Indiana Fever guard and former Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark has an annual salary of $78,000 from the WNBA. With this, she spoke about the fight for higher salaries for WNBA players in a recent Instagram video posted by @usatodaysports on Saturday, July 19, as she was asked about it during the 2025 WNBA All-Star Weekend press conference.
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This prompted popular sports caster and analyst Pat McAfee to give his own take on the matter on his most recent episode of “The Pat McAfee Show” on Monday, July 21. McAfee asserted that there are several go-arounds that WNBA officials could do to work towards giving its players higher annual salaries.
“If we’re already losing $40 million, could you not just bump ’em up to at least six figures? Like $70,000 as a paycheck is a very, that’s an embarrassment, especially for like Caitlin Clark or all these people as a professional sports. Now with that being said, my dad, his job, if he would’ve got paid $70,000 a year growing up, he would’ve been incredibly pumped about that,” McAfee said. (1:33)
“But with how long the WNBA’s been around, to say the $40 million loss is the reason why you can’t give them money that should be pretty easy to make happen is just, ‘What?,’ because if you if you just add 30 grand to each one of them, get that up over a hundred thousand bucks, it’s another like 4.6 million. So, you’re 44.6 million in this way. There has to be 4 million you could find somewhere in here that you can give up to give the players at least a little bit more money because I don’t think the $70,000 thing is right,” he added.
The WNBA had a GREAT time in Indianapolis this weekend..
We have reached out to the WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert to join us on this progrum..
The Stud Budz are AWESOME #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/byV4WoHnFy
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) July 21, 2025
This is also why in the video posted by @usatodaysports on Instagram, Clark also expressed her gratitude and appreciation towards brand deals she has been getting with big-name companies such as Nike, Gatorade and State Farm. The reasoning for this, Clark expounded, is that this is in line with the goal that players like her are advocating about, and sports figures such as McAfee are in full support of it.
Caitlin Clark Was A Part Of The Equal Pay Movement Before The 2025 WNBA All-Star Game
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During warmups of the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game, all of the players, including Caitlin Clark, wore black shirts that read, ‘Pay us what you owe us,’ in protest of the lack of progression towards equal pay for players like Clark by the WNBA. The movement went viral as it was done during the annual celebration of women’s basketball, which was done in the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Fever’s home court.
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