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What is Caitlin Clark's value to WNBA? A huge chunk of its $200-million revenue, expert says

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What is Caitlin Clark's value to WNBA? A huge chunk of its 0-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:

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  • 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.”

Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) drives to the basket against Las Vegas Aces guard Jackie Young (0) during a Sept. 11 game in Indianapolis.

(Darron Cummings / Associated Press)

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.

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“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.

WNBA star Caitlin Clark is sitting down while being introduced to the fans during an NBA game between the Suns and Warriors

WNBA star Caitlin Clark is introduced to fans Saturday during an NBA game between the Phoenix Suns and the Golden State Warriors in Phoenix.

(Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)

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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.

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Pick-six helps Palos Verdes beat Bakersfield Christian in Division 2-A bowl game

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Pick-six helps Palos Verdes beat Bakersfield Christian in Division 2-A bowl game

Jace DeMoss picked the perfect time for his first interception of the season, returning it 65 yards for a touchdown with 2:09 left to clinch Palos Verdes’ 28-10 triumph over Bakersfield Christian in Saturday night’s Southern California Regional Division 2-A bowl game at South Torrance High.

The Sea Kings (10-5) will play undefeated NorCal winner Twelve Bridges in the CIF 2-A state bowl championship at 11:30 a.m. next Saturday at Saddleback College. It is Palos Verdes’ first trip to a state bowl.

“I saw the quarterback drop back, I just faded back into coverage and the ball came to me,” said DeMoss, a junior who also plays H-back. “I saw a receiver in front of me and cut up the field behind him.”

Sophomore quarterback Ryan Rakowksi ran for 97 yards on 12 carries and completed six of 11 throws for 49 yards, making key plays to move the chains.

Palos Verdes running back Andrew Habif is tackled in midair during the first half of a SoCal Regional Division 2-A bowl game on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024, in Torrance.

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(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

“He’s elusive, he makes really good decisions and he’s our leader,” DeMoss said of his signal-caller. “We knew with the team we had, it was possible to go far. I play more on offense, but I enjoy defense — it’s more challenging and more creative.”

Rakowski completed a 13-play, 67-yard drive with a one-yard run, and Dylan Freebury’s extra point gave the Sea Kings a 7-0 lead with 4:25 left in the first quarter.

Bakersfield Christian (11-3) answered with an eight-play, 80-yard march capped by Ethan Eckles’ 24-yard score on a fourth-down screen pass from Lincoln Adame with 1:10 left in the quarter.

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The teams traded punts for the remainder of the first half until Adame connected with Andre Calderon on a 40-yard pass play to set up a season-high 47-yard field goal by Cohen Peters with 23 seconds left in the second quarter to put the visiting Eagles up 10-7 at halftime.

Rakowski bounced off several tacklers like a pinball and raced 31 yards down the sideline on Palos Verdes’ first drive of the second half, and the Sea Kings regained the lead, 14-10.

After stopping Bakersfield on fourth down, Palos Verdes drove 54 yards in seven plays, scoring on Andrew Habif’s nine-yard rush to widen the lead to 21-10 with 8:15 remaining in the fourth quarter. Habif finished with 102 yards on 20 carries.

Palos Verdes beat La Serna 23-7 last Saturday to win the Southern Section Division 5 title, with Rakowski rushing for two touchdowns and Camren Hughes intercepting two passes, one for an 80-yard touchdown. The Sea Kings have won six straight since their 37-3 loss to Inglewood.

Twenty-five players graduated from last year’s squad, which went 10-0 in the regular season, was the Bay League champion and lost 59-35 to Mission Viejo in the Southern Section Division 2 first round. Rakowski threw for 23 touchdowns last year and has passed for 18 more this fall.

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Adame threw for 200 yards and Calderon had four catches for 75 yards for the Eagles, who were shut out in the second half.

“Our defense is built around physicality,” DeMoss said.

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For Boise State, an original giant killer, winning a CFP game would be signature feat

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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“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)

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Archie Manning reveals preferred NFL landing spot for grandson, Texas star Arch Manning

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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.

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Former New Orleans Saints quarterback Archie Manning during a game between the Saints and Detroit Lions at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome Dec. 21, 2015, in New Orleans. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

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.

Arch Manning at the CFP

Arch Manning of the Texas Longhorns warms up before playing against the Washington Huskies in a CFP semifinal at Caesars Superdome Jan. 1, 2024, in New Orleans.  (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Archie doesn’t have direct control over what would transpire in a draft class featuring Arch, but he has wielded influence in the past. 

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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.

Arch Manning throws

Texas quarterback Arch Manning (16) throws against Louisiana-Monroe during the first half of a game in Austin, Texas, Sept. 21, 2024.  (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

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.

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