First of all, I'd ask everyone to quit digging up old articles about me. My views have changed a lot since my Princeton days.
re: Clark, Brink, Reese and the money they will make in the WNBA vs. staying in college. This year's women's NCAA basketball finals was watched by over 18 million people. The average WNBA finals game hasn't been watched by over 1 million people since it's inaugural years.
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/10...iewership/
For sure, this year's NCAAW viewership blew up because of Caitlin. But womens college hoop has always been more popular than the professional women's league. The 2012 Baylor Stanford final 4 game drew almost 4M viewers. The Bird-Taurasi UConn years in the early 2000's drew around 5M viewers.
Angel Reese alone (!) has over 2M unique Instagram followers and over 6M combined followers on social media. Caitlin Clark has about 1.2M Instagram followers and it will balloon from there. Any individual post of theirs generates more eyeballs than a broadcasted WNBA game. I really do think they are collectively trying to launch the WNBA into popularity, much like the Magic-Bird time period of the NBA. (side note - I don't think they will be successful, because the WNBA leadership is pretty clueless IMO. They don't have a David Stern). As I've posted before, the popularity of top college players drops significantly when they go pro (e.g. how many of you think about Sabrina now vs. when she was in college and on SportsCenter every game). IMO, Caitlin and Cam have a chance to be special for the league and to maintain their popularity, but Angel Reese's career has likely peaked.
The top draft picks are leaving a ton of money on the table by not using their final year of college eligibility, especially if they were to transfer. Each could pick up Kiki-like money, probably more. But the bigger money would come from a rise in their popularity. They would accumulate more followers (which are gold) and endorsement deals. I do commend them for trying to drive change and pave the path for others to follow.
re: Clark, Brink, Reese and the money they will make in the WNBA vs. staying in college. This year's women's NCAA basketball finals was watched by over 18 million people. The average WNBA finals game hasn't been watched by over 1 million people since it's inaugural years.
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/10...iewership/
For sure, this year's NCAAW viewership blew up because of Caitlin. But womens college hoop has always been more popular than the professional women's league. The 2012 Baylor Stanford final 4 game drew almost 4M viewers. The Bird-Taurasi UConn years in the early 2000's drew around 5M viewers.
Angel Reese alone (!) has over 2M unique Instagram followers and over 6M combined followers on social media. Caitlin Clark has about 1.2M Instagram followers and it will balloon from there. Any individual post of theirs generates more eyeballs than a broadcasted WNBA game. I really do think they are collectively trying to launch the WNBA into popularity, much like the Magic-Bird time period of the NBA. (side note - I don't think they will be successful, because the WNBA leadership is pretty clueless IMO. They don't have a David Stern). As I've posted before, the popularity of top college players drops significantly when they go pro (e.g. how many of you think about Sabrina now vs. when she was in college and on SportsCenter every game). IMO, Caitlin and Cam have a chance to be special for the league and to maintain their popularity, but Angel Reese's career has likely peaked.
The top draft picks are leaving a ton of money on the table by not using their final year of college eligibility, especially if they were to transfer. Each could pick up Kiki-like money, probably more. But the bigger money would come from a rise in their popularity. They would accumulate more followers (which are gold) and endorsement deals. I do commend them for trying to drive change and pave the path for others to follow.