WNBA sensation Caitlin Clark has revealed her thoughts on the lucrative offer to play in the new Unrivaled League.
Unrivaled was announced earlier this year as a 3-v-3 women’s basketball competition. It was set to include 30 athletes across six teams (Laces Basketball Club, Mist Basketball Club, Phantom Basketball Club, Lunar Owls Basketball Club, Rose Basketball Club, and Vinyl Basketball Club), with each side consisting of five players.
But the league has now expanded its player count to 36 thanks to a financial windfall. With only six slots left, Unrivaled will get underway in January in Miami, Florida, offering an eight-week basketball spectacle during the WNBA’s offseason. Clark’s Indiana Fever teammates Lexie Hull and Aliyah Boston became the 29th and 30th players to join last week.
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Unrivaled has made no secret of its ambition to add Clark, the WNBA’s shining star following an incredible Rookie of the Season campaign, to its roster by dangling a hefty paycheck. Their average salary is expected to be around $250,000, with Clark believed to be offered “significantly more” than the $76,535 base salary she received in her debut WNBA season, with some claiming she could earn as much as $1 million.
But Clark may need even more of an incentive to join the league given how much she is already making through sponsorship deals. The 22-year-old said on Monday she is in no rush to make her decision. Asked about the possibility of accepting a big-money deal, Clark responded: “We’ll see, I don’t know. Just taking it as it goes, see if I want to play eventually.”
The Fever last week announced former Connecticut Sun boss Stephanie White as their new head coach. White has already made it clear to Clark and her teammates that she supports whatever they want to do in the WNBA offseason, and would have no problems with them playing in the new Unrivaled competition.”
Stephanie White has been appointed head coach of Indiana Fever (
David Berding/Getty Images)
“Everybody has a different cadence toward the offseason at different points in their career,” White explained. “I always think it’s good to play. Coming back into training camp having played games vs not… If you haven’t played, timing, rhythm, game shape, all those things are tough to simulate just working out. I do think there is some value, but each player approaches it differently.”
White, who is excited by the prospect of working with two Rookie of the Years in Boston and Clark, was herself a high school star in Indiana and played for the Fever for four seasons. She served as assistant coach to Lin Dunn during their WNBA triumph in 2012 and took the reins as head coach between 2015 and 2016.
Speaking about how excited she is to work with Clark and Boston, White added: “You’ve got the point guard and the center… You have the bookends that you want to build around. These two (Clark and Aliyah Boston) are the best. There’s so many things they do well right now. And you saw the difference between the beginning of the season to the end of the season, and how much better they got with one another.
“When you think about the great point guards and post players that our game – not just our league – has seen, they are going to go down in history as the greatest. And I’m excited about the opportunity to work with them.”
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