227 K isn't much more than a non-famous professional couple makes. Here are three arguments of which you may not have thought. 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. On a recent episode of ESPNs The Jump, ex-NBA player Chauncy Billups and ex-NBA coach Stan Van Gundy said that they believe that WNBA players deserve to be paid more money. In 2009, the WNBA decided to include sponsor logos on their jerseys. Kelsey Plum currently makes $200,000/year as a point guard for the Las Vegas Aces. Kyrie Irving donated a total of $2 million to the WNBA to show his support. They should fight for it because theyve earned it. 1. The women of the WNBA are simply seeking the recognition they deserve for their performances. Like Russia. If women are paid the same they will be treated the same. And while that's not a dollar amount to sniff at, these women only have so long to earn money off their . If we also assume that what players have done so far (prior to Friday's games) allows us to forecast each player's final production of wins in 2018 (wins produced can be measured with the player's box score statistics), then here are the fifteen most valuable players in the WNBA (in terms of their forecasted season wins production and the estimate of their salary if the WNBA was paying players like the NBA): It certainly appears that if the WNBA paid like the NBA, the top WNBA players would be paid better than what we think the top NBA referees are receiving. If Women and Men athletes were paid more equitably then Britney wouldn't . The NBA's average attendance is 17,760, the WNBA's 6,535. 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. Some would say that the WNBA should be able to pay their players more because there are only 12 teams, compared to the NBA with 30 teams. Although that's true, there's still a substantial gender wage gap in professional basketball, even after you adjust for the revenue difference. Total revenue for the NBA hit $7.4 billion in 2022. WNBA players arent asking to be paid on par with their NBA counterparts. Furthermore, two years earlier, the league studied its fan base and discovered that 25 percent of WNBA fans identified as lesbian. In a way, this strategy makes perfect sense. In the past, some top male players including Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have claimed men should earn more as they attract more people. Since the NBA formed the WNBA I can't see how they could not just pay the men less to pay the women more. Median WNBA Salary is $ 71,635. Lisa Borders, president of theWNBA, has even directlypointed to sexismas a driving reason for the discrepancies between the earnings ofmale and female players. They have the trappings of fame without the benefit of the wealth that comes with it. Sue Bird once said, We dont need anybody to feel bad or have sympathy for us. 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. Bradley Beal, who is also a professional player who currently plays for the Washington Wizards, is always finding ways to support the Washington Mystics. Its not even because of skill it is simply because none of the girls could get a shot off at will. WNBA revenue is a fraction of that produced by the NBA, which is why Green is urging female athletes to target corporations that claim to be supportive equality for women. "Pay us like you pay the men. Unlock premium content, ad-free browsing, and access to comments for just $4/month. 2023 The Federalist, A wholly independent division of FDRLST Media. This is something that the 150-ish WNBA players have been fighting to change for quite some time. Twenty-eight members of the current national team pool announced in March that they aresuing U.S. Soccer, seeking equitable pay and treatment, including damages for back pay. As The New York Timesreported in 2016,only half ofWNBAteams have managed to become profitable 20 years after the leagues founding. Comissioner Cathy Englebert (Comissioner of the Womens National Basketball Association), Diese Seite ist durch reCAPTCHA geschtzt und es gelten die Google. You can make a case that WNBA players could be paid more, but some people are making an argument that they should be paid the same, or at least similarly. NBA fans are now used to the game that they love. 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. 53 points is something that happens every week in the NBA and they have guys that are 66 to 69 guarding them. Therefore no one watches it, on the other hand, NBA generates more revenue of $7.92 billion per year than the WNBA. Organizing and negotiating prompted that viable business. Answer (1 of 2): The WNBA is heavily subsidized by the NBA; but for this fact, the WNBA would have folded a long time ago. They deserve to be paid well. The WNBAs growing popularity has made pay equity a hot topic in the sport, and over the course of this season, several players have drawn attention to the issue. Sports have long mirrored society, and the gender pay gap has persisted in athletics just as it has in the professional realm. This topic is brought up at least every year, and nothing has changed. The NBA makes a profit. Women represent 44 percent of NFL fans, while 28 percent of women say they follow pro baseball, and 29 percent report that they follow the NBA. Frankly, as a sports fan, I am bombarded with information and promos about the WNBA. And while thats not a dollar amount to sniff at, these women only have so long to earn money off their athletic ability. Now, Team