Women's basketball isbigger than Caitlin Clark, they said. The WNBA wasbuilt on the backs of black womenand Clark only capitalized on what was already there, they said. We can make a league without Clark anddraw the same interest, they said.

Well, the evidence provided by Unrivaled, the women's professional 3-on-3 basketball league that doesn't feature Caitlin Clark, doesn't look good for those who made statements like the ones above.

As OutKickreported in February, Unrivaled's TV ratings in its second year were looking quite bad as the season headed toward the home stretch.Sports Media Watch reportedthat Unrivaled was averaging 103,000 viewers across TNT and truTV through week three of the season as of Jan. 26, down 44 percent from the first three weeks of last year when it averaged 185,000 viewers.

You probably missed it, but Unrivaled's season officially ended on March 4 with a team called "Mist" defeating a team called "Phantom" to win the league championship. According to the team's roster page, the Mist are led by league co-creator Breanna Stewart, purportedly one of the biggest stars in women's basketball not named Caitlin Clark.

Mist players celebrate after winning the Unrivaled championship game against the Phantom.

It doesn't seem like Stewart is in the same stratosphere as Clark as far as being a television draw. Annie Costabile of Front Office Sports posted the viewership numbers for Unrivaled and bless Annie's heart, she tried her damnedest to make the numbers not look terrible.

As OutKick has repeatedly noted, the left-wing mediatends to act like cheerleaders or PR agentsfor things it wants to be successful. And boy oh boy do they want Unrivaled to be successful. Let's look at how Costabile tried to put the league's viewership into the spin cycle.

This is a completely irrelevant data point without noting the audience size from opening night.

Any more caveats you'd like to add, Annie? Even with all of those caveats, the league was STILL down year-over-year. And, surely, some of last year's numbers include games that DID go head-to-head with the College Football Playoffs or NFL playoffs.

Call me crazy, but having the championship game from this year lag behind last year's championship and at least one other broadcast is not good.

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