The 2024 WNBA draft is in the books and as expected, the Indiana Fever landed former Iowa Hawkeyes superstar Caitlin Clark with the first overall pick. The reigning two-time AP College Basketball Player of the Year is set to sign a four-year deal with the Fever that will keep her tied to the franchise until 2028.
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Despite being the highest-paid player in her draft class, Clark’s WNBA rookie contract pales in comparison to her NBA counterparts. The guard will earn a modest $338,000 in his first four seasons in Indiana. Per Sportac, Victor Wembanyama, the top pick in the 2023 NBA draft, is signed to a four-year, $55.2 million deal with the San Antonio Spurs.
It’s no secret that the NBA’s revenue dwarfs the WNBA’s by a country mile. Per WSN, the WNBA rakes in $60 million, while the NBA earns $10 billion in a season. The difference in revenue and spending power is palpable and reflected in Clark’s contract value.
NBA fans make wild jokes about Caitlin Clark’s salary
The facts about the revenue gap between the NBA and WNBA are well-known, but that did not stop fans on social media from wisecracking about Caitlin Clark’s modest annual salary. One meme aggregator account on X, formerly Twitter, compared the guard’s first-year salary to Rudy Gobert’s fine for disagreeing with a refereeing decision:
Another account compared her first-year salary to James Harden’s hefty fine for his rant against Daryl Morey, the Philadelphia 76ers’ President of Basketball Operations.
Another fan pointed out that LeBron James’ $47.6 million salary for the 2023-24 season comes up to $135,000 per day, almost twice as much as Clark’s first-year salary.
While Clark’s WNBA salary is low, it’s worth noting that she’s among the most marketable female athletes in America and her endorsement portfolio is already pretty strong. Per ON3, the former Hawkeyes star earned over $3.1 million in NIL deals in 2023. Clark could prove to be the catalyst for the rise in WNBA’s popularity and revenue. She could provide the same boost Michael Jordan did to the NBA in the 1990s and helped the league turn into the behemoth it is today.
