Doyel: Caitlin Clark to Indiana Fever would change this city, that franchise. Just watch.
Iowa’s Caitlin Clark would change everything. The Indiana Fever, the fan base, my newspaper, your city. That’s what she’d mean to the Fever, to all of us, if she enters the 2024 WNBA draft, and we know this much: The Fever won the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft lottery on Sunday. We’re missing just one detail:
Will Clark enter the draft?
She doesn’t have to turn pro, you know. Clark’s a senior, but she has the option of returning to Iowa for her so-called Covid season, the fifth year the NCAA has granted all players from that awful 2020-21 season. That option looks better than ever, now that the NCAA allows players to earn Name, Image and Likeness income. Any idea how much Caitlin Clark earns these days in NIL money? Me neither, but it has a whole bunch of zeroes and possibly two commas.
As in, seven figures.
What would she earn in salary from the Fever in 2024? Roughly $75,000, but Clark’s NIL contracts can — and surely would — follow her into the WNBA. Her off-court earnings will only grow in the WNBA, especially after the country sees what happens once she enters the league.
What will happen? I’m getting chills writing this sentence. Because what would happen here — what will happen wherever Caitlin Clark plays in the WNBA — is beyond what I can explain. Though I’ll try.
Caitlin Clark, the basketball phenom
Caitlin Clark would be the Fever’s Peyton Manning. She’d be their Steph Curry. She’d be the player who not only lifts this franchise into the top tier of the WNBA for a decade, but does it with the kind of flair that commands the attention of fans around the world.
If you’re giving me the side eye, it’s because you just don’t know. More to the point, if you’ve missed what’s happening, you don’t want to know.
Caitlin Clark is a one-woman revolution.
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It’s true, women’s college basketball overall has never been more popular. Players like UConn’s Paige Bueckers, Stanford’s Cameron Brink and LSU's Angel Reese get plenty of attention. So does Mackenzie Holmes at IU. Credit to all of them for doing what they do, and doing it so well.
But it starts with Caitlin Clark, who arrived at Iowa in 2020 with shooting range from the logo and equally absurd passing ability that had casual fans taking notice. This is a story that goes well beyond the numbers, but you’ve got to see some of these:
Clark is the only player in Division I history, men or women, with 3,000 points, 750 rebounds and 750 assists. For her career she’s averaging 27.4 points, 7.9 assists and 7.0 rebounds, and shoots 46.6% from the floor overall, 37.7% on 3-pointers and 85.1% from the line. Once she gets to the WNBA and deals with straightforward defenses, not the steady diet of junk she sees at Iowa, she’ll become just the second player in WNBA history to join the 50-40-90 club: 50% from the floor, 40% on 3’s, 90% from the line.
Just watch.
She’ll also be among annual WNBA leaders in scoring and assists — again: just watch — and lead her team deep into the WNBA playoffs.
All together now: Just watch.
And this is me, hoping more than I can explain, we get to watch it here with the Indiana Fever.
Caitlin Clark, the basketball circus
Those numbers above were nice, right? The points, assists, rebounds, shooting. Clark doesn’t do things new, merely, to the women’s game. Like being the only member of college basketball’s 3,000-750-750 club, she does things new to the game, period, like last season when she became the first player in NCAA tournament history — male or female – with a 40-point triple-double (41, 10 and 12 vs. Louisville).
Those numbers are incredible, but Clark produces numbers that are even better, and she’ll do it wherever she goes in the WNBA:
Attendance.
She’s not just great, OK? She’s shocking, exotic, with a playing style like Steph Curry or, I don’t know, Pete Maravich. You giving me the side eye again? Use both eyes to read this:
Everywhere she goes, Caitlin Clark breaks attendance records.
Don’t tell me, well, technically, Iowa is doing that.
No. Caitlin Clark is doing that, just as I suspect she’s the engine driving the surge in attention on women’s basketball. Listen, I say that with all respect, and honesty. Now that people are watching women’s college basketball, I’m thinking they’ll stick around after Clark is gone. The product is that good, that entertaining. Ever been to a women’s game at Assembly Hall or Mackey Arena? Go.
But good luck getting a ticket for Iowa’s visit to Purdue on Jan. 10, or to IU on Feb 22. It’s true, tickets remain, but you’d better act fast, and not just because Clark is on pace to break Kelsey Plum’s NCAA women’s scoring record of 3,527 points around that IU game. Put it like this:
The Iowa athletic department keeps track of which Iowa women’s basketball games have tickets available. Home games? Pffft. Carver-Hawkeye Arena has been sold out for the women's season — since August.
Plenty of seats remain for the Iowa men’s team though. Just saying.
Fifteen of the Iowa women’s last 20 regular-season games are sold out. Tickets are available only for trips to Purdue, Ohio State, Maryland, Nebraska and Indiana.
For now.
With Clark on the floor, Iowa has sold out or broken an attendance record in 25 of its 32 games. That includes an all-time women’s basketball attendance record of 55,646 against DePaul at Kinnick Stadium on Oct. 15.
For an exhibition.
The Hawkeyes’ game against Virginia Tech in Charlotte, N.C., set a women’s attendance record in North Carolina — pretty good basketball state — on Nov. 9. Clark rewarded those 15,196 fans with 44 points. Northern Iowa had its first sellout in history this season when Iowa visited three days later. She gave those 6,790 fans a 24-10-and-11 triple-double.
What would Caitlin Clark give us? A rekindling of our love affair with the Fever, whose average attendance this past season of 4,067 more than doubled the turnout of 2022 (1,776) but was still 11th in the 12-team league. Our city's love affair burned brightest in 2012 when Tamika Catchings led the Fever to the WNBA championship. Average attendance that season was 7,582, which means the Fieldhouse was half-full, half-empty, however you prefer to look at that particular glass.
If the Fever can draft Clark No. 1 overall in 2024 and add her to a roster already featuring Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston? Can’t say for sure about any banners going up — other teams are good too, you know — but all summer Gainbridge Fieldhouse would be rocking, downtown would be hopping, and our city would have this dreamy, charismatic trio of young stars for the foreseeable future:
Anthony Richardson, Tyrese Haliburton and Caitlin Clark.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Iowa's Caitlin Clark to WNBA Fever would be dream come true for Indy
