I can't even fathom why anyone would need to be paid $42 million while other players of the same talent would be paid so much less. This is a Gross difference between NBA organizations. It is not a matter of sexism or discrimination. As women, we work just as hard or maybe even harder than men do when it comes to achieving our goals. So, I think people support us and recognize that women work too hard to get the little pay they do, but wheres the change? Did You Ever Wonder How and Why the Left Is Able to Push Their Narratives Almost Unhindered? Griner's current yearly salary in the WNBA is $227,900, which is just about a fourth of what she made in Russia this winter, and there are only three players in the WNBA who make more than Griner by $194. Most people will say a lot of our income comes from the number of people we get at our games or maybe even the fact that we cant afford to have our games channelized on national TV. you gotta take a breath, kid. Also, say if they were to get 50% of the WNBA revenue it would mean they would owe instead of receiving increased salary. So, although we can follow the lead of boxing and rank the top WNBA players among the very best basketball players in the world, the top players in the WNBA are not going to start earning as much as the top players in the NBA. Proclaiming that women should get paid as much as men is a great way for a man to demonstrate his feminist bona fides. Yet, ESPN is constantly promoting the WNBA, as is their right. The US women's soccer team has brought the conversation to the forefront over the last three years. Is it possible, however, that this simply shows an inherent sexist bias by consumers against womens basketball? This would give them the opportunity to negotiate a new deal that increases the salary cap, along with maximum and minimum salaries. You may opt-out by. 2023 Womens Sports Foundation. Therefore no one watches it, on the other hand, NBA generates more revenue of $7.92 billion per year than the WNBA. I know this is a controversial statement because women are never supposed to ask for more than they have, lest they be ungrateful for whatever theyve been given thus far. If the WNBA doesnt make a profit, and ESPNs sources confirm that it doesnt, then it bears to reason that the players share of the EBRI will be lower. Elizabeth Cambage #8 of the Dallas Wings in action during a recent Dallas Wings Vs New York Liberty. [+] Prior to this season, Cambage last played in the WNBA in 2013. Meanwhile, High Post Hoops reports that the highest paid player in the WNBA -- Chiney Ogwumike of the Connecticut Sun -- is paid $117,500 this year. After they won the World Cup in 2015, it was revealed that the US women's team were paid a . He covers an array of topics including NFL, Pop Culture, Fishing News, and the Outdoors. The NBA's annual revenue is $7.92 billion, while the WNBA's is $60 million not enough to cover NBA players Kevin Love and Damian Lillard's combined salaries. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images). You can not compare the cultures. This season, the maximum veteran salary is $115,500, not including potential bonuses. While the men are getting about half of the total money they help the NBA earn, the women are getting less than a fourth. The methodology used to measure exploitation in college basketball can help answer that question. I have nev. Players who go overseas end up playing almost year-round, with little break for their bodies to recover. However, in the 1971-1972 season the year the NBA started drawing the same number of fans that the WNBA attracts today the average salary was $90,000, which would equate to roughly $500,000 today. "And we need more people at our table to fight with us," she told Wealthsimple. A 47 point difference is absolutely terrible. And its something were going to keep trying to push and push and push until we feel that everything is equal. Copyright 2023 PJMedia.com/Salem Media. Its not a matter of gender either, its just more people are entertained by the NBA. LeBronJames is one of the greatest athletes in human history, but if his sport of choice generated the public interest theWNBAhas, he would not be signing a $154 million dollar contract. It is not a matter of sexism or discrimination. Sue Bird, a current player for the Seattle Storm, explained that most people think the WNBA wants the same pay as the NBA when thats not the case. According to the High Post Hoops data, Sylvia Fowles, Nneka Ogwumike, Sylar Diggins-Smith, Angel McCoughtry, Diana Taurasi, Dewanna Bonner, Elena Delle Donne, and Chiney Ogwumike are all paid between $111,180 and $117,500. And I know you know what that box could have inside. And I dont want to lose the WNBA or miss out on seeing the best female basketball players playing in the league. The players are, though. You can pay your athletes more if they actually bring in the revenue for you to pay them with. Those are honorable reasons to stick with the WNBA, but players shouldnt have to choose between these personal anchors to the league and their need to make a living. According to Jami Farkas of Yahoo Finance, WNBA players had an average salary of $74,349 in 2019, increasing to $120,648 in 2021. As Mark Tatum, NBA deputy commissioner, says, The league and its teams are committed to an open and good-faith negotiation that is rooted in the financial realities of our business., The pushback on that, and one of the more prominent arguments utilized by those who advocate for higher WNBA salaries, is that the NBA doesnt promote the womens league enough. Like Russia. In the 2018 All-Star Game, for example, 32 percent of the roster identified as gay. . 