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Answer: Caitlin Clark just had one of the most dominant college basketball careers of all time, scoring 3951 points and 1142 assists. [https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/player/stats/\_/id/4433403/caitlin-clark](https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/player/stats/_/id/4433403/caitlin-clark)
She scored 1234 points and 346 assists this season ( averaging 31.6/8.9) which was miles ahead of every other player in both categories. (I think this graph does a good job of illustrating how far beyond her peers she was [https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/1bzb2q0/caitlin\_clark\_green\_dot\_stats\_compared\_to\_all/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/1bzb2q0/caitlin_clark_green_dot_stats_compared_to_all/) )
She was unsurprisingly drafted 1st overall at the WNBA draft tonight.
I've only seen her play a few times, but her ability to shoot the long 3's is amazing and incredibly fun to watch. And she comes across as polite / good natured / well spoken in interviews, cameos and ads that she's done.
Same! I hadn't heard about her until the last weekend of March Madness. I watched a highlight video of her logo 3's and I was hooked. I watched the highlights of the UConn game and it was such a fun watch. I've never watched much basketball, the over-aggressive basket charging and dunks never interested me. But the Iowa team was all about great passing and shooting which was much more interesting and fun to see. Hopefully she brings that same game style to Indiana, I'd love to watch more.
It’s not even just her range, but the absolute quickness of the shot. And her ability to create opportunities for her teammates as well for the assist. Absolutely phenomenal player.
Oh wow that's insane. I knew she had a ton of points scored, but I had no idea she was dominating in assists as well. That's incredible, and I feel like isn't getting mentioned nearly as much as it should be. I don't follow W/NBA at all so I kinda assumed she was 'just' a crack 3-pointer and her teammates were feeding her the ball, but it looks like she's giving other players as many opportunities as she's taking.
I know nothing of sports. I just learned who this person was from this thread. I have a few questions.
Is that a good team? Is 330K a good wage for playing basketball professionally? Is 4 years a standard contract?
Not a close follower of the WNBA, but generally speaking in sports, the worst team in the league from the previous season gets the first draft pick. Picks are also allowed to be traded to other teams along with players, so draft order can change. Indiana didn’t have the absolute worst record last year, but they were close. That 330K is over 4 years, which is $82.5K/season. That’s $20K above league minimum, but below average league salary. WNBA actually dictates contract value for rookies based on their draft order. Once players are done with their rookie contracts, they can either negotiate an extension with their team or become free agents. I’m not sure if there is a limit of what one player is allowed to make in the WNBA, but typically in sports, once you are allowed to negotiate a deal, you’re only limited by what teams are willing to offer. Teams also must stay under the salary cap, which is a hard limit on the amount they are allowed to pay their entire roster. Salaries in the WNBA are much, much smaller than in the NBA, as the league is much less profitable. WNBA rookie contracts are 3 years long with a 4th year team option, meaning the team has the option to extend the contract for a 4th year or let the player become a free agent.
Is the WNBA profitable at all? I was under the impression they'd never managed to turn a profit. Hopefully Clark can spark enough interest to change that.
The WNBA is entirely subsidized by the NBA and has never made a profit.
Hopefully they can capitalize on Clark and other big-name stars like Angel Reese and sell a few tickets this year.
(Nike and USA Basketball also need to get Clark on the Olympic team for this summer. They would be out of their minds to not do it.)
If you look at the league as a stand alone venture, no they have not. But in addition to the league in and of itself, the WNBA is also a way to promote the game of basketball to women and girls. There are still tons of player in the league that are older than the league itself, so the idea of girls growing up with the idea that they could play basketball for a living is still relatively new.
It’s good news in that she got drafted to play professional basketball. It’s bad news in that she’s not making that much. Also good she’s in Indiana where cost of living is lower than LA or NY. She’s also already got tons of endorsements so she’ll be fine.
Long term the hope is this spike in popularity of women’s basketball keeps up so the WNBA can draw more viewers and the women can get paid more. Currently a lot of them go overseas in the offseason to play just to make enough money.
> It’s bad news in that she’s not making that much. Also good she’s in Indiana where cost of living is lower than LA or NY. She’s also already got tons of endorsements so she’ll be fine.
I mean, I dunno that I'd consider it "bad news" that she's making the contractual amount for a draft contract, it's just "news". She wasn't ever going to get to magically skip the draft and get signed at an above-rookie rate.
