Caitlin Clark frenzy reaches WNBA (2024)

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Eight days after completing one of the greatest collegiate basketball careers ever recorded, Caitlin Clark was selected with the No. 1 in Monday’s WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever.

Clark is poised to not only help the Fever return to the postseason for the first time since 2016, but also use her star power to jolt the WNBA at a critical juncture in its history. "I think more than anything I’m just really excited," Clark told NBC News this past weekend.

Clark achieved historic levels of success over her four seasons at Iowa. She scored 3,951 points — the most ever in NCAA men’s or women’s Division I history. She also broke the record for 3-pointers in a single season, made two national championship appearances and twice was named the National Player of the Year.

Those are just some of her accolades from a career that was so prolific that Iowa announced last week — not even a week after her college career ended — it will retire her No. 22 jersey.

Clark often performed in front of sellout crowds and her games shattered television viewing records. South Carolina’s win over Iowa in the 2024 national championship was seen on ABC by 18.9 million viewers, with a peak audience of 24.1 million — a 90 percent increase from the 2023 title game and a 289 percent increase from 2022. The game broke viewership records that had been set only days before in Iowa’s Elite Eight matchup against LSU.

Even Monday’s draft at the Brooklyn Academy of Music was expected to break the event’s ratings record.

Follow along here for live updates and analysis from The Athletic's staff.

First round results

1. Indiana Fever: Caitlin Clark, G, Iowa
2. Los Angeles Sparks: Cameron Brink, F, Stanford
3. Chicago Sky (via Phoenix Mercury): Kamilla Cardoso, C, South Carolina
4. Los Angeles Sparks (via Seattle Storm): Rickea Jackson, F, Tennessee
5. Dallas Wings (via Chicago Sky): Jacy Sheldon, G, Ohio State
6. Washington Mystics: Aaliyah Edwards, F, UConn
7. Chicago Sky (via Minnesota Lynx): Angel Reese, F, LSU
8. Minnesota Lynx (via Atlanta Dream): Alissa Pili, F, Utah
9. Dallas Wings: Carla Leite, G, Tarbes (France)
10. Connecticut Sun: Leila Lacan, G, Angers (France)
11. New York Liberty: Marquesha Davis, G, Ole Miss
12. Atlanta Dream (via Las Vegas Aces): Nyadiew Puoch, F, Southside Flyers (Australia)

Second round results

1. Chicago Sky: Brynna Maxwell, G, Gonzaga
2. Seattle Storm: Nika Mühl, G, UConn
3. Indiana Fever: Celeste Taylor, G, Ohio State
4. Las Vegas Aces: Dyaisha Fair, G, Syracuse
5. New York Liberty: Esmery Martinez, F, Arizona
6. Las Vegas Aces: Kate Martin, G, Iowa
7. Connecticut Sun: Taiyanna Jackson, C, Kansas
8. Atlanta Dream: Isobel Borlase, G, Adelaide Lightning (Australia)
9. Washington Mystics: Kaylynne Truong, G, Gonzaga
10. Connecticut Sun: Helena Pueyo, G, Arizona
11. New York Liberty: Jessika Carter, G, Mississippi State
12. Las Vegas Aces: Elizabeth Kitley, C, Virginia Tech

Third round results

1. Phoenix Mercury: Charisma Osborne, G, UCLA
2. Seattle Storm: Mackenzie Holmes, F, Indiana
3. Indiana Fever: Leilani Correa, G, Florida
4. Los Angeles Sparks: Mckenzie Forbes, F, USC
5. Phoenix Mercury: Jaz Shelley, G, Nebraska
6. Washington Mystics: Nastja Claessens, G, Belgium
7. Minnesota Lynx: Kiki Jefferson, G, Louisville
8. Atlanta Dream: Matilde Villa, G, Italy
9. Dallas Wings: Ashley Owusu, G, Penn State
10. Connecticut Sun: Abbey Hsu, G, Columbia
11. New York Liberty: Kaitlyn Davis, F, USC
12. Las Vegas Aces: Angel Jackson, C, Jackson State

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Find the best deals on tickets to see your favorite teams.

Thirty-six Indiana Fever games — 90 percent of its schedule — will be on national television this upcoming season, one more than the back-to-back champion Las Vegas Aces. According to ticket marketplace Vivid Seats, as of Wednesday, the average sold price for Indiana Fever tickets increased 190 percent since last season. The average list price on Vivid Seats for Indiana’s season-opener against the Connecticut Sun was up 91 percent since Caitlin Clark declared for the WNBA Draft in late February.

Even before Clark officially joins the Fever, opposing franchises have scheduled around her expected presence. The Aces moved their July 2 home game against Indiana from their usual stadium into the larger T-Mobile Arena, which can accommodate 6,000 more people. The Minnesota Lynx are holding Maya Moore’s jersey retirement on the same night they host the Fever at the end of August. The Phoenix Mercury are already promoting their first contest against Indiana as The GOAT (Taurasi) vs. The Rook (Clark).

