As Caitlin Clark’s last season with Iowa ends and her career with the Indiana Fever begins, the basketball star continues to inspire countless teenagers across the internet.
Many fans’ TikTok pages have been flooded with short fan videos, or “edits,” of Clark and her fellow teammates, particularly Kate Martin. These edits feature game highlights of Clark or Martin and other clips of the players off the court, many of which come from Kylie Feuerbach’s vlogs on her YouTube channel. The short clips are stitched together with popular songs and quotes from the athletes.
Martin often reposts these videos of her on her own TikTok account and has commented on them in press conferences.
“It’s cool that fans take the time to make those types of videos, and it’s actually been really fun this year being able to see all that because it’s helped us reflect back on the run year we’ve had,” Martin said during a press conference before the team’s Final Four match-up against UConn. “It’s also been able to show us what special friendships we have among this team.”
Although these videos only last around 30 seconds, they require a lot of craft and mastery. Anna Maass, a 17-year-old from Raleigh, North Carolina, has watched Clark and the Iowa women’s basketball team since Clark’s first year of high school.
She said editing her videos can take anywhere from four to five hours. The hardest part is gathering all the game clips, she said, but editing them together is easy — so easy, she said, that she often works on them during class.
“A lot of time goes into it,” Maass said. “I enjoy making edits because I like the process. The players make it very easy to edit.”
Although she’s only been editing women’s basketball videos for about a year, Maass has already accumulated over 25,000 followers on TikTok. Her most-watched Clark edit was posted in December 2023, and has amassed over 1.5 million views with nearly 300,000 likes. It features Clark’s signature wave in front of her face and many shots of her hyping up the Iowa crowd.
“I started to get into Caitlin Clark, I wanted to start making edits of her,” Maass said. “I heard the audio on TikTok, and there’s a lot of cool clips of Caitlin Clark to put into an edit. So I was like, ‘Alright, let’s do this.’”
Despite living in Greenwich, Connecticut, a two-hour drive away from UConn, 14-year-old Parker Lowe has also made several TikTok edits of Clark. She said Clark and UConn star Paige Bueckers are her favorite players, and she likes to show love to both.
“I started watching Iowa women’s basketball at age 10,” Lowe said. “Seeing them play for the first time really was jaw-dropping. Caitlin being that young and still being able to show out as a freshman was amazing.”
Lowe’s favorite edit of Clark she’s made was posted in February 2024 and gained over 65,000 likes and over 500,000 views. Her video features many moments of Clark stepping onto the court after being announced before games and starts with a funny moment from a press conference.
Viewership of women’s basketball on national broadcast channels also reached record high this past season, with many NCAA tournament games beating out viewership for the men’s tournament.
“TikTok overall has so much support for women’s basketball players and posting these edits while having ‘mutuals’ that also edit creates a sense of community,” Lowe said.
Students at the University of Iowa have interacted with the women’s basketball edits, too, even though some aren’t creating their own. UI first-year student Lily Kopp said she has saved a folder on TikTok dedicated only to edits of Clark, and it contains over 150 videos.
“I didn’t really know much about women’s basketball,” Kopp said. “I didn’t watch basketball, period, before I came to the University of Iowa. I like how [the edits] make her seem really powerful, and I like how it’s like drawing attention to women’s basketball.”
UI first-year student Olivia Rogers also said she thinks the attention women’s basketball has received on TikTok is beneficial for the sport and will continue to be going forward.
“I love how hyped up it is and how much recognition they’re finally getting,” she said. “It’s what they deserve. Especially being here in Iowa, it’s just really cool to see.”
Maass said she plans to follow Clark’s career in the WNBA and can’t wait to see what she does next. She said a Clark Indiana Fever edit may be on its way as soon as she can get her hands on game clips.
“This is not a one-hit wonder,” Maass said. “Caitlin Clark is Caitlin Clark, and she will continue to be Caitlin Clark. I love basketball, and I like watching good basketball. It would be a bad idea if I didn’t follow it, so I’m really looking forward to paying attention to her and the WNBA.”