Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) celebrates after scoring a 3-pointer Tuesday, June 17, 2025, during a game between the Indiana Fever and the Connecticut Sun at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Indiana Fever defeated the Connecticut Sun, 88-71. Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) celebrates after scoring a 3-pointer Tuesday, June 17, 2025, during a game between the Indiana Fever and the Connecticut Sun at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Indiana Fever defeated the Connecticut Sun, 88-71. Mandatory Credit: Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

As absurd as it sounds, the notion that Caitlin Clark can take her ball, go home, and start a league of her own lives to fight another day.

That’s thanks to Christine Brennan, the veteran USA Today columnist and author of “On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women’s Sports.” While promoting her new unauthorized biography on Clark during a radio appearance on ESPN LA, Brennan was asked a question that might have seemed laughable a year ago: Could Caitlin Clark actually start her own league?

And look, we get why it came up. The Caitlin Clark effect is real. The ratings prove it. So does the unprecedented spike in interest surrounding women’s basketball. A rising tide lifts all boats, and Clark is the tide. She’s already turned down the Lionel Messi-type offer to join Unrivaled, a startup 3-on-3 league played during the WNBA’s offseason. But there’s a big difference between passing on a project and launching one of your own to directly compete with the WNBA.

Still, Brennan didn’t exactly laugh the idea off.

This is the same Christine Brennan who drew backlash last seasonincluding from the WNBPA — for questioning whether DiJonai Carrington struck Clark intentionally during a shot contest and speculating on whether Carrington and her Connecticut Sun teammates found it amusing. Clark supported the union’s response, and Brennan stood by her coverage. But she’s faced criticism for how she’s continually framed Clark and for implying that the WNBA hasn’t adequately protected its most marketable star.

Which brings us back to the idea of Clark going rogue.

“Nike loves her. She’s got Wilson, obviously,” Brennan said. “She’s got Gatorade. Even though the salary’s $76,000 for a rookie — it’s more this year now — she’s making $28 million from Nike alone, according to the Wall Street Journal. So she’s at $40 million, whatever. Okay, fine, she’s doing great. And if Nike said, ‘We’re going to make the Nike-Clark league,’ it would obviously take a few years to get the arenas and whatever.

“But you know the TV contract. I mean, it’s Caitlin. Again, the TV viewership, it’s Cailtin Clark. It’s not Angel [Reese] and Caitlin. It’s Cailtin. It’s Caitlin Clark only. And I think Angel’s a great rebounder and excellent at what she does, but she doesn’t move the needle on TV ratings. It’s Caitlin. And they could do it. I think they absolutely put it together in a couple of years. And I’ll stay on that because I agree with you. It’s fascinating and it’s doable because of the void in the vacuum of leadership the WNBA continues to exhibit.”

It may still sound like a conjured-up sports radio soundbite meant to keep the conversation moving — and to his credit, John Ireland basically admitted as much when he floated the idea. Still, when even her biographer doesn’t completely dismiss it, the notion stops feeling entirely out of bounds. Especially if the league that should be building around Clark keeps giving her reasons to explore what else might be possible.

That said, let’s not pretend Brennan’s take is gospel. Just because she wrote a book about Clark doesn’t mean she speaks for her, and it certainly doesn’t mean she’s right.

So sure, it’s a fun hypothetical. And yeah, Clark moves numbers like no one else in women’s basketball right now. But the idea that she’d ditch the WNBA to form her own league — backed by Nike or not — still feels more like a fantasy from Brennan than any real possibility at all.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.