On Monday evening, collegiate basketball stars and WNBA hopefuls gathered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the 2024 WNBA draft. As expected, record-breaking Iowa Hawkeyes superstar Caitlin Clark was selected as the first pick by the Indiana Fever, locking in what will most likely be a historic professional career. According to Spotrac, she signed a four-year $338,000 contract, which will pay $76,535 this year and increase through 2027, topping out at $97,582 in 2027.
Needless to say, this is not the salary one expects college basketball’s top scorer of all time to make in her first year playing professionally. WNBA players face a steep pay gap compared to their male counterparts. To put Clark’s base salary in perspective, last year’s top NBA draft pick, Victor Wembanyama, signed a four-year contract with the San Antonio Spurs for $55 million. In the WNBA, base salaries currently top out around $240,000, which is less than the lowest-earning player in the NBA (and most NBA wages are in the millions). The earnings are so low that players often supplement their income by playing abroad, which was what Brittney Griner was doing when she was arrested in Russia in 2022.
The pay inequity reflects the unfortunate fact that women’s basketball is just not as widely watched as men’s (at least not yet). Though the WNBA’s revenue is growing — the league brought in close to $200 million last year — it’s still a fraction of what the NBA, which recently surpassed $10 billion, pulls in. At the same time, the WNBA’s players union signed a contract in 2020 that makes it difficult for players to reap the benefits of their league’s sudden revenue growth. They’re expected to abandon the agreement next year.
Though female basketball players are paid particularly poorly, the salary gap is also glaring in other sports. Even after the women’s national team successfully sued the U.S. Soccer Federation over unequal pay in 2022, CNN reported that female players were earning a quarter of what their male counterparts made at last year’s World Cup. Amid an ongoing debate about whether college athletes should be able to make money off their personal brands, University of Michigan found that, nationwide, female college athletes got about half as much compensation for their name, image, and likeness as male players.
In a statement, a WNBA spokesperson told the Cut that Clark “stands to make a half-million dollars or more in WNBA earnings this coming season.” They did not elaborate on where that money will come from beyond Clark’s base salary, but per the players association’s contract, team members get a piece of the league’s revenue, marketing agreements, and other partnerships.
On the bright side, Clark, who had a Nike deal during her college career, is also expected to earn millions of dollars via endorsements. Considering she helped make women’s basketball the sport to watch this spring, I hope sneaker brands are willing to cough up a fair sum.
This post has been updated.
