Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark has been getting a lot of comments and has sparked a long chain of discussion over the past weeks since she was named TIME Magazine’s 2024 Athlete of the Year. While a lot of people, including team owners of the WNBA, had come to attack her over her comments and statements from her TIME interview, a number of people also came to her defense. One of the people who offered kind and encouraging words to the WNBA star was a global sports marketing executive.
In a feature piece on Forbes, The Collective Executive Vice President Thayer Lavielle referred to Clark as the “lighting rod” of women’s sports.
“Caitlin Clark became the lightning rod of this moment in time,” Lavielle said. “It’s a long path to equity. The men’s side of the ecosystem is $54 billion.”
According to Lavielle, “the value of professional women’s basketball and soccer stands to increase by a combined $1.6 billion over the next three years, a figure that is based on attendance and viewership (on television or streaming equivalents) and doesn’t include merchandise or media deals.”
Based on the numbers coming from Laville’s The Collective, women’s sports before 2024 only amounted to 15% of total sports media coverage and 10% of sponsorship dollars.
Caitlin Clark’s “Real Value” to The WNBA Calculated
There is no denying that the popularity of Caitlin Clark, as well as the record-breaking viewership and audience count that she has brought to WNBA games have brought in some cash to the league, too. But how much value has she brought exactly?
The Indy Star brought renowned “valuation guru” Dr. Ryan Brewer to calculate how much value Clark is bringing to the women’s basketball league. Based on the calculation, Clark is responsible for at least 26.5% of the WNBA’s league-wide activity for the 2024 season, and she has boosted TV viewership by 300%, with 45% of the total views coming from Fever games where she played.
Clark also boosted the WNBA merchandise finances, as the league saw a 500% growth, mainly due to Clark’s influence, with Angel Reese coming in as the #2 contributor. It was also estimated that her overall financial impact on the Indiana Fever was a boost of no less than $36 million.
This was only for the WNBA and the Fever. Outside of professional basketball, Caitlin Clark was reportedly charging no less than $100,000 for a thirty-minute virtual talk.
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