Caitlin Clark is about to get PAID. Just not very much…
The Iowa basketball superstar was, as expected, the #1 pick in the WNBA Draft last night, landing with the Indiana Fever and her now-teammate Aliyah Boston, who was the WNBA Rookie of the Year in 2023.
Now, everybody knows that WNBA players don’t make nearly what NBA players do. And whether that’s fair or not has long been the subject of a debate, although it stands to reason since the WNBA draws a fraction of the viewers and revenue that the men do over on the NBA side.
That could change with Caitlin Clark joining the league though. She’s proven to be a ratings powerhouse, with Iowa’s final three games of the women’s NCAA tournament drawing higher ratings and more viewers than the men’s tournament, and the championship game featuring Clark and the Hawkeyes taking on the defending national champion South Carolina Gamecocks becoming one of the most watched basketball games in history – men’s or women’s.
Will that translate to the WNBA? Who knows. But with Caitlin’s star power, fans were shocked to find out just how much (or more accurately, how little) she’ll be making on her rookie contract in the league.
Clark’s four-year contract with the Fever is worth a total of $338,056 – or an average of around $85,000 per year.
Breaking it down, that means that Clark will be making:
- $76,535 in year one
- $78,066 in year two
- $85,873 in year three
- $97,582 in year four (assuming the team decides to pick up her option, which will be in 2027)
So, she won’t even break six figures during her first four years in the league.
And the internet was shocked to see just HOW low those numbers are:
Of course that’s not all that Clark is going to be making when she hits the league. Her real money will be made from endorsement deals and sponsorships, like the millions she’s already getting from companies like State Farm, Nike and Gatorade.
And she also has an offer out there for $5 million from Ice Cube to play in his BIG3 league, an all-star 3-on-3 league that she could theoretically appear in along with her WNBA duties.
So either way, Caitlin Clark is going to be getting paid now that she’s not in the WNBA. It just won’t be from her league salary.
