Did the WNBA intentionally leave Indiana Fever superstar guard Caitlin Clark off its 30th anniversary poster?
Most likely not; we’re guessing it had to do with it being for sale from WinCraft, a Fanatics company.
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USA TODAY‘s Mitchell Northam pointed out that the viral poster also left off league legends like Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Candace Parker and Maya Moore. The poster illustrated one player from each team in the league’s history, past and present, but licensing rights for image usage could have come into play with this sellable poster.
Say, if Clark, Bird or Taurasi didn’t have a deal with Fanatics to use their likeness for products like this WNBA 30th anniversary poster, the company couldn’t legally have used it. In that case, the WNBA would have probably been better served to use another vendor so these legendary players would be featured on an official 30th poster.
However, we’re guessing this truly isn’t some intentional sleight by the WNBA. We’re guessing it has everything to do with rights, dollars and cents. It’s not a great poster for these glaring omissions, but legality likely came into play.
If it didn’t and this is just who the poster-makers chose to represent the WNBA at its 30th anniversary… we recommend they do a bit more homework first before designing such an official commemoration of the league’s history. Although, how likely is that? Our best guess is that Fanatics didn’t have the rights to use these players.
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So, y’know, this particular decision is probably just the W not branching out far enough to find a poster-maker who had the ability to use players like Clark, Taurasi, Moore, Parker and Bird. Although… couldn’t the WNBA just make a poster in-house to sell? Is it really that hard? “Postergate” just seems like general incompetence and an issue of sticky contractural limitations, not ill intention on the W’s part to flat-out ignore players like Clark.
What else is going on in the WNBA with Caitlin Clark?
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Why WNBA 30th Caitlin Clark poster omission probably isn’t personal
