Colin Cowherd dumbfounded as Caitlin Clark gets snubbed from Top 100 most influential list

Colin Cowherd dumbfounded as Caitlin Clark gets snubbed from Top 100 most influential list

Colin Cowherd baffled Caitlin Clark is not on Time Magazine's 100 most influential list

WNBA and Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark has had a major influence on women’s basketball after helping break viewership and attendance records in both college as well as the pros. That has made her one of the most influential athletes in women’s sports.

That influence has helped the league grow faster than other major brands in the country. Fans are lining up to catch a glimpse of her at any event she goes. The demand for tickets for her upcoming sophomore season is higher than ever.

Her NCAA national title game as well as WNBA draft viewership ratings were a league above another superstar in Paige Bueckers. That has shed the notion that she was gaining all that stardom due to the color of her skin.

All of those transformational impacts should make her one of the most influential people in the world. Unfortunately, Time Magazine did not go by that logic and omitted her from The 100 Most Influential People of 2025 list. This caught to the attention of Colin Cowherd who said this on his FS1 show.

Caitlin Clark to the WNBA, and they set all-time ratings records. If Caitlin Clark’s not in this, the list is nonsense. Who did the list? TIME magazine? And there’s no Caitlin Clark? That’s idiotic. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.

Colin Cowherd said

The longtime analyst was baffled that recently crowned Super Bowl winner Jaylen Hurts made the list, but Caitlin Clark didn’t. He even asked what the logic was to crown her their Athlete of the Year and not place her on this list.

Colin Cowherd compares Caitlin Clark to Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan

Colin Cowherd believes Jaylen Hurts, who might have won a Super Bowl, is not a needle mover in the NFL. But Caitlin Clark has had a major impact on not only the WNBA, but also on women’s sports. He then went on to outline how the Indiana Fever star is changing the culture.

If you talk about league-changing athletes in America, Tiger [Woods] in golf. Michael Jordan in basketball, Caitlin Clark. The WNBA, it was being subsidized by the NBA. They were going to small arenas, they flew on commercial flights. She is the most influential athlete, man or woman, in America in the last year.

Colin Cowherd said

NFL Insider Jordan Schultz informed Cowherd that Serena Williams made the list. To this, Cowherd remarked that tennis was popular even before Williams started dominating. Yes, she helped move the needle, but Clark has brought the WNBA from obscurity to becoming a sport that fans want to follow.

That level of influence can only be topped by what Tiger Woods did to golf and Michael Jordan did to basketball as a whole. Cowherd could not understand how Time Magazine omitted the most influential athlete of the past year.

Clark’s WNBA peers make the list

Caitlin Clark might not have made the list, but Time Magazine did include two women’s basketball players. They added Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, founders of the upstart Unrivaled League on the Top 100 Most Influential List.

The magazine believes Stewart and Collier’s endeavor gave a new lease of life to American basketball players who do not want to play overseas in the offseason. Unrivaled League also helped sustain the interest in women’s basketball after the WNBA season stopped.

Colin Cowherd did not question Time Magazine’s decision to include them. But to leave the Indiana Fever superstar out of the list altogether was a bit extreme. He believes the magazine missed out understanding how a person influences others. In this case, Cowherd feels Clark is changing the landscape of the WNBA.