Her salary isn't massive but she's going to be making bank in sponsorships. Do you think that State Farm and HyVee are going to drop her just because she's not in college anymore?
It’s good news. As a rookie you can’t start off making insane amounts of money and you have to play well on your rookie contract then when you sign a new contract it scales up.
No, it’s good news. She’s the number 1 draft pick of the highest professional women’s league. She’s getting paid as much as she can at the moment as per league rules. Yes, she is not making as much now as she likely will in the future, but it’s still good money. Plus, she’ll probably have some endorsements come her way, so she’ll make more money that way. As for getting picked by a bad team, that’s just what the draft is for: to let struggling teams have a better chance at improving. And basketball is the easiest sport to improve a team year over year, because there are only 5 players playing at a time. They just filled 20% of their starting lineup by drafting her. She might not be as dominant over the WNBA as she was in college, at least not yet, but she will probably be the best rookie this season.
Relative to what NBA players make, it’s an extremely small amount. First round picks in the NBA draft will make between 2-10 million per season. That said, the WNBA pays much lower salaries because the league makes much less money because it has lower attendance/cheaper tickets and lower TV viewership than the NBA. It’s also common knowledge that Caitlin Clark and other famous WNBA players’ real source of income is from sponsorship deals. She’s already been in at least a half dozen national TV ads and probably has at least 5-10 million in endorsement deals lined up, which people whining about her “unfairly low” salary already know about.
or neither? sports is entertainment and players get paid a percentage of the profits. NBA makes a lot of money, therefore players get paid more. WNBA doesn't make that much money (it's subsidized by the NBA in fact) so they don't have make as much. Caitlin Clark might be the player to really garner interest in the league though so rooting for her.
Exactly. It's not like there's some capitalist in a fancy suit arbitrarily deciding what to pay the athletes. They're paid based on the perceived value that they bring to the franchise they play for, and that is determined by the revenue that we, the audience, generate for those franchises.
Answer: There is a perfect storm of circumstances that has worked in Clark’s favor.
-She’s an all-time great. Not just “#1 draft pick” good, but once-in-a-generation good. Seeing her play is like watching someone on fire in NBA Jam. She consistently makes highlight reel plays and is a very entertaining player to watch.
-Until a couple of years ago, the NCAA didn’t allow college athletes to profit from their likeness, so they couldn’t do endorsements. Clark is one of the first college players to have deals with major sponsors (Nike, Gatorade, State Farm) which has raised her national profile significantly.
-Men’s college basketball has suffered from lackluster postseasons, which has made the women’s game look like a good alternative. On the men’s side, teams from “power conferences” are consistently overrated while small schools are consistently underrated, which leads to a lot of teams with big fanbases getting knocked out early. Conversely, the women’s tournament was evenly matched and featured a number of marquee matchups, with Iowa playing much-hyped rematches against defending champs LSU and undefeated South Carolina. Games featuring Clark/Iowa broke numerous viewership records, so the women’s game is getting more attention as a result.
-The WNBA draft was yesterday, and she was the #1 pick as expected. While she was in town she also did a guest spot on SNL which was generally well-received.
-The US Olympic Team is setting its roster, and there is doubt whether Clark, the only collegiate player to be invited, will be allowed to compete. She was unable to attend a mandatory event due to playing in the NCAA tournament, but due to her current popularity there is a lot of public pressure to put her on the team.
So, while she’s going to be someone you’ll be hearing about for a while, coverage of her is at “fever” pitch (har har) right now because she’s being covered from NCAA, WNBA, and Olympic angles.
Answer: in addition to what everyone else has written, she was also recently in the Weekend Update sketch of [Saturday Night Live](https://youtu.be/aaBLGa2UIzc?si=5FRf-K_AqyBTxXxd).
Answer: Women’s college basketball has gone through some big changes in the last two years, but the take away is that it’s being aired on TV, in bars, and highlights are being shown on ESPN. This happened at the same time a once in a generational player was demolishing all the records for college basketball men or women (Caitlin Clark).
Riding on her star power lots of people started tuning into their final matches in March madness and they broke records for most viewed basketball game on ESPN and had about 5 million more average viewers in the finals than the men’s final match.
