Let's do it again CLT ‼️🦃🔥🗓️ Nov 10🆚 @IowaWBB 🤝 @CLTSports pic.twitter.com/e1gGvgVbb6— Virginia Tech Women's Basketball (@HokiesWBB) March 14, 2024
Hopefully the picture is a good omen that Georgia will be there.
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I hope so. Let's Go!
Hokies!
Caitlyn Clark drew a foul at the time of this announcement
Demonstrating how truly bad NCAA women's basketball refs are since she is going pro and won't even be on the team next year LOL !
That's a stacked tournament.
Iowa vs VT
NCSU vs South Carolina
3 teams w/in 4 hours of Charlotte should make for a rowdy crowd.
Clark is staying in college right? Where people in Iowa that make 60K will pay her much more to play than NBA owner billionaires that own the WNBA teams?
No she announced she is going pro. She won't be there so will be interesting to see what Iowa is post-Clark
She's already declared for WNBA. Tidbit here is Georgia being on this. She does have one more year so hopefully that's a sign that she's coming back.
Still not convinced CC is going pro. There's a lot of rumors about a few places trying to pony up to pay her a lucrative amount of money to stay one more year at Iowa, far more than she's earn as a pro. If any of that is even remotely true, I could see her going back on those plans
Correct. The fine hard working Iowa alums that feel the sting of deer hunting license increases, food price increases, gas prices will in fact pony up millions to see if they can pick off Ohio state next year.
Going from over 900k a year to less than $150K. She thinks she is going to keep all of those NIL contracts. Somebody sold her a bill of goods. She is going from a big fish in a small pond who got preferential treatment to just one of many good players. She is going to get shoved around by the big girls in the WNBA all next year.
What is more indicitive of "value" than what an actual professional basketball team will pay you? That is THE bottom line on value. But in fantasy world, she is "worth" 2x that? No she is not. She is simply being paid cash by iowa boosters to play there. It's nothing to do with "market value" - obviously.
In this scenario I guess the markets are the variable and not her inherent value or skillset. Simply put, she's worth more to Iowa boosters playing at Iowa than she is to a national audience playing in the WNBA. She loses her value when she can't directly impact the success of Iowa women's basketball. I'm not sure how that value is defined as it's hard to apply market principles to a system that's based on fandom and some kind of support for higher education institutions. This whole system is a mess and I think things will get crazier before we realize what the true value is and we are left with whatever mess we're left with.
Why would Nike/State Farm/Gatorade/etc drop their deals with her because she left Iowa/CBB? For the short term she's one of the most recognizable female athletes in the country. It's not like she's just getting paid because of a bunch of Iowa boosters, she's probably the best NIL compensated non-CFB athlete in the country right now.
If she sucks in the WNBA? Sure - but there's a ton of assumptions going into that projection.
I just don't see her having the same exposure in the WNBA that she has in NCAAW. One could make the argument that the market for NCAAW is much bigger than the WNBA because it's tied to college loyalty and can feed off of alumi, other sports, state pride, public funding, etc. The WNBA is captive to professional athletes playing for privately owned teams in locations across the US. They are two very different things, and I don't think the skill of the players is a comparable metric as it pertains to the value of name image and likeness.
Why would they? Simple- because they don't make money. Why don't they make money? Nobody watches the WNBA and it would be long bankrupt if not paid for by the NBA. Nike doesn't like to purposely lose money- WNBA players don't resonate nationally, nobody goes to their games and they get miniscule TV ratings. Better question is why WOULD nike endorse her in the WNBA?
Sabrina Ionescu, who I feel like is similar in terms of exposure to Clark during the end of her collegiate years, signed a deal with Nike last year (so three years removed from college) worth over $20 million (Oregon grad nike yada yada), so I really think this is a not good argument. Can she maybe make more in one year staying at Iowa? Sure? Maybe?
Nike and State Farm aren't just going to be like "well its been fun, but you don't go to Iowa now so we aren't going to use you anymore." Does her exposure drop and they drop her too down the road? Maybe? But if it happens now, it was going to happen eventually anyway.
Nike, like the Saudi PIF fund eventually are not going to enjoy no ROI on that investment. WNBA and LIV simply do not move the needle in advertising. They simply do not. Eventually this will catch up
Here are some numbers to back this up.
Average Iowa attendance this year was 11,143 per game plus thousands more each game on TV.
WNBA Average Attendance was like 4500 per game and very few TV views.
That's why her demand for endorsements will dwindle significantly.
Actually, last report I saw she wasn't even in the top 5 for female basketball players. Two or three of the LSU thugs make more money than she does.
She is third behind Reese and Johnson but those two dwarf her in social media followers