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Will she or won’t she? That is the question many college basketball fans have about Caitlin Clark and whether or not she will declare for the WNBA after this season.
Clark is one of the biggest stars in the women’s college basketball game and is sure to draw a lot of eyeballs to the WNBA if she decides to declare for the draft.
Her decision comes down to whether or not she wants to return to the University of Iowa for a fifth year, try to win a national championship for her home state’s team, put the all-time NCAA scoring record even further out of reach, and continue to rake in all that NIL money she’s been racking up.
Unlike with the men’s college basketball players and the NBA, a star of Caitlin Clark’s stature doesn’t really stand to make a significant amount of additional money by going pro. (The average salary in the WNBA is around $147,000.)
But that’s not the only reason, Clark and other women’s college basketball players are hesitant to jump to the WNBA.
SEC Freshman of the Year Flau’jae Johnson, who has a NIL valuation of $1.1 million which should continue to grow, says she wants to see other changes made within the WNBA before she eventually turns pro.
“The conditions for the players,” Johnson explained to Fox News. “You go to college, and you’re treated like a pro. Then, you go to the pros and you’re treated not like a professional. In that way, I say the league can be better. I know everybody will say revenue, but it’s going to take time for the game to get to where it’s supposed to get.
“I think just the conditions for the players, living arrangements, travel arrangements, that’s very important to the athlete. I was fortunate enough to be in college for the NIL era, so I’ll be more than fine going to the league. But, yeah, that’s very important.”
Many WNBA players end up playing overseas during the offseason, often making more money, sometimes significantly more money, than they do here in America.
Current players like Jonquel Jones of the New York Liberty hope that the WNBA will soon start to provide players with the same things other leagues do.
“I think shedding a light on that is going to hopefully bring more of those conversations to the table and allow the Caitlin Clarks and Angel Reeses to not have to do what we do,” Jones told Fox News.
In 2022, Jones told ESPN that she made her annual WNBA salary in just one month playing for Ekaterinburg.
Granted, not everyone makes that kind of money overseas, but for players like Johnson, Reese and Clark, that certainly would be the case for them as well.