Men’s and women’s basketball have always had a clear divide…at least until Caitlin Clark arrived on the scene. Shooting like Steph Curry and handling the ball like no one’s business, the Indiana Fever guard was at first said to have impacted men’s college basketball in addition to women’s basketball. But now, it seems, she might single-handedly just leave 445 NBA players in the dust too.

Calling her the biggest name on the under-30 player list from the NBA, The Ringer‘s Bill Simmons and Chuck Klosterman have put the Des Moines native in big shoes. When Simmons asked his guest on The Bill Simmons Podcast if the WNBA Rookie of the Year was “a bigger under 30 star than any under 30 star in the NBA” Klosterman didn’t hesitate to say “yes.”

This statement comes at a time when the popularity of the men’s league is going down. Have no doubt that the NBA is still one of the most popular leagues in the country right now. But multiple platforms have seen a drop in viewership for Commissioner Adam Silver not to be concerned. Per Front Office Sports, ESPN reported a 28% drop through Nov. 21, whereas TNT was down three percent, at least until the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics clashed.

Silver blamed external events like the 2024 Presidential Election and MLB’s World Series. “I think we’re just looking at a couple weeks of ratings,” Silver told Front Office Sports.

“There’s always some unique things. This year we were up against the World Series, Dodgers-Yankees, two very attractive teams, they brought in a big audience. You had a presidential election which was commanding an enormous amount of attention. So I don’t think it has anything whatsoever to do with the style of play on the floor.”

Per 2k ratings, Nikola Jokic leads the 30-under-30 list, with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic coming up next. But for Simmons and Klosterman, it’s Caitlin Clark taking the charge.

“I literally did not care about women’s college basketball 10 years ago, in any way, shape, or form,” Simmons revealed on the podcast. “So I think some things have just moved toward the quality of play is more fun to watch, but she seems to be some sort of catalyst that is just, it’s like before and after, and now we’re in the after.”

We have all seen the huge divide in men’s and women’s college basketball viewership and how that has changed in the last two years. In fact, Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes were able to leave the men’s college basketball Finale behind in viewership as they locked horns with the South Carolina Gamecocks.

And Klosterman made an interesting point about how this might be because it’s easier for women to have opportunities to become famous than men right now. And it was incidentally backed by a couple of NBA legends.

Even NBA Hall of Famers are more familiar with women’s college basketball than men’s

“Part of it is it’s real difficult now for a guy to become famous in basketball at the collegiate level, it still seems very plausible for a woman,” Klosterman told Simmons. And it might just be true if one looks at the viewership numbers from the last two NCAA championships. When Iowa beat Louisiana in the Elite Eight in the 2023-24 season, more than 12 million people watched. It set a new record for ESPN, set just a year ago between LSU and Iowa’s Final. The common factor? Caitlin Clark.

Before last season’s NCAA tournament started, Kevin Garnett had asked former teammate Paul Pierce on a podcast, “Name five guys in college right now, P.” Pierce took a long time to think, only to admit, “I don’t know. I don’t even know who the top player in college is. Who’s the top player?” Garnett didn’t know either but he said, “I know the girls!”

Pierce did too – CC, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, JuJu Watkins, and even South Carolina coach Dawn Staley. It might just be that women have more of a chance to shoot to the top right now, as Klosterman said. The narrative of the game in both leagues is at a point when they’re almost reversing.

But it’s also what Garnett said, “Women’s college basketball is fu–ing electric, Lord. It is blowing the guys’ game out of the water.”