On April 15, the number one overall draft pick in NCAA women’s basketball, Caitlin Clark, was drafted by the Indiana Fever, marking the beginning of her career in the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association). Her number one draft spot came after an astonishing performance at the University of Iowa as their lead shooting guard, where she passed Pete Maravich, earning the all-time scoring record in both men’s and women’s division one basketball. Clark accumulated 3,951 points in her career and took the world by storm while breaking many more records along the way. But for the highest-scoring college basketball player of all time, you may be surprised by how much the WNBA and the Indiana Fever have offered for a salary.
Clark’s contract currently consists of $338,056 over four years. She’ll have a base salary of $76,535 for her first year, $78,066 for the second year, and $85,873 for the third, with a fourth-year option of $97,582. This is a staggering difference compared to Clark’s male counterpart of the 2023 NBA draft, number one overall pick Victor Wembanyama. Wembanyama’s original contract was $55 million, and he pocketed $12.1 million in his first year. This contrast has drawn plenty of attention from sports fans, but it’s not the first time that women athletes have gone underpaid.
One of the greatest movements for equal pay in women’s sports in recent history has been the USWNT (United States Women’s National Team) for soccer. The women’s team could earn a maximum of $6 million depending on their performance during the World Cup, while the men’s team could earn up to $30 million. The four-time World Cup champions of the USWNT, players like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, had managed to bring up a lawsuit for equal pay to their male counterparts in 2022 and settled for $24 million as well as a pledge from the US Soccer Federation to equalize pay. Even though this was a huge win for women’s sports, we still see an extremely consistent story of pay gaps throughout all sports.
If we compare the wages of top-paid athletes, both male and female, we’ll see just how staggering of a distance there is between the two counterparts. According to Forbes’ 2020 report, we see that the most-paid male athlete is Roger Federer, a professional tennis player, who earns around $106 million a year. For the top-paid female athlete, we see Naomi Osaka, also a professional tennis player, earning $37.4 million a year, just a fraction of Federer’s income. In fact, of the top 60 paid athletes in the world, only two are female.
It is also shown that the average WNBA player makes 1.55% of what the average NBA player earns. The only sport in the United States that offers completely equal earnings is US Surfing, but other than that, massive pay gaps are evident. These disparities have caused a headache for thousands of female athletes around the country and the world, and Caitlin Clark’s salary is just one of many injustices.
The recent news of Clark’s salary not only caught the attention of the American public but the President of the United States as well. “Women in sports continue to push new boundaries and inspire us all. But right now we’re seeing that even if you’re the best, women are not paid their fair share. It’s time that we give our daughters the same opportunities as our sons and ensure women are paid what they deserve,” said President Joe Biden on X just a day after the WNBA draft.
While Clark’s new contract may be disheartening, the fans and attention she has produced for women’s basketball is hopeful. Alongside players like Angel Reese, Juju Watkins, Paige Bueckers, Kamilla Cardoso, and Cameron Brink have managed to, for the first time in history, draw more total viewership than the men’s March Madness tournament. The women’s championship game of Iowa vs. South Carolina averaged 18.7 million viewers, compared to the men’s championship of 14.8 million. Not only does 18.7 million viewers cap the men’s tournament, but also all of the MLB and NBA’s 2023 finals games, and was the most watched college basketball game (both men’s and women’s) since 2019.
Not only that, but Clark and plenty of other female athletes have managed to barter NIL [name, image and likeness] deals with an assortment of companies like Nike or Gatorade. Clark recently signed an endorsement deal with Nike, which includes $28 million and a signature shoe. More and more companies are buying into women’s sports and basketball, and they are more able to fill the pay gaps that these athletes are forced to face.
The future of the WNBA is bright, and the recent viewership from this past March Madness is bound to seep into women’s basketball. We have a long way to go when it comes to equal pay in women’s sports, but Caitlin Clark and plenty of others are helping lead the way to that hopeful future.
