Women’s basketball has come a long way.
And even that would be an understatement.
One has to look no further than Caitlin Clark‘s shoe deal.
Forget the impact the Iowa phenom has already had on the WNBA in terms of ticket sales, ratings, viewership, etc.
Those numbers are all astronomical, but none bigger than her deal with the most popular shoe brand in the world.
Last April, the Indiana Fever star and Nike agreed to an eight-year, $28 million contract that features a signature shoe.
It is the most lucrative reported shoe deal in women’s basketball history.
Even a certain Hall of Famer, who has voiced her criticisms of Clark in the past, had to acknowledge what her shoe deal has meant for the women’s game.
And there is no one more qualified to speak on the subject than Sheryl Swoopes.
In 1997, Swoopes signed a $175,000 deal with the shoe giant, making her the first woman to ever receive a signature shoe from Nike.
Fast forward nearly 30 years later, Swoopes couldn’t be happier for her fellow female hoopers.
“I was telling A’ja [Wilson], in ninety-seven when I signed with Nike, Nike didn’t even have a women’s sports marketing division,” Swoopes recalled on her podcast, The Power of Knowing Who You Are with Sheryl Swoopes and Terrika Foster-Brasby.
“It was just like a here you go, here’s the room, do what you gotta do with it.
“And so what really excites me today about where we are is it’s not just the things that the women are getting on the court.
“You have all these women and brands who are saying we see you, we hear you, we need you.”
Swoopes played in the WNBA from its inception in 1997, helping lead the Houston Comets to the first four championships in league history.
She helped lay the foundation.
“So you have the Angel Reeses, the Caitlin Clarks, the DiJonai Carringtons, the Rickea Jacksons, the A’jas doing things that we only could dream of,” Swoopes said.
“My very first Nike contract when I signed in ninety-seven was like one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“Which then I was like, oh my god, I’ve made it right. And today to see a player like an A’ja and a Caitlin Clark signing a twenty million dollar contract, yeah, like, I don’t even know what to say about that.”
“I never thought that I would see this day when we started the W back in ninety-seven, where we’re sitting here actually talking about how far the game has come and these million-dollar contracts that female basketball players are now signing.”
It’s a new day for the WNBA, and Clark is happily taking the torch that Swoopes had carried for so long, and bringing it to even further heights.
The proof is in the pudding.
Or in this case, the dollar signs next to the swoosh.
