I came discovered the Iowa Women’s Basketball team’s pregame entrance video a few days ago on X, which was formerly Twitter. A conductor is seen extending her arms in front of a stage in the penultimate photo, which was taken inside a music hall with an orchestra. The phrase “Welcome To The Show” appears on the screen as the film pans to senior point guard and 2023 Naismith Player of the Year Caitlin Clark in the exact same pose and location on stage as the conductor.
This video, in my opinion, perfectly captures how Clark is the mastermind behind my current favourite college sports trend. She was conducting her squad as well as the broader expansion, discourse, and excitement surrounding women’s basketball, much like a conductor. Her strength in the sporting realm, both on and off the court, is comparable to that of a conductor positioned atop a platform, whose hands are used to manipulate music.
In addition to drawing in nearly ten million viewers from the previous season’s national championship game, Clark was also contributing to the scrimmage between Iowa and DePaul inside Kinnick Football Stadium, selling out Iowa season tickets for the first time in programme history, and significantly raising ticket prices for programmes across the nation with her logo threes and mind-blowing plays during transition.
While schools like Northwestern, Northern Iowa, and Ohio State have already sold out their games against Iowa, all but two of the Hawkeyes’ away opponents this season have increased their ticket prices especially for their encounter. Put another way, teams all over the nation are increasing or
perhaps triple the cost of their women’s basketball tickets in order to support a single team led by a single star. This is similar to the time Lionel Messi increased MLS ticket costs at Inter Miami, but Messi was already perhaps the most famous athlete in the world at the time. In this instance, a Des Moines, Iowa, collegiate women’s basketball player is the one to blame for the unexpected interest in Iowa women’s basketball among programmes hundreds of miles away who was relatively unknown to the mainstream just a few years ago. It’s unbelievable.
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