Caitlin Clark enjoyed a historic rookie season in the WNBA with the Indiana Fever.
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CNN —
It’s been a busy 12 months for Caitlin Clark.
This time last year, she was still in her final season at the University of Iowa. Since then, she has lost in the NCAA women’s basketball national championship game, been drafted first overall into the WNBA, been to multiple shows on Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ and been named the Rookie of the Year and All-WNBA first team.
And as 2025 kicked off, Clark recapped her momentous year – where she shot to fame and was named Time magazine’s “Athlete of the Year” – with NFL star brothers, Jason and Travis Kelce.
Speaking on the Kelce brothers’ “New Heights” podcast, Clark described her debut season in the WNBA as “life-changing” when asked to describe it in two words.
“All in a good way. Things just change really fast,” Clark said on the episode released on Thursday. “That’s just how the world works, especially with social media, people see a lot of your life but that’s what makes it fun and why I’ve had so many cool opportunities too.”
Clark enjoyed a historic rookie season with the Indiana Fever, coinciding with an unprecedented increase in coverage of the league, with viewership records consistently being broken. The league’s overall attendance increased by 48% year-on-year to its highest level in over 20 years; this phenomenon has been coined “The Caitlin Clark effect.”
Clark’s success has also brought an increase in commercial deals. Notably, Clark reportedly agreed to an eight-year deal with Nike worth $28 million that includes a signature shoe. This has prompted some criticism that her race has partly contributed to her commercial success, given many Black stars have not received deals on the same level.
But going into her second season, the 22-year-old says she is looking forward to having more time to prepare for her sophomore campaign in the WNBA after a whirlwind 2024.
Clark was named the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year.
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“I played in the national championship game and basically went straight to the draft and got picked and then you basically pack up and move,” Clark explained. “You’re moving in April, you don’t even finish senior year in college.”
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The Kelce brothers explained that their rookie preseason camps were months in length to allow them to prepare, while Clark’s was “a week and a half.”
“But I think it was good a little bit too. You don’t have time to overthink things. It’s just like boom, boom, boom, boom. You’re just onto the next. But at the same time, I felt like I never really ended the chapter of college, I just up and left.”
Clark also highlighted how important the mid-season break for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics was for her to recalibrate and take some time to acclimatize to Indianapolis and form a bond with her Fever teammates.
She also highlighted the help some of her veteran teammates provided her during those first few months in the WNBA, while also talking about the challenges of being a highly drafted player.
“You’re trying to figure out a new environment, new teammates, you don’t want to say too much, you don’t want to say too little. But in my scenario – and you guys’ too – you’re already highly thought of, like people are turning to you like: ‘Be something, be someone.’ So it’s hard, you’re trying to get your feet wet but also not do too much and I think that’s what I struggled with early on is: ‘I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to say it, I don’t know how they’re going to react.’”
Clark’s arrival in the WNBA came with a surge in popularity.
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