DALLAS — Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese will likely be playing against each other for a very long time.
The stars who led the Iowa and Louisiana State programs to their first NCAA women’s basketball championship games are two of the best players in the country, with some of the most lucrative marketing deals among college athletes.
They were the headliners of a remarkable 2020 recruiting class that reached atmospheric heights in women’s college basketball. Reese was ranked No. 2 in the group coming out of high school, just behind Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers. Clark was ranked No. 4, with Stanford’s Cameron Brink at No. 3.
These four players are likely to be household names far beyond college. They have already achieved a significant level of individual fame, and once they arrive in the WNBA, they are set for a long professional career.
They are among the lucky few.
Basketball opportunities for many female athletes peak at the Final Four. The spotlight is rarely brighter, and beyond the trophy LSU will take home after a 102-85 victory on Sunday. is the earning potential newly available for women who stand out. Players across the country who don’t have the power of Reese or Clark are still able to make money from their fans.
But once the season ends, many college athletes will look to continue their careers in the professional ranks and face a ruthlessly crowded job market.
The WNBA faces a problem every spring, when hundreds of athletes compete for 144 spots in the world’s most prestigious professional women’s basketball league. Only 36 players are drafted, and of those, perhaps half could be on the WNBA roster by the time the season begins.
Today, the problem is growing as the talent pool deepens in women’s college basketball.
That talent was evident in this year’s NCAA Tournament, which showed the parity that women’s college basketball has historically lacked. Sunday’s title game in Dallas was the third without a seeded team, with Reese and Clark turning their matches into personal showcases during their teams’ championship runs.
Clark had 30 points and 8 assists in Sunday’s finale after posting back-to-back 41-point performances, including in a semifinal win over tournament favorite South Carolina. Reese, nicknamed Bayou Barbie, won Final Four Most Outstanding Player honors and was a scoring and rebounding machine all season as Louisiana State drew record crowds even before the tournament.
Even though the sport sets records for participation in matches And TV audience, there remains a very high barrier to enter the WNBA, where there are only 12 teams. In last year’s draft, only 17 players drafted were on a team’s opening day roster.
Without a developmental league like the NBA’s G League for the WNBA, players who contributed significantly to the 2023 tournament’s biggest moments and most meaningful wins, like Iowa center Monika Czinano and guard LSU’s Alexis Morris, who had 21 points and 9 assists in the Finals, may have to play professionally outside the WNBA
“We have all these people growing up and mastering their craft, with nowhere to go in the United States,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “It’s really sad that these are the conversations we have to have with our league and our college game that is so healthy, vibrant and growing.”
Expansion seems to be the easy way out, and there have been many calls for the WNBA to add more teams. But the league, which is partially funded by the NBA, has moved slowly in its expansion due to financial problems. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said the league wanted to add two to three teams in the next two to four years.
But WNBA expansion could pose other problems, in the minds of some college coaches.
“It needs to grow,” Arizona coach Adia Barnes said, “but right now a lot of students are not good enough.”
Barnes feared that significant expansion could “water down” the league and thus do more harm than good. A small two-team expansion also wouldn’t solve the problem of college players struggling to stay in the league; those teams would likely add experienced players from overseas, she said, rather than recruits out of college.
The variables players must weigh when deciding whether or not to enter the draft have never been more important. Athletes can access the transfer portal to easily move between college teams. Next year will be the last season in which athletes will be able to take advantage of a fifth-year playing option offered to them by the NCAA due to the coronavirus pandemic. The detention of Brittney Griner in Russia also changed the calculation regarding how far – and where – players are willing to go.
Perhaps most importantly, college athletes can now make money from the use of your name, image and likeness, a category widely known as NIL. Many players can make more money from collectives and endorsements as college athletes than from a single WNBA salary; rookie base salary this season will range between $62,285 and $74,305 depending on the draft round. Clark and Bueckers reportedly entered into marketing deals worth $1 million each, and games at this year’s tournament featured numerous television commercials featuring college basketball players.
There’s also the issue of travel, which has been a hot topic within the WNBA. Most major college basketball programs fly charter planes. WNBA players fly commercially.
“A lot of players are trying to save for their fifth year,” Maryland coach Brenda Frese said. “They understand the opportunities they have in college and that it’s really, really competitive in the league and that, potentially, you’re going to go overseas.”
Clark and Reese will be eligible for the WNBA draft next year. Bueckers, who missed the season with a knee injury, and Brink, whose Stanford team lost in the second round from this year’s tournament, are now eligible but have each said they will return for another academic year. Each of these four players has played in a national championship game and will be among the top picks in the draft whenever they decide to go. But many of the teammates who helped them get there won’t have the same cachet.
Czinano, the Iowa center, had 18 points and 3 rebounds in the semifinals against South Carolina and was a vital part of Clark’s success. She could have left for the WNBA after the 2021-22 season, but didn’t, and most experts predict she will be a late second or third round pick in this year’s draft on April 10 . drafted with one championship game under her belt, recording 13 points and 6 rebounds against LSU in limited minutes due to foul trouble.
“The decision to come back was the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make, quite honestly. I would have been a fool to leave this program and leave this family,” Czinano said Friday. “I knew we had something to prove, but I would have done it no matter what. I would have come back with no expectations .
Close, the UCLA coach, said she’s had tough conversations with her players about realistic next steps after college.
Close often consults her WNBA peers on the state of the league, and one coach has been candid about what life might be like for UCLA star guard Charisma Osborne, who declared for the draft this season, if it is on the list.
“Does Charisma want to make more money and stay in college and get massages, fly charters, have everything paid for, have a nutritionist and have her own paid coaches? » Close said, quoting the coach. “Or does she want to have none of that and fly southwest with us?”
Talya Minsberg reports contributed.
