Just like Michael Jordan, even Caitlin Clark couldn’t win the ROTY award unanimously. But both of them took home the honors and even finished in the top 10 of the MVP rankings in their respective rookie seasons. The Fever star came 4th while the Bulls legend was 6th on the rankings. Multiple people have shared that the impact of both is very similar in raising the level of the league and one of them is a former Lakers star who had his battles with His Airness.

“WNBA is in their 27th year. It’s going to be like the NBA is slowly but surely growing. And this young lady (Caitlin Clark) is a big reason why this game is changing,” Michael Cooper said on Byron Scott’s Fast Break when he spoke about Caitlin Clark’s impact. “She is like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan all rolled up some more. She’s an unstoppable scorer, she’s an unselfish player, she’s a hell of a passer. And now she’s showing you that she can go rebound the basketball. So when you got that going for you, now all eyes are on the WNBA all because of her.”

The 5x NBA champion was appreciative of the WNBA and its measure for arranging charter flights for the players. However, he thinks the arrival of Clark made sure that the process happened faster. Further, he added, “The attendance, you know, her bringing her attendance, her college attendance, people following her. And college to the pro game. You see, little girls now want to be like her. That’s the start of something fantastic.” There is no doubt that the former Hawkeye brought fans to the game because last year the Fever was the second-worst franchise in the league for attendance.

They averaged just 4,067 fans, but this season they have set the top two records for fan attendance. First, the WNBA record with a total home attendance of 340,715, and also set a single-season attendance record for a game. Even against the Washington Mystics in Washington, D.C., there were 20,711 fans for the epic clash. That’s why even Michael Jordan once asked to add an attendance clause in his contract, owing to his popularity.

Speaking about the 6x NBA Champion’s deal with the Chicago Bulls, it was for seven years with an average salary of $850,000 a year. Interestingly, he was the league’s highest-paid player in only two seasons during his historic career. And early on in his career, Michael Jordan tried to negotiate a clause, hoping for better remuneration.

Michael Jordan had plans to increase his salary

In 2005, the former North Carolina Tar Heels graduate revealed that he and his agent asked for an attendance clause. “They were averaging 6,000 people a game. So we thought, ‘OK, we’re going to ask for an attendance clause.’ At the time, Jonathan Kovler was the owner,” Michael Jordan said to Marvin R. Shanken, Editor and Publisher of Cigar Aficionado.

“My agent, David Falk, went in and asked for that. Kovler said, ‘We’re not going to give him an attendance clause because if we draft him at the three spot, he’d better put people in the seats.’ So they never gave us an attendance clause,” Jordan revealed. Even though MJ did not get that extra money, he was never regretful about it, as he shared in the same interview.

To understand the influence of Michael Jordan on broadcasting, the former chairman of NBC Sports compared MJ to Muhammad Ali. “Did ‘Wide World of Sports’ show Muhammad Ali too much in the 1960s? It’s what the public wants,” said Ebersol. From Fever President Allison Barber to Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman, they have felt a strong connection of fans with Michael Jordan and Caitlin Clark, which even the Lakers legend Michael Cooper felt and expressed to Byron Scott.

Stay tuned for more such updates and join us for the exciting second episode of the “Dual Threat Show” as our host BG12 sits down with Georgia Bulldogs star and Mountain West All-Freshman Team Selection, Asia Avinger.