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Caitlin Clark set a laughable number of records over the course of her college career at Iowa, and there was zero doubt her number was going to be retired once she made the leap to the NBA. Now, all signs point to her breaking another benchmark she was responsible for setting after the school revealed the date she’ll be immortalized in the rafters.
On March 3, 2024, Caitlin Clark played her final regular season game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena with the chance to break Pete Maravich’s all-time NCAA scoring record. She was able to do exactly that, as the basketball sensation propelled Iowa to a 93-83 victory over Ohio State with the game-high 35 points she scored while drilling six shots from behind the arc.
A good chunk of the 14,998 fans in attendance had to shell out a significant amount of cash to get into the building, as the average ticket price on the secondary market was hovering around $550 before the contest—a price of admission that made it the most expensive women’s basketball game to attend in the history of the sport.
However, it doesn’t seem like that will be the case for much longer.
On Wednesday, Iowa announced Clark’s #22 jersey will be retired when the Hawkeyes host USC on February 2nd.
To the rafters.
2.2.25@CaitlinClark22 x #Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/Qjq1Y1VfrZ
— Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB) December 18, 2024
That was already a game to circle on the calendar when you consider the Trojans have a superstar of their own in the form of JuJu Watkins, but it’s obviously going to be a very hot ticket when you consider Clark will be in the building to receive her flowers.
Just how hot is it going to be? Well, according to TickPick, the cheapest ticket up for grabs on Thursday morning was going for $711 (up from $283 before the date of the ceremony was announced), so it’s pretty safe to assume the average price will end up blowing last year’s out of the water.
We didn’t really need any more proof the Caitlin Clark Effect is very, very real, but we certainly got some.