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Caitlin Clark Calls Out Cathy Engelbert, WNBA for Money Move That 'Makes No Sense'

Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark isn't seeing eye to eye with how the WNBA is handling its player bonuses.
Grant Young|
Jul 1, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) looks on against the Minnesota Lynx in the second half during the Commissioner's Cup final at Target Center. Mandatory Credit: Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images
Jul 1, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) looks on against the Minnesota Lynx in the second half during the Commissioner's Cup final at Target Center. Mandatory Credit: Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images | Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

While the Indiana Fever beating the Minnesota Lynx in the 2025 WNBA Commissioner's Cup isn't going to do anything to improve the team's 8-8 regular season record, it did give each Fever player a hefty bonus.

This is because the winning team (Indiana in this case) gets to split a $500,000 cash prize between its players for winning the league's in-season tournament. Plus, both Minnesota and Indiana players received about $5,000 each in cryptocurrency for making it to the tournament's championship game.

While Fever players are certainly not complaining about this bonus, it does raise some eyebrows among the league, if only because the annual salaries that players receive are a hot-button topic in the sports world. The league's average base player salary is $102,249, while Caitlin Clark, the league's most popular player, is only making $78,066 in 2025 because she's in her second season.

The league's current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is set to expire after this season, which should mean that salaries will increase across the board. But in the meantime, Clark expressed some frustration about the WNBA's financial decisions during the Fever's postgame celebration on Tuesday.

When speaking on teammate Sydney Colson's Instagram live, Clark said, "We get more for [winning the Commissioner’s Cup] than you do if you’re a [WNBA] champion. Makes no sense! Someone tell [WNBA commissioner] Cathy [Engelbert] to help us out. Cathy, help us out!" per an X post from @clrkszn.

Players earn about a $20,000 bonus for winning the WNBA championship, which means Clark's sentiment is correct.

Perhaps the next CBA will change this.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

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