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Caitlin Clark could receive “Lionel Messi-like” package for Unrivaled participation

The new 3×3 basketball league, co-founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, is reportedly working overtime to recruit the game’s most popular player, according to Front Office Sports.

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2024 WNBA All Star GamePhoto by Dylan Goodman/NBAE via Getty Images

Noa Dalzell


Noa Dalzell is a senior writer covering the WNBA and all of women’s basketball for SB Nation, as well as the Celtics for CelticsBlog.

Unrivaled basketball league is in a “full-court press” to recruit Caitlin Clark with a “Lionel Messi-like” offer, Front Office Sports reported on Wednesday morning. The new 3×3 professional basketball league, co-founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, is set to tip-off in Miami in January, and has already announced 26 of its 30 participating players. Last week, it also made headlines for announcing a multi-year media rights deal with TNT Sports that could be worth more than $100 million.

As it currently stands, Clark is not one of those slated to play. However, Front Office Sports reported that the league is prepared to offer more than a million dollar salary for just three months of her participation, in addition to equity and revenue sharing. The incentive package could end up being similarly-structured to the one that Inter Miami assembled to recruit Lionel Messi to join in 2023; the club offered him a $150 million contract, part ownership, and a slew of unorthodox benefits and forms of compensation.

Last week, Napheesa Collier spoke glowingly about the impact Caitlin Clark has had on the WNBA.

“It’s just so crazy because the growth that Caitlin has brought to the game — the sheer amount of money she’s making these teams, people are having to move their venues for when she comes to play,” Collier said on Run It Back FDTV. “And she’s getting paid like $75,000 a year… she should be on of the (top-paid) players in the world just for the sheer numbers she’s bringing.”

Clark, meanwhile, has previously stated she plans on taking the summer off, joking she’ll become a professional golfer.