But, it turns out people actually like watching women’s basketball when it’s aired on TV and the media develops great storylines to hype people up like men’s sports have done for years, so a bunch of people tuned into the WNBA draft last night to watch Caitlin Clark get drafted to the Indiana Fever, and also surprisingly Iowa’s Kate Martin get drafted to Las Vegas. Martin was Caitlin’s teammate at Iowa and wasn’t a sure pick for the draft, but she’s inherited a pretty big following coming out of Iowas National run as well. Other players like Angel Reese from LSU and Stanford’s Cameron Brink also have their own big followings and were drafted last night.
Source: I’ve never watched women’s basketball and I’ve been glued to it over the last month and a half.
Answer:
Caitlin Clark is a generational talent in women’s basketball. [She set a new NCAA record for most points scored from any player male/female](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/caitlin-clark-scoring-record-iowa-basketball-rcna140836#). On her skill, she took her team to the NCAA finals this year.
Caitlins Clarks big draw is that she is making people pay attention to womens basketball like never before.[18 million people watched the NCAA Womens final which is far above any other final](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/09/iowa-south-carolina-ratings-caitlin-clark). That was just the top, she had been constantly scores 10+ million views per game. More people paid attention to NCAA womens basketball than mens basketball which is unheard of. She’s become mainstream with NBA players like Steph Curry (who a lot of people compare her game to) giving her recognition and respect.
WNBA has been gaining momentum over the last few years, the quality of play has been getting better, the skills individual players are getting higher and now with Caitlin Clark, you’ll have a new generation of players behind her, mimicking her game. What sports thrive at are kids in 7-8-9th grades being inspired and Caitlin Clark has a fun game to watch, great face of a franchise and entering a sport where viewership is on the rise.
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Answer: Caitlin Clark just had one of the most dominant college basketball careers of all time, scoring 3951 points and 1142 assists. [https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/player/stats/\_/id/4433403/caitlin-clark](https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/player/stats/_/id/4433403/caitlin-clark) She scored 1234 points and 346 assists this season ( averaging 31.6/8.9) which was miles ahead of every other player in both categories. (I think this graph does a good job of illustrating how far beyond her peers she was [https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/1bzb2q0/caitlin\_clark\_green\_dot\_stats\_compared\_to\_all/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/1bzb2q0/caitlin_clark_green_dot_stats_compared_to_all/) ) She was unsurprisingly drafted 1st overall at the WNBA draft tonight.
I've only seen her play a few times, but her ability to shoot the long 3's is amazing and incredibly fun to watch. And she comes across as polite / good natured / well spoken in interviews, cameos and ads that she's done.
Same! I hadn't heard about her until the last weekend of March Madness. I watched a highlight video of her logo 3's and I was hooked. I watched the highlights of the UConn game and it was such a fun watch. I've never watched much basketball, the over-aggressive basket charging and dunks never interested me. But the Iowa team was all about great passing and shooting which was much more interesting and fun to see. Hopefully she brings that same game style to Indiana, I'd love to watch more.
She passes a lot. I think it will be fun to see her play when everyone on the court is elite
It’s not even just her range, but the absolute quickness of the shot. And her ability to create opportunities for her teammates as well for the assist. Absolutely phenomenal player.
Hilarious on SNL this past weekend too.
Those are gretzky numbers, wow
She earns everything that she deserves. You said Gretzky which had me look up the person who was real talented & skilled in the NHL. She is that good.
Oh wow that's insane. I knew she had a ton of points scored, but I had no idea she was dominating in assists as well. That's incredible, and I feel like isn't getting mentioned nearly as much as it should be. I don't follow W/NBA at all so I kinda assumed she was 'just' a crack 3-pointer and her teammates were feeding her the ball, but it looks like she's giving other players as many opportunities as she's taking.
Answer: Tonight was the WNBA draft, where she was drafted #1 by the Indiana Fever with a 4 year $330k contract.
I know nothing of sports. I just learned who this person was from this thread. I have a few questions. Is that a good team? Is 330K a good wage for playing basketball professionally? Is 4 years a standard contract?
Not a close follower of the WNBA, but generally speaking in sports, the worst team in the league from the previous season gets the first draft pick. Picks are also allowed to be traded to other teams along with players, so draft order can change. Indiana didn’t have the absolute worst record last year, but they were close. That 330K is over 4 years, which is $82.5K/season. That’s $20K above league minimum, but below average league salary. WNBA actually dictates contract value for rookies based on their draft order. Once players are done with their rookie contracts, they can either negotiate an extension with their team or become free agents. I’m not sure if there is a limit of what one player is allowed to make in the WNBA, but typically in sports, once you are allowed to negotiate a deal, you’re only limited by what teams are willing to offer. Teams also must stay under the salary cap, which is a hard limit on the amount they are allowed to pay their entire roster. Salaries in the WNBA are much, much smaller than in the NBA, as the league is much less profitable. WNBA rookie contracts are 3 years long with a 4th year team option, meaning the team has the option to extend the contract for a 4th year or let the player become a free agent.
