As the popularity of college softball grows, does it have Caitlin Clark in it?

OKLAHOMA CITY — The mother of USA Softball star Craig Cress is like many across the country these days. A new basketball fan often asks his son if he saw the Caitlin Clark and Indiana Fever game the other night.

It’s the kind of question a star in his career would like to hear.

Advertisement

“If we can get Caitlin Clark to blow up the softball world …” Cress told Yahoo Sports on Wednesday at Devon Park between sessions of the Women’s College World Series. “We have a lot of good players who are good at times.”

More players than ever here at USA Softball’s Devon Park are one-name businesses known far beyond the confines of the ballpark. The surge in interest and viewership in NCAA softball parallels the recent explosion in women’s basketball, a growing business already fueled by Clark’s record-setting career at Iowa and the WNBA’s Fever.

But softball has yet to find the unique atomic collision of the right player at the right time in the right situation that puts it over the top.

Attribution-wise, Cress thinks it will take a player with the fiery, relentless, multi-talented assets of Lisa Fernandez. The UCLA first-team All-American is “the best pound-for-pound player I’ve seen in our game,” Cress said.

Advertisement

The spotlight wasn’t there in women’s sports in the 1990s like it is now, when the combination of name, image, likeness and social media has elevated female athletes to a new level. Fernandez won two national championships (1990, 1992) and three Olympic gold medals riding for Team USA with relative ease.

“I don’t know if there is that one player,” said Cress. “I think there are a lot of players out there right now.”

And while many active players share Clark’s similarities, none have all of his intangibles.

Part of Clark’s magic comes from his three-point logo, an offensive weapon that few others have dared to attempt regularly. It was something new, like when Brittney Griner dunked every time at Baylor on her way to a college record after no one else had it.

Advertisement

Megan Grant says the traumatic side of setting the record. UCLA’s senior slugger is the most dangerous in a strong lineup designed by Fernandez, who is now the Bruins’ coach. Grant hit his 41st home run with a single to right in Thursday’s 6-3 loss at Alabama. The previous record was 37, set by Arizona’s Laura Espinoza in 1995.

Clark’s feat was unique because she tore through the NCAA record books, from the NCAA women’s record to the AIAW and all the way to Pete Maravich’s mark that is widely believed to be unbreakable.

He stood, and still stands, alone.

Grant cannot apply to that. The basketball reserve who won a championship with UCLA in April wasn’t the only one to do it this year. He spent most of the season chasing Oklahoma junior Kendall Wells. And UCLA’s lineup is averaging a gaudy and unprecedented 3.3 home runs per game.

Advertisement

NiJaree Canady is closely associated with name recognition as the first $1 million sportsperson, the highest paid salary in the professional ranks. He signed a second $1 million contract with the Texas Tech NIL team to continue his senior season and intends to join the AUSL, a professional league supported by the MLB. There’s no way he could carry the deep fandom for the Texas Volts the way Clark did for the Fever.

If there’s one player who best represents Clark’s spirit, he lives down the road from the star’s old roots. Jordy Frahm, who changed his name after getting married in the offseason, is a heartwarming story of a hometown hero leading a program back to prominence.

“I see some similarities there because of his personality,” Cress said. “I mean you put yourself down.”

Clark, a native of Des Moines, Iowa, originally told Notre Dame he would play there before reconsidering Iowa. He led the program to its first Final Four in history and played in back-to-back championship games. He has always been unapologetically proud of his Midwest upbringing and is a down-to-earth guy at heart.

Frahm, a native of Papillion, Nebraska, began his career at Oklahoma, winning two national championships with the powerhouse. Two days after winning as the second player in the title which was the third title out of four in a row, he announced on social media the “sweet” decision to return home to play the game I love, to be close to the things that made me who I am and which has always been more important to me than this game.

Advertisement

Like Clark, he has empowered a situation that he can call his own, growing a following around him. Although this comparison, too, can ruffle feathers.

“I don’t like Iowa, so, no,” Todd Petersen, Frahm’s softball coach, told Yahoo Sports of the pure commitment to the rivalry.

However, in all seriousness, he considers what he is saying to be appropriate.

“He’s a total movie star, whatever you want to call him, in Nebraska,” Petersen said. “I go to home games, or we have an event — I have my high school camp — and when I say Jordy [Frahm’s] I’ll be there, I’ve got these kids showing that I don’t even think they’re signed up for camp. It’s crazy.”

Advertisement

The two-time NFCA Player of the Year at Nebraska is their top ace, one of their best hitters and lifted the Cornhuskers back to the WCWS for the first time since 2013. They have never won a national title in softball, and made their last appearance in the championship series in 1985.

“It’s almost like a fairy tale,” Petersen told Yahoo Sports. “It was good for him, and it’s interesting how that happened. But you do the things you want to do and what your heart tells you to do. I mean, what else can you do?”

Frahm is playing his final games this weekend, and has yet to sign with the AUSL. He is on the 36-man roster for the national team, and could return to Oklahoma City for the 2028 Olympics if he makes the final 15-man roster. His 10-inning masterclass kept Nebraska in the bracket in a 5-3 extra-innings classic Thursday night.

Advertisement

That’s not to say that softball is explosive without its version of Clark. The WCWS major regional round averaged a record 695,000 viewers, up 48% from last year and fueled by the three most-watched regional games on record. All estimated at least 1.1 million.

It’s on the heels of a record 1.3 million viewers during the 2025 WCWS that beat the 1.2 million College World Series average. The Game 1 series championship won by Texas almost eclipsed the Stanley Cup Finals.

There’s a fair comparison — the 2024 women’s championship game featuring Clark’s Iowa team drew a record 18.7 million, surpassing the 14.8 million who watched the men’s title game the following night. It should also not reach that mark.

Parity and a surprising eight-man field here in Oklahoma City helps, even if people have spent the week lamenting the lack of a powerhouse in Oklahoma and the potential negative impact. The Sooners missed the field for the first time since 2015, a series that matched UConn in women’s hoops, but the concerns have already been proven overblown.

Advertisement

“I think we may have answered that question with the first two games,” Cress said, referring to the 11,923 fans who attended the morning session at 11 a.m. CT. The night session set a record attendance of 12,605. Late weekend sessions are winding down.

Still, softball could use a perfect storm of the “Clark Effect” to call its own.