new collective bargaining agreement which was ratified<\/a> in the early hours of Tuesday morning.<\/p>\nClark said it\u2019s easy to pinpoint the most transformative part of the deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cSalary and revenue sharing. I think it\u2019s as simple as that,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n
The new CBA increases the salary cap by around five times. The average player salary goes up from $120,000 to $600,000. Things Clark says will be beneficial to all female athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it sets a precedent for all of women\u2019s sports going forward, not just women\u2019s basketball, that we\u2019re truly valued and the product we put on the floor is truly valued,\u201d Clark added. \u201cJust excited and really thankful for everybody \u2014 everybody on the WNBA side and everybody on the PA side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark\u2019s generational athleticism and magnetism has been a major contributing factor to the WNBA\u2019s exponential rise in viewership and revenue since she was the top draft pick by the Fever two years ago. Her influence \u2013 as well as other star players \u2013 forced the WNBA and WNBPA find a new agreement that provides more money to the players.<\/p>\n
But Clark doesn\u2019t see herself as a history-maker.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was never my goal to change women\u2019s sports,\u201d Clark said. \u201cI just showed up, and I played, and I loved every single second of it. I feel a responsibility to show up and put a smile on everybody\u2019s face that buys a ticket and comes and watches us play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark said she\u2019s heard from a lot of current college players whose dreams to become professional basketball players seem even more attainable now with the new CBA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know it\u2019s a real opportunity now, and they also know they\u2019re going to be compensated for it and they\u2019re not going to have to go overseas to find a way to be compensated,\u201d Clark said. <\/p>\n
Clark also commented on the league\u2019s expansion. This season, the WNBA will have two new expansion teams in Toronto and Portland, bringing the league total up to 15, with talks of more to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs many places as we can take women\u2019s basketball, I think it\u2019s just going to help not only women\u2019s basketball but women\u2019s sports in general,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n
Clark and the Indiana Fever tip off the 2026 season in Gainbridge Fieldhouse against the Dallas Wings on Saturday, May 9 at 1 p.m. Eastern. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (WISH) \u2014 \u201cWe did it! Whoo!\u201d Those were the first words said by Indiana Fever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-553287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}