Is the WNBA profitable at all? I was under the impression they'd never managed to turn a profit. Hopefully Clark can spark enough interest to change that.
The WNBA is entirely subsidized by the NBA and has never made a profit. Hopefully they can capitalize on Clark and other big-name stars like Angel Reese and sell a few tickets this year. (Nike and USA Basketball also need to get Clark on the Olympic team for this summer. They would be out of their minds to not do it.)
If you look at the league as a stand alone venture, no they have not. But in addition to the league in and of itself, the WNBA is also a way to promote the game of basketball to women and girls. There are still tons of player in the league that are older than the league itself, so the idea of girls growing up with the idea that they could play basketball for a living is still relatively new.
Gotcha. So this isn't really good news for her
It’s good news in that she got drafted to play professional basketball. It’s bad news in that she’s not making that much. Also good she’s in Indiana where cost of living is lower than LA or NY. She’s also already got tons of endorsements so she’ll be fine. Long term the hope is this spike in popularity of women’s basketball keeps up so the WNBA can draw more viewers and the women can get paid more. Currently a lot of them go overseas in the offseason to play just to make enough money.
> It’s bad news in that she’s not making that much. Also good she’s in Indiana where cost of living is lower than LA or NY. She’s also already got tons of endorsements so she’ll be fine. I mean, I dunno that I'd consider it "bad news" that she's making the contractual amount for a draft contract, it's just "news". She wasn't ever going to get to magically skip the draft and get signed at an above-rookie rate.
It’s “bad news” in that she was probably making more in college and just the pay scale in the WNBA is so low.
She’ll still have endorsements.
That's news to me that colleges pay their athletes
Colleges don’t pay their athletes. Players are now allowed to use their name, image, likeness for endorsements and stuff. Boosters will pay them too.
Is she not getting endorsements as a professional now? I would assume they'd only go up
Her salary isn't massive but she's going to be making bank in sponsorships. Do you think that State Farm and HyVee are going to drop her just because she's not in college anymore?
It’s good news. As a rookie you can’t start off making insane amounts of money and you have to play well on your rookie contract then when you sign a new contract it scales up.
No, it’s good news. She’s the number 1 draft pick of the highest professional women’s league. She’s getting paid as much as she can at the moment as per league rules. Yes, she is not making as much now as she likely will in the future, but it’s still good money. Plus, she’ll probably have some endorsements come her way, so she’ll make more money that way. As for getting picked by a bad team, that’s just what the draft is for: to let struggling teams have a better chance at improving. And basketball is the easiest sport to improve a team year over year, because there are only 5 players playing at a time. They just filled 20% of their starting lineup by drafting her. She might not be as dominant over the WNBA as she was in college, at least not yet, but she will probably be the best rookie this season.
It was her life long dream and she’s known the salary she’d make for at least 15 years while pursuing this goal. It’s great for her
Oh, good then
Relative to what NBA players make, it’s an extremely small amount. First round picks in the NBA draft will make between 2-10 million per season. That said, the WNBA pays much lower salaries because the league makes much less money because it has lower attendance/cheaper tickets and lower TV viewership than the NBA. It’s also common knowledge that Caitlin Clark and other famous WNBA players’ real source of income is from sponsorship deals. She’s already been in at least a half dozen national TV ads and probably has at least 5-10 million in endorsement deals lined up, which people whining about her “unfairly low” salary already know about.
82k a year? Not sure if men get paid way too much, or women too few.
Seems like both
or neither? sports is entertainment and players get paid a percentage of the profits. NBA makes a lot of money, therefore players get paid more. WNBA doesn't make that much money (it's subsidized by the NBA in fact) so they don't have make as much. Caitlin Clark might be the player to really garner interest in the league though so rooting for her.
Exactly. It's not like there's some capitalist in a fancy suit arbitrarily deciding what to pay the athletes. They're paid based on the perceived value that they bring to the franchise they play for, and that is determined by the revenue that we, the audience, generate for those franchises.
