"CC obviously created generational momentum": Caitlin Clark fans tear into reporter for downplaying superstar's impact

As Caitlin Clark's college career reached its crescendo, she helped propel women's basketball to unprecedented heights. The last three games she played for the Iowa Hawkeyes ended up being the three most watched women's college basketball games ever.

A year after Clark's final appearance in the NCAA tournament, NBC reporter Jackie Powell wrote a piece describing how women's college basketball continued to thrive after Clark's departure:

Although Powell gave props to the current collegiate stars like Paige Bueckers, JuJu Watkins and Olivia Miles, some fans thought that the writer failed to recognize how Clark set the stage for this boom in the sport:

"This is such lazy reporting, cc obviously created generational momentum, and this year we see that it was actually SUSTAINABLE. She impacted the culture and the system beyond her participation as an individual player," one said on X.

"People underestimate how many fans are now watching because we watched Clark. I didn't watch until her, but now I'm watching after her. I watched some of unrivaled because I saw those players because I was watching CC. It's ok to admit that," another tweeted.

"It's not 'without Clark', it is 'because of Clark'. that's why i'm watching. that's why a lot of people are," one added.

"Thrived without her yet you have to continue talking about her and write articles about her to get clicks," another argued.

"It’s proof of the enduring Caitlin Clark Effect. She got the sport lit and now it’s ascendant. That was the goal," one asserted.

"I didn't watch women's basketball until Caitlin Clark," another wrote.

With the 2025 NCAA tournament underway, fans and analysts will stay tuned to the numbers generated in the post-Caitlin Clark era. To the credit of the former college sensation, Clark helped set the bar when the national championship game between Iowa and South Carolina drew a record-breaking 18.7 million viewers.

Before this, Clark played in the two games that had briefly held record viewership numbers: the Final Four showdown against the Paige Bueckers-led UConn (14.2 million) and the Elite Eight duel with Angel Reese and LSU (12.3 million).

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Caitlin Clark set to play in 41 nationally televised WNBA games this season

Fully aware of Clark's star power, the WNBA has unsurprisingly decided to provide plenty of exposure to the Indiana Fever as far as nationally televised games are concerned.

On Thursday, the Fever flexed their tremendous presence on TV this coming season:

"All eyes on us. 41 of our 44 games on national TV. most national TV games in franchise history. most national TV games for a single team in WNBA history," the Fever tweeted.

If anything, the number of nationally televised Fever games proves that the Caitlin Clark effect is alive and well on the WNBA stage.