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Having taken women’s college basketball to new heights, Caitlin Clark is about to step boldly into her future as the presumed No. 1 draft pick in the WNBA, where expectations are that she will do the same.
Clark’s income could rise significantly, as No. 1 draft picks’ paydays typically do, but her compensation will still come mostly from endorsements rather than her playing contract.
Here’s a look at how her future on and off the court stacks up.
Where and when will Clark play professionally?
Bypassing the chance to play another season at the University of Iowa, Clark is expected to be the top pick, by the Indiana Fever, in Monday night’s WNBA Draft, which, as a measure of her stratospheric popularity, will for the first time in eight years take place in the presence of fans—1,000 of them—at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Fever received the top spot in the draft lottery after a 13-27 record, finishing the 2023 season five games out of the playoffs and in 10th place in the 12-team league. Clark will join an Indiana team that has missed the playoffs for seven straight seasons and went a franchise-worst 5-31 in 2022. In 2023, also armed with the top pick in the draft, it selected South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston.
What is the WNBA’s rookie contract worth?
Under the WNBA’s salary structure (via the database Spotrac), this year’s No. 1 pick will earn $76,535 (rising to $85,873 in 2026), a stark contrast to the NBA’s No. 1 draft pick, who will earn more than $10 million. At Iowa, Clark had college name, image and likeness deals reportedly worth more than an estimated $3 million, according to ON3, and those deals, which will follow her to the WNBA, should be only the beginning given the record-breaking TV ratings her college games drew.
Ticket prices for Fever games are already rising; Indiana’s Gainbridge Fieldhouse is less than 400 miles from Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena, where Clark played in front of sold-out home crowds that topped 15,000 fans during her last season.
Beyond that, Iowa felt a “Clarkonomics” bump over the last three seasons, with consumers generating an estimated $82.5 million, according to a study from Common Sense Institute Iowa, an economic research organization.
Why do people say she is taking a pay cut?
“It’s a bad narrative,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said of the idea that Clark would be sacrificing financially in the pro league. “Pre-Caitlin Clark, I’ve been trying to correct the media that NIL deals, when they’re national sponsors like Caitlin and Angel Reese and Cameron Brink, those are just called endorsements in the pros. I just find it funny that nobody ever said this about LeBron James, or Michael Jordan who made a lot more money with their endorsements than they did in their salary in the NBA. Nobody ever said that. Now, all of a sudden, because it’s women’s sports, people are saying that. That’s absolutely untrue when you have these national brands.”
Clark “as well as some other players” in a draft that will include South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso, LSU’s Reese and Stanford’s Brink have “already signed additional deals,” Engelbert told CNBC.
In addition to Clark’s numerous deals (with State Farm, Gatorade, Nike, to name a few), there are player marketing agreements with the WNBA that can pay as much as $250,000 to players who serve as teams’ brand ambassadors in the offseason, when WNBA players can also compete professionally overseas.
What is the likelihood that she immediately improves her pro team and boosts the WNBA?
Indiana showed improvement last season, with center Boston an all-star as a rookie, averaging 14.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.3 blocks. Indiana’s offense improved from 12th in 2022 to sixth in 2023. The NCAA’s all-time leading scorer, Clark also is the third player in Division I women’s history to finish her career with more than 2,000 points and 1,000 assists.
Clark’s NCAA tournament games were destination viewing this spring, with the championship game against South Carolina averaging 18.7 million viewers and peaking at 24 million. For the first time, the women’s championship game, in which South Carolina completed its perfect season, outdrew the men’s championship game.
While WNBA ratings have been much smaller, they have been rising. While Game 4 of the 2023 WNBA Finals between the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty averaged 889,000 viewers, it was the most watched Finals Game 4 on record—up 124 percent from Game 4 in 2022. To no one’s surprise, 36 of the Fever’s 40 games will be carried by the league’s national broadcast and streaming partners. All of this is likely to further boost Clark’s off-the-court earnings.
Assuming she is drafted by the Fever, Clark’s first pro season would start with its season opener May 14 at the Connecticut Sun. Indiana’s home opener is scheduled for May 16 against the New York Liberty. It will play 40 regular-season games with a break from July 17 to Aug. 16 for the Paris Olympics. The WNBA playoffs are set to begin in September.
“I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport,” South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley told reporters after the NCAA championship game. “She carried a heavy load for our sport, and it just isn’t gonna stop here on the collegiate tour, but when she’s the number one pick in the WNBA draft she’s going to lift that league up as well.”
Clark started fulfilling Staley’s prediction even before the draft, turning up on the latest episode of “Saturday Night Live” to skewer “Weekend Update” co-host Michael Che for past digs at her sport and hitting the right note with a tribute to the WNBA’s past greats.
Will the Olympics feel the Clark effect?
Team USA will be chasing its eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal and Clark won gold medals with USA Basketball at under-19 tournaments in 2019 and 2021. She was one of 14 players invited to USA Basketball’s training camp ahead of the Paris Olympics, but she was unable to participate because Iowa was still competing in the NCAA tournament. Whether she would be included on the Paris roster remains unclear for now.
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Caitlin Clark seems like a delightful person and I wish her the best. Her NIL earnings should more than compensate for pay disparities. I know this is cold comfort given that male athletes benefit from NIL earnings as well, but in many respects the NIL is not linked with spectators’ demand for the sport. And let’s face it: people by and large do not care about or watch WNBA.
So it’s great that the small subset of people who watch WNBA can still channel their money into Clark-related merch, which helps make up for the low ticket sales to WNBA games…and the salaries that are still higher than they probably deserve to be (given those low ticket sales), subsidized in no small part by the NBA.