Will Caitlin Clark Be Grossly Underpaid?

Caitlin Clark is among the biggest gamers within the historical past of girls’s faculty basketball, a queen of the Identify/Picture/License (NIL) period in collegiate athletics who has confirmed herself to be a bankable star to the tune of tens of millions of {dollars}, and the latest face of the WNBA’s Indiana Fever. Due to her contract with the Fever, she can be now one of many Present Issues that has folks abuzz and outraged on social media. Why, folks marvel, will Caitlin Clark be paid lower than $100,000 per yr whereas NBA gamers take house many tens of millions for doing one thing that’s virtually an identical, mechanically talking?

The reply is fairly easy: lots of people are keen to pay some huge cash to observe the NBA. The WNBA, in the meantime, has a a lot smaller viewers of followers who aren’t as keen to open their wallets for tickets, TV and streaming subscriptions that carry NBA video games, and merchandise. Cash talks. The plenty’ cash screams “YES” to the NBA and whispers “nicely, okay” to the WNBA. Male athletes earn far more than feminine athletes not due to physiological variations per se, variations within the variety of video games groups play, as a result of they deserve extra from the hand of God, or as a result of capturing, kicking, or hitting a ball is “a person’s job.” They earn extra as a result of they serve a a lot bigger market. The identical forces clarify why your economics professor makes lower than your faculty’s soccer coach.

That’s to not say issues may not change. I appeared a couple of months in the past and was intrigued to see that tickets to see Iowa ladies’s basketball had been going for nicely over $100 every whereas tickets to see Iowa males’s basketball had been going for a lot much less. Possibly Caitlin Clark will do for the WNBA what Messi did for Main League Soccer and promote out each recreation in all places she goes. Ice Dice has supplied Clark $5 million to play in his 3-on-3 males’s skilled league on a schedule that wouldn’t battle along with her WNBA commitments. 

Don’t get me flawed: ladies’s sports activities are a good time. In 2023 I went to ladies’s hockey video games on the College of Minnesota and the College of Toronto and had a blast. The actual fact stays, although, that the most-watched video games in ladies’s NCAA match historical past could be among the many least-watched Remaining 4 video games in males’s NCAA match historical past. There merely isn’t sufficient demand for seats at, broadcasts of, and merchandise associated to ladies’s sports activities to help WNBA gamers at NBA salaries.

“However what occurs when demand rises and there is NBA-like demand for the WNBA?” Then they are going to be paid NBA-like salaries. I’m reminded of one thing Paul Krugman wrote in response to the declare that free commerce with low-wage overseas nations will drive down American requirements of dwelling: if Bangladesh instantly adopted the establishments that may enable Bangladeshis to accumulate American-level capital and accumulate American-level expertise, then Bangladeshis will earn American-level incomes.Feminine athletes don’t earn lower than male athletes due to a sinister conspiracy to maintain them down. They earn much less as a result of there simply isn’t as a lot demand for what they’ve to supply. In case you nonetheless assume that is unfair and need to take motion, although, it’s straightforward: you may get Indiana Fever tickets right here, and right here’s the WNBA season schedule. I very nicely might plan a future go to to a WNBA metropolis to coincide with when Caitlin Clark and the Fever are on the town. Or possibly not: it seems to be like Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever can be a fairly sizzling ticket.