Caitlin Clark Takes A Pay-Cut
The best player to ever wear a women's college basketball jersey, Caitlin Clark, announced on Thursday that she will not return to college next season and will be heading to the WNBA.
Clark will be the number one overall pick in the WNBA draft, and right now, the Indiana Fever holds those rights, so I expect her to be wearing a Fever jersey this upcoming season. Still, she will be doing it, getting paid less than what she is making as a college athlete.
According to On3 NIL's top 100 chart, Clark makes around 3.1 million dollars due to her name, image, and likeness. Clark is the face of college basketball. She is a more prominent name than any current women's or men's college basketball player, and she sells out arenas every night.
You can see her in State Farm commercials all over your TV and the Internet, but she will take a pay cut when she puts on that WNBA jersey in a few months.
The WNBA Has Some Issues
The top four picks in the WNBA draft will make around $76,535 yearly on their rookie contract. Clark will still get endorsement deals and make money that way, but will she be in the spotlight for so long?
WNBA isn't precisely the most watched league out there, and many people don't even care about it, and it's the truth. Women's college hoops are now more popular than the WNBA, and maybe Clark will help change that, but we have seen other big-time women college basketball stars go to the WNBA, and nobody watched.
The WNBA has to capitalize now that they have Clark. Everybody in America watches her every time she plays a game, and the WNBA can't let that all go away when she enters their league. They have to market like she is Lebron James every chance they have. She should be on billboards, commercials, social media, and TV worldwide; it just can't be she's in our league now, and we aren't doing anything about it.
Clark is in commercials now, but wait until the next women's college basketball star comes along. She will no longer be in those commercials if WNBA is not bringing enough revenue for brands to keep signing her to deals.
Clark has done everything she can to be the face of the women's basketball world. It's up to the WNBA to not let it go to waste.
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