The BIG3 really wanted Caitlin Clark.
According to league announcer Tattoo, the BIG3 reportedly offered the Indiana Fever superstar a $15 million deal, which would have dramatically dwarfed her contract in the WNBA:
In March 2024, BIG3 co-owner Ice Cube confirmed that the league made a “historic offer” to Clark, who at the time was still in college at Iowa:
It’s unclear if Clark would have been permitted to play in the WNBA had she taken the BIG3 offer. Many WNBA players sign overseas deals in the offseason, given the WNBA’s rather paltry pay structure, but the BIG3 is a domestic league that takes place during the WNBA’s regular season. It’s hard to imagine the WNBA signing off on such an arrangement.
“It’s up to the player. We’ve always wanted to work with the WNBA,” Ice Cube said back in 2024 during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. “We’ve wanted to work with the NBA but unfortunately that hasn’t been able to happen but maybe this will open the door for that.”
While Clark is extremely underpaid by the WNBA itself considering the massive attention she has brought to the league, she is reportedly doing just fine for herself off the court, with estimated endorsement earnings of $11 million in 2024. Granted, that doesn’t scratch the surface of the value she provides to the WNBA.
“It’s hard to believe she’s not worth close to a billion to the league,” an industry source told The Athletic’s Ben Pickman and Sabreena Merchant in June.
“The idea that she (is) maybe worth 1,000 times her salary in franchise value is not inconceivable,” Harvard economics lecturer Judd Cramer added.
The BIG3 was unable to sway Clark. But the league certainly understood her value.