Will the Culture Wars Kill the WNBA?

It’s an article of faith among observers of the National Basketball Association that the league was saved by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. At the time the two men left college for the pros in 1979, NBA players had a reputation for drug use, there was racial tension in many locker rooms, and arenas were mostly empty. The NBA finals usually ran on tape delay, as the networks knew there wasn’t enough interest to run them live.

Bird and Johnson—a white man playing for the Boston Celtics and and a black man playing for the Los Angeles Lakers—were charismatic players who could do it all with great style and verve. They were exciting to watch. They transcended race. Their rivalry made the NBA cool, with the result that, 47 years later, the NBA reaps $7 billion in annual TV revenue and the average player salary is $13 million—with stars getting tens of millions more.

In the three years since Caitlin Clark graduated from the University of Iowa and joined the Indiana Fever, it can look like she has had the same effect on the WNBA that Bird and Johnson once did on the NBA. After all, for most of its existence—it is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year—the WNBA was barely a blip on the radar for most sports fans. Today teams play to sellout crowds, especially if the game involves Clark’s Fever. Its TV deal has gone from $50 million to $200 million. For the first time, teams are flying in private jets instead of commercial. Salaries have risen dramatically; no longer do players have to go to Russia during the winter to make enough money like Brittney Griner did. And TV ratings have doubled since Clark joined the league.