Caitlin Clark left off Time Magazine most influential people list

Caitlin Clark was not included on Time Magazine’s list of The 100 Most Influential People of 2025, which released Wednesday. 

Clark was left off the list despite the fact that the publication named her its Athlete of the Year for 2024. 

Time also included other athletes on its “Most Influential” list on Wednesday, including fellow WNBA players Breanna Stewart and Naphisa Collier. The main premise of Stewart and Collier’s place on the list is their recent launching of the “Unrivaled” women’s basketball league as co-founders. 

Other athletes included on the list were U.S. gymnast Simone Biles, form Philadelphia Eagles quarterback and Super Bowl LIX MVP Jalen Hurts and France’s Olympic gold medalist swimmer Leon Marchand.

Clark’s absence from the list prompted questions and criticisms by fans and pundits. 

Fox Sports host Colin Cowherd brought awareness to the snub when with a rant during his show on Wednesday. 

“That’s idiotic! That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen!” Cowherd said. “That’s a dumb list… she’s the most influential athlete, I would argue, man or woman in America over the last year.” 

Other social media users agreed with Cowherd’s take. 

“Clark is the main reason the league is so popular and she’s not on the list?” one X user wrote. 

Another user asked, “How…HOW is she left off this list[?] CRAZY!” 

INSIDE CAITLIN CLARK’S IMPACT ON MEN’S BASKETBALL

Clark’s influence on the popularity of women’s basketball over the last year has been evident in various statistics. 

Clark made the Fever the most-watched team in the WNBA by a landslide in her rookie year, as the 14 most-watched WNBA games of the season all included the Fever. On top of that, she broke the record for most All-Star votes for any player in WNBA history.

In early September, Clark’s Indiana Fever played in front of a TV audience of 1.26 million viewers in a game against the Minnesota Lynx that was played at the same time as a Week-1 Friday night NFL game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers. 

In Clark’s first regular-season finale against the Washington Mystics on Sept. 19, the 20,711 fans that showed up at Capital One Arena set a new record for the highest-attended WNBA regular-season contest.

Clark drew a WNBA record 1.84 million viewers to her first playoff game against the Connecticut Sun on Sept. 22, while competing with an NFL Sunday. She followed it up with another record audience of 2.54 million viewers for Game 2.

But after Clark’s Fever season ended, the WNBA playoffs also saw a steep drop-off in viewers. 

The first game between the Aces and Liberty, a rematch of last year’s WNBA finals between two of the league’s most popular and successful teams, drew an audience of just 929,000, which was 50% less than the Fever’s Game 1 against the Sun.

Meanwhile, in women’s college basketball, after Clark played in the first women’s NCAA title game to get more viewers than the men’s in 2024, the sport saw a steep decline in ratings this year. 

Without Clark in the tournament, the broadcasts of UConn vs. UCLA and South Carolina vs. Texas averaged just 3.9 million viewers for ESPN. It marked a 64% decrease from the record-setting 10.8 million viewers in 2024, according to Front Office Sports.

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