Glen Taylor, owner of the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, joined TheStreet to discuss what he feels Clark will bring to the league.
Transcript:
CONWAY GITTENS: One of the big stories surrounding women’s basketball is coming out of Caitlin Clark and what’s happened there. She’s already a household name. What do you think her coming to the WNBA is going to do to elevate that league?
GLEN TAYLOR: Well, first of all, I think it’s just going to increase the viewership. She’s an exciting young woman that just has a great skills. Fun to watch. This was already showed during her college career. She’s going to go to Indiana. I think it’s going to really help their team. But if you go back a ways, we had Maya Moore come into the league kind of the same thing, but at a different time. And it just upgraded the whole league and the style of basketball, the ability to play the people that came in. And I think that will happen now. I think we see it already by attendance almost as she Indiana goes to different towns to play they’re sellouts already.
CONWAY GITTENS: How do you think players will react to all of the attention the new kids on the block are getting, like Caitlin Clark?
GLEN TAYLOR: Well, I think it’s going to go both ways. There’s going to be a group that’ll look at them and say, these are great young women. They’re they’re upping the standards for the league and let’s ride it. And there’s always going to be a little jealousy that comes with new players getting to the top faster than other players who have worked for years to get themselves established. And I think that’s human nature. But I don’t think that’s going to be anything that’s going to hurt the league or anything. But it’s reality and I accept it. I’m not worried about our particular team because I know the players on our team and they’ll be supportive of another player that brings higher skills to the league and I think they’ll try to copy her.
CONWAY GITTENS: So the WNBA is getting more attention these days and sometimes more attention there can be a downside, right? There seem to be a lot of confusion about contracts for female basketball players. Outrage as to why Caitlin Clark’s salary was so low. So tell me, what more can be done to help increase WNBA salaries across the board? And what kind of pressure do you think is going to be put on the WNBA to raise salaries for these new players?
GLEN TAYLOR: Well, there will be pressure. It is, the difference is great everybody can see that we are working under contracts and that we worked out with the unions. So we have things in place, but people are going to try to get more. But the best way to address that problem is to get more income. So if we can get more people coming to the games, then we can get our TV rights increased. That money can be shared with the players and that’ll address part of it. But it’s going to be a problem or a concern for quite a while.
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