Is Caitlin Clark’s WNBA career a financial loss? These are the opposing viewpoints.

One of the most well-known figures in modern sports is Caitlin Clark, although it’s already widely known that her WNBA salary is chump coin. With the Indiana Fever, the first overall choice in the 2024 WNBA Draft inked a four-year contract worth $338,000, which will pay her around $76,535 in her rookie season.

That amount is almost equivalent to what the typical American earns annually, although Clark is undoubtedly earning far more for the league. She recently watched the NCAA Women’s Championship Game, which attracted about 19 million people, surpassing the number of viewers for the Men’s game.

Furthermore, others contend that Clark is losing out on a lot of money by becoming pro because the NCAA permits players to make money off of their name, image, and likeness (NIL). Some who support Clark’s choice dispute the notion that women’s basketball players earn less money in the professional ranks. But just what are the arguments put out by either side?

THE JUSTIFICATION FOR REMAINING IN COLLEGE With the July 1, 2021, modification of the NIL rules, NCAA athletes are now free to support themselves. The wealthiest and most well-known sportsmen are undoubtedly making millions of dollars, even if the amount that each athlete makes varies depending on their sport, skill level, and training regimen. Caleb Williams, the probable first overall pick in this Thursday’s NFL Draft and a former USC quarterback known for living in a palatial condominium in Los Angeles, is one well-known example. Prior to Clark declaring for the WNBA Draft, her expected annual salary was more than $3 million, according to calculations made by the college sports-focused website On3. Furthermore, this is just a forecast.

With a year remaining on her WNBA eligibility, Clark has a few options for increasing her income given the extraordinary fan base she has built up in the past 12 months. She might have gotten a huge payout from NIL collectives, which are fan and alumni-run organizations that give money to individual schools. This amount may have functioned as a contract. Although Clark has shown loyalty to Iowa, he may have had the choice to transfer to an other university if a better offer would have been available.

Clark’s celebrity might have helped her land more endorsement deals. In addition, some contend that the NCAA offers Clark a larger and more established audience for brand pitches than the WNBA. Longtime sports business journalist Darren Rovell, one of the biggest supporters of Clark earning more money in college, stated that she could have gotten the same agreement at Iowa, and she recently landed an eight-figure deal with Nike.

THE ARGUMENT FOR GOING PRO Clark’s salary for the 2024 WNBA season will be less than six figures. That isn’t changing. But Howard Megdal, the esteemed women’s basketball journalist and founder of The Next, wrote on Forbes last week that there is a world where Clark’s contract could change drastically as early as 2026.

The collective bargaining agreement that governs WNBA player contracts is subject to change; nevertheless, the Players Association of the league has the option to withdraw from it as early as October 31, 2025. It would be obvious for the players to choose to opt out if the WNBA’s future trends follow those of the NCAA Women’s Game or even the record-breaking attendance of the 2024 WNBA Draft. That might alter the players’ revenue distribution, so giving them a bigger share of the pie. Furthermore, Megdal stated that the arrangement might involve completely eliminating rookie contracts and replacing them with the revised amount.

The argument against this would be that Clark would still receive the low salary for a few years, but the counter to that argument is one that professional athletes across all sports have made for years to justify going pro earlier.

That is, you can sign your second contract faster the earlier you become a professional. That deal is usually the largest, and under the new WNBA CBA, it may surpass NIL figures. That is, of course, no guarantee given the WNBA’s ambiguous revenue split policy and Clark’s ongoing need to establish herself in the league in order to secure a maximum level deal. However, that sum may be well over nine figures per year for players if the WNBA ever comes close to a 50-50 revenue share, which the NBA Players Association was able to negotiate with the NBA.

This was illustrated by Southern Utah University economics professor David Berri, who showed that someone like Connecticut Sun’s Alyssa Thomas could be making over $3.5 million right now if that split were conducted.

According to a CNBC article, the WNBA’s existing rule states that income sharing would only occur if specific levels were hit. Those benchmarks have not yet been surpassed.

Regarding the debate of Clark’s endorsement deals in the NCAA and WNBA, or those of any other WNBA player, there are a number of arguments in favor of becoming pro. The first is that professional players are usually the ones who receive trademark shoes, so Clark might not have immediately gotten the same offer from a company like Nike if he had stayed in college.

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Englebert also argued that the WNBA will allow Clark a more global reach, which the NCAA does not have. This is the same reasoning for NBA players, as NBA Finals games do not actually pull the same viewership as the NCAA Men’s National Championship, but create a much bigger buzz nationally.

WHO IS RIGHT, THEN?

There might not be a conclusive response, so there isn’t one. Haley Jones of the Atlanta Dream, one of the recent WNBA players to experience NIL, stated that she hasn’t noticed a wage decrease since turning pro. Pete Giorgio, Principal for Global and US Sports at Deloitte, told TheStreet that he thinks Clark will be more successful in the WNBA by any measure.

But Clark is a different phenomenon — maybe even in all of sports history — and there’s no world to also see the path to Clark’s earnings if she decided to stay in college, so that will really just be a sunk cost, if at all.