In her four years at Iowa, Caitlin Clark scored more points than any college basketball player, male or female, in NCAA history. Road games she played in would see attendance increase by an average of 150 percent, which has become known as the “Caitlin Clark effect.” This year’s women’s championship game, which Iowa lost to South Carolina, had higher TV viewership than the men’s championship game. Clark has thousands of fans nationwide, especially among girls who play basketball. She has been a phenom since she was little, dominating boys’ leagues in suburban Des Moines. “Generational talent” is probably an overused expression in athletics, but Clark certainly is one.
She’s going pro this year and was chosen as the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever. Her unmatched accomplishments and skill are garnering her a base salary of . . . $76,535.
Why so low? That’s what the WNBA collective-bargaining agreement says. The agreement includes a rookie scale that sets salaries for first-year players from 2020 through 2027. In 2024, the base salary for picks 1–4 in the draft is $76,535. Picks 5–8 get $73,439. The rest of the first-round picks get $70,344. There are also lower rates for the second- and third-round picks.
In a league that makes only $200 million in annual revenue (compared with about $10 billion for the NBA), the union will seek to make sure that relatively small pie is sliced up as evenly as possible for its members. The agreement also sets maximum salaries, such that no player is permitted to earn more than $241,984 in 2024. If WNBA stars had multimillion-dollar salaries like NBA stars, there would not be enough money to pay the below-average players.
More generally, the purpose of a collective-bargaining agreement is not to reward excellence. It is to protect mediocrity. Think of bad public-school teachers or police officers who nonetheless keep their jobs because they are protected by their union. Or think of excellent public-school teachers or police officers who nonetheless are paid poorly because they don’t have enough years of service to qualify for a higher pay rate.
Fortunately for Clark, her excellence will be rewarded — by the market. Nike appears set to offer Clark an endorsement deal of around $10 million. She would also have a signature shoe with the company, an honor only a small handful of NBA players have. She was already a Nike-sponsored athlete at Iowa, and she earned an estimated $3.1 million in name, image, and likeness compensation during her college career. In addition to Nike, she already has sponsorship deals with Gatorade, State Farm, Buick, Xfinity, and several other major companies, no doubt with more to come.
So don’t let the WNBA’s union pay scale get you down. Caitlin Clark is going to be paid what she’s worth. And if you want WNBA salaries to be higher, buy WNBA tickets and jerseys and follow the WNBA season so that TV networks are willing to pay more for the rights to air the games. Then there will be more revenue to go around, and WNBA players can have million-dollar salaries, too.