According to StubHub, sales for the Indiana Fever are up more than 13 times as of Thursday compared to this same time last year. “Caitlin Clark is already having a huge impact on the WNBA,” StubHub spokesperson Adam Budelli said in a statement.

This is nothing new to Clark, who sold out all but two games as a senior and drew 55,000 fans for an exhibition game inside Iowa’s football stadium. Clark doesn’t just get fans to spend money on tickets, though, she also pulls in sponsors. She has a growing list of endorsem*nts from blue chip companies — Gatorade and State Farm, for instance — and is on the cusp of a new sneaker deal. Multiple sources with knowledge of the sneaker industry said Clark is set to sign a deal for more than $1 million annually, which would be one of the richest among WNBA players.

The WNBA, which relies on its partnerships as a large source of revenue, could see an influx of new companies interested in working with the league to be tied to Clark, and the Fever could see a boom. Clark’s effect on television ratings could have even more significant implications for the future of the WNBA. Ratings for the WNBA increased last season. The finals averaged 728,000 viewers across ABC and ESPN — the highest in 20 years. Yet Clark’s presence is likely to make the league more bullish as it enters those discussions.

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Being a trendsetting-yet-polarizing college basketball player is something Chris Webber knows well. He has a unique perspective, as well as empathy, for two of the biggest stars in women’s college basketball who will be high draft picks in today’s WNBA Draft.

Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, the presumed No. 1 pick by the Indiana Fever, and LSU star Angel Reese, a projected top-10 pick, have been conversation starters throughout the basketball season. The chatter increased when Iowa beat LSU in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, ending LSU’s bid to repeat as champion. The game averaged 12.3 million viewers and peaked at 16 million viewers, shattering the record (at the time) for the most-watched game in women’s college basketball history. (Iowa’s next win, a Final Four victory over UConn, set the record with 14.2 million viewers and peaking at 17 million viewers.)

Webber, speaking as part of a media tour for his new book “By God’s Grace,” expressed his concern for some of the coverage and attack he’s seen of Clark and Reese, as they remind him of what he dealt with playing two seasons at Michigan as part of the Fab Five, before becoming the No. 1 pick in the 1993 NBA Draft.

Reese said she received death threats and other forms of harassment while playing for LSU. Webber said he and his teammates received death threats at Michigan. He said it’s “admirable” how Reese has handled herself amid the criticism.

“Hopefully, it's her job to stay strong and keep leading, so that when she looks back, she'll be like, ‘Wow, I can't believe I did that,’” Webber said. “But if you think about it right now, while you're going through it, it's going to be tough.”

For as popular as the Fab Five was among a lot of fans, they had a lot of detractors. At the time, a lot of players weren't wearing long shorts and black shoes and socks like they did at Michigan. They shaved their heads bald and carried themselves with a swagger that was very much a part of hip-hop culture. Webber said they requested rap music be played in their arena, which was a change that bothered some.

“We went through it on a different level without social media,” Webber said. “At the time, we were called thugs because we had bald heads. So, we knew the narrative. You understand the dog whistles and the codes."

Webber said he and his teammates leaned on their family and friends during their time. The death threats were tough, Webber said, but they were encouraged to be themselves in spite of the criticism.

By the end of tonight’s draft, only two schools nationally will have first-round selections in the most recent NFL, NBA and WNBA drafts: Iowa and Ohio State. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark will go No. 1 overall while Ohio State should have both Jacy Sheldon and perhaps Celeste Taylor in the first round.

In last year’s NFL draft, Iowa defensive end Lukas Van Ness (Green Bay) and linebacker Jack Campbell (Detroit) were first-rounders. Ohio State’s first-round haul included quarterback C.J. Stroud (Houston), tackle Paris Johnson (Arizona) and receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba (Seattle).

In the 2023 NBA draft, Iowa forward Kris Murray (Portland) was picked 23rd overall while Ohio State forward Brice Sensabaugh (Utah) went No. 30.

Of the three primary draft-related sports (football, women’s basketball, men’s basketball), Caitlin Clark is just the second Iowa player to go No. 1 overall in a draft. Quarterback Randy Duncan, the 1958 Heisman Trophy runner-up, went No. 1 overall to Green Bay in the 1959 NFL draft.

Iowa’s men’s basketball program has 11 first-round selections historically, while the football program has 26 (likely to be 27 next week with defensive back Cooper DeJean). Former Hawkeyes joining Clark in the WNBA’s first round are point guard Sam Logic (2015, Atlanta Dream, 10th overall) and Toni Foster (1997, Phoenix Mercury, eighth overall).

