collier, but in no way do they match Clark’s impact. Currently, she is the face of the league, period. There is a lack of valid arguments against it. However, we don’t know what the future holds. Many experts have emphasised Clark’s longevity to sustain this popularity. There is a possibility that someone can surpass her in the coming years. We think surpassing Clark is impossible, but the popularity of Clark was considered impossible a few years ago. There are limitless possibilities.
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