The Fever have not handed Caitlin Clark a giant new contract yet, but the move they just made makes it a whole lot easier to see where this is headed.

Indiana has exercised Clark’s fourth-year rookie option ahead of the 2026 season, keeping her under team control through 2027 and setting up what could become one of the first truly massive star-player paydays of the WNBA’s new salary era.

The option itself is not the eye-popping part. The real story is what comes next, because Clark now sits on the edge of a contract window that looks dramatically different under the league’s new economics.

Clark is set to make $528,846 in 2026, a major jump from the salary figures tied to her first two seasons, and she would be in line for $597,596 in 2027 under the exercised option. Those are much bigger numbers than the old rookie-scale reality, but they still are not close to where Clark’s long-term market could land if Indiana chooses to lock her up on a full extension once the timing and structure make sense.

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That is where the Fever’s broader roster decisions start to matter.

Indiana has already shown a willingness to spend aggressively in this new CBA environment. Earlier this month, the Fever signed Aliyah Boston to a four-year, $6.3 million extension, the richest total salary deal in WNBA history at the time, using the league’s newer exceptional-performance pathways to reward a cornerstone player early. Indiana also has multiple seven-figure salaries on the books, a sign that the franchise is not operating like a team afraid of the new cap world.

That matters for Clark because the new collective bargaining agreement has changed the scale of what elite players can earn.  In March the new WNBA CBA starts with a $7 million salary cap and a supermax salary starting at $1.4 million. Once Clark gets beyond the rookie-contract structure, that new landscape gives her a chance to move into a completely different pay tier than the one that existed when she entered the league.

The projections around her next deal help show why people are paying attention now.

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According to Spotrac analysis, Clark, who is already eligible for a max contract because she made first-team All-WNBA as a rookie in 2024, could earn a projected $1.3 million in 2027 if she chose that route, and then a projected $1.7 million supermax in 2028 at the start of an extended term. Those are not finalized numbers, but they give a very clear picture of the direction this is moving.

Indiana’s recent contract choices also suggest the franchise understands exactly what is coming. Lexie Hull re-signed with the Fever, with teammates Kelsey Mitchell and Sophie Cunningham signing one-year deals. That kind of shorter-term structure leaves the team flexibility as the new salary rules settle in and as Clark’s next contract becomes the biggest item on the board.

The basketball case for paying her big is not exactly hard to make. Clark has already become the face of the franchise and one of the defining stars of the league, even with a 2025 season that was disrupted by injuries and limited her to 13 games. She returned to preseason action this week in Indiana’s win over the Liberty, a reminder that the Fever are still building around her as the central piece of everything they want to become.

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