Just eight days after playing for an NCAA national championship, Caitlin Clark is poised to become the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft and burst into the professional ranks with the star power to jolt the league at a pivotal moment in its trajectory.

Throngs of fans are expected to tune in for Monday night’s national broadcast when the Iowa star is all but certain to be selected by the Indiana Fever. From the moment her name is called and Clark takes center stage, she will become the WNBA’s most anticipated rookie in years. A popularity boost similar to the effect she had in women’s college basketball could follow her with every logo 3-pointer she makes and each pin-point pass she throws.

At Iowa, Clark’s impact was even greater than her resumé, which itself was outstanding with three conference tournament titles, two national championship appearances, and dozens of broken records, including the NCAA Division I all-time scoring mark. When Clark played, every game was appointment-viewing. Arenas sold out and television ratings records shattered.

The WNBA has already been on an ascent over the last few seasons with increases in nationally broadcast games, greater attendance and more media coverage. But Clark, who even South Carolina coach Dawn Staley described as “one of the GOATs of our game” after beating Iowa in the championship, is expected to catalyze a surge in fandom, television viewership, attendance and media coverage like no player before. Clark likely will have to continue to perform well and move the Fever out of their bottom-dweller status (Indiana hasn’t made the postseason since 2016) to further juice the WNBA economy. But the early returns indicate she will have an outsized impact.

“I would trade my whole team for her,” said one general manager, granted anonymity by The Athletic to speak freely about Clark. “Partly because our owner would do it to sell tickets. But on top of that, that’s such a great piece to start to build around. She’s (like Diana) Taurasi coming out, and look what Taurasi’s done.”

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There’s an argument to be made that Kamilla Cardoso will end up as the best big in this class. She’s three inches taller than Cameron Brink and a fluid athlete who hasn’t had the same foul issues as her Stanford counterpart. She was the focal point of everything South Carolina did this season. She’s a safety valve on offense because she can catch anything and clean up misses with her offensive rebounding. She’s a backstop on defense, allowing guards to pressure up because they have a shot blocker behind them.

Cardoso barely scratched the surface of her individual offense as a post scorer and is still effective on that end because of her quick passing out of doubles and her work on the glass. The defensive three-second rule will affect how Cardoso positions herself on defense, and she’ll have to improve her conditioning. But seeing how much Cardoso improved even throughout her senior season bodes well for how much she can develop in the WNBA.

Tennessee forward Rickea Jackson averaged about 20 points and eight rebounds per game in arguably the toughest conference in the country. She is an unstoppable shot creator against the best athletes and dropped 33 and 10 in her final collegiate game against NC State. She is physically ready to play in the WNBA and will be able to score right away, even if she still has some work to do providing value off the ball.

There are some questions about Jackson’s consistency and an unexplained suspension in 2022-23. Tennessee also underachieved relative to its talent (though perhaps now-departed coach Kellie Harper is to blame). Nevertheless, those off-court concerns pale compared to her talent on the court. The Sky need all the talent they can get in their rebuild.

So what now?

That’s the big, media-centric question for women’s college basketball. Where does the sport go after the head-spinning viewership figures for the national championship game? South Carolina’s 87-75 win over Iowa on April 7 averaged 18.9 million viewers, the most-viewed women’s college basketball game ever and the most-viewed college basketball game (men’s or women’s) on record for an ESPN platform. The audience was up 90 percent over the 2023 national championship (9.9 million for LSU’s win over Iowa) and 289 percent from 2022 (4.9 million viewers for South Carolina’s win over UConn). The game peaked at 24 million viewers on ABC and ESPN during the final 15 minutes.

The 2024 NCAA Women’s Final Four was the most-viewed on record, averaging 13.8 million viewers. Those numbers included 14.4 million viewers for Iowa-UConn (the second-most-watched women’s college game on record) and 7.2 million viewers for N.C. State and South Carolina. The tournament overall (57 games) across ESPN platforms averaged 2.2 million viewers, up 121 percent from 2023. It’s the most-watched women’s NCAA Tournament since ESPN acquired exclusive rights in 1996.

To put the South Carolina-Iowa viewership in perspective, the game topped:

• Every World Series game since Game 7 in 2019;
• Every NBA Finals game since Game 5 in 2017;
• Every Daytona 500 since 2006;
• Every Masters final round since 2001;
• All but four college football games in 2023;
• All but one non-Olympic women’s sporting event on U.S. television — the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final between the U.S. and Japan.

So that’s the momentum the sport has heading forward. Iowa star Caitlin Clark now moves to the WNBA, and her exit will unquestionably depress next year’s NCAA Tournament viewership numbers. It’s wish-casting to think next year’s title game can draw 18 million or more, but the opportunity to grow women’s college basketball is massive.

