Girls’s basketball has come a good distance.
And even that may be an understatement.
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One has to look no additional than Caitlin Clark’s shoe deal.
Neglect the influence the Iowa phenom has already had on the WNBA by way of ticket gross sales, rankings, viewership, and so forth.
These numbers are all astronomical, however none greater than her cope with the preferred shoe model on the planet.
Final April, the Indiana Fever star and Nike agreed to an eight-year, $28 million contract that includes a signature shoe.
It’s the most profitable reported shoe deal in girls’s basketball historical past.
Even a sure Corridor of Famer, who has voiced her criticisms of Clark up to now, needed to acknowledge what her shoe deal has meant for the ladies’s recreation.
And there’s no yet another certified to talk on the topic than Sheryl Swoopes.
In 1997, Swoopes signed a $175,000 cope with the shoe large, making her the primary lady to ever obtain a signature shoe from Nike.
Quick ahead practically 30 years later, Swoopes could not be happier for her fellow feminine hoopers.
“I used to be telling A’ja [Wilson], in ninety-seven after I signed with Nike, Nike didn’t also have a girls’s sports activities advertising and marketing division,” Swoopes recalled on her podcast, The Energy of Figuring out Who You Are with Sheryl Swoopes and Terrika Foster-Brasby.
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“It was identical to a right here you go, right here’s the room, do what you gotta do with it.
“And so what actually excites me as we speak about the place we’re is it’s not simply the issues that the ladies are getting on the court docket.
“You have got all these girls and types who’re saying we see you, we hear you, we want you.”
Swoopes performed within the WNBA from its inception in 1997, serving to lead the Houston Comets to the primary 4 championships in league historical past.
She helped lay the muse.
“So you’ve got the Angel Reeses, the Caitlin Clarks, the DiJonai Carringtons, the Rickea Jacksons, the A’jas doing issues that we solely might dream of,” Swoopes mentioned.
“My very first Nike contract after I signed in ninety-seven was like 100 and seventy-five thousand {dollars}.”
“Which then I used to be like, oh my god, I’ve made it proper. And as we speak to see a participant like an A’ja and a Caitlin Clark signing a twenty million greenback contract, yeah, like, I don’t even know what to say about that.”
“I by no means thought that I’d see this present day after we began the W again in ninety-seven, the place we’re sitting right here really speaking about how far the sport has come and these million-dollar contracts that feminine basketball gamers are actually signing.”
It is a new day for the WNBA, and Clark is fortunately taking the torch that Swoopes had carried for thus lengthy, and bringing it to even additional heights.
The proof is within the pudding.
Or on this case, the greenback indicators subsequent to the swoosh.