Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Thursday, December 12th.

Today on Forbes, why Caitlin Clark is one of the world's 100 most powerful women in 2024.

Caitlin Clark was almost nonchalant about the shot that, in March, made her the NCAA's all-time

leading scorer, male or female.

She told Fox's courtside reporter Alison Williams, quote,

Pretty cool. In the same breath, she launched into an analysis of her team's performance

in the game's first half.

Quote, Pretty cool is one way to describe the year that Clark has had.

Groundbreaking, galvanizing, and history making are others.

After leading Iowa to the NCAA women's finals, which was watched by a record 18.7 million viewers

and 24 million at its peak, making it one of the most watched games in college basketball history

and surpassed the men's final for the first time. Clark then went on to become the number one

pick in the 2024 WMBA draft. In her inaugural WNBA season, she continued making history.

She set rookie records for most points and assists, and was named

the league's rookie of the year. Alongside draft class members Angel Reese, Cameron Blink, and

Camilla Cardozo, Clark is credited with driving a record 54 million viewers to ABC, NBC, ESPN,

and their cable peers to watch the WMBA's regular season.

All of that attention is also lucrative. Over the summer, the WMBA struck an 11-year,

$2.2 billion media rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime, and NBC. A basketball player has never before made the ranks of the

Forbes list of the world's 100 most powerful women. Serena Williams, the tennis ace, is one of the

only other athletes to appear in the rankings in the last 20 years. But the 22-year-old Clark

was a driving force in a game-changing year for women's sports.

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