The first step, from this perspective, is to increase the visibility of the regular-season schedule.

“What I am focused on with my team is over the next couple of years, can we get it to a better place where we have more consistency in our offering of regular-season women’s college basketball on premier platforms throughout the season,” said Nick Dawson, ESPN senior vice president of programming and acquisitions. “We’ve made small strides there over the past four or five years, but it’s still a little bit spotty throughout the regular season in terms of when the opportunity exists. How do we build a better momentum-building and recurring and consistent platform for the sport, especially through the months of January, February, early March as it leads into the tournament?”

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Caitlin Clark will be the first Iowa women’s basketball player to go No. 1 overall in the WNBA draft. She’s the third player drafted in the first round, joining point guard Sam Logic (2015, Atlanta Dream, 10th overall) and Toni Foster (1997, Phoenix Mercury, eighth overall).

In all, the Hawkeyes have 16 WNBA draft picks with center Monika Czinano the most recent (2023, L.A. Sparks, 26th overall). Center Megan Gustafson (2019, Dallas Wings, 17th overall), who plays for the Las Vegas Aces, joins Clark currently in the WNBA.

The 2024 WNBA Draft order underwent one more makeover Sunday, as Chicago and Minnesota swapped places in the first round. The Lynx sent the Sky their No. 7 pick as well as the rights to Nikolina Milić in exchange for the 2024 No. 8 pick, a 2025 second-rounder, the option to swap first-round picks in 2026, and Sika Koné.

Chicago surrendered quite the haul to move up one spot in the draft, especially for a team that is starting its rebuild and needs as many future assets as possible. That suggests the Sky have a specific target in mind, and it could be Angel Reese, who has the star power and social media reach to transform the Chicago franchise both on and off the court.

The Sky have a long runway back to contention, and that gives them time to develop Reese. As she acknowledged in her draft announcement in Vogue, excelling in the WNBA will be a process. “I want to start at the bottom again,” Reese said. “I want to be a rookie again and build myself back up; I want to be knocked down and learn and grow at the next level.”

Even if Chicago has its eyes on Reese, or any specific player, at No. 7, the question is why the Sky felt compelled to make this trade a day before the draft. Chicago assuredly has intel on what other teams are considering, but there is no guarantee the front office’s desired pick will be on the board when the Sky make their second selection. This is a big swing for Chicago to take, especially at such a high cost.

Tennis legend Serena Williams would "absolutely" have interest in owning a WNBA team if it's the right fit," she told CNN in an interview published Monday.

Williams, who has ownership stakes in Angel City FC of the NWSL and Los Angeles Golf Club in the upcoming TGL, spoke with CNN about the rise of women's college basketball, saying, "I think women's sport is having a moment that it should have always had."

On whether she would be interested in a WNBA team, Williams said:

"I think with the right market. I think I would definitely be super interested in that."

On the latest episode of The Athletic Women's Basketball Show, Zena Keita, Ben Pickman and Sabreena Merchant go deep on the WNBA Draft. They outline the projected outcomes of the lottery picks, highlight players who could go higher than expected, and make bold predictions for Monday.

Listen here.

Last year’s WNBA season featured a historic MVP race between frontcourt players. Breanna Stewart, A’ja Wilson and Alyssa Thomas were separated by only 13 points, with Stewart winning despite not having the most first-place votes. A frontcourt player has won the award every year since 2014, with bigs playing significant importance in the modern WNBA. The frontcourt class in the upcoming 2024 WNBA Draft has the potential to impact the league immediately, with plenty of eyeballs watching to see who goes where.

In anticipation of the event, eight general managers shared their thoughts with The Athletic before the NCAA Tournament about the upcoming class. They were granted anonymity to allow them to speak openly.

Here's what they said about Reese:

• “Angel is a bit of an enigma. Obviously she produces. No matter what people say she can’t do, she produces. Her production speaks for itself. To be one of the top players in the country in scoring and rebounding, her team wins and she’s a competitor. At our level, there will be a transition, but I think she’ll figure it out and find a way, have an impact. But there will be a transition period and how quickly it will be will depend on her, the work she puts in and her ability to continue to develop.”
• “She’s got super long arms, go-go gadget arms. I watch her rebound and she’s matched up against taller players, but a lot of times she gets it because of her ability. Her length is crazy. She’s just a competitor. I like her fight. I don’t know if she’ll be talking as much as she does in college. But I think she’ll be just fine.”
• “I think she has a couple pro skills right now. But Angel has to expand her offensive game to play in our league. She’s not going to be able to do some of the things she does in college as efficiently in our league because you have to expand your offensive game. She’s not a perimeter shooter. She may eventually be there. It’s gonna take her time to have a good pro game. The problem for her is expectations versus what she’ll have to go through these next couple of years.”