Caitlin Clark has added another NIL deal to her roster: Gatorade.

Clark signed a multi-year partnership with the sports drink brand, according to Front Office Sports. While the financial terms of the deal are unknown, Gatorade will be donating $22,000 to Clark’s foundation, which is dedicated to empowering youth.

“This partnership is special because not only does Gatorade fuel the best athletes in the game, but they’re also committed to leading by example and giving back, which is what I strive to do every day,” Clark said in a statement. “I’m honored to join such an iconic brand that has some of the most elite athletes in sport on their roster and can’t wait for what’s ahead.”

The Iowa guard is one of four college athletes to have a deal with Gatorade. She joins UConn’s Paige Bueckers, who was the first college athlete to sign with the brand, as well as Penn State football’s Nick Singleton and Colorado football’s Shedeur Sanders.

Clark’s latest NIL deal comes after she became the first NCAA athlete to sign with State Farm in October. She’s also signed deals with Nike, Buick, Topps, Hy-Vee and H&R Block. Clark recently signed with the Excel Sports Management agency, which includes women’s basketball clients such as Napheesa Collier and Arike Ogunbowale.

Clark is projected to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft should she opt to forego her fifth and final year of eligibility. The Indiana Fever received that pick Sunday in the WNBA draft lottery.

“We’re thrilled to be a part of Caitlin’s journey to greatness early in her career,” Jeff Kearney, Gatorade’s global head of sports marketing, said in a statement. “[We] look forward to building upon the incredible impact she’s already made.”

Iowa basketball and star senior Caitlin Clark were not going to lose to Kansas State again.

The No. 6 Hawkeyes claimed a 77-70 victory on Sunday, winning their rematch with the Wildcats and the Gulf Coast Showcase. Kansas State had beaten Iowa just 10 days earlier in Carver-Hawkeye Arena to hand the Hawkeyes their first, and so far only, loss of the season.

“Kansas State is obviously a great team,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said, noting that she thought the team did a “great job” of handling three games in three days as part of the Thanksgiving weekend tournament.

“It feels really good to get the redemption win. We did not play very well at our place and we knew that. We were really kind of glad to have this opportunity to redeem ourselves.”

Clark, who had one of the worst outings of her career in the loss to the Wildcats, was named tournament MVP. She scored 32 points in Sunday’s revenge win, and she also contributed 5 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals.

Still, the victory resulted from a group effort – especially after Kansas State went on an 11-0 run to take the lead with a little over two minutes remaining. Kate Martin had a double-double, while Molly Davis contributed 13 points for Iowa. The Hawkeyes were without Hannah Stuelke, who is sidelined with an ankle injury.

“I’m just really proud of this group,” Clark said. “They went on a little run there in the fourth quarter again, but we just responded and stayed together.”

Kansas State senior Ayoka Lee drew seven fouls on top of scoring 18 points. The Hawkeyes once again found themselves in foul trouble, as both Addison O’Grady and Sharon Goodman picked up early fouls.

“Ayoka Lee is just really tough to stop. She’s an excellent player,” Bluder said. “One of the best in the country. But we have one of the best in the country as well, and we’re very thankful for that.”

Dawn Staley has been excited to see early-season upsets in women’s college basketball.

While her Gamecocks are a perfect 4-0, several of their top competitors already have been toppled. Preseason No. 1 LSU lost to Colorado to start the season, and preseason No. 2 UConn lost to NC State. And then-No. 2 Iowa was upset by Kansas State, almost one year after the Wildcats upset a top-5 Iowa team.

Meanwhile, Princeton nearly upset No. 3 UCLA, and Duke pushed then-No. 6 Stanford to overtime.

All of these are signs of growing parity in the women’s game, which Staley called “good for the sport.”

“I think women’s basketball is good,” she said after South Carolina’s 78-38 win over South Dakota State on Monday. “We could talk about parity, but we’re good. Our sport is at a really good place where anybody feels like they could beat anybody. It’s come to pass and I think that helps everybody else when you see it.”

While the Gamecocks have not yet been a victim, the upsets give them reason for better preparation, Staley said. After all, a team never knows if they could be next.

