Biographer Floats Idea Of Caitlin Clark Starting Her Own League With Help Of One Brand
Christine Brennan isn't completely shutting down the idea of a Caitlin Clark league.
Caitlin Clark starting her own league that would rival the WNBA has been a theory floated from the moment she began her professional career. In the midst of her second season in the league, that theory has not gone away, and now Clark's biographer is adding more fuel to the idea.
USA Today columnist and author Christine Brennan, who recently joined OutKick's Hot Mic to discuss her new Clark biography, was asked on a recent appearance on ESPN LA about the idea of the WNBA superstar leaving the league to create her own.
It sounds far-fetched to think one singular player could leave the WNBA and build her own professional league from scratch, but when you are the face of women's basketball with tremendous backing from some of the biggest brands in the world, it becomes a bit easier to fathom.
"Nike loves her. She’s got Wilson, obviously. She’s got Gatorade. Even though the salary’s $76,000 for a rookie — it’s more this year now — she’s making $28 million from Nike alone, according to the Wall Street Journal," Brennan explained. "So she’s at $40 million, whatever. Fine, she’s doing great. And if Nike said, ‘We’re going to make the Nike-Clark league,’ it would obviously take a few years to get the arenas and whatever.
"But you know the TV contract. I mean, it’s Caitlin. Again, the TV viewership, it’s Caitlin Clark. It’s not Angel [Reese] and Caitlin. It’s Caitlin, it’s Caitlin Clark only. And I think Angel’s a great rebounder and excellent at what she does, but she doesn’t move the needle on TV ratings. It’s Caitlin."
Not only is Clark the undisputed face of the WNBA and needle when it comes to television ratings, she's also been roughed up in the early parts of the season to which many have claimed the league is doing a poor job of protecting her.
Clark simply becoming sick of being pushed around as the revenue getter for the WNBA and leaving to do her own thing is another layer to the theory she could test the waters of creating her own league.
Brennan, like most others, has taken notice of the WNBA's lack of leadership that seems to care about Clark and her well-being as the league is looking to build on momentum.
"I think they could absolutely put it together in a couple of years," Brennan said of Clark building her own league alongside Nike and others. "And I’ll stay on that because I agree with you. It’s fascinating and it’s doable because of the void in the vacuum of leadership the WNBA continues to exhibit."
Clark leaving the WNBA to create her own league feels like something that isn't even close to being put on the table at this point, but then again, we've never seen a similar move like the face of a league leaving said league to create their own.