Sports
What is Caitlin Clark's value to WNBA? A huge chunk of its $200-million revenue, expert says
The champagne hadn’t even dried after the New York Liberty won the WNBA championship when the players association announced it would opt out of the league’s collective bargaining agreement, which was set to expire in 2027.
A dramatic increase in revenues due primarily to the emergence of Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and other marquee rookies prompted the players to recognize they aren’t getting what they believe to be a fair share. The CBA now ends after the 2025 season, blowing up a pay scale that set average salaries at about $120,000, with rookie minimums at $64,154 and veteran maximums at $241,984.
Clark’s four-year rookie contract under the CBA was for $338,056 — including $76,535 in 2024 — laughably low numbers given the revenue she helped generate. Clark broke almost every WNBA rookie record, but more impressive was her off-the-court impact.
“The numbers are so staggering,” said Ryan Brewer, associate professor of finance at Indiana University Columbus, who was asked by the Indianapolis Star to put a price tag on Clark. “They don’t even seem real.”
The numbers, as crunched by Brewer:
- Clark was responsible for 26.5% of WNBA economic activity for the 2024 season, including attendance, merchandise sales and television. One of every six tickets sold at a WNBA arena can be attributed to Clark.
- Total WNBA TV viewership due to Clark is up 300%, and 45% of total broadcast value came from Fever games.
- WNBA merchandise sales rose 500%, with Clark ranking No. 1 followed by Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese.
- The Fever’s regular-season attendance averaged a record 17,036 per game, and the team’s total attendance of 340,715 also was a record.
- Clark’s regular-season games were watched by 1.2 million viewers on average, which was 200% more than games in which she didn’t play.
No wonder the players opted out of the current CBA, with the Women’s National Basketball Players Assn. stating its position succinctly with a video to X that proclaimed, “It’s business. We’re out.”
The WNBA signed a new media rights deal in July worth a reported $200 million a year, more than three times the current package. However, a question that will be raised during CBA negotiations is whether the surge in fan interest and revenue will continue or abate over time.
That’s why the WNBA media rights deal pales in comparison to the NBA’s new TV agreement with Disney (ABC and ESPN), Comcast (NBC and Peacock) and Amazon (Prime Video). Those outlets will air the league’s nationally televised games for 11 seasons beginning in 2025-26 and the NBA will be paid about $76 billion.
“As this continues to materialize, the corporate side, the business side, not the players union, but the other sides, are going to continue to watch to see that these numbers can stabilize and maintain rather than just spike and drop again,” Brewer said. “That’s what they’re afraid of. And that’s what’s keeping the numbers low.”
Clark, meanwhile, is doing quite well financially despite her low salary. Sportico on Wednesday published a list of the highest paid female athletes, and Clark was ranked No. 10, just behind Simone Biles. Clark, the only basketball player on the list, earned $11.1 million in 2024. (On top of the list for the second year in a row was tennis star Coco Gauff, who made $30.4 million in prize money and endorsements.)
Endorsements make up the bulk of Clark’s income. She gets $3.5 million a year from an eight-year contract with Nike and also has deals with Gatorade, Gainbridge, Hyvee, Xfinity, Wilson, Buick and State Farm Insurance.
Most WNBA players, of course, have only a small fraction of that sort of endorsement income. They must rely on their salaries, which many supplement by playing overseas during the WNBA offseason.
Only 9.3% of league revenues of $200 million in 2024 went to player salaries, according to Bloomberg. That’s less than $20 million. Meanwhile, NBA players share 50% of their league revenue, which in 2023 meant $5.3 billion of $10.6 billion.
Few argue against a larger slice of WNBA revenues going toward player salaries, and precise numbers will be hammered out in CBA negotiations a year from now. Until then, the best evidence players can point to would be continued growth in attendance, TV viewership and merchandise sales.
And Clark’s contribution undoubtedly will remain a major factor.
Sports
For Boise State, an original giant killer, winning a CFP game would be signature feat
BOISE, Idaho — Merle and Ruth Baptiste have been Boise State season-ticket holders since 1974, when the Broncos were still competing in Division II. They were there when the program won a Division I-AA national championship in 1980, when it made its first bowl game, the Humanitarian Bowl, in 1999, and when it won its first BCS bowl in 2006.