“When you see it, you prepare a little bit better,” she said. “You’ve got examples of what it could look like for you if you lose a basketball game. More so than just coaching your team up, they see it, they feel it. It is a real thing out there when you see teams get upset.”

And the upsets have come as the sport has reached new heights of popularity. With more eyes on the game than ever before, sometimes those upsets can feel monumental. But if you ask Staley, she’s seen this changing of the tides coming.

Earlier this month, Staley discussed the the rise in the sport’s popularity with Vanity Fair.

“Women’s basketball is bursting at the seams,” Staley said. “It is a long time coming.”

And that could mean a greater financial return, too. Broadcast rights for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament are set to be negotiated soon, and the deal could be worth more than $100 million.

“We need somebody to bet on us,” Staley said, “and I know that they’ll get a return on their investment.”

Iowa star Caitlin Clark will become the first college athlete ever featured on the “ManningCast” during Monday’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Clark will speak with former NFL quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning on their alternate Monday Night Football broadcast. The show will air starting at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

The lifelong Chiefs fan will have a rooting interest in the game — at one point, her family even had a Chiefs vending machine in their home. She attended Kansas City’s Christmas Eve game in 2022.

She’s also sure to have a chance to talk about her basketball career with the Manning brothers, who simultaneously analyze the football action and interview their guests during each “ManningCast.”

The reigning National Player of the Year just broke another record in her latest game for the Hawkeyes. Clark’s 35-point performance in Iowa’s 113-90 win against Drake on Sunday marked her 39th career game with at least 30 points, breaking former Washington star Kelsey Plum’s record for the most in Division I women’s college hoops history.

At this point in Caitlin Clark’s career, it’s not a matter of if she broke an NCAA record – it’s which record she broke.

The Iowa guard’s 35-point performance in the Hawkeyes’ 113-90 win against Drake on Sunday marked her 39th career game with at least 30 points. That number breaks Kelsey Plum’s record for the most in Division I women’s college hoops history. She also had 10 assists, 6 rebounds and 7 steals – an all-around performance from the reigning national player of the year.

With just one more 30-plus point game, Clark will match the overall NCAA record, set by Detroit’s Antoine Davis last season. With her pace so far (31.0 points per game through five games), she seems likely to break the record.

Perhaps more important to Clark, though, was the rebounding performance from the Hawkeyes, as well as teammate Kate Martin posting a career high in points after going scoreless in the previous game, a 68-58 loss to Kansas State.

“I thought everyone responded really well,” Clark said. “People want to beat you. You’re the Iowa Hawkeyes. You were in the Final Four last year. You have a target on your back, but this group just worries about what’s in our locker room. We knew Thursday wasn’t who we are.

“Tonight, we got back to who we are.”

Another impressive note about Clark’s record is that many of her 30-plus point performances have come against top-tier opponents. The senior has averaged 29.6 points per game against AP top-10 opponents in her career, according to ESPN Stats & Info. Most recently, she hung 44 points on then-No. 8 Virginia Tech on Nov. 9.

Iowa basketball just missed out on its first No. 1 ranking in the AP Top 25 since 1988. But that “doesn’t matter,” head coach Lisa Bluder said.

The Hawkeyes moved up one spot to No. 2 following losses by the previous top two teams, LSU and UConn, in the opening week of the season. South Carolina jumped five spots to become the new No. 1.

UCLA, Utah and Colorado round out the top five in the new poll, released Monday, followed by No. 6 Stanford, No. 7 LSU and No. 8 UConn.

“We’ll see,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said about the No. 1 ranking after Sunday’s 94-53 win against Northern Iowa. “It really doesn’t matter if we are or not. It’s a long year. What are we this week? Three? That’s darn good too.”

Star senior Caitlin Clark agreed, saying: “I think it was a good (week), it gets you off on the right note. But our group is mature enough to know this is just the starting block.”

The Hawkeyes were buoyed, of course, by Clark. After putting up 44 points in an 80-76 win against No. 8 Virginia Tech on Thursday, she put up the 12th triple-double of her career against UNI.

Her 24 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds made history: She is now Iowa’s all-time leading scorer. And she joins Oregon-turned-WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu as the only NCAA Division I players to record triple-doubles in four separate seasons. Ionescu finished her career with 26, and Clark is second on the all-time list.

