The Clark Factor: How Iowa Hawkeyes Player Caitlin Clark is Changing Women's Basketball - by Carly Winchell

Young fans hold up signs featuring Caitlin Clark that declare “Girls can. The future is female,” before an Iowa Women’s Basketball game. Photo courtesy of the Iowa Women’s Basketball Facebook page.

Those with even a peripheral awareness of college basketball have likely heard of the University of Iowa’s Number 22 Caitlin Clark. Fresh off a victory in the Big Ten Championship, the Iowa Hawkeyes received a number one seed and are headed into the NCAA Women’s College Basketball Tournament this weekend. Depending on how the tournament goes, number 5 seed Colorado Buffalos could end up facing the Hawkeyes on the court as the teams fight to make it to the championship game.

Clark’s final season in college basketball has overflowed with firsts and broken records and transformed the world of women’s college basketball.

Caitlin Clark promotional image after she recorded her seventeenth career triple-double. Image courtesy of the Iowa Women’s Basketball Facebook page.

For the first time, CBS broadcast the championship game of the women’s Big Ten tournament. Stadiums have sold out wherever Iowa has played and the team has helped six different networks reach all-time viewership records for women’s basketball over the course of last year. Last season’s NCAA championship game drew nearly 10 million viewers.

In October 2023, CNN reported on the breaking of the attendance record for Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City with 55,646 people arriving to watch Iowa play the DePaul Blue Demons in an exhibition game.

This was also the first women’s basketball game played outdoors in a football stadium and set an NCAA single-game record for largest attendance in women’s basketball history. The previous record was 29,619 attendees of the title game between Oklahoma and UConn in 2002.

All net proceeds from the record-breaking Kinnick event were donated to The University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. At the end of the first quarter, everyone in attendance turned to face the hospital and waved to the kids (an Iowa football tradition).

Clark is a major factor in the draw for viewers, though her teammates deserve equal appreciation.

Hannah Stuelke broke Carver-Hawkeye Arena’s all-time scoring record for a single game (male or female) with 47 points until Clark scored 49 at Carver-Hawkeye in a game later that same season. Gabby Marshall was dubbed Gabby ‘March’all by sportscasters due to her stellar performance during the Big Ten tournament, including a game saving block during the championship game.

Clark, Stuelke, Marshall and the other first string players for Iowa, Kate Martin, Molly Davis, Taylor McCabe, and Kylie Feurerbach, all work together extremely well, delivering assists and impressive passes that have paved the way to Iowa’s win in the Big Ten tournament.

A few other notable achievements specifically for Clark include:

Breaking Pete Maravich’s record of 3,667 career points to become the all-time leading scorer in Division I NCAA (men or women). This record stood for 54 years. Clark is sitting at 3,771 career points with the NCAA tournament to go.
Breaking Kelsey Plum’s Division I women’s basketball all time scoring record two weeks before breaking Maravich’s record, with a three-point shot from the logo no less.
University of Iowa basketball player Caitlin Clark celebrates on the court. Image courtesy of the Iowa Women’s Basketball Facebook page.

Surpassing Lynette Woodard’s score of 3,649 career points to break the AIAW large-college scoring record.
Achieving 55 30-point games (as of March 7), which is the most by a Division I player in the past 25 seasons.
Achieving 17 triple-doubles (scoring double digits in three out of five statistical categories – points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks), which is second in Division I history behind Sabrina Ionescu.
Achieving 12 40-point games, the most of any Division I player over the past 25 seasons.
Setting the Big Ten record for assists.
Becoming the first Division I player to have over 3,000 points, 900 assists, and 800 rebounds in a career (men or women).
Hitting 1,000 career assists in February, 2024.

The list goes on.

As a result of this excitement Clark is expected to be the first overall pick in the 2024

Clark’s rise has elevated the sport of women’s basketball not just for Iowa. The Hawkeyes have helped to sell out, or break an attendance record, in 30 out of 32 games this season (as of February 15, 2024). On average, schools hosting Iowa see a 150 percent attendance increase compared to other home games.

Iowa games that sold out on the road include the University of Northern Iowa (first time in school history), Iowa State, Wisconsin (program attendance record), Rutgers (first time since 2006), Purdue (fourth sellout in program history), Ohio State, Northwestern (first time in program history), Maryland (first since 2016), and Nebraska (first in program history). The total attendance record for Division I women’s basketball was also broken by more than 150,000 in the 2022 to 2023 season at 8,781,401.

The average price of tickets to watch the Hawkeyes play is up by 224 percent.

The Caitlin Clark Effect

According to the NCAA, in their article The Caitlin Clark Effect, “This year, Iowa has played games on NBC, Fox and ESPN. An overtime loss at Ohio State on NBC averaged 1.93 million viewers across the network and Peacock, peaking at 3.9 million during overtime. It was the most watched regular-season women’s basketball game on any network since 2010. . . On Super Bowl Sunday, Iowa-Nebraska drew 1.77 million viewers on Fox – a network record for the sport – while South Carolina-UConn averaged 1.05 million viewers on ESPN. The sport’s rising viewership numbers made it a coveted part of ESPN’s new eight-year media rights deal with the NCAA for 40 championships.”

A young fan holds up a sign saying “I want to be like you” featuring the names of the women on the University of Iowa’s basketball team. Image courtesy of the Iowa Women’s Basketball Facebook page.

According to The New York Times, the NCAA signed a deal with ESPN for annual rights to broadcast the women’s basketball tournament for more than $60 million, which is over ten times the amount paid for the same rights in 2011.

There are a lot of numbers listed here but it is difficult to measure the full extent Clark has had on the sport and on young girls who get to witness a women’s basketball player shatter records held by men for over half a century.

Clark regularly dedicates time to signing autographs for young girls after games, who often attend in full Hawkeye regalia with handmade posters celebrating Clark and other members of the Iowa team. Clark herself grew up playing on an all-boys team with dreams of making it big in basketball. Dreams she has most certainly achieved.

It remains to be seen if the boost on college basketball from Clark’s career will continue after she leaves for the WNBA, but for now national sportscaster Dan Patrick summed it up effectively, “She’s the face of college basketball, men and women.”

Where to watch Clark this weekend

For those interested in watching Clark play before she leaves Iowa, the Hawkeyes will play the winner of the Holy Cross and the University of Tennessee-Martin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday, March 23 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City. Tipoff is at 1:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time (MST) on ABC.

For those who haven’t seen Clark play before, streaming platform Peacock, which has shown a number of Iowa games this season, broke down the top 10 most watched Caitlin Clark moments in the video below:

USA Today explains how interested viewers can tune into this season’s NCAA tournament. Women’s March Madness can be viewed on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, and ABC for the games in the first and second rounds, the Sweet 16, and Elite Eight. ESPN will show the Final Four games and ABC will air the national championship game.

Last season the Hawkeyes made it to their second Final Four appearance in the school’s history but lost to LSU in the championship game. Clark scored a record 41 points in the semifinal.

For more information on Clark, a brief documentary by Trice Media titled HER is available on YouTube.

Editor’s note: March is Women’s History Month — making this a fitting celebration of what women, allowed to compete, can achieve.