On Friday night at chilly Albertson’s Stadium, they saw a new first: Boise State qualifying for a chance to play for major college football’s national championship. The Broncos’ 21-7 win over UNLV will earn No. 10 Boise State (12-1) an automatic berth in the first 12-team College Football Playoff.
“It’s about time,” Merle said. “We should have played for a (national) championship long before this, but we were disrespected by the big schools.”
There’s no overstating the significance of this moment, not just for Boise State but for college football. It’s a sport that has forever operated as a country club, offering lifetime membership for a Notre Dame or Alabama, while handing out visitor passes to a Tulane or Western Michigan. Back in the BCS days, the powers-that-be got dragged before Congress and threatened with antitrust scrutiny for so brazenly excluding half of the sport from its party.
GO DEEPER
Boise State, Ashton Jeanty steamroll UNLV to win MWC, close in on CFP bid
A generation later, when the commissioners created the new 12-team Playoff, they finally saved a seat for the little guy. It’s fitting that the first Group of 5 program to take advantage was one of its original giant killers.
“We would have loved if there was a Playoff — we felt like we could have played with anyone,” said Jared Zabransky, quarterback for Boise State’s undefeated 2006 Fiesta Bowl team. “That’s the way it should have been for a long time. I’m just grateful these kids now get the opportunity to do that.”
Those kids, headlined by Heisman hopeful Ashton Jeanty, earned their second straight Mountain West championship Friday, with Jeanty breaking a 75-yard touchdown and notching his sixth 200-yard game of the season (209). Afterward, seemingly all 36,663 fans at sold-out Albertson’s Stadium swarmed onto the blue turf.
“Hope is powerful,” said Boise State athletic director Jeremiah Dickey. “You’ve seen it all year in terms of college football fans — when you provide more opportunity, it really ignites a fire.”
Boise State’s fans were so lit, they tore down the goal post and dumped it in the nearby Boise River. They’d been part of history. Never before had a Group of 5 team walked off its field knowing it was Playoff-bound. Even undefeated Cincinnati in 2021 couldn’t be certain until the committee rendered its final judgment.
“It’s such a big opportunity for all schools,” said Boise State coach Spencer Danielson. “As a competitor, all you want is a shot.”
Zabransky and Ian Johnson didn’t get their shot to play for a national championship despite finishing as the only undefeated team in the country that season. Neither did Kellen Moore and Doug Martin with their own 14-0 squad three years later. Dan Hawkins coached a Boise team in 2004 that went undefeated in the regular season and landed in the Liberty Bowl. Same thing in 2008 for an undefeated Chris Petersen team that finished up in the Poinsettia Bowl.
Danielson and Jeanty are the latest in a long line of coaches and players that drove Boise State’s decades-long evolution from junior college to lower-level NCAA school to FBS to national power. Back in the early 2010s, the Broncos were regularly beating the likes of Georgia, Oklahoma, Oregon and Virginia Tech. They reached three Fiesta Bowls, winning all three. But they never got the call to join a power conference like fellow BCS busters Utah and TCU.
Then the program plateaued for about a decade, still regularly winning 10 or 11 games a year and a few Mountain West championships, but never the kind of breakthrough season nationally like UCF had in 2017 and ’18 or Cincinnati in 2020 and ‘21. Both those, plus Houston, UCF and SMU, got their call-ups, too.
Just 13 months ago, Boise State was 5-5, in danger of suffering its first losing season since 1997, when Dickey made the surprising decision to fire third-year coach Andy Avalos, a former Broncos linebacker whose team had won 10 games a year earlier. Dickey promoted then 35-year-old defensive coordinator Danielson, while fully intending to make an outside hire after the season.
That is, until Danielson’s team won its next three games, reached the Mountain West Championship Game and upset UNLV, earning Danielson the full-time job.
With Jeanty returning following a 1,347-yard season, Boise was picked in the preseason to win its conference, but was hardly considered a front-runner to reach the CFP. The Broncos did not appear in the AP poll for the first time until Sept. 22, a couple of weeks after going to Eugene and taking then seventh-ranked Oregon to the wire. By then Jeanty, who ran for 267 yards and six touchdowns in his team’s opener at Georgia Southern, had begun garnering early Heisman buzz. But surely there was little chance a Group of 5 running back would actually make it to New York.
