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The WNBA superstar is the person of the year in sports and, really, this is just the beginning for her
Published Dec 09, 2024 • Last updated 21 hours ago • 4 minute read
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) reacts during a first-round WNBA playoff game.
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) reacts during a first-round WNBA playoff game. AP Photo
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The most significant game-changing, sport-changing athlete of 2024 was paid $76,535 in salary — nothing like Juan Soto money — to play basketball for the Indiana Fever.
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Really, there’s never been an athlete in any sport, at any time, who has altered the landscape the way Caitlin Clark did in 2024.
The year women’s professional sports — and maybe women’s sport in general — changed forever.
That this gangly, aw-shucks, Iowa-born, almost Gretzky-like basketball savant could fascinate the public and carry the money-loser that has been the WNBA into near mainstream status is beyond illogical.
But it happened, in the same 2024 that teenager Summer McIntosh will be named Canada’s prestigious athlete of the year on Tuesday, in the same year that the Professional Women’s Hockey League opened in North America and began to flourish, in the same year that the Northern Super (soccer) League announced its arrival in Canada.
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There have been other game-changing athletes. Tiger Woods was one in golf, but it didn’t happen immediately. Mike Tyson had that effect years after Muhammad Ali in boxing. Also neither happened overnight. The Big Three in tennis became an acquired taste. But not even Michael Jordan or Steph Curry, Gretzky or Mario Lemieux, Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady have had the singular individual impact to their games and to their respective businesses the way it has all come together with Clark.
In a recent Indianapolis Star article, she was deemed to have been responsible for 26.5% of all WNBA business. One player. Television audiences in the WNBA were up 300% this season in the U.S. and 45% of that audience was attributed to Indiana Fever games.
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WNBA merchandise grew by 500%. Games that Clark played in were watched 200% more than games she didn’t play in.
The new television deal the WNBA has signed will pay it $200 million US, which is three times more than it was paid in the contract that is about to expire paid.
Before Clark played her first WNBA game, her legend had already begun. Her four years at the University of Iowa were mammoth. The 2024 NCAA tournament — the women’s tourney tends to get a public shrug when compared to that of the men’s — was the most watched ever on American television.
Clark played in that event, then played in the most-watched WNBA season, for the most-watched team in history, the Fever.
In between all of that, she signed all kinds of corporate marketing deals with Nike and Wilson and others that will pay her the kind of life-changing money that WNBA players tend not to attract. In fact, the rookie contract she signed with the Fever, which is a standard entry level deal by the players’ association, will average out to $84,514 over four seasons.
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On a dollar-for-dollar scale, she has already become sport’s most underpaid player.
The PWHL, with three Canadian teams and three American teams, and looking to expand next year, doesn’t have a Caitlin Clark. It is hard to sell individual hockey players the way you can sell basketball players.
Individually, basketball players impact games far more significantly than hockey players do. They will play upwards of 35 minutes of a 40-minute game. A great hockey player plays about 20 minutes of a 60-minute game. A great basketball player is easily visible — we see their faces, their expressions, their emotions, their human frailties. A hockey player plays beneath a helmet and a facemask. We see their faces only in interviews.
In its second season, the PWHL needs breakout stars, someone who can do something even similar to what Clark has managed in her first WNBA season, a player to relate to, a player to become ours.
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The way Gretzky was able to do that while becoming a breakout star in the NHL, when he dominated scoring in the 1980s the way no one had before.
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Gretzky was traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles and the NHL changed forever. Suddenly, there were teams in San Jose and Anaheim, Florida and Tampa Bay. Teams moved to Dallas and Carolina and were expanded to Las Vegas and Seattle.
It wasn’t all because of Gretzky that business grew, but he was certainly instrumental in the growth of the sport in the United States.
In Toronto, attendance has more than tripled in the second season of the PWHL, as the Sceptres franchise has moved from the old Maple Leaf Gardens location to the Coca-Cola Coliseum on the CNE grounds.
The business is growing faster than was anticipated by its founders. The players soon will look seriously at attendance figures, do the math, and realize that, very soon, they will be underpaid.
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That is part of what comes with growth. The collective bargaining agreement in the WNBA is up.
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[Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) reacts during a first-round WNBA basketball playoff game against the Connecticut Sun, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Uncasville, Conn.
Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark is near-unanimous choice as WNBA’s Rookie of the Year](https://torontosun.com/sports/basketball/clark-near-unanimous-wnba-rookie-of-the-year)
2. [Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark sits on the bench after a game.
Caitlin Clark delivers message to fans amid latest 'racist' controversy](https://torontosun.com/sports/basketball/clark-delivers-message-amid-controversy)
The dollars in the league are flowing. Players want more of the pie. Expansion money has come in at an all-time high rate, including the extraordinary price Larry Tanenbaum paid for his Tempo franchise.
There will be more money for everyone in the league and the public fascination with Clark is more responsible for the growth than anyone or anything else.
No one else in the league made a cameo appearance this year on ‘Weekend Update’, the only segment that’s consistently funny on Saturday Night Live. No one had to explain who she was or what she was doing there.
It was that kind of year for Clark. The woman of the year in sports. The person of the year.
And, really, this is just the beginning.
ssimmons@postmedia.com
twitter.com/simmonssteve
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