Caitlin Clark declines WNBA 3-Point Contest invitation, dealing major blow to All-Star Weekend and ESPN
Caitlin Clark declined the WNBA 3-Point Contest invitation despite the league adding logo shots seemingly built around her long-distance shooting brand.
The WNBA announced its 3-Point Contest field Tuesday, and it didn’t take long to notice a glaring omission.
Caitlin Clark isn't in it.
According to ESPN, the league invited Clark to its shooting contest, but she declined. Sabrina Ionescu and Kayla McBride also declined invitations to participate.
It's impossible to overstate how big of a blow this deals to the WNBA and its broadcast partner, ESPN.
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The league built its All-Star Weekend shooting event around Clark by adding "From the Logo" shots to the contest. Not only is Clark the most notable WNBA player (really the only notable player) to shoot logo threes, but State Farm built an entire marketing campaign around her long-distance triples.
So, yeah, it's hard to view the league's "From the Logo" shot as anything but a nod to its most popular superstar.
And as bad as it is for the WNBA, it's probably worse for ESPN. With Clark competing, ESPN could almost guarantee that it would draw at least a million viewers.
But it gets a little worse.
The league also didn't include Clark’s Indiana Fever teammates Kelsey Mitchell or Sophie Cunningham. It's unclear whether either were offered and declined or simply wasn't asked, but it doesn't matter at this point.
Mitchell finished third among guards in the fan portion of WNBA All-Star voting and ninth overall with 665,377 votes. She’s also shooting 42% from three this season.
Cunningham finished 15th overall in fan voting with 386,451 votes, and she’s shooting 44% from deep. Cunningham has over 3.2 million followers on TikTok and 2.6 million followers on Instagram. In other words, she is one of the most popular players in the WNBA and she can shoot the rock.
Another notably absent player is Paige Bueckers. Bueckers, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft, is averaging 20 points per game and led the entire league with 1,045,051 fan votes for the 2026 WNBA All-Star Game.
So, yes, the WNBA has a 3-point contest.
It just doesn’t have a lot of the names people would’ve expected to see, or wanted to see, in a 3-point contest.
Rhyne Howard, Marina Mabrey, Azzi Fudd, Bridget Carleton, Natisha Hiedeman and Janelle Salaün will compete Friday night at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.
That’s a perfectly respectable field, though most of the players are likely unknown to casual sports fans. Mabrey leads the WNBA with 82 made threes entering play Tuesday. Howard is second with 79. Salaün is fifth, Carleton is sixth and Hiedeman is tied for seventh. Fudd, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft, is tied for 10th.
Sure, those six players are good shooters.
But come on.
Clark is the biggest draw in the sport. Ionescu is one of the most famous shooters in women’s basketball. Bueckers led all players in All-Star fan voting. Clark's teammates, Mitchell and Cunningham, are two other very popular players who can shoot.
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Still, no one matters more than Clark, who has yet to compete in the WNBA's three-point contest in her three-year career.
She declined the 2024 WNBA 3-Point Contest, was expected to compete in the 2025 version before pulling out because of injury, and now reportedly declined this year’s contest.
That’s a big problem for the WNBA. Clark changes the temperature of everything around her. Regular-season games feel bigger when she’s involved. Road arenas fill up. Ratings jump. Social media explodes. People who don’t normally watch the WNBA suddenly care.
The WNBA has a nationally televised 3-point contest with logo shots during All-Star Weekend, and Caitlin Clark won’t be in it.
For a league trying to turn momentum into something bigger, that’s a massive miss.