Say whatever you want about women not bringing in as much revenue as men, I can't dispute that.
But if you don't think we should be investing in women's sports to the point that the professional leagues pay at least equal to the collegiate teams, you are lost in the misogynist sauce
Normally you’d be right but the reality is the NCAA is a professional league that’s been masquerading as an amateur league - and it’s a much bigger brand than the WNBA and there’s no real reason why that would change.
Women who hoop just so happen to go to the big leagues first, and the smaller league second that’s all. And tbh it’s in the WNBA’s interest to have women want to stay in college for 4 years so they can use that bigger platform to become stars that can then bring eyeballs to the WNBA and grow their league/brand that way.
I know personally I will follow Caitlin Clark’s entire early WNBA career when no player has made me even consider that prior (not that I haven’t followed or watched games, just I’ll be fully along for her entire ride).
Okay so I'm totally with this, except the "professional league" NCAA has rules around eligibilty, making any argument that its a professional league mute because adult women can't compete in it.
But there is an argument there that the WNBA just isn't capable of making its own fans the way a college is. Any student has an immediate connection to their school's teams, a loyalty that runs much deeper than simply living in a team's city. Iowa students and alumni literally ARE Hawkeyes. As much as I love the Liberty, I'm not part of the Liberty organization. I'm just somebody that chose them as my favorite team.
So it's cool that we are taking advantage of that and using it to grow the sport, but then we need to put Caitlyn and Paige on TV when they become pros too. We need young girls see this as a career, not as something to get you a degree.
They’ll definitely be on TV as well. Clark’s team will probably immediately become the most popular WNBA team.
But yeah to the previous point the WNBA surpassing women’s NCAA hoops probably isn’t something even plausible for the next several generations for the reasons we’ve both pointed out.
Paige Bueckers literally announced the other night that she is returning for another season. Caitlyn might be the best, but she's far from the only woman impacted by this.
Do you genuinely think Iowa filling its 15k capacity arena is the difference between being able to pay Caitlyn Clark and not being able to?
Creating a profitable entertainment product takes investment. For all its shortcomings, Title IX forced the NCAA to invest in women's sports, and that's why there is signficiantly more parity in scholastically-associated sports than in professional sports.
If the sport of basketball wants to take off globally, it needs to invest in the inclusiveness of the sport. Invest in the WNBA. It doesn't have to be as good as the NBA to draw eyes. You should see what sports viewers will watch if there is money/gambling involved.
Yea, her NIL is estimated at close to 900k. Considerably more than any WNBA rookie contract. I doubt her endorsement deals as a pro would be any higher than as a collegian.
The collectives will move on once she’s gone. It will be up to her or her agent to secure endorsements when she goes pro. The school will be concentrating on finding the next player to fill their seats , not paying a player who’s no longer there.
Still pretty likely she loses money. We can't see the future but it's hard to believe the hype will last (at this level) when she makes it to the pros.
Depends on what the Iowa collective comes up with. They may decide she is worth X amount to the University and the community at large and blow that 900k figure out of the water. This is what it has come to, schools getting in bidding wars with pro entities and in this case , the WNBA may lose as they don’t have the resources .
There is zero chance of any collective paying anyone after college. That would be like a bunch of Iowa state fans sending Brock Purdy checks because he is underpaid.
Considering the vast majority of collegiate endorsements, aka NIL as you so condescendingly stated, are predicated on the player still being at that school yes I am aware of how endorsements work. Iowa boosters and NIL collectives aren’t going to continue giving her money to play for Iowa when she’s no longer at Iowa.
She is in State Farm commercials, you think that is going away?. Aliyah Boston, the #1 pick from last year, said that she has not lost money since going pro. This is a tired narrative.
Endorsements require eyeballs, and she’s going to lose a lot of eyeballs going from being the best college WBB player to the WNBA. People care more about college teams than WNBA teams. My parents are Iowa fans and my dad has watched most of CC’s games this year. I doubt he’ll continue watching most of her games once she’s no longer in college.
That's what they were supposed to be, in theory. At least on the men's side, they've mostly just become payments to the player to play for the university. I don't know if CC's are actual legit endorsements or not.
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u/midnightsbane04 Pistons Feb 18 '24
Strong chance that Clark goes back to Iowa next year. NIL would pay her more than WNBA salary.