{"id":564648,"date":"2026-01-27T19:45:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/564648\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:45:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:45:19","slug":"post-caitlin-clark-iowa-womens-basketball-revenue-fell-back-to-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/564648\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-Caitlin Clark, Iowa Women\u2019s Basketball Revenue Fell Back to Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Caitlin Clark<\/a>-fueled financial boom in University of Iowa<\/a> women\u2019s athletics could not survive her departure to the WNBA, as revealed in the school\u2019s latest NCAA financial disclosures for the fiscal year 2025.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the first academic cycle since Clark left the Hawkeyes, women\u2019s basketball ticket sales plummeted by 27%, from $3,260,451 to $2,366,160. Revenue from the sales of programs, novelties, parking and concession dropped even more sharply\u2014down 40%, from $858,548 to $511,960\u2014while team-specific royalties fell 21% from $470,749 to $370,408.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dip in Iowa\u2019s ticket revenue likely clears the way for Connecticut to reclaim its status as the top-earning public women\u2019s basketball program at the gate. The Huskies held that distinction for most of the past decade until Iowa surpassed them in Clark\u2019s senior season. For FY25, UConn reported $4.25 million in women\u2019s basketball sales.<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch post-departure declines are not unusual when a program loses a singular revenue-driving force. When Deion Sanders left Jackson State to coach at Colorado, for example, the Tigers\u2019 football ticket sales fell<\/a> from $3.2 million to $2 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tIowa\u2019s ticket sales have jumped dramatically in the last few years, thanks both to Clark and the sport\u2019s overall commercial growth. In FY22, Clark\u2019s sophomore year, Iowa reported $767,000 in sales. That doubled to $1.44 million in her junior season, then more than doubled again in her final campaign, when Iowa was the only public FBS school whose women\u2019s basketball team outsold its men\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring FY24\u2014Clark\u2019s historic swan song in Iowa City\u2014the Hawkeyes led the country in not only ticket sales but related game-day revenue. Clark was named the country\u2019s top women\u2019s college basketball player for the second consecutive year, and Iowa advanced to the NCAA tournament\u2019s championship game before falling to top-seeded South Carolina.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast season, with Clark gone and first-year head coach Jan Jensen taking the reins from Lisa Bluder, Iowa finished 23-10 and exited the NCAA Tournament in the second round as a No. 6 seed.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs revenue declined, expenses followed suit. The program\u2019s FY25 operating costs fell 17.6%, from $10.3 million to $8.5 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Caitlin Clark-fueled financial boom in University of Iowa women\u2019s athletics could not survive her departure to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,455,217,76822,3734,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-564648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-caitlin-clark","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-college-database","12":"tag-iowa","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-basketball","15":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}