In the end, it was Caitlin Clark who indirectly helped bring about the end of Mollie Marcoux Samaan’s time as commissioner of the LPGA.
Clark was the 2024 “it girl,” the face of the dramatic rise in interest in women’s sports that unfolded this year. Fresh off a tremendous college basketball career, Clark picked up the WNBA, put it on her back and brought unprecedented interest in and coverage of the 27-year-old league.
Before Clark, the WNBA was a backwater sport, with poor attendance, low TV ratings and lackluster support from corporate America. But after Clark was drafted out of Iowa, and especially after a badly needed break around the time of the Summer Olympics, everything about the WNBA changed.
It wasn’t just Clark, and it wasn’t just the WNBA. The National Women’s Soccer League seemed to have come of age in 2024, with captivating storylines and rising fan interest. It earned a four-year TV deal with CBS, while adding ESPN, Prime Video, and Scripps Sports to its portfolio of television partners. U.S. television exposure remains problematic for the LPGA.
When compared with the 74-year-old LPGA, the WNBA and the NWSL made women’s professional golf seem downright dowdy. This despite what the LPGA characterized as record fan engagement. The LPGA just could not break into the 2024 women’s sports zeitgeist. The unspoken national theme was that women’s sports were hot, but the LPGA was not.
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