From eclipsing males’s viewership to promoting out Nike collabs in minutes, the WNBA’s momentum is plain. Now Caitlin Clark’s memorabilia is shattering public sale data—pulling in sums that dwarf her annual wage.
Clark’s Rookie Royalty WNBA Flawless Logowoman card, a chunk of memorabilia which is one-of-one, bought for a whopping $660,000 final Thursday evening.
It’s a uncommon discover for collectors, as the cardboard is signed and inscribed with Clark’s scoring complete for her rookie season on the Indiana Fever, and in addition features a Logowoman patch adorned on WNBA jerseys.
The cardboard began at an prolonged bidding worth of $336,0000—the earlier sale worth of Clark’s 2024 Panini Prizm WNBA Signatures Gold Vinyl 1/1 PSA 10 again in March. However when it bought for almost double that, the collector’s merchandise made historical past for essentially the most cash made at a public public sale for a girl athlete—and it’s a far cry from what the famous person makes in a single yr.
In truth, Clark makes lower than the common New Yorker; regardless of being the primary draft choose within the WNBA final yr, she solely earned a wage of $76,535 for her first yr on the Indiana Fever. That’s a rock-bottom wage for the phenom of girls’s basketball, as her card that fetched a whole lot of hundreds at public sale is over 8.6 occasions greater than her annual pay. Even Clark’s four-year contract, during which she’ll make a complete of $338,000, is nearly half of the cardboard’s worth.
WNBA wages have didn’t preserve tempo with its surging reputation; final yr, the ladies’s NCAA March Insanity event last had 18.7 million viewers tuning in, in comparison with 14.82 million watching the lads’s final sport. But the primary choose of the NBA season was anticipated to make $10.5 million—137 occasions greater than what Clark makes in a yr.
‘Pay us what you owe us’: WNBA gamers leaning on NIL offers and side-hustles to make ends meet
Clark is among the greatest names in U.S. sports activities, with fellow stars Cameron Brink, Rickea Jackson, and Angel Reese serving to shatter data for the league. However their pay is in stark distinction to their cultural and enterprise influence.
In 2023, the common WNBA participant made a base of $113,295 per yr, in comparison with the everyday NBA hooper making round $9.7 million. Girls’s low pay within the league has been a sizzling subject of dialogue; about 40 gamers just lately met with the WNBA to barter their compensation, however failed to succeed in a brand new collective bargaining settlement (CBA). The basketball stars had opted out of their final CBA in October 2024, and had hoped to dealer a greater revenue-sharing mannequin, greater salaries, cushier advantages, and a extra lenient wage cap.
However negotiations fell by way of, prompting Clark and different WNBA gamers to put on “Pay us what you owe us” t-shirts forward of their All-Star sport on Saturday final week. The sold-out enviornment of over 16,000 attendees, and hundreds of thousands of viewers tuning in at residence, watched the celebs push again in opposition to a long-held challenge. Proper now, WNBA hoopers obtain 9.3% of their league’s income—compared, NBA gamers reap between 49% and 51% of the league’s basketball-related revenue.
“That is no laughing matter. That is no development, that is no second in time,” A’ja Wilson, a Las Vegas Aces participant and three-time league MVP, informed NPR. “You’re coping with me, my livelihood, my future, the following technology. So we’re going to take this very, very critically.”
Fortune has contacted WNBA for remark.
WNBA gamers make their hundreds of thousands in facet hustles as a substitute
Though the WNBA just lately signed a $2.2 billion media cope with enlargement charges of $250 million, the feminine athletes aren’t raking in hundreds of thousands from the game itself. As an alternative, many ladies’s basketball stars are getting inventive within the methods they complement their revenue.
One widespread manner is thru title, picture, and likeness (NIL) offers—Clark made $3.1 million from NIL agreements in 2023, within the last yr of her school stint.
There’s additionally the choice to play abroad; Olympian Brittney Griner made 4 occasions her WNBA wage in Russia, incomes greater than $1 million.
Others with out million-dollar model offers need to resort to juggling part-time jobs. Chiney Ogwumike, who performed for the Los Angeles Sparks, has since grow to be a basketball analyst and host for ESPN; Haley Jones, a guard for the Dallas Wings, has additionally commentated for NBA TV and the WNBA finals. And the Atlanta Dream’s Allisha Grey has a side-hustle doling out wings and burgers because the proprietor of WNB Manufacturing unit restaurant.
