Taking Caitlin Clark Show on road is exciting and stressful

One of the biggest figures in college sports this year — maybe the biggest — comes to Lincoln this weekend, and for fans who attend Nebraska women’s basketball games Sunday’s contest, it will be like entering a different world.

When superstar guard Caitlin Clark and second-ranked Iowa go on the road, everything surrounding the game goes to a different level, especially during the past three weeks with Clark on the verge of becoming the all-time leader in career scoring for college women’s basketball.

She needs 39 points to set the record, and that will be possible when Iowa plays the Huskers at Pinnacle Bank Arena on Sunday at noon. Her career high is 46. She has the Pinnacle Bank Arena record with 39 in her sophomore season.

Part of what makes her one of the biggest names in sports is that she’s played all four seasons at the same school in her home state. That and she can flat-out shoot it. Her 3-pointers can be majestic — fast tempo, high arching and often nothing but net.

This season, she leads the nation in scoring at 32.2 points per game. She’s scored at least 26 in each of the past 15 games.

And if the defense collapses on Clark, she’ll just make a great pass to get a teammate for an open shot. She had 15 assists in Thursday’s win against Penn State.

The way fans fill up arenas for Clark’s road games is like when the New York Yankees get big crowds on the road — or the Husker volleyball team.

When Clark goes on the road in the Big Ten this season, the crowds go up by 5,000, 8,000, 10,000. That includes Lincoln, where the sellout crowd of about 15,000 will be about 9,000 more than its average.

It will be the first sellout for a women’s game in the 11 seasons at Pinnacle Bank Arena and just the second sellout in program history.

Earlier this month, Maryland, the most successful Big Ten program, sold out its first game since 2016 with the help of Clark.

When large crowds show up to see Clark, it means thousands of dollars in added revenue for tickets and concessions.

And this weekend, Clark will give a boost to the downtown Lincoln hotels and restaurants with fans from Iowa arriving the day before the game.

And if you want tickets for Sunday, it will be costly. Two days before the game, tickets on the secondary-ticket market were being purchased for big numbers — $400 each for two tickets in the 23rd row; $228 each for the 19th row; $80 for general admission.

One of the examples of the Caitlin Clark effect came about one week ago when the Hawkeyes played at Northwestern.

Northwestern had never sold out a game. They were 7-13.

Clark and Iowa sold the place out on a Wednesday night with 7,039 at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

Clark knows how many people have spent time and money to come watch her play. She signs autographs and takes photos for several minutes right after the game ends before she goes to the locker room. That’s what she did in Evanston after Iowa’s 110-74 win.

“It was a really awesome atmosphere,” said Adam Rittenberg, a senior writer for ESPN who attended the game while reporting on a story about Clark that was published on ESPN.com this week.

“Just seeing how she exits the court with all of the cameras and the security and everybody screaming, it’s quite a spectacle. Especially for a player on the road.”

Girls line up behind the bench to get close to Clark. They lean over the railing on both sides of the tunnel.

One comparison to what happens when Clark plays on the road is Jimmer Fredette for BYU men’s basketball in 2011 when he averaged 28.9 points and was the national player of the year.

For a player from the visiting team, though, Rittenberg in 20 years of covering college basketball and football has never seen anything like the scene when Clark goes on the road.

“I’ve been in that arena (Northwestern) when a lot of other high-profile men’s players have come through,” Rittenberg said. “Greg Oden, I remember when he was at Ohio State, and Illinois had some really high-profile players. But it wasn’t the same. You didn’t have all of these people there just to see them. And you didn’t have all of that security just for them. You didn’t have areas of the arena that were blocked off essentially to protect them.”

And it’s not just at the arena. When Iowa played at Maryland last week, fans lined up six deep at the team’s hotel just to watch Clark walk out of the hotel and get on a bus.

At least two Iowa University police travel with the team to road games. Right after the game ends, the police are on the court in an attempt to make it as safe and comfortable as they can while Clark interacts with fans.

During a game at Rutgers, the crush of people around Clark after the game got so close that a police officer walked in front of Clark with his arm extended to clear a path for her.

Some arenas add more security near the bench and locker room.

After the game against Northwestern was over, Clark and Iowa coach Lisa Bluder went to a news conference. When the team got on the bus, there was a sense of relief for the police.

“Another Caitlin Clark game was done,” Rittenberg said. “There is just a lot of pressure on them logistically to make sure that everything goes off without any sort of problems. It’s kind of a stressful environment for them, but it’s a really fun environment for everybody else.”

At some arenas, including Nebraska, there are general admission tickets. So if you want to say you were near Clark, or got a photo, you have to get to the arena hours before the doors open.

“I think the thing that’s interesting about her stardom, and how she impacts road games, is so many of the arenas (for women’s basketball) are seated general admission,” Rittenberg said. “So you have to get there early if you want to get a good seat.”

More than 6,000 seats at Pinnacle Bank Arena will be general admission.

Fans come to games with homemade signs, and wearing jerseys, sweatshirts and T-shirts with Clark’s name.

Parents and grandparents bring young girls to watch Clark.

“She’s brought a lot of new fans into the sport I think because of the way she plays,” Ritteneberg said. “Obviously, everyone talks about the long-range shooting. But she sees the floor really well, and it’s a very entertaining brand of basketball that she plays.”

When the regular season ends, Iowa will have helped sell out or break an attendance record in 28 of 30 games. The only games that didn’t were a tournament in Florida.

Clark is likely the biggest draw in the sport’s history. During Iowa’s game against Penn State on Thursday, there was a TV graphic tracking how many points Clark needed to set the record.

Iowa’s game against Ohio State averaged 1.93 million viewers on NBC.

The game against Maryland averaged 1.58 million viewers on Fox. And a “Caitlin Clark Cam” got more than 800,000 views on TikTok.

Each of the five most-watched women’s basketball games in the history of the Big Ten Network — from 657,000 to 315,000 — were games Clark played in.

There are people in the Midwest who purchased streaming service Peacock this year because the Kansas City Chiefs had a game broadcast on it. They’re keeping it because that’s the way to watch Clark’s games eight times this season.

There will be about 100 media at Sunday’s game, including 25 from Iowa outlets, 25 from national outlets and 40 for the Fox TV crew.

Even at a Hy-Vee grocery store in Lincoln, the only large display of a college athlete is Clark, due to her endorsement deal with the Iowa-based company. In addition to Hy-Vee, some of her other endorsements include Nike, State Farm and Gatorade.