Caitlin Clark’s 4-year contract worth $338,000 with the Indiana Fever is lucrative by WNBA standards but paltry compared to NBA recipients. In fact, only NBA players earning the minimum for a two-way contract (in between the NBA and its developmental league) have a salary similar to or lower than Clark’s. Yet, several conservative commentators declared that even by those standards, Clark was overpaid. Clay Travis, in an April 2024 episode of a podcast he shares with Buck Sexton, made it known he wasn’t impressed with the size of Clark’s first-year salary in a league he obviously deplored. “The fact that she makes 75K is a testament to the fact that this organization needs to exist to make Democrats and leftists feel better even though they don’t support it themselves,” he retorted, per Media Matters.
According to podcaster and self-described “theocratic fascist” Matt Walsh, Clark’s salary shouldn’t amount to anything more than a goose egg. “By all rights, as a simple economic matter, WNBA players should not be getting paid anything,” declared Walsh, arguing that the league survives due to NBA subsidization. “If they’re getting paid anything above zero, they are overpaid.” Sports broadcaster James Whitlock was harsher on the issue via his “Fearless” podcast, directing his remarks towards WNBA players he felt had a sense of entitlement. “You should be just like all the angry feminists that have dominated the WNBA and led it to 30-plus years of no profit and total irrelevance,” he said, per X (formerly Twitter).
