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The Clark Effect in Dollars: How One Player Moved the WNBA’s Money

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3 days ago

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Caitlin Clark did not change the WNBA’s money by herself, and the league was growing before she arrived. What she did, in clear and measured ways, was speed that growth up and make it easier to count. Tickets, television audiences and merchandise all moved in the same direction during her rookie season in 2024.

What the research counted

A study by Indiana University associate professor Dr. Ryan Brewer, reported by Sports Business Journal, found Clark was responsible for 26.5 percent of the WNBA’s leaguewide activity for the 2024 season, including attendance, merchandise sales and television. By Brewer’s calculation, one of every six tickets sold at a WNBA arena that season could be attributed to Clark, according to Sports Business Journal.

The same study put television viewership attributed to Clark up 300 percent, with 45 percent of total broadcast value coming from Indiana Fever games, according to Sports Business Journal. League merchandise sales rose 500 percent, with Clark ranked first among players, according to Sports Business Journal.

The effect reached beyond the league’s own buildings. IndyStar reported an estimate that Clark had a $36 million economic impact on Indianapolis alone in her rookie season. A home city feeling that kind of lift from one athlete explains why teams and leagues pay so much attention to star power when they plan schedules, broadcasts and sponsorships.

The media deal that followed

In July 2024, the WNBA reached an 11-year media rights agreement reported at $2.2 billion with Disney, Amazon and NBCUniversal, according to USA TODAY. That is the league’s television and streaming money, the central pot that supports team and league operations year after year.

Read the timing plainly. Broadcasters do not pay for one player. They pay for audiences they expect to keep. A season in which more people attended, watched and bought than before gave the league a stronger case at the negotiating table, and Clark’s measured share of that activity was part of the story those numbers told.

Her own deal, away from her team salary

Clark’s personal endorsement money tells a separate story about where a modern star earns. The Associated Press reported a $28 million, eight-year deal with Nike that includes a signature shoe. Sports Illustrated also reported the agreement as an eight-year deal worth up to $28 million.

That structure matters. A player’s team salary is set by the league’s pay system. Endorsement income is set by the market for that player’s name, image and following. For Clark, the reported Nike agreement alone shows how much larger the second number can be than a young player’s early team pay, and why shoe and sponsor deals are watched so closely in women’s basketball.

The careful conclusion is not that one player created a league’s value. It is that the value showed up in places researchers could measure: 26.5 percent of leaguewide activity, according to Sports Business Journal; a media agreement reported at $2.2 billion over 11 years, according to USA TODAY; and a Nike agreement reported at $28 million over eight years by The Associated Press. That is the Clark effect, stated in dollars instead of slogans.

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We Speak Financials

Formula 1’s Money Boom in America

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16 hours ago

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October 27, 2026

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A generation ago, Formula 1 treated the United States as a nice place to visit. Today it treats America as the engine room. Three U.S. races, a Las Vegas event the sport promotes itself, and team values that now rival the biggest franchises in American sports tell a story that is less about lap times than about money — and the money is moving fast.

Start with the valuations. In Forbes’ November 2025 ranking of Formula 1’s most valuable teams, Ferrari led the grid at an estimated $6.5 billion, with Mercedes second at $6 billion and McLaren third at $4.4 billion. Across all ten teams, the average valuation reached $3.6 billion — up 89 percent since 2023, according to Forbes — and every single team on the grid was valued at $1.5 billion or more. A cost cap introduced in 2021 turned teams from spending contests into controlled businesses, and investors have priced them accordingly.

Then there is Las Vegas. Formula 1 did something in Vegas it does almost nowhere else: it promoted the race itself, buying land, building a permanent pit facility and collecting the ticket and hospitality revenue directly. The inaugural 2023 race generated an estimated $1.5 billion in total economic impact for the city, according to analysis by Applied Analysis reported by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, including $884 million in visitor spending — with attendees spending about 3.6 times more than the average Las Vegas visitor. The race drew a global television audience reported at 59.3 million.

The audience story backs up the asset story. The inaugural Las Vegas race pulled 1.3 million U.S. viewers on ESPN despite a 1 a.m. Eastern start, and the sport’s American calendar — Austin, Miami and Las Vegas — now gives sponsors three premium weekends on U.S. soil instead of one novelty stop.

Austin’s long-running race and Miami’s event, added in 2022, round out the American trio, giving teams, sponsors and broadcasters a season-long presence in the sport’s largest commercial market rather than a single annual visit.

Put it together and the boom explains itself: capped costs, soaring team values, a self-promoted American flagship race, and sponsors paying record rates to stand next to all of it. Formula 1 did not just find America. It found America’s wallet — and America’s investors found it right back.

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