Caitlin Clark Selected First Overall in 2024 WNBA Draft
During Caitlin Clark's stunning career at Iowa, she proved herself a one-of-one on a near-nightly basis. On Monday night, she made it official, being selected first overall by the Indiana Fever in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
Clark had been widely tipped to be the first overall selection in this year's WNBA Draft since before the 2023-24 college basketball season began. Her otherworldly play all season only cemented her status as the top overall prospect in college basketball.
After the Indiana Fever won the WNBA Draft Lottery in December, the only drama over who they would select with the top pick was around whether Caitlin Clark would depart Iowa or if she would use the extra COVID year of eligibility to return for a fifth and final season in Iowa City.
Once Clark announced her plans to enter the WNBA Draft at the end of Iowa's 2023-24 season, any intrigue around the top pick was erased.
On Monday night, the Indiana Fever made it official. Clark becomes the first Iowa player to be taken #1 overall in the WNBA Draft. Indeed, Clark is the first Iowa athlete selected first overall in any major sport's collegiate draft since quarterback Randy Duncan went 1-1 to the Green Bay Packers in 1959.
Clark's also just the second Big Ten player to be selected first overall in WNBA history, joining Minnesota's Janel McCarville, who was taken #1 by the Charlotte Sting in 2005. Prior to Clark, the highest-drafted Iowa player in the WNBA Draft was Toni Foster, who was selected 8th overall by the Phoenix Mercury in the 1997 WNBA Draft. Samantha Logic, who was selected 10th overall by the Atlanta Dream in 2015, is the only other Iowa player to be drafted in the first round.
Three other Iowa players have been taken in the WNBA Draft in recent years: Monika Czinano was taken in the third round in the 2023 draft, while Kathleen Doyle and Megan Gustafson were second-round picks in the 2020 and 2019 drafts, respectively.
Clark was a no-brainer selection as the #1 overall pick for both on-court and off-court reasons.
On the court, Clark's brilliance needs little explanation. She won her second-consecutive Wooden Award last week, completing her a second-straight sweep of all of the major player of the year awards.
In case you need a refresher, that includes winning the AP Player of the Year Award and the Wade Trophy, as well as the Naismith National Player of the Year award. She also received the ESPN Player of the Year award, The Athletic Player of the Year award, and The Sporting News Player of the Year award this season.
She led the nation in scoring per game (31.6), assists per game (8.9), field goals made (403), three-pointers made per game (5.2), total three-pointers made (201), and triple doubles (6). She also became the first Division I player to score 1,000 points in consecutive seasons, as well as the first to lead the country in scoring and assists for two consecutive season. Clark set the NCAA single-season scoring record with 1,234 points this year and finished with an NCAA-record 3,951 points for her remarkable career.
Those records were just two of a multitude that Clark destroyed over the course of this season, including the career scoring records for Iowa, the Big Ten, NCAA women's basketball, pre-NCAA women's basketball, and NCAA Division I basketball as a whole (men's and women's).
Off the court, Clark became a true cultural phenomenon and one of the most successful box office draws in all of sports. She helped Iowa sell out its full slate of home games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena almost instantly last summer and break attendance records (usually via sellout crowds) at every Hawkeye road game as well.
Clark and Iowa set viewership records on seven different TV networks over the course of the season, usually breaking their own past records along the way. The peak of her power as a TV draw came in the just-ended NCAA Tournament, where she helped draw record ratings in each round, capped off with a massive audience of 18.7 million viewers watching Clark and Iowa face South Carolina in the national championship game.
Clark's status as a huge box office draw looks set to continue in the WNBA as well. 36 of the Indiana Fever's 40 regular season games are set to air on national TV. The Las Vegas Aces have already announced plans to move their home game with the Fever into a larger arena; they probably won't be the last team to do so in markets where that's feasible.
Fever season ticket sales have "spiked" since the team earned the #1 selection in the WNBA Draft Lottery and Clark announced her plans to enter the WNBA. And just as she did at Iowa, Clark is already proving to be a massive road draw as well. A look at any ticket reseller website will show that prices for Fever road games vastly outpace the prices for any other visiting teams.
For the past four seasons, the epicenter of The Caitlin Clark Show has been Iowa City. The show isn't over now that Clark's playing days at Iowa are over -- it's just moving locales to Indianapolis. The Indiana Fever are set to open the 2024 WNBA season against the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday, May 14 at 6:30 PM CT. ESPN2 will televise the game.