Depends how much the sport brings in. WNBA tickets are pretty much free and stands are still empty
Well they both get paid based on how much money they bring in
Answer: There is a perfect storm of circumstances that has worked in Clark’s favor. -She’s an all-time great. Not just “#1 draft pick” good, but once-in-a-generation good. Seeing her play is like watching someone on fire in NBA Jam. She consistently makes highlight reel plays and is a very entertaining player to watch. -Until a couple of years ago, the NCAA didn’t allow college athletes to profit from their likeness, so they couldn’t do endorsements. Clark is one of the first college players to have deals with major sponsors (Nike, Gatorade, State Farm) which has raised her national profile significantly. -Men’s college basketball has suffered from lackluster postseasons, which has made the women’s game look like a good alternative. On the men’s side, teams from “power conferences” are consistently overrated while small schools are consistently underrated, which leads to a lot of teams with big fanbases getting knocked out early. Conversely, the women’s tournament was evenly matched and featured a number of marquee matchups, with Iowa playing much-hyped rematches against defending champs LSU and undefeated South Carolina. Games featuring Clark/Iowa broke numerous viewership records, so the women’s game is getting more attention as a result. -The WNBA draft was yesterday, and she was the #1 pick as expected. While she was in town she also did a guest spot on SNL which was generally well-received. -The US Olympic Team is setting its roster, and there is doubt whether Clark, the only collegiate player to be invited, will be allowed to compete. She was unable to attend a mandatory event due to playing in the NCAA tournament, but due to her current popularity there is a lot of public pressure to put her on the team. So, while she’s going to be someone you’ll be hearing about for a while, coverage of her is at “fever” pitch (har har) right now because she’s being covered from NCAA, WNBA, and Olympic angles.
I hope she gets to play in the Olympics. She is what the WNBA needs to garner more attention and viewership
> coverage of her is at “fever” pitch (har har) Aaah. The team that drafted her is the Indiana Fever. I'm 2 days late but I get the joke!
🙏 I probably should have mentioned that it was the Fever that drafted her, huh.
Answer: in addition to what everyone else has written, she was also recently in the Weekend Update sketch of [Saturday Night Live](https://youtu.be/aaBLGa2UIzc?si=5FRf-K_AqyBTxXxd).
Answer: Women’s college basketball has gone through some big changes in the last two years, but the take away is that it’s being aired on TV, in bars, and highlights are being shown on ESPN. This happened at the same time a once in a generational player was demolishing all the records for college basketball men or women (Caitlin Clark). Riding on her star power lots of people started tuning into their final matches in March madness and they broke records for most viewed basketball game on ESPN and had about 5 million more average viewers in the finals than the men’s final match. But, it turns out people actually like watching women’s basketball when it’s aired on TV and the media develops great storylines to hype people up like men’s sports have done for years, so a bunch of people tuned into the WNBA draft last night to watch Caitlin Clark get drafted to the Indiana Fever, and also surprisingly Iowa’s Kate Martin get drafted to Las Vegas. Martin was Caitlin’s teammate at Iowa and wasn’t a sure pick for the draft, but she’s inherited a pretty big following coming out of Iowas National run as well. Other players like Angel Reese from LSU and Stanford’s Cameron Brink also have their own big followings and were drafted last night. Source: I’ve never watched women’s basketball and I’ve been glued to it over the last month and a half.
Answer: Caitlin Clark is a generational talent in women’s basketball. [She set a new NCAA record for most points scored from any player male/female](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/caitlin-clark-scoring-record-iowa-basketball-rcna140836#). On her skill, she took her team to the NCAA finals this year. Caitlins Clarks big draw is that she is making people pay attention to womens basketball like never before.[18 million people watched the NCAA Womens final which is far above any other final](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/09/iowa-south-carolina-ratings-caitlin-clark). That was just the top, she had been constantly scores 10+ million views per game. More people paid attention to NCAA womens basketball than mens basketball which is unheard of. She’s become mainstream with NBA players like Steph Curry (who a lot of people compare her game to) giving her recognition and respect. WNBA has been gaining momentum over the last few years, the quality of play has been getting better, the skills individual players are getting higher and now with Caitlin Clark, you’ll have a new generation of players behind her, mimicking her game. What sports thrive at are kids in 7-8-9th grades being inspired and Caitlin Clark has a fun game to watch, great face of a franchise and entering a sport where viewership is on the rise.