Caitlin Clark, pictured signing sneakers before the WNBA draft last Monday, is helping to drive demand for ticket sales and television coverage of the league.
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Caitlin Clark, pictured signing sneakers before the WNBA draft last Monday, is helping to drive demand for ticket sales and television coverage of the league.
Adam Faim/AP
Caitlin Clark won’t make her WNBA debut until May 3, when the Indiana Fever — who selected her with the No. 1 overall draft pick last week — plays its first preseason game in Texas.
But Clark already has an outsized impact on the league, which she joins as the all-time leading scorer in college basketball history.
Her dominance is credited with bringing more attention to the Iowa Hawkeyes and women’s basketball at large – and the ‘Caitlin Clark effect’ looks set to continue at the professional level, if the first few numbers are any indication.
“When Caitlin Clark declared for the WNBA Draft, we immediately saw the average price of Indiana Fever tickets double,” said Laura Correnti, Founder and CEO of Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment. Morning edition earlier this month.
“We’re also hearing from some of the different WNBA teams that they’re also seeing an increase in ticket sales and interest in terms of near sellouts for Caitlin Clark coming to town.”
Clark’s Fever jersey sold out in most sizes on the Fanatics website within an hour of being selected in Monday’s draft, in what the retailer says is now the best-selling jersey for all draft pick.
And the WNBA plans to broadcast 36 of the Fever’s 40 regular-season games on its national broadcast and streaming partners, up from 22 last year, when it finished 10th out of 12 teams. There hasn’t been a winning season since 2015.
The demand to see Clark in action caused ticket prices to skyrocket and prompted teams in several cities to move their games to larger venues.
Last week, the Washington Mystics announced they would move their June 7 game against the Indiana Fever from their 4,200-seat stadium in Washington, D.C. to the more than 20,000-seat Capital One Arena, citing “uncontrolled demand.” previous “.
This is the second team to announce such a move in anticipation of the Fever frenzy. The Last Vegas Aces announced they will move their July 2 game against Indiana from Michelob Ultra Arena to T-Mobile Arena to accommodate some 8,000 additional fans.
And in Chicago — where the Sky have selected high-profile picks including Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso — fans are calling for the team to move their June and August games against the Fever from Wintrust Arena to the bigger United Center.
“Larger quantities of cheaper seats would allow Caitlin Clark and Chicago Sky fans to enjoy a great game in the incredible United Center,” reads the online petition, which had more than 700 signatures Monday morning.
The Indiana Fever team store in Indianapolis features Caitlin Clark products. His official jersey is sold out at many online retailers.
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The Indiana Fever team store in Indianapolis features Caitlin Clark products. His official jersey is sold out at many online retailers.
Michael Conroy/AP
The Indiana Fever accounts for all of the 10 most expensive regular season games in the WNBA this year, according to data from ticketing site Gametime reported by Forbes.
It says the most expensive WNBA game on the secondary market is Indiana’s July 14 game against the Minnesota Lynx, with a median ticket price of $615. The Fever’s June games against the Chicago Sky ($600) and Washington Mystics ($530) also made the list.
Tickets for the Fever’s first preseason game, against the Dallas Wings in Arlington, Texas, ranged from $110 to $1,100. CEO Greg Bibb told WFAA that the Wings had scheduled this game well before the draft, expecting Clark to go in and be picked first.
“We’ve seen incremental gains in business growth every year since 2020, and what’s happened in the NCAA has accelerated that growth,” Bibb told the outlet. “We structured our ticket sales accordingly and waited until later in the calendar year to put them on sale to create pent-up demand after the draft.”
Resale prices for Fever tickets are also increasing, with Vivid Seats reporting they have nearly tripled since last season.
Clark’s financial assistance to the WNBA amplified attention to her long-standing pay gap with the NBA. This gap is the result of differences between leagues in revenue, season length and union contracts, among other factors.
As a rookie, Clark’s base salary will be $76,535 this year and just over $338,000 for four years – far lower than his male counterparts and at least some NBA mascots .
In contrast, Victor Wembanyama, the NBA’s 2023 first-round pick, started with the San Antonio Spurs at a base salary of more than $12 million, in a four-year contract exceeding $55 million.
This disparity has sparked renewed attention and outrage from many viewers. Even President Biden weighed in, tweeting last week that “we’re seeing right now that even though you’re the best, women aren’t getting their fair share.”
But Clark — whose name, image and likeness are valued at more than $3 million — is expected to make money in other ways, including signing deals with companies such as State Farm and Gatorade. And Athleticism reported last week that Clark was close to closing a deal with Nike worth more than $20 million that included a signature shoe.
Clark holds up his Fever jersey after a news conference Wednesday in Indianapolis.
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Clark holds up his Fever jersey after a news conference Wednesday in Indianapolis.
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