Following Iowa’s win over UNI, Panthers head coach Tanya Warren called Clark “the best player in the country.”

“Caitlin Clark is the best player in the country,” Warren said. “No ifs, ands or buts about it. You’re not going to stop her, you’re not going to contain her. You just want to make things tough for her.”

Ahead of the game, Clark knew she was close to Iowa’s all-time scoring record, which was held by former national player of the year and current Phoenix Mercury center Megan Gustafson.

“Megan’s been our biggest fan on this whole journey,” Clark said. “Megan reached out to me last night and said, ‘You’re very, very deserving of this. Go out there and do it.’ It’s not the first time she’s reached out and texted me. She’s always there. And that’s not fake — Megan is one of the best people of all time.”

And Gustafson gave Clark praise following the record-breaking performance.

“Congrats on breaking my record,” she said. “As soon as I watched you play as a freshman I really did know that, my record [was] not gonna last very long. But that’s a huge tribute to the program that Iowa has built, that you have built. You’ve inspired so many kids, boys and girls, all over the world, all over the state of Iowa.”

But Clark doesn’t want to hold onto the record.

“Records are meant to be broken,” she said. “So I hope Iowa has a really great player one day who can break mine, too.”

No. 3 Iowa’s basketball phenom Caitlin Clark stunned No. 8 Virginia Tech, dropping 44 points en route to a 80-76 win Thursday night for the Hawkeyes. 

Clark clocked her ninth career 40-point game, which moved her into a tie with former Missouri State star Jackie Stiles for the most in Division I basketball, women’s and men’s, over the last 25 seasons. 

Clark was borderline unguardable for the Hokies, sinking 3-pointers, hooking layups and drawing fouls to collect her 44 points.

“Sometimes you’re playing checkers and she’s playing chess,” Virginia Tech coach Kenny Brooks said. “She’s that good.”

Clark shot 13-31 from the field and 13-17 from the free-throw line. Clark also pulled down eight rebounds and assisted on six buckets.

Her play even garnered praise from a fellow guard, Virginia Tech’s Georgia Amoore. Clark and Amoore traded 3-pointers back and forth during the fourth quarter of the close game.

“She’s literally been gifted by every God you can imagine. She’s insane… She’s a generational talent,” Amoore told WUNC’s Mitchell Northam. 

Even at away games, Clark draws an unprecedented audience. According to the Associated Press, more than 15,000 people attended the matchup between the Hawkeyes and the Hokies, and other away teams have seen their attendance spike when Clark is in town. She’s already driving up ticket sales for Iowa games this season.

And on Thursday, the audience drawn in by Clark got the show they wanted to see.

“It seems like there are a lot of people that are just fans of our game, whether it is Iowa fans or Virginia Tech fans or just people that are here to support women’s basketball,” Clark told AP. “And that is why this game was put on is because they understand how great women’s basketball is and how much it is growing.”

If you’re hoping to catch Caitlin Clark on the court during her senior season with Iowa basketball, be prepared to pay up.

Clark’s stature and popularity has continued to rise since Iowa’s runner-up finish in the 2023 NCAA Tournament. With her logo 3-pointers, her smooth assists and her easy confidence, the 21-year-old guard is grabbing plenty of attention.

“I mean, it’s jaw-dropping. It’s eye-popping,” WNBA legend Sue Bird told the Wall Street Journal. “It makes you take note of those moments.”

As Clark takes her show on the road with the Hawkeyes, fans can expect to pay higher ticket prices to see the superstar. A SeatGeek spokesperson told the WSJ that the average resale price for regular-season women’s basketball tickets is up 75% from last season. Two of the games with the highest demand feature Iowa.

Iowa’s Big Ten road games are reselling for an average of $135, while home games are reselling for $180, according to SeatGeek. Tickets to NCAA champion LSU’s road games are reselling for an average of $101, and their home games for $76.

Take Iowa’s visit to Ohio State, set for a 12 p.m. ET tipoff in Columbus. Resale tickets are going for $100 on StubHub, per The Columbus Dispatch. Meanwhile, tickets for games against Michigan and Indiana are $9 and $25, respectively.

