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WNBA Will Still Lose MILLIONS In 2024 Despite Nonstop Media Coverage

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Executives overseeing the WNBA might have to wait a while longer before seeing how the benefits of the league’s most prominent player in history will affect its bottom line.

Women’s basketball is projected to lose $50 million across the 2024 season despite signing Caitlin Clark to the Indiana Fever in May, according to the Daily Caller. The development comes amid the most attention from fans in decades as a result of the young superstar’s prominence in pop culture and performance on the court. She finished her collegiate career by taking Iowa to back-to-back national championship games, burnishing her credentials as a top guard, and presaging a successful professional career to come.

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However, “The Caitlin Clark Effect,” as observers have taken to calling her addition to the WNBA, won’t be enough to stave off a projected $50 million annual loss, according to two sources who spoke with the Washington Post. “The truth is, this league would be hard-pressed to exist without the NBA,” one WNBA executive admitted on the condition of anonymity. Subsidies from men’s basketball have not kept pace with seven-figure losses suffered year after year. “On average [we’ve lost] over $10 million every year we’ve operated,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver previously told the AP in 2018.

A financial analysis by the Post suggests the WNBA may be worth upwards of $500 million, though it’s unclear how equity in its 12 teams is divided. People familiar with franchise ownership told the outlet that roughly 15% of each team is divvied out, a figure that not all team owners appreciate or support. Engelbert added at the time that the sums were used for player development and advertising. The Caller pointed out that a separate analysis showed the league may have lost as much as a quarter-billion dollars over its 30-year existence.

Clark, 22, has breathed life into women’s sports more broadly and catalyzed conversations around equal pay and prominence as female leagues struggle to obtain viewership on par with men’s. The U.S. women’s soccer team, led by former star Megan Rapinoe, a vocally liberal advocate of transgender players and critic of former President Donald Trump, publicly petitioned the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) to institute equal pay and in 2016 formally sued. A landmark equal pay agreement valued at $24 million was reached in 2022, the Post reported.

Still, Clark’s reinvigoration of the topic — and her notable lack of outspokenness — hasn’t kept her from drawing jealous enemies on the court. Last week an opposing player appeared to call Clark a “b****” mid-game and shoved her to the ground, prompting outcries on social media and renewed scrutiny of unsportsmanlike conduct. Despite remaining silent on Clark’s treatment, the WNBA is set to score additional media deals thanks to her membership. Whether those deals translate into a net positive cash flow next year remains to be seen.

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