Donald Trump has labelled Caitlin Clark’s WNBA salary as “unfair”, praising the rookie basketball sensation as “phenomenal”.

After being the first overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, Clark joined the Indiana Fever and was given a standard rookie contract. This landed her an annual salary of $76,535 and, if this remains unchanged, she stands to earn around $338,000 over her four-year stint with the Fever, reports CBS News.

However, this pales in comparison to the multi-million-dollar contracts that NBA male players sign in their debut year. For instance, Victor Wembanyama, the 2023 first-round pick, earned significantly more than Clark in his inaugural season.

Selected by San Antonio Spurs, Wembanyama raked in a staggering $12.7 million (£9.8m) in his rookie year and is projected to amass $55.6m (£42.8m) over four years initially, as per Forbes. This wage gap has been a hot topic across both sports, with many fans arguing that the pay gap is unfair for WNBA players – particularly for high-flying Clark, who has arguably become the face of the industry.

While featuring on ex-NFL coach Bill Belichick’s ‘Let’s Go’ podcast, current presidential candidate Trump chimed in on the salary debate, predicting that Clark will rake in a fortune during her WNBA career. The 78-year-old billionaire said: “Well, you’d like to do that, but it’s a very complicated thing. It’s very unusual.

“She’s incredible, by the way. I watch, too. I think she’s incredible. The shot, I watch this shot go in. It’s like, couldn’t she shoot that way in the NBA? Give her the ball. She’s unbelievable. It’s a phenomena. It’s something that is taking place, and it’s unusual.

Donald Trump says Caitlin Clark’s pay is ‘unfair’ ( 

Image:

AFP via Getty Images)

“Tiger, when he first went out, remember those days when Tiger went out? Or just a great baseball player in the minor leagues or a first-year football player. You see a running back who’s making like minimum, and he turns out to be a superstar. You have that, and probably there’s no real way to guard against it.

“It sounds unfair, but somebody agrees to a contract. Hopefully, she’ll keep it going, and probably will. She’s going to make a lot of money.” Trump also suggested that the WNBA’s payment structure aims at league preservation across the board. He added: “Well, it’s really you got to rely on the market.

“You can’t go in and just say, ‘well, we’re going to break this contract because this person did well’. The league could probably go up and give her a bonus. It wouldn’t kill the league if the league is doing okay.

“But the league could really do something with it because it seems unfair, but you have a lot of that. I see it all the time with football and baseball and even basketball, where somebody comes in, he turns out to be 10 times better.”