Joe Buglewicz/Getty ImagesCaitlin Clark’s highly-decorated 2024 rookie season proved to be quite lucrative for the Indiana Fever star as well.
According to Kurt Badenhausen of Sportico, Clark “generated a record annual payday for a WNBA player of $11.1 million with 99 percent of the total earned off the court.”
Sportico @SporticoClark made her list debut on @kbadenhausen’s world’s highest-paid female athletes, thanks to an estimated $11 million in endorsement earnings, including her NIL money while at Iowa. She currently has sponsorship deals with @Nike, @Gatorade, @StateFarm, Wilson, @HyVee, @Xfinity,… https://t.co/bacyuvW6iy pic.twitter.com/OvCF2bsXF2
That included an “estimated $11 million in endorsement earnings” on top of her base salary of $76,535 and bonuses for being an All-WNBA first-team selection ($10,300), the WNBA Rookie of the Year ($5,150), an All-Star selection ($2.575), a WNBA All-Rookie Team selection ($1,500) and reaching the first round of the playoffs ($1,136).
Tennis star Coco Gauff topped the list at $30.4 million in earnings from prize money and endorsements, followed by skier Eileen Gu ($22.1 million) and tennis player Iga Świątek ($21.4 million).
Sportico @SporticoThe 2024 Highest-Paid Female Athlete list is here! The latest from @kbadenhausen, tennis players dominate the list, with Coco Gauff leading the way with $30.4M in earnings this year.
Check out the full list: https://t.co/UAHvschj4f pic.twitter.com/AURKTeK5Mb
In total, nine of the 15 highest earners in women’s sports were tennis players, alongside three golfers (Nelly Korda, Jeeno Thitikul, Lydia Ko) and one gymnast (Simone Biles).
WNBA All-Star Sabrina Ionescu just missed the top-15 cut.
Clark, 22, remains one of the most ascendant young talents in all of sports, and continues to help build what was already a growing rise in popularity for women’s basketball. She took the college game by storm at Iowa, helping the Hawkeyes set attendance record, and those frequent sellouts followed her to the Fever.
She is only scratching the surface of her potential on the court, and her earning power should have an equally high ceiling. Clark is not the face of the WNBA just yet, given the immense talent in the league, but she is certainly trending in that direction.
Her modest base salary also brought into more mainstream focus the extreme disparity of pay between the NBA and WNBA. The top overall pick in the 2024 NBA draft, Zaccharie Risacher—far, far less of a household name than Clark—entered the league with a four-year, $57 million contract that is paying him $12.6 million in the 2024-25 season.
Even with endorsements and NIL deals from the end of her college career, Clark didn’t match that number in 2024.
Source : Bleacher Report