Three months later, Jeanty just finished with more rushing yards in a regular season — 2,497 — than any player in history not named Barry Sanders. The only question now is whether it was enough to eclipse Colorado two-way sensation Travis Hunter for the trophy.
“He shows week in and week out he’s the best football player in the country,” said Danielson, “and I don’t think it’s even close.”
Jeanty is reason enough for Power 4 Playoff teams to be leery about drawing Boise State as their opponent. Barring a surprise move by the committee Sunday, the Broncos will likely earn a top-four seed and receive a bye to the quarterfinals. They would likely be placed in the Dec. 31 Fiesta Bowl for geographic reasons. Should Clemson upset SMU in the ACC championship, Boise may even move up to the No. 3 seed.
If they’re the No. 4 seed, it could create a fascinating matchup with the No. 5 seed, which will be either the loser of the Big Ten or SEC championship games, or 11-1 Notre Dame.
“Good luck to anyone who … thinks they’re going to win the game (against Boise State),” said UNLV coach Barry Odom. “I think they’re one of the best teams in college football right now, and I think they’ll do a great job representing this conference. They’re built to make a run.”
They’ve done it before. Boise was not nearly as respected a program as it is today when Zabransky handed off to Johnson on that famous Statue of Liberty play to knock off a peak-Bob Stoops Oklahoma team. The top-10 Virginia Tech team the Broncos beat in the 2010 season opener went on to win the ACC that season. The Georgia team they demolished in the 2011 season opener won 10 games and the SEC East.
But winning a College Football Playoff quarterfinal would be Boise State’s signature feat yet — the football equivalent of those early Gonzaga NCAA Tournament teams that helped build that program into a new-age blue blood.
“This team wanted to leave a legacy, where your actions have resounding effects for years to come,” said Danielson. “Standing on that podium, seeing Bronco Nation swarm the field, those are moments that can change everything.”
For Boise State, and for college football.
(Photo of Boise State coach Spencer Danielson: Loren Orr / Getty Images)
Sports
Archie Manning reveals preferred NFL landing spot for grandson, Texas star Arch Manning
Arch Manning went through a closely followed recruiting process before deciding on Texas.
The quarterback comes from a family synonymous with football. His uncles, Peyton and Eli Manning, and his grandfather Archie all spent their college football careers at Southeastern Conference schools before they made the leap to the NFL. Texas joined the SEC this year.
Arch saw limited action during his freshman year at Texas. He played more this season with a stint as a starter in place of an injured Quinn Ewers.
The 19-year-old Manning won’t be eligible to declare for the 2025 NFL Draft. But his grandfather appears to have already given some thought about where the Longhorns star could wind up should he make it to the professional ranks.
While the former New Orleans Saints quarterback would like to see his grandson remain at the college level a couple more years, he prefers to watch Arch in a Dallas Cowboys uniform.
GIANTS LEGEND VICTOR CRUZ POSES BIG ARCH MANNING QUESTION AS FRANCHISE GETS SET FOR QUARTERBACK SEARCH
“Nobody’s ever asked me that. Right off the bat, if somebody asked me, I’d say Cowboys,” Manning said, smiling in a video posted to TikTok Dec. 6.
Archie doesn’t have direct control over what would transpire in a draft class featuring Arch, but he has wielded influence in the past.
Eli Manning was drafted by the Chargers in 2004, but Archie and other members of the Manning family are believed to have cautioned the franchise against picking the quarterback. Eli was drafted by the Chargers and sent to the New York Giants via trade, a move many contended was a result of his family’s wishes.
The Cowboys have not advanced to a conference championship game since the 1995 season, but the franchise arguably remains the league’s most high-profile team.
Manning has thrown for 939 yards this season. He also threw nine touchdowns and two interceptions in his seven appearances for the Longhorns. He has also shown an ability to use his legs, rushing for 95 yards and scoring four touchdowns on the ground in 2024.
