Caitlin Clark Leads America's Favorite Athlete Survey
Even though she has played just one WNBA season, Indiana Fever icon Caitlin Clark is inarguably the biggest star in not only the league, but in all of women's basketball.
Take a look at any metric that can quantify superstardom and impact and Clark will be at the very top. And what's perhaps most impressive about this is that Clark's stardom is only going to keep growing as she progresses in her professional career.
In fact, there's a case to be made that Clark isn't just the biggest star in women's basketball; she could be the biggest draw in all of sports, period.
Global decision intelligence company Morning Consult released a report that assessed the most frequently mentioned active favorite athletes. The top five men were relatively predictable: LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes, Steph Curry, Travis Kelce, and Josh Allen.
The five women were Clark, Simone Biles, Angel Reese, Ilona Maher, and Ronda Rousey. Morning Consult's Ellyn Briggs encapsulated this in an X post that wrote, "America's favorite (currently active) athletes, according to coded open-ended responses in @MorningConsult's latest survey
"Of note: @CaitliinClark22 received the most mentions of any athlete, male or female".
America's favorite (currently active) athletes, according to coded open-ended responses in @MorningConsult 's latest survey
— Ellyn Briggs (@EllynBriggs) January 29, 2025
Of note: @CaitlinClark22 received the most mentions of any athlete, male or female pic.twitter.com/toqnOwVWaY
But that's not all. The actual report writes, "The five most-cited female active female athletes compete in four different sports. This — coupled with the fact that WNBA star Caitlin Clark received more mentions than any other athlete, male or female — further highlights the breadth of women's sports' emerging fandom."
Been seeing some chatter about the recent @MorningConsult report about America’s favorite currently active athletes
— Grant Young (@GrvntYoung) January 31, 2025
Here’s the part of the report where it says Caitlin Clark is the most mentioned (aka favorite) athlete out of them all, male or female pic.twitter.com/Xte4roSRam
This seems to suggest that Clark is the most popular (if not the biggest) athlete of them all. How's that for success from a 23-year-old?
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.