After a dazzling college career that broke records on and off the basketball court, Caitlin Clark’s legacy as a trailblazing icon in women’s sports has already been cemented.
Now, as the 22-year-old prepares to be selected No. 1 overall in next week’s WNBA draft, experts predict Clark could have the same kind of transformative impact on professional women’s basketball.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said Monday that Clark and the next generation of women’s basketball players will be the economic engines that will provide the league’s financial foundation for the next 30 years.
Engelbert told CNBC that he expects the value of the WNBA’s current media deals to double, from about $50 million a year to $100 million in the next round of negotiations in 2025.
“We hope to at least double our rights fees,” Engelbert said. “Women’s sports rights fees have been undervalued for too long, so we have this tremendous opportunity at a time when the media landscape is changing so much.”
– ‘Bird Magic’ moment?
Engelbert said the arrival of Clark and other college stars like Louisiana State University’s Angel Reese and South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso to the WNBA had the same kind of impact as the rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in the 1980s that helped create the modern NBA. He said he could have it.
“I think with this media rights deal we’re setting up the league not just for the next three to five years, but for the next 30 years,” Engelbert said.
“If you look at the history of men’s sports, are we having our ‘Bird Magic’ moment like in the NBA?”
The 2024 WNBA class will bring with it a built-in audience from college basketball and, most importantly, a significant amount of social media followers.
Clark’s 258,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter) have more than 100,000 followers than current WNBA Most Valuable Player Breanna Stewart.
Affectionately nicknamed ‘Bayou Barbie’, Reese will bring 415,000 X followers to the WNBA.
Clark’s impact on the college basketball industry in recent seasons has been well documented. This season, Clark and the University of Iowa Hawkeyes set or broke attendance records in all but two of their games, according to the NCAA.
– ‘Tsunami effect’ –
Sunday’s college championship between Clark’s Iowa and South Carolina attracted an average of 18.7 million viewers, according to US sports network ESPN.
This made it the most watched women’s basketball game in history; and the most-watched basketball game of any genre (men’s or women’s, college or professional) since 2019.
The University of Iowa women’s basketball program generated $3.8 million in revenue in 2022-2023. That’s up from $1.7 million a year ago.
There are already signs that the “Caitlin Clark Effect” is starting to take hold in the WNBA.
The Indiana Fever, the club that was guaranteed to take Clark with its first draft pick on April 15, sold out tickets for games against Connecticut and Los Angeles within hours of going on sale.
Courtside seats for the May 28 game against Los Angeles in Indianapolis were being offered for $660 on a sales site.
And it’s not just Indiana that stands to cash in on Clark’s box office appeal.
The Las Vegas Aces have already announced plans to move their July 2 home game against Indiana from the 12,000-seat Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas to the larger, 20,000-capacity T-Mobile Arena.
Mary Jo Kane, a professor at the University of Minnesota and founding director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sports, says Clark is “an unprecedented tsunami of influence and influence.”
“No one has ever captured magic or lightning in a bottle like Caitlin Clark did,” Kane told National Public Radio in a recent interview.
Even though his college career ended in disappointment with Sunday’s loss to South Carolina, Clark remained in the spotlight.
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley thanked Clark for “elevating our sport.”
“She’s carried a heavy burden for our sport, and it won’t be limited to the college tour. When she’s the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft, she’ll move this league up, too.”
Clark, meanwhile, is enjoying a college career that has redefined the popular appeal of women’s sports.
“Given the opportunity, women’s sports thrive, and that has been the best part of this journey for me,” said Clark, whose accomplishments this season include breaking Pete Maravich’s 54-year-old all-time scoring record in college basketball.
“We started the season playing in front of 55,000 people, now we’re finishing in front of 15 million people on TV. It just keeps getting better and better, and it’s never going to stop.”
Clark believes investment will be key to the success of women’s sport in the long term.
“No matter what sport it is, believe in them the same way, invest in them the same way and things will improve,” Clark said.
“You see this in other sports as well. Continue to invest time, money and resources into these people and give them opportunities. That’s what will drive women’s sport in the future.”
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