The economic outlook of women's sports reached a tipping point this week

Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic’s weekly sports business cheat sheet.Name-dropped today: Azzi Fudd, Rory McIlroy, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Greg and Carrie Walton Penner, TPG, Dick Vitale, Candace Buckner, Toto Wolff and more. Let’s go:Driving the ConversationA watershed week for women’s sportsThere are a couple of threads over just the past few days related to the economics of women’s sports. They demonstrate a half-decade of increasing attention and investment has yielded a dramatic tipping point:👶 WNBA Draft rookie windfall. No. 1 pick Azzi Fudd will make $500K with the Dallas Wings next season, which is up *blinks* $432,000 over previous WNBA rookie deals for top picks. Last year, the first 12 picks combined to make over $907K; this year, the top two picks alone will combine to make more than that. The ninth pick this year will by herself make as much as the ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th picks last year combined. Long time coming.Advertisement