Pat McAfee Calls Caitlin Clark, WNBA Players’ Salaries an ‘Embarrassment’

The ESPN personality got extremely passionate about fair pay for WNBA players.

Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever wears a shirt saying "Pay us what you owe us" prior to the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. / Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images

Arguably the biggest storyline to come out of this year's WNBA All-Star weekend was the players' empowering T-shirt demonstration, with which they sent a direct message to the league: "Pay us what you owe us."

That message has since received mixed reactions from fans, some of whom are under the impression that the league doesn't owe players anything since it reportedly operated at a $40 million loss last year and has never been profitable since its inception in 1997.

Amid the WNBA player's association's ongoing CBA negotiations, Pat McAfee addressed the All-Stars' show of solidarity on Monday and appeared to stand with the athletes when it came to lobbying for higher salaries.

"If we're already losing $40 million, could you not just bump [the players' salaries] up to at least six figures?" McAfee said. "$70,000 as a paycheck is a very—that's an embarrassment. Especially for Caitlin Clark and all these people in professional sports.

"With how long the WNBA has been around, to say the $40 million loss is the reason you can't give them money, that should be pretty easy to make happen. If you just add $30,000 to each one of them, get that up to over $100,000. That's another like $4.6 million, so you're $44.6 million this way, there has to be $4 million you can find somewhere in here that you can give up to give the players at least a little more money."

The WNBA had a GREAT time in Indianapolis this weekend..

We have reached out to the WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert to join us on this progrum..

The Stud Budz are AWESOME #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/byV4WoHnFy

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) July 21, 2025

It is kind of wild to think that Caitlin Clark is only making $78,066 in base salary this season as part of her four-year rookie deal, though the Indiana Fever star does rake in millions more from contract bonuses, sponsorships and brand deals.

But, McAfee's well-intentioned calculations aside, he didn't address the more significant part of CBA negotiations in that players want a bigger piece of the pie. WNBA players reportedly only receive 9.3% of league revenue at the moment, a far cry from the 49–51% that their NBA counterparts receive.

It'll be interesting to see what WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert says about all this when she hops onto McAfee's show.

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