Despite tempting her with a million-dollar salary for just three months of basketball, WNBA star Caitlin Clark will not be joining the Unrivaled 3-on-3 professional women’s basketball league.
This is good because 3-on-3 basketball is as boring as going to watch an over-40 rec league game.
Sources have told ESPN’s Michael Voepel that the WNBA Rookie of the Year will not participate in the league despite their promises of lucrative contracts, which have drawn in other stars.
The league announced rosters on Wednesday, which also showed two slots marked “wildcard.”
As ESPN notes, those wildcard slots won’t be filled by Clark, who “will not play in the new 3-on-3 league Unrivaled in its inaugural season.”
Unrivaled Tried To Lure Caitlin Clark
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. The Unrivaled League provided a full-court press, trying to lure the WNBA’s top star into the fold with a $1 million salary and promise of an ownership stake if she agreed to play for just three months.
Paying one star seven figures, though, is pretty weird from a league that was promising other players six figures, all while touting “equity.”
Almost as if bigger stars command bigger salaries or something.
Unrivaled, co-founded by WNBA superstars Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx and Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty, has been promising to pay the highest average salary in women’s professional sports league history.
“For years, women have relied heavily on off-court sponsorships for a majority of their income,” Stewart told the New York Post previously. “With Unrivaled, we’re revolutionizing the game by prioritizing investments in our stars and ensuring their on-court performance is reflected in their pay.”
For Clark, it clearly isn’t about the money.
League Got Some Heat
Unrivaled was on the receiving end of some severe backlash from fans when they seemingly tried to insinuate that Caitlin Clark would be joining the league.
A promotional form letter they posted to social media mentioned State Farm, with which she has a deal, and a time of “11:22,” which 22 happens to be the Indiana Fever star’s jersey number.
They then posted a 22-minute video to YouTube regarding the roster breakdowns. This is wild because they added a 2-minute countdown at the beginning of the video for no reason other than to get the length up to 22 minutes.
But alas, it never came to pass. Clark will not be joining other major stars, including her rival Angel Reese, at Unrivaled.
All of the 3×3 league’s games will be played in Miami beginning in January 2025. Without basketball’s biggest star, will anybody be watching?
More about:WNBA News
Read This Next