Manning had one rushing attempt for five yards in Texas’ 22-19 overtime loss to Georgia in the SEC championship in Atlanta Saturday.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Sports
Column: MLS Cup final lacks star power but sheds light on shift in league
Major League Soccer was unable to showcase its most prized jewels at its championship game.
Lionel Messi didn’t toy with defenders in the MLS Cup final. He didn’t make any of those passes that no other player could make. He didn’t create any magic.
Messi didn’t do any of that because he wasn’t here. His team, Inter Miami, was eliminated from the postseason four weeks ago.
Standing in for Messi at the league’s flagship event on Saturday were the Galaxy and New York Red Bulls.
Neither team spent as much this season as Inter Miami, which had a league-high $40-million payroll. Neither team had the star power of Inter Miami, especially after Galaxy playmaker Riqui Puig was ruled out of the game with a torn anterior cruciate ligament sustained in the Western Conference final.
What the Galaxy and Red Bulls provided was a more accurate picture of what MLS is today.
The MLS of today is the Galaxy, who reclaimed their title as the kings of the league with a 2-1 victory over the Red Bulls at Dignity Health Sports Park after modernizing their entire operation.
The MLS of today is the Red Bulls, who are uncommonly reliant on American players developed in their own youth academy.
Messi and Inter Miami are part of this ecosystem. They won’t be for long, however. Whenever the 37-year-old Messi retires or moves on, teams such as the Galaxy and Red Bulls will be what remains.
The Galaxy used to be a scaled-down version of what Inter Miami is now, building around world-famous players on the back ends of their careers. The approach became less effective as the level of play in MLS improved, leading them to change how they constructed their roster.
Instead of searching the transfer market for one of Messi’s contemporaries, the Galaxy targeted a couple of youthful wingers in 26-year-old Joseph Paintsil of Ghana and 23-year-old Gabriel Pec of Brazil.
Both players were almost entirely unknown in the United States before this season, but they weren’t brought in to be shiny objects. They were brought in to win games. In the MLS Cup final, Paintsil scored on a ninth-minute through ball from Gaston Brugman and Dejan Joveljic on a 13th-minute solo run from midfield.
Paintsil and Pec will almost certainly have chances to move to Europe. Then again, they could elect to do what Puig did.
If the Galaxy caught up to the MLS’s elite teams by acquiring the likes of Paintsil and Pec, they moved ahead of them by signing Puig to a contract extension this year.
Puig was an unusual MLS signing in that he was a young player who was already at a top European team. The Spaniard was only 22 when the Galaxy acquired him from Barcelona.
The expectation around the game was that Puig would return to Europe as soon as he established himself as a professional. That didn’t happen. Earlier this year, the Galaxy announced they signed Puig to an extension through the 2027 season.
Puig, who finished the regular season with 13 goals and 15 assists, could become the best player in the history of this league. Messi’s stay in MLS will be brief. The two other players who dominated the league to a similar degree, Carlos Vela of LAFC and Sebastian Giovinco of Toronto FC, also had relatively short stays in MLS.
Puig could spend the overwhelming majority of his career here. He has already become a cult hero in these parts, the stadium erupting in heartfelt cries of appreciation when he was shown on the video scoreboard cheering on his team in the closing minutes.
This might not carry much significance to the sports world at large, but it matters to the people who packed Dignity Health Sports Park.
This league has a developed culture of its own, which explains why an estimated 2,000 Red Bulls fans traveled from the New York area to watch this game or why obnoxious scoring-champion-turned-broadcaster Taylor Twellman was booed in the postgame ceremony as if he were NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at the draft.
Dignity Health Sports Park provided an appropriate setting for the show. The country’s oldest soccer-specific stadium that is still in use, the 27,000-seat venue has aged gracefully over the last 21 years.
The stadium isn’t old enough to feel outdated but is old enough to have acquired character.
This was where Landon Donovan and David Beckham played, where Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored that goal, where Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy made their last World Cup appearances. That history is now a part of the venue, and there’s a certain feeling inside its gates. The game on Saturday will add to that.
That doesn’t mean this wasn’t a lost opportunity. This was.
Messi and his team choked and MLS was deprived of its dream final. What the league presented instead wasn’t for everyone, but it was for someone.
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