Caitlin Clark marketing boom is celebrated but also draws questions of race and equity

Women's basketball has never seen anything like Caitlin Clark, the sweet-shooting rookie guard for the WNBA's Indiana Fever. She's Taylor Swift with a jump shot, Mia Hamm in a singlet; a figure so transcendent she is changing her profession.

More than 55,000 people showed up to watch her play a practice game last fall and her final college game drew 24 million TV viewers this spring. That's 3 1/2 times larger than the audience for Serena Williams' final tennis match.

More than 3 million people tuned in on ESPN just to watch her get drafted. After that, Nike signed her to the most lucrative sponsorship deal in women's basketball history, a $28-million agreement that includes a signature shoe. Michael Jordan's first deal with Nike was worth less than a tenth of that.

So what makes the pony-tailed Clark, just 22, so special? Sure, she's the leading scorer in women's college basketball history, but how many people have heard of Lynette Woodard, the woman she passed? And for all