By otakuyassine3@gmail.com 
Cailtin Clark took the WNBA by storm this year, leading to record attendance and revenue for the league that started play in 1997. The Indiana Fever rookie also generated a record annual payday for a WNBA player of $11.1 million with 99% of the total earned off the court.
Clark made her list debut on Sportico’s look at the world’s highest-paid female athletes, thanks to an estimated $11 million in endorsement earnings, including her NIL money while at Iowa during the first part of 2024. She currently has sponsorship deals with Nike, Gatorade, State Farm, Wilson, Hy-Vee, Xfinity, Gainbridge, Lilly and Panini. Nike is Clark’s most valuable endorsement deal. In April, the Swoosh signed the future WNBA Rookie of the Year to an eight-year agreement worth more than $3 million a year on average.
Her WNBA salary and bonus: roughly $100,000.
Sponsors providing the bulk of an elite female athlete’s income is not unique to Clark. Gymnast Simone Biles ($11.1 million) also earns 99% of her income off the mat, while freeskier Eileen Gu makes just 0.3% of her $22.1 million on the snow.
Clark’s on-court pay set off a firestorm when she was drafted. More fans woke up to the disparity between salaries in the WNBA and NBA. Clark was the No. 1 overall pick and had a 2024 base salary of $76,535 as part of a four-year, $338,056 deal. For comparison, the Atlanta Hawks selected Zaccharie Risacher first in the 2024 NBA Draft and signed him to a four-year, $57 million contract, including $12.6 million for the 2024-25 season.
The gap is similar at the top of the pay charts for the two leagues. The highest WNBA base salary this season was Jackie Young, who made $252,450 for the Las Vegas Aces. In the NBA, the Golden State Warriors owe Stephen Curry $55.8 million this year.
Of course, the different pay is fueled by a shorter season, where the leagues are in their life cycle, and their overall revenue. The WNBA just wrapped its 28th season, while the NBA will celebrate its 80th anniversary next year. Four of the six NBA Finals games in 1981 were on tape delay. That was the NBA’s 35th season.
The average NBA team revenue is more than $400 million, versus roughly $18 million in the WNBA this year. The new TV deal for the two leagues had the WNBA’s share up exponentially more than the NBA on a percentage basis. Yet, even after the WNBA signs its expected additional media agreements that push annual TV revenue to $260 million a year, it will still be less than 4% of the NBA’s pacts. Similar gender disparities in revenue and salaries exist in professional soccer and hockey.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert tried to dampen the complaints around Clark’s salary by pointing to the additional compensation available. “[For a] CEO, do you just put the base pay in there?” Engelbert asked at an April CNBC event. “No, you put their bonus, you put their stock options, you put everything.” She said Clark could make up to $500,000 this year in WNBA wages.
The WNBA declined to comment on Clark’s earnings.
The collective bargaining agreement has a myriad of additional earnings opportunities on top of base pay. There are award bonuses for regular season MVP ($15,450), All-WNBA first team ($10,300), All-Star Game MVP ($5,150) and several other categories. The WNBA title is worth $20,825 per player, while the payout for the Commissioner’s Cup was $30,000 each. Teams can also offer a “time-off” bonus of up to $50,000 that is meant to discourage players from playing overseas in the offseason.
In addition, the WNBA has a Player Marketing Agreement (PMA) that pays players up to $250,000 to serve as brand ambassadors for the league and its partners. The PMA was first implemented ahead of the 2022 season with three players, and it expanded to 10 the following year. Six players were in the program this season, including the past two Rookie of the Year winners, Clark’s teammate Aliyah Boston, and Rhyne Howard of the Atlanta Dream. One player earned the maximum during the 2021-22 season and multiple players earned $225,000 this year, according to a person familiar with the details.
Rookies, including Clark, are historically not eligible to be part of the PMA until after their first season, as the timeframe covers services “beginning on the day following the last game of such season and continuing through the last game of the following season,” per the CBA. The CBA also details a Team Marketing Agreement (TMA) that pays a maximum of $4,000 per week with a team eligible to spend up to $150,000 for all players in a given year. It is not clear if Clark received any of the Fever’s 2024 TMA dollars.
The WNBA would certainly love to have Clark under a PMA moving forward, but players sometimes stay out of the program if they already have deep sponsorship ties and off-court earnings.
In 2022, Engelbert said that veteran WNBA players could make $700,000 during a press conference after the release of Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner from Russian custody. In September, Seattle Storm forward Gabby Williams, who also plays in Europe, denounced the idea of a W player making $700,000. “Our commissioner talked about us being able to, you know, make $700,000,” Willams said in her end-of-season press conference. “That’s actually not true at all. There’s not one player who makes that.”
The WNBA pay structure is front and center after the WNBA players opted out of their collective bargaining agreement immediately after the 2024 WNBA Finals.
“Opting out isn’t just about bigger paychecks—it’s about claiming our rightful share of the business we’ve built, improving working conditions, and securing a future where the success we create benefits today’s players and the generations to come,” Nneka Ogwumike, WNBPA president and nine-time all-star, said in a statement. “We’re not just asking for a CBA that reflects our value; we’re demanding it, because we’ve earned it.”
As for Clark, she boosted her $76,535 base salary with several bonuses from awards. The biggest was $10,300 for her selection as All-WNBA first team. She was the first rookie since Candace Parker in 2008 to be selected. She earned an additional $10,000 in total from Rookie of the Year ($5,150), All-Star participant ($2.575), WNBA All-Rookie Team ($1,500) and making the first round of the playoffs ($1,136).
W players are also eligible for team housing or a stipend to cover rent during training camp and the season. The monthly stipend in 2024 varied from $1,148 in Las Vegas to $2,583 in New York. It was $1,263 for players on the Fever.
Share this content: