The Caitlin Clark effect strikes again.
One of women’s basketball’s biggest names helped drive a 307 percent increase in viewership for Monday’s 2024 WNBA Draft at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, drawing a whopping 2.446 million viewers to ESPN’s coverage, according to Sportico.
The massive increase is due in large part to the hype around Clark being selected first overall by the Indiana Fever.
It marked the first time that the women’s league draft drew more than 1 million viewers and easily surpassed the viewership of both the MLB and NHL drafts in 2023, Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp reported.
The previous WNBA draft viewership record had been set 20 years earlier when 601,000 viewers tuned in to see Diana Taurasi taken first by the Phoenix Mercury.
Tuesday’s draft featured a bevy of women’s basketball stars who also played a role in the large audience, including Stanford’s Cameron Brink, taken second overall by the LA Sparks, and national champion Kamilla Cardoso and LSU star Angel Reese going to the Chicago Sky with the third- and seventh-overall picks.
However, Clark was the biggest draw and has been over the course of her final year with Iowa.
Here's everything to know about Caitlin Clark and her surprising WNBA salary
Caitlin Clark, college basketball’s all-time leading scorer and new face of the organization unsurprisingly went No. 1 in the WNBA draft to the Indiana Fever.
She hasn’t even played a game yet, but Clark has already become one of the biggest names in the WNBA.
Her first-round pick helped to drive a 304% increase in viewership for the WNBA draft this week. But the conversation around Clark certainly didn’t stop after she signed for 4-year deal with the Indiana Fever.
Clark will earn $338,056 over four years, per the league’s collective bargaining agreement, with the Indiana Fever.
In comparison, the top pick in the 2023 NBA draft, Victor Wembanyama, landed a $55 million deal.
Clark then signed a $28 million, eight-year contract with Nike, which David Portnoy called “STEALING” on Twitter.
“8 years 80 million min is her worth and that’s still prob too cheap,” Portnoy continued. “Hope she has an early opt out if they don’t pay up when she blows through this deal.”
Despite the relatively low numbers, the deal is the largest sponsorship contract for a female basketball player on record.
Television personality Hoda Kotb was noticeably distraught about the pay gap during the “Today” show Tuesday.
“For somebody who is now the face of women’s basketball, it seemed kind of ridiculous,” Kotb said.
Kotb called it “disturbing” and brought it up multiple times throughout the morning.
Former ESPN journalist and current contributor to The Atlantic Jemele Hill was displeased with the discourse surrounding WNBA salaries and posted a lengthy X post on the subject.
“I’m already annoyed by this conversation because for years, WNBA players have fought for more money. And when they were outspoken, so many of y’all told them to shut up or reminded them how they had no value The NBA has had 50+ years of investment, media coverage, etc. After 27 years, the WNBA will not be the current NBA. So stop comparing them,” Hill wrote on social media.
“Weaponizing this information against WNBA players is another form of misogyny. These women have been dreaming of playing professionally in front of American audiences their whole lives,” Hill continued. “Instead of clowning and reminding them of what they’re not — buy the merchandise, go to the games, and watch the games on television.
The basketball superstar had been part of the three most-watched women’s college basketball games during Iowa’s run to the national championship game.
The Hawkeyes’ victory over LSU in the Elite Eight drew a then-record 12.3 million viewers before that record was toppled again in Iowa’s Final Four win over UConn when 14.2 million tuned in for that matchup.
Clark ended her college career as part of the most-watched women’s hoops broadcast when 18.7 million watchers took in the national championship game between Iowa and South Carolina, with the broadcast peaking at 24 million viewers.
The ratings are a positive sign for the WNBA, which hopes to see an increased interest in the league with Clark’s – along with Reese, Cardoso, Brink and others’ – presence in the league next season.
The draft ratings were the highest for any WNBA televised even in 23 years when a 2000 broadcast of a game between the Liberty and Comets on NBC averaged 2.74 million viewers, according to Sports Media Watch.
The league is leaning heavily into Clark Mania by airing 36 of the Fever’s 40 games nationally during the 2024 season.
The 22-year-old had a historic senior season with the Hawkeyes toppling just about every women’s college basketball record there was, including becoming women’s college hoops all-time scorer and surpassing the NCAA basketball scoring record — men’s or women’s Division I hoops — with 3,951 career points.
To cap off a memorable night on Monday, Clark set another record, becoming Fanatics’ top-selling draft pick in any draft night history and surpassing 2021 NFL Draft No. 1 pick Trevor Lawrence.