And for Iowa fans looking to watch Clark play at home at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, they’ll likely have to hit the resale market. In August, the university announced that season tickets were sold out after they had to pause deposits in April due to increased interest. The school has also paused single-game ticket sales for the season.

Previously, Iowa had only sold out three regular-season games in program history.

The officiating in the 2023 NCAA basketball championship game between LSU and Iowa fell below expectations, per an NCAA review as well as an independent review commissioned by the Associated Press.

With two rising stars in Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark pitted against one another, LSU’s 102-85 win over Iowa averaged a record 9.9 million viewers on ABC. And the calls from the referees stood out as an issue — including the four personal fouls called on Clark.

While the NCAA had planned a review of officiating after the 2024 tournament, it sped up the process after the criticism surrounding the 2023 title game. Per Lynn Holzman, the NCAA vice president for women’s basketball, officials were graded on accuracy — and that number was below average for national championship games.

“In the championship game itself, for example, we typically have a performance that I think is 91% historically,” she told the Associated Press. “In that game, the percentage of correct calls was below that, around 88%. That’s factually the case.”

An independent review, conducted for the Associated Press by an official who did not participate in the LSU-Iowa game, found that the percentage of correct calls was lower than the 88% mark given by Holzman.

The independent review cited mistakes made during the game, including a foul on Reese at the end of the first quarter and two offensive fouls missed (one for each team) in the third quarter.

“Officiating across the board is a concern for people,” said North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart, president of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. “Doing that assessment was a good step showing that they are trying to address it.”

The NCAA review was done by the Pictor Group, which offered up six observations and recommendations. Among them was better education and training for the NCAA women’s basketball committees on officiating as well as selecting and assigning crews.

“They felt that the national officiating program is run with integrity and there’s no question around any of that,” Holzman said. “They identified areas we can be better.”

Changes already have been made to the NCAA rulebook following the 2022-23 season. One update: Players can no longer be charged with a technical foul for certain delay-of-game violations. One example? Iowa star Caitlin Clark was given a foul in the third quarter of the championship game for not giving the ball to an official after a foul was called. Clark was charged with a technical due to it being the second delay-of-game violation for the Hawkeyes.

“Our committee is going to get a specific education about how we evaluate officials and this is what we’re looking at,” Holzman said. “The committee is going to be trained up.”

Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston could be WNBA teammates in 2024, and they are well aware of the possibility.

Clark enters the college basketball season as the projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft. The Iowa superstar has yet to determine whether she’ll go pro or return for a fifth year with the Hawkeyes — but if she heads to the WNBA, there is a good chance she will wind up with Boston.

The Indiana Fever selected Boston with No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft, and the former South Carolina standout went on to become the unanimous selection for WNBA Rookie of the Year. The Fever also hold the best odds for the No. 1 pick in 2024, with a 44.2% chance of winning the draft lottery on Dec. 10.

Boston, who is making her broadcast debut as an analyst for Big Ten basketball games this season, sat down with Clark in October for a Taylor Swift-themed interview. So it was inevitable that the draft would come up.

“Well, the Indiana Fever could have the first pick, so maybe we’ll have the duo,” Clark said. “I don’t know. Remains to be seen. But me and Aliyah might be teammates at some point, you never know.”

Of course, the two aren’t strangers to one another on the court. Clark and Iowa beat out Boston and South Carolina in the 2023 Final Four, and the two also have been teammates on Team USA.

“We were teammates before, so maybe we’ll have to reconnect,” Clark said of the WNBA draft, to which Boston replied: “Exactly.”

Still, Clark is entering her senior season with her mind open to all possibilities. But she knows she does not want to live with any regrets.

“I don’t know if I’m going to stay, I don’t know if I’m going to go,” she said. “I think it’s just something that, your time in college is so special. It’s different from being a pro. Obviously I haven’t lived that, but you just kind of know that from watching the WNBA, I’m a big fan. And I just want to experience every single moment and really soak it in. Soak in the games we lose, soak in the games we win.

“I feel like I was just a freshman — you can probably say the same. Time flies by, but these are some of the best moments of your life. So I think the biggest thing is, I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I’m just going to enjoy every single experience that I have this year because each one is unique and each one is special in its own way.”