How Caitlin Clark’s WNBA spark is akin to the ‘Be Like Mike’ impact of Jordan in the NBA

Start with the shoes.

Before Michael Jordan had ever played in an official NBA game, his sneakers generated conversation and controversy. Jordan wore a pair of primarily black Nikes with a red swoosh during his first preseason games. The Chicago Bulls, worried about the shoes’ glitz, had reservations about him doing it again. The NBA objected, too, and threatened a $1,000 fine if he rocked them a second time, and $5,000 for every time after that.

Exactly four decades later, Caitlin Clark’s sneakers also made headlines before her first official game. Last spring, Clark agreed to a historic eight-figure endorsement deal with Nike that is expected to result in her own signature shoe. There were no threats of fines this time around, but there was ample chatter about what it meant for a rookie, unproven in the professional game, to ink such a lucrative and high-profile agreement.

Clark has been compared to other greats in basketball. Her shooting echoes Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu. Her floor vision and pinpoint passing remind fans of Sue Bird. Alongside fellow rookie Angel Reese, the two instant-impact players have been compared to Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, whose college matchups and professional meetings bridged the two levels together and helped boost the NBA in the 1980s.

Clark, of course, has a long way to go before amassing a resumé to match Jordan’s six NBA championships and six finals MVPs, five NBA MVP awards and 10 scoring titles. She’s just embarking on her first playoffs as a rookie, leading the WNBA but her effect on the WNBA is already similar to His Airness’ impact on the NBA. Beyond flashing a call-back to Jordan’s classic shrug after big plays, Clark’s impact is reminiscent to Jordan’s in other important ways: mass commercial appeal, national celebrity and the ability to catapult a sport to new heights.

Michael Jordan and Steph Curry. Now Caitlin Clark. 🤷 pic.twitter.com/zKf0jNY3Ma

— DG (@DGHoopsz) April 1, 2023

“This is a culmination of a lot of factors over the course of time,” said Bill Laimbeer, who played against Jordan throughout his 13-year NBA career and later coached more than a decade in the WNBA. “(The NBA and WNBA) kind of mirror each other along the way, from the influx of talent, the rule changes to speed the game up, the name recognition because of TV and the competitive nature.”

Clark and Jordan first became stars in college, leading their home-state universities to NCAA Tournament glory. More than 17 million people tuned into CBS for the 1982 national championships and watched freshman Jordan hit the go-ahead jumper with 17 seconds remaining to lift UNC to a national title. At the time, it was the second-most watched title game broadcast.

Clark, meanwhile, also created a ratings bonanza in women’s college basketball with her logo 3-pointers and clutch plays for Iowa. She headlined the most-watched women’s NCAA Tournament, with Iowa’s 2024 national championship appearance against South Carolina averaging 18.9 million viewers.

But the professional leagues Jordan and Clark entered didn’t have the same proven viewership loyalty as they helped inspire in college.

The rise of Jordan and Clark didn’t occur without strong foundations. There were pro stars before the two arrived: Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Bird, Johnson. In the WNBA, Rebecca Lobo, Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie, Tamika Catchings, Diana Taurasi, Candace Parker, A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart. There were developments in the actual gameplay of both leagues, which created a more exciting product, and changes in the media environment.

Through 1981, ratings dips prompted NBA Finals games to be mostly on tape delay, and the Celtics and Lakers were the most frequently televised games. Viewers eventually began warming up to the league and a new wave of athletes, but it was Jordan who came in and electrified it with his showmanship as the Bulls dominated in the 1990s for peak numbers.

“Because of Michael being in the league, we went from one or two games a week on TV in the ’80s to almost every night there was a game on,” former Cavaliers guard Craig Ehlo told Bleacher Report. “I think the NBA marketing ability for the rest of the teams was beneficial with Michael being in the league. If he never plays, I don’t think they have that power to get the TV deals that they got.”

Clark similarly has sparked unprecedented WNBA fandom. The league has been gaining traction over the years. Yet with Clark, six different league television partners set viewership records this year by airing Fever games, and the WNBA enjoyed its most successful year of viewership across ESPN platforms.

Clark and Jordan also elevated middling franchises. The Bulls had made the playoffs only twice in nine years before Jordan’s arrival. In the three seasons immediately before he came to town, they were in the bottom half of the NBA in total attendance before he led the Bulls to their dynasty run.

Clark has Indiana back in the playoffs for the first time since 2016, hoping to help the Fever stave off elimination against the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday. With legions of her fans following her, the Fever led the WNBA in home attendance after being in the bottom half of the league the last eight seasons.

Caitlin Clark’s WNBA playoff debut averaged 1.84 million viewers on Sunday—the league’s most-watched playoff game since the 2000 Finals.https://t.co/IW0iXqpJQz pic.twitter.com/w07FP07B96

— Front Office Sports (@FOS) September 24, 2024

“Clark has made a Jordan-esque impact right away,” said Jack McCallum, a Naismith Hall of Fame-inducted sportswriter and former Sports Illustrated reporter who covered the NBA for over three decades. “The NBA had Bird and Magic, and then it had the biggest star in the history of sports come in and throw his weight into it. (Jordan) seemed to bring everybody along with him. A rising tide lifts all boats. I do believe that’s going to happen to the WNBA.”

Salaries might be the most critical way that plays out.

Jordan skipped his senior season at North Carolina and signed a seven-year contract worth $6.3 million with the Bulls. His base salary as a rookie was relatively modest at $455,000, slightly above the league’s average salary but not by much. Clark also elected against returning to Iowa for a final season, signing for the modest rookie salary of $76,535. Like Jordan’s, it is undervalued (according to HerHoopStats, the averaged WNBA salary this season is around $110,000) for what she means to the league.

Nevertheless, in their first seasons, Jordan and Clark demonstrated their true earning potential in the market with landmark endorsement deals. Both are partners with Nike and Gatorade — Jordan as the sports drink brand’s first athlete sponsor in 1984. Perhaps a “Like Clark” ad would be a fitting reprise of Jordan’s famous campaign.

Wilson has curated one-off basketballs and other smaller scale product drops for NBA and WNBA players over the years, but only Jordan and Clark have worked with the brand to build out multi-year collections fully, a company spokesperson said.

Clark seems likely to help drive a WNBA salary boost, much like Jordan did for the NBA. In 1995, after Jordan’s first three-peat, the NBA salary cap jumped from just under $16 million to $23 million — the 44 percent increase marking the largest single year-over-year jump in league history, according to Spotrac. Though WNBA players have yet to see such a spike, this season the league agreed to a landmark television rights deal worth more than $2 billion over 11 years. Their ratings paradigm has shifted with Clark playing in six different network’s record-breaking games this season, and the trickle down effect is likely to result in higher salaries when the next CBA is enacted, perhaps as soon as for the 2026 season.

Clark is still in the infancy of her career. She trails Jordan by six championships and 31,523 points. But another clear phenomenon is apparent.

“What Caitlin Clark has done for the game is generational,” women’s basketball pioneer Nancy Lieberman said on a recent Fever telecast. “As a baller to a baller, I just want to say thank you, to you Caitlin Clark for just lifting our game up. You and so many great players for what you’re doing. You’re going to make all these women multimillionaires one day. Like Tiger did. Like Michael Jordan did.”

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos of Caitlin Clark and Michael Jordan: Andrew D. Bernstein / NBAE via Getty Images,
Jeff Dean / Getty Images)