INDIANAPOLIS – Late last week, the Indiana Fever made the obvious a formality by exercising a team option in the contract of star guard Caitlin Clark.
Clark, an MVP candidate who missed time due to injuries last season, is perhaps the best guard in the WNBA. She was named to the All-WNBA First Team as a rookie in 2024, then averaged 16.5 points and 8.8 assists per game last season.
Her talent is undeniable, and the Fever look to be contenders in the coming season. Naturally, keeping the young star in Indiana as long as possible should be a goal for the franchise, and picking up her team option for 2027 does exactly that.
Clark is on her rookie scale contract after being the first overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft. Rookie scale deals come with a pre-determined salary value across four seasons – the new Collective Bargaining Agreement bumped up Clark’s salary for 2026 and 2027, but she’s still on that four-year pact. And rookie scale deals have another unique quirk in that they have team options that cover the final seasons, but they have to be picked up a full year in advance.
As it pertains to Clark, that meant the Fever had to decide about her contractual future for the 2027 season before the 2026 campaign even began. In this specific instance, it was a no-brainer. The Fever would keep Clark at any contractual value given her on and off-court impact – exercising the team option for 2027 was a formality.
The decision puts Clark under contract for $597,596 that season, per Her Hoop Stats WNBA Salary Cap Database. After that, she projects to be a restricted free agent.
That’s the current reality, at least. It could change. Clark, by making an All-WNBA team in her first season, will be eligible for an extension via the Exceptional Performance on Initial Contract (EPIC) provision next season. That’s a newly implemented type of extension – so far, Clark’s Fever teammate Aliyah Boston is the only player to sign a contract using those EPIC rules.
EPIC extensions give a team the opportunity to not only extend a player’s contract, but also give them a raise in the fourth season of their rookie deal. For Clark, that raise would come next season. The Fever could bump up her cap hit from just under $600,000 all the way up to her maximum salary, though there is room for negotiation. Boston, for example, had her salary bumped up to $1 million, about $119k less than her max.
The most money Clark can make in 2027 on an EPIC extension isn’t known – it would rise if she is named MVP in 2026. But it’s at least the player maximum salary (17%) and could be as high as 20% of next year’s salary cap for WNBA teams, a number that also isn’t known and can’t be until next winter. On top of a raise in 2027, Clark’s contract could be extended for multiple seasons thanks to the EPIC provision.
The Fever will do whatever they can to keep her around as long as possible. She has averaged 18.5 points and 8.5 assists per game across 53 games in two seasons. Indiana is 28-25 when she is available to play.
“Just really excited more than anything,” Clark said of her emotions for the coming season. She feels great about what her team has gotten done during training camp. “Practice has been really good. [The] energy level has been great, so [I] can’t complain about that.”
Clark’s contract for 2027 is now protected after her team option for that season was picked up. She and the Fever kick off their 2026 campaign on Saturday afternoon.
