The WNBA does not make profit, it has only made any profit one year like two decades ago. It’s nothing more than a marketing gimmick to draw female interest for their real product.
I wasn’t saying what she signed-on for isn’t fair. As mentioned, there just isn’t a lot of money in the WNBA to start with. But I was surprised to learn how large the salary disparity is between the leagues for #1 draft picks. WNBA star rookie and the face of the entire league could probably get a similar or better salary using her marketing degree and sitting at a desk job as a corporate drone (if ignoring the endorsement potential for a moment).
But on the spectrum, NCAA men’s basketball teams are better than WNBA teams.
You said it was ridiculous which is what prompted my reply. I would have been surprised by the pay disparity as well were it not for discussions about Britney Griner’s pay and why she was playing in Russia.
Bill Burr has a bit where he talks about how male anchors on ESPN always have to pretend like they don’t know why women athletes aren’t paid as much as their male counterparts. Ultimately most women’s sports just doesn’t have the following that men’s sports do at this time. NBA salaries didn’t get as high as they are overnight, and it’s going to take time for the WNBA to catch up. I think it’s unlikely to ever catch up though.
Catch up is one thing…but I worked out a few months ago that, on a “per regular season game” basis (i.e. what a player’s salary divided by the length of their regular season would be), the #20 or so highest played player in the NBA is all 144 WNBA players combined.
One way to fix this problem: hope that the “Caitlin Clark factor” boosts TV ratings, then when the TV contract comes up for renewal, the league should ask for more money. which then trickles down to the players. Didn’t the NBA have similar “problems” right before Magic & Bird joined the league?
I was going to make the same comparison. Magic and Bird brought the league into a new era with hugely more interest which led to higher salaries (and ticket prices). It all started with their college rivalry.
In 1981-82 I went to a lot of Laker games. They almost never sold out. It was $7 for the cheap seats ($23 today). Day of game prices for students with ID was $3.50. That was just a little more than I was paid for working for an hour at the pizza place.
That would be nice, but it would be kinda like expecting Wembayama to save the NBA when Magic/Bird/Jordan/Kobe/Lebron couldn’t. There’s been plenty of super stars in the WNBA before, end of the day women are just not interested in sports to the degree men are, and if they are most are going to prefer the men’s league also. Like that Bill Burr bit referenced earlier said, the money the WNBA players should be making went to the Kardashians instead, because that is what women watch.
Perhaps. But I thought the women’s NCAA tournament was much more interesting than the men’s this year. Maybe I’ll watch the WNBA. I’m really not into the NBA anymore at all.
The women’s title game outdrew the men’s 18.9 million to 14.8 million this year, though granted that is probably mostly down to the Caitlin Clark factor. But the fact that there is a Caitlin Clark factor probably does speak to a rising popularity (or at least visibility, which often translates to popularity) of women’s basketball in general. You can tangibly see this increased visibility as NIL money is starting to drive more and more elite women’s recruitment (including a vastly increased transfer pool) into college. Elite college students are now starting to making far, far more money as college players than they will from WNBA salaries.
The WNBA is also experiencing a slow rise in viewership - slower and from a much smaller starting base, but still double-digit percentage points.
The NBA also had like, twice as many teams in 1979 as the WNBA has now.
~Max
Update: I checked the NBA salaries on ESPN against the WNBA total salary cap on Spotrac.
Here is where the WNBA places:
42 - Gordon Hayward, Oklahoma City, $31,500,000
43 - Chris Paul, Golden State, $30,800,000
44 - The total WNBA Salary Cap, adjusted to an NBA-length schedule, $30,608,530
45 - Domantas Sabonis, Sacramento, $30,600,000
46 - Khris Middleton, Milwaukee, $29,320,988
Caitlin Clark just signed an “8 figure deal” with Nike, so i think she’ll be fine.
The women’s game was Sunday, the men’s game was Monday, and as I recall, the men’s title game was on TBS while the women’s was on ABC. TBS is only available in about 80 million homes. I’d think ABC is available in virtually every home with a TV and almost certainly in any home that can get TBS.
Whatever. There was WAY more buzz about the woman’s tourney this year. BBC
Definitely agreed, though it was primarily, if not entirely, a function of interest in Clark.
$350,000 apparently. No doubt Clark will get a lot of money supporting advertisers, but still…
The NBA pays 50% of league revenue to players. The WNBA players supposedly want more or equitable percentage but understand the pie is smaller.
Which sounds reasonable on it’s face, but is probably not possible. The WNBA and NBA both have costs for things like coaches, medical staff, trainers, janitors, ushers, security, rent/property taxes, etc, etc, but in the WNBA it’s a much larger slice of the pie since they have a much smaller pool of money and costs can only be reduced so much.
The NBA owns 50% of the WNBA. The league and its owners only own 50% of their own teams. The only thing that’s the same between the two leagues is they both bounce an orange ball. You can’t really compare the two business models.
There is no pie, the WNBA does not make any profit. Asking for more money is just asking the owners to burn even more cash to support what is basically a hobby/marketing gimmick.