15 Episodes of Seinfeld That Teach Everything You Need To Know About Life. And Britney Griner, in an interview with Landon Buford, echoed the sentiment . INFO What are differences that cause WNBA players to get paid Are. Unfortunately Wilsons thoughts reflecta growingtrend of sports commentarylooking at the plight of the underpaidWNBAplayer. The more money that women make, the more respect they will get. World number one tennis player Novak Djokovic says male tennis players deserve more money because the spectators love them more, and Indian Wells tournament ex-CEO Raymond Moore astutely observed the women's tour rides "on the coat-tails of the men". Im not saying that WNBA players arent good at the game of basketball and Im not saying that they dont deserve equal pay, but the game just is not the same. According to Bird: So, I thought that it needed . As many may not know, men get paid way more money than women's basketball does. The Boston Celtics player says men need to do more to support WNBA players in their fight for equal pay. Members of the U . And yet, they do it, in large part, for the financial security it provides. As women, we have to fight, Diggins-Smith told Bleacher Report. So why are we getting paid so little? Except I dont know a single person who believes that women should get paid less than men for being as productive while doing the same job. The maximum veteran salary is $113,500. It is simply because the WNBA is not as good as the NBA and you cant get viewers when there is a better alternative. And we need men speaking out about these things., In 2016, six female big wave surfers Andrea Moller, Bianca Valenti, Keala Kennelly, Paige Alms, Karen Tynan and Sabrina Brennan founded the Commission for Equity in Womens Surfing (CEWS). Equal pay is an ongoing gender issue in sports. I see and hear promos for the Washington Mystics, the local WNBA team, all the time. Which is kind of unbelievable, as WNBA All-Star point guard for the Dallas Wings, Skylar Diggins-Smith, : Before we even talk about base salary or anything like that, we dont even get paid the same percentage of the revenue that we bring in., its not clear what the WNBAs exact revenue is, or individual teams, or their profits. 2 For example,last month theWNBAaveraged 250,000 viewers per game with a high of 378,000. Of course, a bump to 50 percent of WNBA league revenue isnt realistic, because theres a difference between revenue and profit. Last week, this exciting season of the WNBA ended after the Seattle Storm swept the Washington Mystics to win their third championship. Following the success of the 2014 Pride Campaign, the league has continued to reach out to gay fans, promoting stories about their LGBT players, and offering special merchandise for Pride Month and Pride Night games. That is more than $92 million a year for the rights to televise the USGA's championships, including the men's and women's U.S. This lack of media coverage has always hampered womens sports. , WNBA players make $75,000 a year in the league, with only a few players earning as much as $113,000. As a point of comparison, the NBA didnt draw crowds of this size until its 26th season, when the league averaged 8,061 fans per game. Stats show that in 2018, the top scoring team in the WNBA . Playing overseas in Europe, Asia, or Australia can often pay substantially more than playing in the United States. Although that's true, there's still a substantial gender wage gap in professional basketball, even after you adjust for the revenue difference. This was a stellar season, where the final eight teams that made the playoffs werent determined until the last few games. And there is seemingly no end to the people who tell them to be quiet, who disparage their talent and work and even lie about what they have said to make them seem petty or jealous. The figures used came from ESPN ranking and salary lists for NBA and WNBA players for 2021-2022. . This also helps explains whye-sports playersare making more money than the best players in theWNBA. If that is so then why can Russia and Europe and China pay them well? Dear 16-year-old Swin, Whew, O.K. WWE Insider Says Yes, recently made this observation on Twitter about pay in the WNBA, but Yahoo.com reported a few years ago that salaries range from $150,000 to $550,000, there's still a substantial gender wage gap in professional basketball, but given the league's minimum ticket prices, average attendance, and the value of its ESPN television deal it appears revenue was at least $51.5 million in 2017, it has been reported that average salary is about $75,000, The methodology used to measure exploitation in college basketball, wins produced can be measured with the player's box score statistics, It has been reported that more than 60% of the WNBA's players play in a league outside the United States when the WNBA season ends. Per Deseret News, this could simply be economics: The WNBA season is shorter, and in general, the game draws far fewer eyeballs than the rival male league. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. [B]ecause I heard a bench player gets paid more than nvm.. This is the first time salaries for women in the WNBA will achieve an average salary that is six figures (Glamour). It felt like records were set on an almost weekly basis. Since the NBA formed the WNBA I can't see how they could not just pay the men less to pay the women more. (For the record, I have seen WNBA games.). What I mean by that is, the WNBA has a total of 3 rounds with only 12 picks, while the NBA has 2 rounds with a total of 60 picks. Instead of grumbling about the salaries male basketball players enjoy, perhaps Aja Wilson should be thankful theirproduct helps bolster her own paycheck. Are there men that cook well and deal with kids well? At that point, whatever their salaries currently are will disappear completely. