Caitlin Clark has been great for women’s sports. So has the transfer portal, even if she doesn’t like it.
Everything Caitlin Clark touches seems to turn to gold…but her recent comments about the transfer portal were lackluster at best. Earlier this month, Clark was a guest on the New Heights With Jason and Travis Kelce podcast, where she called out perhaps one of the most polarizing topics in college sports: the transfer portal.
“The transfer portal is crazy — especially in football. That’s where I think it’s gotten the craziest,” Clark said on New Heights. “It’s kind of sad. You lost a little bit of that amateurism of college sports… but also, it’s the world we’re living in.”
Clark is correct in that the transfer portal further brings the concept of athletic amateurism in college sports into question. But here’s the thing: you can’t bemoan the loss of amateurism — which is a shoddy concept to begin with—while actively profiting off its downfall like Clark has, signing multi-million-dollar contracts that would make amateurism purists cringe. And it’s clear that Clark doesn’t fall into that camp – even while dissing the transfer portal, she acknowledged the benefits of NIL earlier in her interview, when she discussed navigating broad policy changes while in college.
“The NIL part of it – like the true endorsements, like you’re doing a commercial for the local coffee shop – it’s something so easy and so simple,” Clark said. “A normal student can do that, but like, why couldn’t an athlete?”
NIL has undoubtedly been great for college athletes like Clark, as her endorsements during her college career amplified her brand as well as her sport and set the foundation for her already-illustrious pro career. And the transfer portal is similarly good for athletes and universities.
That includes Iowa, Clark’s Alma mater, who snagged Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen to replace Clark after her graduation.
And Clark’s argument about NIL (that because regular students can sign endorsements and become influencers, so why shouldn’t athletes) rings hollow when contrasted against her complaints against transferring. If a student in a university’s marching band or forensics team wants to transfer, they can do so without penalty from their extracurricular organizations.
Until recent updates to NCAA transfer policies, the same was not true for NCAA athletes, who had to sit out a season (if their transfer requests were accepted by the NCAA at all). Prior to 2018, college athletes needed their coach’s permission to contact other schools in regards to transferring, essentially enabling coaches to block rival schools from picking up their prized athletes. The NCAA’s latest transfer policies actually treat college athletes more like regular students, which Clark seems to be in favor of in regards to NIL.
Not only that, but before NIL was widespread, many people critiqued it in the same way critics are approaching the transfer portal.
With NIL, fears about the “end” of college sports abounded, with Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney threatening to retire if college athletes were paid. Nick Saban admitted that NIL and transfer portal updates contributed to his decision to retire last season. Today, transfer athletes are criticized for being disloyal to their teams even though their coaches can switch up schools at the drop of a hat, sometimes even requiring a buyout to leave a school before their contract expires.
Both NIL and the transfer portal shared one central critique: that fans would stop watching if athletes were paid (which Brett Kavanaugh heavily argued against in NCAA vs. Alston in July 2021), or if they didn’t stick with one team for four years.
Neither has proven true. In the years since NIL and the transfer portal became mainstream, the College Football Playoff has reached record viewership. So, too, has women’s basketball, both in the regular and postseason, with last season’s national championship game between South Carolina and Iowa outperforming the men’s championship for the first time. The professionalization of college sports via commercialization has always been good for the industry’s bottom line. Now that athletes can take advantage, the revenue is booming even further.
And both NIL and the transfer portal have been excellent for female athletes, with the popularity of women’s basketball and volleyball skyrocketing in recent years, thanks in part to the visibility both NIL and transferring provide.
For better or worse, female athletes like Olivia Dunne, Angel Reese, the Cavinder twins, Juju Watkins, and Caitlin Clark are just as well-known for their NIL deals as they are for their game. And softball players like Jocelyn Alo, Michaela Edenfield, and Stanford transfer NiJaree Canady have also made headlines for their impressive NIL deals—including Canady’s record-breaking $1.2 million contract with Texas Tech’s NIL collective, The Matador Club—which amplifies their chronically under-resourced sport. With the 2028 Olympics featuring softball for the first time in 20 years, softball could very well be the next big thing in women’s sports, and NIL will have played no small part.
From a visibility standpoint, the transfer portal has a similar effect: it brings eyes to under-covered athletes.
For instance, last year’s offseason featured several key recruits in Caitlin Clark’s sport that caused a stir in a good way. Much of it started with then-Stanford forward, Kiki Iriafen, who was thrust into the national spotlight after dropping 41 points in the Cardinal’s Round of 32 OT win over Iowa State, essentially filling in for Cameron Brink, whose off night was capped off by her fouling out early in the fourth quarter. While the game enhanced Iriafen’s brand, the transfer portal amplified her value even further. Formally best known as Brink’s backup, Iriafen transformed into a household name after her announcement that she would be entering the transfer portal after Stanford’s season ended.
When former Oregon State guard Talia von Oelhoffen announced the same and used her transfer campaign to tease her fans about her final pick while showing off her personality, rumors of a super team at USC swirled around sports media, as both Iriafen and von Oelhoffen had USC as one of their finalists for their new basketball home.
If anything, the pseudo-free agency of college sports makes for great media coverage. What better to do in the offseason than speculate on where star players will land next season? This media landscape is great for women’s sports in particular because it keeps athletes at the forefront of coverage year-round. Like NIL, the transfer portal offers a slew of benefits for the brand power of college athletes. It’s especially true for women, many of whom peak in athletic earning potential in college due to a lack of professional opportunities for female athletes.
While transferring does little to bridge that gap, it’s still a positive, and it’s time that we stop criticizing athletes who take advantage of the opportunity to do so.
