Darren Rovell Gets Buried In Community Notes After Revealing He Has No Idea How Caitlin Clark's NIL Deal Works

Published|Updated

Caitlin Clark made the somewhat expected announcement that she will be entering the 2024 WNBA draft following the conclusion of Iowa's season. Some, including the presumed knower of all things money and sport, Darren Rovell, seem to think Clark is leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table by turning professional given her NIL deal.

Anyone with access to the Internet and the most basic understanding of how endorsements work knows that isn't the case for Clark.

Rovell first exposed himself to not knowing how Clark's NIL deal at Iowa or many endorsement deals are structured when he shared a pot of her WNBA draft announcement by claiming she would be taking a $750k paycut by turning professional.

Rovell's post on X, formerly Twitter, was flagged with a community note that explained that her endorsement portfolio - which is separate from NIL - is valued at around $910k. Clark isn't expected to lose a single sponsor when turning professional. In fact, she'll only be presented with more endorsement deals.

This didn't stop Rovell from doubling, and then tripling down.

Rovell's post about not saying anything about endorsements is fair, but then he accused people of not knowing how NIL deals work which immediately backfired on him.

READ: Darren Rovell Turtles After Taking NIL Shot At Tennessee Vols Baseball Program

Clark hasn't taken any money from Iowa's NIL collective and has only been cashing in on endorsement deals that have nothing to do with the university. She left the NIL pot for her teammates while making plenty of money elsewhere. 

Rovell apparently missed that memo, but thankfully the lovely people of X informed him.

Outside of scholarship perks, Clark's ‘salary’ at Iowa is exactly $0. That number will increase when she signs her first WNBA contract and the current and future endorsement deals will make the pot that much sweeter for the superstar.

This is not complicated.

Tags
Written by

Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.