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. Doppler, the mascot of the Seattle Storm, waves a rainbow gay pride flag before the start of a game. But interest is also clearly driven by media: If a network highly values a property, itll market and promote it as a way to build an audience. The WNBA's average base salary is around $130,000, with the rookie minimum at $60,471 and the veteran minimum at $72,141. If the WNBA doesnt figure this out, players are going to opt out of the league. If the WNBA Players Association wants to opt out of its current collective bargaining agreement with the league and renegotiate terms, they have to do so by Oct. 31. Prior to this season, Cambage last played in the WNBA in 2013. Snyder's success will hinge on getting through to them at a level that Lloyd Pierce never could and Nate McMillan managed for only a limited time. Many. Its been brought to public attention that the girls basketball teams at the final four have lower grade weight rooms and have been mistreated in their bubble. In addition to the comments from Plum, A'Ja Wilson and Diana Taurasi recently argued WNBA players should be paid more. The league average in 2022 is just $102,751 for WNBA players. Currently,. Has the WNBA made profit? With top players earning more than $1 million nearly quadruple what they can make as a base salary in the WNBA Griner, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird and Jonquel Jones have been . Zion Williamson at 68 can jump 44 and broke a rim during an all star game due to dunking the ball with two hands so hard. The success of this campaign resulted in the WNBA being the first pro league to take part in the NYC Pride Parade in 2016. It was, like, if you were a top player, no matter what you did, you were just going to make this one sum of money. They go through and make the same sacrifices as men to get what they want. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. They say we are boring or dont play the game the right way. No one cares about the WNBA and no one watches their games lol. And while that's not a dollar amount to sniff at, these women only have so long to earn money off their . BroBible is the #1 place on the internet for the very best content from the worlds of sports, culture, gear, high tech, and more. The 2019 NBA Finals averaged a little more than 20 million viewers per game; the 2019 WNBA Finals averaged about 400,000 viewers per game. So playing womens basketball overseas is way better. I know Mom just handed you a perfectly rectangular 14-by-8-by-5-inch box covered in brightly colored wrapping paper. I cant even mention 5 players in the WNBA or tell you the winners of the last 3 finals. Cass Anderson is the Editor-in-Chief of BroBible. Compared to the average salary of $7 million in the NBA, this seems outrageous. The latest example of this economic fallacy emerged when Aja Wilson of theWNBAs Las Vegas Acestook to Twitter to pokeLeBronJamessnew contract with the Las AngelesLakers. Last week, this exciting season of the WNBA ended after the Seattle Storm swept the Washington Mystics to win their third championship. Wake up to the day's most important news. I fault the narrative claiming that one group deserves as much money as another group solely because of gender the narrative that the utopic desire for gender equality trumps market forces. However, 48 million dollars per year is more than enough for me. The new CBA addresses this issue. And we need more people at our table to fight with us, she told Wealthsimple. She wouldn't be in a Russian prison in a country that is at war. . As athletes, we have to fight. Yet much progress has been made on this front, and the league has found particularly innovative ways to promote its players, grow its fan base and tap into new revenue streams. I know this is a controversial statement because women are never supposed to ask for more than they have, lest they be ungrateful for whatever theyve been given thus far. The NBA player whose salary is closest . Many WNBA players head overseas to play during the off-season, where they can be paid much more than they earn in the U.S. Griner, who was arrested for allegedly transporting drugs, is one of them. 53 points is something that happens every week in the NBA and they have guys that are 66 to 69 guarding them. In conclusion, the WNBA will never be paid the same amount as the NBA players. Which is kind of unbelievable, as WNBA All-Star point guard for the Dallas Wings, Skylar Diggins-Smith, put it recently: Before we even talk about base salary or anything like that, we dont even get paid the same percentage of the revenue that we bring in., Unfortunately, its not clear what the WNBAs exact revenue is, or individual teams, or their profits. It has been reported that more than 60% of the WNBA's players play in a league outside the United States when the WNBA season ends. I have gone back and forth on this issue and it saddens me that many women do not see it through the lenses of reality. The average womans salary year-round is approximately $200,000, while the average man earns $7.5 million or more. With a net worth estimated to be somewhere between $5 million and $17 million dollars, Brittney Griner might be the highest paid female basketball ever. The WNBAs current collective bargaining agreement wont expire until October 2021, with the maximum salary paid to WNBA veterans set to increase $8,000 from $113,500 to $121,500 by that year, which barely keeps pace with inflation at its current rate. The average salary of a WNBA player as of 2017 was $75,000, whereas the average NBA salary is $30 million. There is no difference between the girls college tournament and the WNBA. Women work hard to get what they dream of. 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