For women’s basketball, Caitlin Clark’s lasting impact could be economic

Caitlin Clark, the University of Iowa basketball player who has dazzled audiences with her long shooting range and preternatural scoring ability, is one of the sport’s biggest draws.

Tickets for its games were nearly 200 percent more expensive this season than last year, according to Vivid Seats, a ticket exchange and resale company. Fans routinely traveled hundreds of miles to catch a glimpse of her, queuing for hours for a tip and boosting the local economy.

Nearly 10 million people, a record, saw her play in last year’s championship game, a loss to the state of Louisiana. More than three million people tuned in this year as she set the career record for points scored by a Division I college basketball player.

As Ms. Clark prepares for her final NCAA tournament — No. 1 seed Iowa plays its first game Saturday — the excitement has reached a fever pitch. Some wonder whether Ms. Clark’s effect on the popularity of women’s sports and its economy will continue after her career at Iowa ends.

Viewers, thanks to media rights deals, and corporate sponsorships are the main sources of revenue for college and professional sports. In women’s sports, these have long lagged behind what men’s sports receive. In 2019, for example, women’s sports programming accounted for less than 6 percent of coverage on ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” according to one researcher. study.

But in recent years, women’s sports have seen significant growth. a November report from Deloitte predicted that women’s sports would generate more than $1 billion in global revenue this year, about 300 percent more than the company’s 2021 estimate. Globally, sponsorships in women’s professional leagues will increase by 22 percent in 2023, compared to a 24 percent increase in men’s sports, according to SponsorUnited, which tracks corporate sponsorships and deals.

“You need women like Caitlin Clark, who are so amazing you can’t miss them,” said Michael Pachter, technical analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Stars make sports. The 1979 men’s national title game between Magic Johnson’s Michigan State and Larry Bird’s Indiana State remains the most watched college basketball game of all time. Both stars went on to join the National Basketball Association, making the league more popular than ever before.

Before the Johnson-Bird NBA era, the league’s finals were broadcast on tape delay. Today, the NBA makes billions of dollars from its television deals, and star players earn more than $60 million per season.

And as TV networks have tried to give viewers reasons to tune in during the streaming era, the rights to broadcast popular men’s sports like football, hockey and basketball have become expensive. That has prompted networks to make deals to broadcast sports, such as women’s basketball, that don’t cost as much and are expected to grow viewership.

“The networks have run into an economic problem where they are paying too much for the sports they need to fill their network space,” said Andrew Barrett, managing director of STS Capital Partners who works in sports management. “You start watching women’s sports because that’s what people watch.”

In January, the NCAA signed a deal with ESPN that valued the annual rights to broadcast the women’s basketball tournament at more than $60 million, more than ten times what the network paid in the previous deal in 2011.

The network pays $25 million to $33 million a year to broadcast some Women’s National Basketball Association games, while Scripps reportedly pays $13 million per year. The WNBA’s previous deal exclusively with ESPN was signed in 2013 for $12 million per year. Sports business magazine. Annual revenue has nearly doubled from $100 million in 2019 to about $200 million in 2023, according to Bloomberg.

“We are not a charity,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said during a recent panel discussion with law firm Kramer Levin. “We are a true sports media and entertainment company.”

When Ms. Clark said she would forgo her senior year of college to enter this spring’s WNBA draft, the effect was immediate. The Indiana Fever, who are expected to select her with the No. 1 overall pick in April, saw a more than 200 percent increase in the average price of their season opener, according to Vivid Seats.

Ms. Clark’s success follows decades of progress for women in sports, dating back to the 1972 passage of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational institutions and has led to skyrocketing funding for — and participation in — women’s sports . The World Cup won by the US women’s soccer team in 1999 sparked interest and investment at the youth level. Serena Williams changed the audience for tennis, and athletes like race car driver Danica Patrick and fighter Ronda Rousey brought new viewers to their sport.

Andrew Zimbalist, professor of economics at Smith College, said Ms Clark’s success was “another event in a long line of events” that had increased acceptance of all women’s sports.

“There has been a positive evolution since Title IX was passed in 1972,” Mr. Zimbalist said.

Unlike previous generations, Ms. Clark has been able to immediately reap the benefits of her fame due to a 2021 change in NCAA rules that allows college athletes to profit from their own name, image and likeness, including through product endorsements and sponsorship deals. Ms. Clark’s sponsorship deals – estimated at $3 million, according to To3, a site that tracks NIL deals, means she makes more than most WNBA players. (Her projected base salary for her rookie season is $76,000.)

Ms. Clark is hardly the first female basketball star to generate intense interest. The WNBA was founded largely due to the popularity of women’s basketball. Renowned programs such as the University of Tennessee and the University of Connecticut collected multiple championships and featured stars such as Tamika Catchings, Chamique Holdsclaw, Candace Parker, Rebecca Lobo, Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi.

But progress comes in fits and starts. In 1997, the WNBA’s first season, average attendance was about 10,000. Three years later, the league expanded to 16 teams. In 2023 there were only 12 teams and the average attendance was less than 7,000. The 2023 finals averaged 728,000 viewers, an improvement on 2022, but lower than the 2003 finals, which were watched by an average of 848,000 viewers.

Mr. Pachter said he did not think the audience for women’s basketball would reach hundreds of millions overnight. But he sees interest continuing to grow steadily and can imagine a future where a streaming service could try to own exclusive rights to a league like the WNBA. For that to happen, other stars have to reach Ms. Clark’s level.

“You need three or four more, but they’re coming,” Mr. Pachter said. “They will emerge because we are paying attention now.”