INDIANAPOLIS — To walk so much as half a block in Indianapolis, host of the WNBA’s All-Star Weekend, is to run into the likeness of Caitlin Clark. Her face is on shirts, on billboards, on posters covering store windows. Her name appears in drink specials and in snippets of passing conversation. Towering over the entire scene is an enormous Nike advertisement, 34 stories high on the JW Marriott, showing her shot mid-release and her ponytail mid-swish. FROM DOWNTOWN IN MY TOWN, it reads, at once a declaration of skill and a promise of an upcoming show.
It all means that Clark is everywhere other than where she would most like to be. The one place she is missing this weekend is the court: The Fever star announced earlier this week that an injury would keep her from both Friday’s three-point contest and Saturday’s All-Star game. This weekend had originally been intended as something of a showcase for how she has changed her team and her city. That dynamic makes it impossible to ignore her absence from the competition. Yet it feels just as impossible to ignore just how much her presence has changed the league.
The guard is not on the floor this weekend. But the evidence of her effect remains all around.
Clark sat courtside on Friday, wedged between her Fever teammates Kelsey Mitchell and Makayla Timpson, idly tossing a miniature basketball that had been thrown her way as she was shown on the Jumbotron. She watched Natasha Cloud conquer the skills competition and Sabrina Ionescu take back her three-point crown. It was the kickoff to a weekend that comes with bigger sponsorships, higher prize money, and more layers of branding and publicity than ever before in the WNBA.
“She means a lot more to the game than just showing up and playing,” Ionescu told reporters earlier on Friday. “I think you’re able to see that with the excitement in Indy.”
That has manifested in a dizzying array of events and sponsored activities throughout downtown Indianapolis. (It’s hard to imagine a better weekend for someone who loves the phrase “brand activation.”) That was partially the point of the whole endeavor.
Clark has been quite deliberate with partnerships and public appearances in her young professional career. Rumors flew over the winter that she might participate in a three-point contest during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend—a variation of the 2024 WNBA vs. NBA showdown that pitted Ionescu against Stephen Curry. Her agency countered by issuing a rare public statement on her behalf: “Caitlin will not be at NBA All-Star. She wants her first three-point contest to be at WNBA All-Star in Indianapolis this summer.” Clark was clear not just about the substance of her choice but also about the reasoning. Her first three-point contest would surely come with the avalanche of attention that pairs with any of her big milestones and most of her routine movements. And she wanted that avalanche on her terms, in her league, in her new city. She wanted it directed towards the players of the WNBA.
Which makes it all the more frustrating that she could not participate as she had planned. Clark’s season has been trying. She entered this year having not missed a game due to injury since high school. But she has spent the last three months battling a series of hamstring and groin problems—soft tissue injuries that can be especially maddening and finicky—and she has found herself mired in an uncharacteristic shooting slump. The Fever have struggled, too, entering the All-Star break just one game over .500. (Their grand offseason makeover has not quite gone according to plan.) It had seemed like the All-Star festivities might offer something of a reset.
Clark made her return from her latest injury scarcely a week ago. She played in four games over six days to help close out the Fever’s schedule before the All-Star break. In the closing minutes of a game against the Sun on Tuesday, however, she injured her groin again. She announced two days later that she would not be able to play this weekend in Indianapolis.
Temporarily relegated to the unfamiliar role of ordinary fan on Friday, watching courtside, Clark will return to the bench for the All-Star Game on Saturday, captaining the squad that she drafted for the event. (All-Star coach Sandy Brondello joked that she will very much be sharing her duties with the sidelined point guard.) This is not the weekend for which Clark had planned. But it’s still very much the weekend that she helped build.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Even While Injured, Caitlin Clark’s Presence Is Impossible to Ignore at WNBA All-Star Weekend.