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Caitlin Clark Fans Express Shock at Her Salary as WNBA’s No. 1 pick

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April 18, 2024

Caitlin Clark Fans Express Shock at Her Salary as WNBA’s No. 1 pick

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The unprecedented consideration Caitlin Clark has delivered to girls’s basketball has additionally put the huge wage disparity between the WNBA and the NBA beneath the microscope.

The College of Iowa star was taken by the Indiana Fever with the No. 1 total decide of the WNBA draft on April 15 after a season during which she set information on the courtroom and within the tv scores for ladies’s basketball.

She is predicted to signal a four-year, $338,000 contract with the Fever as a part of the WNBA’s rookie wage scale, in accordance with Spotrac, a web site that tracks participant contracts throughout a number of sports activities.

She’s going to earn $76,535 in her rookie season this summer time, which has many Clark followers outraged on the comparatively small quantity given her impression on the game.

Many Clark followers, together with President Joe Biden, apparently, weighed in on social media and expressed dismay at her low wage in comparison with what NBA draft picks make.

“These girls deserve a lot extra…Praying for the day,” Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson wrote on X.

“Ladies in sports activities proceed to push new boundaries and encourage us all,” Biden wrote on X Tuesday, a day after the draft. “However proper now we’re seeing that even in case you’re the perfect, girls usually are not paid their justifiable share.

“It’s time that we give our daughters the identical alternatives as our sons and guarantee girls are paid what they deserve.”

“Aint no purpose i ought to have the next wage than Caitlin Clark man,” one other fan wrote.

“To everybody trashing Caitlin Clark’s wage, I agree and wish higher for them,” one other particular person wrote.

TODAY’s Hoda Kotb additionally did a double take when she noticed that wage determine, in comparison with the life-changing riches that high NBA draft picks earn.

“After I noticed the quantity, $76,000 within the first yr and $78,000 within the second yr, and $85,000 within the third yr, for any person who’s now the face of girls’s basketball, it appeared type of ridiculous,” Hoda stated on TODAY Tuesday. “A man who’s within the NBA, first yr, they’ll get $10 million.”

The No. 1 total decide in final yr’s NBA draft, San Antonio Spurs rookie star Victor Wembanyama, has a four-year, $55 million contract during which he earned $12.1 million in his first season, in accordance with Spotrac.

San Antonio Spurs star rookie Victor Wembanyama has a four-year, $55 million contract, in comparison with $338,000 for Caitlin Clark. Patrick T. Fallon / Getty Photos

Whereas Clark will most probably make hundreds of thousands from endorsements, there’s a big gulf between her wage and her NBA counterparts.

Stephen Grasp, a professor of sports activities advertising and marketing and media at NYU’s Stern College of Enterprise, stated the first manner for the WNBA to spice up pay is to get a bigger tv contract and enhance ticket gross sales.

“There simply hasn’t been sufficient time to catch up when it comes to these media rights offers,” Grasp, who additionally labored for the NBA and the scores agency Nielsen, tells TODAY.com. “These offers are performed so lengthy prematurely, and so they’re historic numbers once they’re evaluating bids on these rights.

“The NBA’s deal relies on the historical past of the NBA drawing a sure degree of viewership and sponsorship, promoting out arenas, and being an total a part of the zeitgeist.”

The league hopes Clark will likely be a driving pressure in that push, as 36 of the Fever’s 40 video games will likely be on nationwide tv this season.

The hype over Clark’s addition to the Fever was so excessive that the workforce packed its home arena with followers watching the draft on Monday evening, though the occasion was in New York Metropolis.

The WNBA at the moment makes about $60 million a yr from its media rights, a contract that is set to run out in 2025, in accordance with Entrance Workplace Sports activities.

Compared, the NBA is within the midst of a $24 billion tv deal that pays $2.7 billion yearly. Plus, the league is predicted to command between $60 billion and $72 billion when it renegotiates its TV deal this summer time, in accordance with Sports activities Enterprise Journal.

For WNBA salaries to get within the ballpark with NBA salaries, Grasp stated, viewership must rise dramatically.

“(The rise in scores) can’t be 5-10 %,” Grasp stated. “It must be like 400 or 500 % progress.

“If Caitlin Clark is ready to assist take this to a billion-dollar entity, she ought to receives a commission, and all of the gamers ought to receives a commission extra,” he stated. “The pie can be a lot greater to separate.”