Inside Caitlin Clark’s coronation: WNBA’s first draft pick has Indiana basketball fans in a Fever as the league looks to capitalize on her historic NCAA career… and shed its ‘little sister’ label

Maybe it was her white Prada blazer, matching miniskirt or her diamond cufflinks, but Caitlin Clark was nearly unrecognizable at Monday’s WNBA Draft in Brooklyn — a significant feat for one of America’s most famous athletes.

Before becoming the Indiana Fever’s obvious first overall pick, Clark spent the past month guiding Iowa to its second straight NCAA championship game while amassing the largest television audience in tournament history. In recent days, she has been featured on Saturday Night Live and NBC’s Today Show, not to mention countless publications, websites and the lips and ears of sports fans across the country.

Interest in this year’s WNBA Draft was so high that the league opened it to fans for the first time since 2016 thanks to Clark, the all-time NCAA scoring leader. And back in Indianapolis, the Fever reported more than 17,000 attendees at their WNBA Draft watch party. Clark won’t make her WNBA regular-season debut until May 14, but ticket prices on the secondary market have already risen above $500. Meanwhile, defending champion Las Vegas Aces have made plans to open up an additional 7,000 seats when the Fever come to town on May 25.

Clark is used to attention on the basketball court, where her confidence is on par with that of Michael Jordan or LeBron James. But it’s the other side of things she’s still learning to tolerate. When her post-draft press conference concluded after weeks of grueling interviews, Clark quietly turned to a publicist and asked, “How many things do I have to do?”

Just weeks away from graduating from Iowa, the clearly tired 22-year-old merely hinted at possible media obligations for the rest of the evening. But thanks to her otherworldly shooting skills and a deft passing touch that she considers “overlooked,” Clark is now must-see TV. Simply put, the media’s demands on Caitlin Clark have only just begun.

“I think the progression of the last few weeks in my life has been pretty crazy,” she said Monday, trying to remember all the cities and places she passed through on her way to a second NCAA championship appearance.

“For the past two months, I’ve been playing basketball for as long as I can during my college career, then going home for a few days,” she continued. “I got off the plane when we landed in Iowa City, drove straight home, had my mom cook me a meal and drove back to Iowa City the next day.

“Then I flew to LA, flew to New York and now I’m here at this stage.”

Clark was likely talking about the literal podium she sat on in the draft’s media room, or a figurative reference to the professional ranks she is now joining.

But in a broader sense, “this phase” is quickly defined by Clark at a very opportune moment.

The WNBA has seen an increase in attendance and television ratings for a number of years, but the league has never been able to compete with its big brother, the NBA.

College Hoops for women is a different story.

Iowa’s title game loss to Kamilla Cardoso and the South Carolina Gamecocks averaged 18.7 million viewers — about four million more than the men’s championship. Granted, the men’s match was on cable and not on national television like the women’s. But Clark, LSU’s Angel Reese and a growing number of female players became even more recognizable than NCAA men’s players in 2023-2024.

And if there was any doubt about their popularity, it ended in Brooklyn on Monday night.

The scene was reminiscent of the 2023 NBA Draft 10 months earlier, when the San Antonio Spurs selected the 7-foot-10 Victor Wembanyama amid a sea of ​​wild fanfare.

Like Clark, Wembanyama was an obvious choice to make first, giving the design the feel of a scripted coronation. And on top of that, there were countless young fans looking for the signature of the presumed first choice, as was the case in June 2023, when the young Frenchman was welcomed into the competition.

“Everyone was pushing and pulling, and she just handled it like a champ and made sure everyone got her moment with her,” Reese Gittleman, a 17-year-old from Philadelphia, told DailyMail.com after signing the autograph from Clark.

“She was really sweet,” added Gittleman’s friend, 16-year-old Melina Day.

The difference between Clark and Wembanyama’s respective draft nights was the setting.

Both were selected in Brooklyn, a basketball-savvy borough filled with knowledgeable and enthusiastic fans. But while the NBA Draft was held at Barclays Center, a large NBA arena, Monday’s WNBA Draft was around the corner at the 3,000-seat Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The venue, a large music hall that first opened in 1861, was cramped on Monday.

Fans struggled to see Clark and the rest of their favorite players. Antiquated elevators led reporters to a packed media room in the building’s attic, where players held their first press conferences as professionals under a movie poster from a recent Robert Redford film festival.

There was a similar atmosphere at the Elite 8 in Albany weeks earlier, when Clark and Iowa defeated Reese’s LSU in a rematch of the 2023 NCAA finals. The game drew a whopping 12.3 million viewers and easily sold out Albany’s MVP Arena.

Both that event and Monday’s draft felt bigger than their respective locations, and that’s what makes Clark such a gamechanger. She doesn’t just attract fans to women’s basketball; she’s changing the math for women’s basketball, and the WNBA is well aware of the opportunities ahead.

The league is already planning to add a new team in 2025, but with Clark’s arrival, more expansion talks are in the works, not to mention a new media deal that could dwarf the current contract.

“This is a big year for us in terms of viewership, attendance and all the qualitative and quantitative factors that play a role in the valuation of media rights,” Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said Monday.

“The one thing I know about sports is that you need big names, rivalries and big games,” she continued, referring to the women’s NCAA tournament. “Those are the three things we’ve had over the last few weeks.”

And with Clark on board, these are the possibilities for the future of the WNBA.

“This is not something that everyone should do,” Clark said Monday. “It’s just once in a lifetime.”