{"id":32264,"date":"2025-07-29T16:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T16:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/32264\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T16:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T16:56:08","slug":"caitlin-clarks-wnba-rookie-card-sold-for-a-record-breaking-660000-at-auction-over-eight-times-her-76000-salary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/32264\/","title":{"rendered":"Caitlin Clark\u2019s WNBA rookie card sold for a record-breaking $660,000 at auction\u2014over eight times her $76,000 salary"},"content":{"rendered":"

From eclipsing men\u2019s viewership to selling out Nike<\/a> collabs in minutes<\/a>, the WNBA\u2019s momentum is undeniable. Now Caitlin Clark\u2019s memorabilia is shattering auction records\u2014pulling in sums that dwarf her annual salary.<\/a><\/p>\n

Clark\u2019s Rookie Royalty WNBA Flawless Logowoman card, a piece of memorabilia which is one-of-one, sold for a<\/a> whopping $660,000 last Thursday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a rare find for collectors, as the card is signed and inscribed with Clark\u2019s scoring total for her rookie season on the Indiana Fever, and also includes a Logowoman patch adorned on WNBA jerseys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The card started at an extended bidding price of $336,0000\u2014the previous sale price of Clark\u2019s 2024 Panini Prizm WNBA Signatures Gold Vinyl 1\/1 PSA 10 back in March. But when it sold for nearly double that, the collector\u2019s item made history for the most money made at a public auction for a woman athlete\u2014and it\u2019s a far cry from what the superstar makes in one year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, Clark makes less than the average New Yorker; despite being the number one draft pick in the WNBA last year, she only earned a salary of $76,535 for her first year on the Indiana Fever. That\u2019s a rock-bottom wage for the phenom of women\u2019s basketball, as her card that fetched hundreds of thousands at auction is over 8.6 times higher than her annual pay. Even Clark\u2019s four-year contract, in which she\u2019ll make a total of $338,000, is just about half of the card\u2019s value.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WNBA wages have failed to keep pace with its surging popularity<\/a>; last year, the women\u2019s NCAA March Madness tournament final had 18.7 million viewers tuning in, compared to 14.82 million watching the men\u2019s last game. Yet the first pick of the NBA season was expected to make $10.5 million\u2014137 times more than what Clark makes in a year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Pay us what you owe us\u2019: WNBA players leaning on NIL deals and side-hustles to make ends meet\u00a0<\/p>\n

Clark is one of the biggest names in U.S. sports, with fellow stars Cameron Brink, Rickea Jackson, and Angel Reese helping shatter records for the league. But their pay is in stark contrast to their cultural and business impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2023, the average WNBA player made<\/a> a base of $113,295 per year, compared to the typical NBA hooper making around $9.7 million. Women\u2019s low pay in the league has been a hot topic of discussion; about 40 players recently met with the WNBA to negotiate their compensation, but failed to reach<\/a> a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The basketball stars had opted out<\/a> of their last CBA in October 2024, and had hoped to broker a better revenue-sharing model, higher salaries, cushier benefits, and a more lenient salary cap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But negotiations fell through, prompting Clark and other WNBA players to wear \u201cPay us what you owe us\u201d t-shirts ahead of their All-Star game on Saturday last week. The sold-out arena of over 16,000 attendees, and millions of viewers tuning in at home, watched the stars push back against a long-held issue. Right now, WNBA hoopers receive 9.3% of their league\u2019s revenue\u2014in comparison, NBA players reap between 49% and 51% of the league\u2019s basketball-related income.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is no laughing matter. This is no trend, this is no moment in time,\u201d A\u2019ja Wilson, a Las Vegas Aces player and three-time league MVP, told NPR<\/a>. \u201cYou\u2019re dealing with me, my livelihood, my future, the next generation. So we\u2019re going to take this very, very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortune has contacted WNBA for comment.<\/p>\n

WNBA players make their millions in side hustles instead<\/p>\n

Although the WNBA recently signed a<\/a> $2.2 billion media deal with expansion fees of $250 million, the female athletes aren\u2019t raking in millions from the sport itself. Instead, many women\u2019s basketball stars are getting creative in the ways they supplement their income.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One popular way is through name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals\u2014Clark made $3.1 million<\/a> from NIL agreements in 2023, in the final year of her college stint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the option to play overseas; Olympian Brittney Griner made four times her WNBA salary in Russia, earning more than $1 million.<\/p>\n

Others without million-dollar brand deals have to resort to juggling part-time jobs. Chiney Ogwumike, who played for the Los Angeles Sparks, has since become a basketball analyst and host for ESPN; Haley Jones, a guard for the Dallas Wings, has also commentated for NBA TV and the WNBA finals. And the Atlanta Dream\u2019s Allisha Gray has a side-hustle dishing out wings and burgers as the owner of WNB Factory restaurant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From eclipsing men\u2019s viewership to selling out Nike collabs in minutes, the WNBA\u2019s momentum is undeniable. Now Caitlin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[1846,24750,461,49,48,2925,24751,15262,24752,1161,9313,459,530,24754,24755,23900,24753,145,82,6335,630,1297],"class_list":["post-32264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-auction","tag-auctions","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-careers","tag-collectibles","tag-compensation","tag-equal-pay","tag-espn","tag-millionaires","tag-nba","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-negotiation","tag-nil-deals","tag-pay-equity","tag-pay-gap","tag-side-hustle","tag-sports","tag-wages","tag-wnba","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}