USA is in Spain, about to play in the. Reaction: Raymond Moore and THOSE comments Get down on your knees lady players! Nancy Lough does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. On a recent episode of ESPN's "The Jump," ex-NBA player Chauncy Billups and ex-NBA coach Stan Van Gundy said that they believe that WNBA players deserve to be paid more money. All rights reserved. Get it together. Compare that to the NFL average of $2.7 million (median is $860K), $4.41 million in the MLB, $3.5 million in the NHL, and the average NBA salary is a whopping $9.662 million for the 2022-23 season. In the WNBA the range of salaries is $117K to $215K for the highest-paid players. The yearly revenue is 7.92 billion dollars for the NBA, and the WNBA is 60 million dollars. Basically, they want a fair share of the total revenue of the WNBA. 15 Episodes of Seinfeld That Teach Everything You Need To Know About Life. 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. The 5th ranked NBA player makes over 42 million. Britney Griner was detained in Russia just days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The success of this campaign resulted in the WNBA being the first pro league to take part in the NYC Pride Parade in 2016. A 47 point difference is absolutely terrible. As Phoenix Mercurys Brittney Griner, earlier this year, I do believe we should get paid more in the WNBA before players decide to only play overseas and rest our bodies during the summer., Last year, Minnesota Lynxs Seimone Augustus. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images). It is simply because the WNBA is not as good as the NBA and you cant get viewers when there is a better alternative. The ratio of the highest paid WNBA player to the 144th best paid WNBA player is about 3.8. 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). Theyre making the most of it while they can. Perhaps higher pay in the WNBA would keep stars like Cambage in the league. Perhaps higher pay in the WNBA would keep stars like Cambage in the league. 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. In 2017, the league aired 20 games live on Twitter, while also offering a new fantasy game on the fantasy platform FanDuel. Swin Cash. While leading to the WNBA finals in a sell-out game, Kyle Lowry, Ja Morant, Ty Lue, Alvin Gentry, and Demarcus Cousins all attended the WNBA finals this year. Sports are a revenue-driven industry! Mary Holt-USA TODAY Sports. Revenues, on the other hand, should not be confused with profits. The more your business brings in, the more it can afford to pay its employees. This lack of media coverage has always hampered womens sports. So female basketball players work just as hard as male basketball players, yet even the best WNBA players are paid much less than the mediocre and below average NBA ones. All rights reserved. In fact, theWNBAs big television contractwas itself a byproduct of the channelreworking its agreement with their male counterpart. As many may not know, men get paid way more money than womens basketball does. And no one wants to see the WNBA die, least of all the players., The WNBA will suffer if they dont figure out some way to pay players more. These women should be paid more. So yes, it appears NBA referees do make more . The womens team has far exceeded the success of their male counterparts, who failed to even qualify for the FIFA Mens World Cup in 2018. Gender wage disparity arguments are a great way to virtue signal. The most points scored in an NBA game was 100 points and the most scored in a game was 53 points. The average salary of a WNBA player as of 2017 was $75,000, whereas the average NBA salary is $30 million. Lebron James is 69 and 250 pounds of pure muscle and can jump 40 off the ground. They can also pay their players more since they have the ability to create more demand for their products and services. Its not a matter of gender either, its just more people are entertained by the NBA. A WNBA spokesperson reached out to HuffPost after this op-ed was published, however, and said the WNBA has lost significant money every year and has shared its financials with the Players Association. Before winning a historic gold medal in the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games, the U.S. Womens National Ice Hockey Team was battling off the ice for equal pay. Meanwhile, for the upcoming NBA season, the minimum salary . 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. Jessica Luther is a freelance journalist, an author and a co-host of the feminist sports podcast Burn It All Down.. But to be honest, we play it better than the boys do. You can not compare the cultures. This has ledDavid Berri ofForbesto argue that becauseWNBAsalaries make up less than a quarter of league revenue, as opposed to the NBAs 50 percent split, theWNBAis clearly exploiting their players. It all has . Thats right: These professional athletes have second jobs. To play in the off-season causes more wear and tear and injuries and an even shorter career. That's not a lot, and it's certainly less than even the lowest-paid players in Major League Soccer . This will never happen simply because the WNBA cant make the money to pay their players just as much money. Enough of this feminism and lets look at reality. The NBA player whose salary is closest . With this deadline looming, the players would be wise to take advantage of this opportunity and compel the league to come to the table with an offer commensurate to their worth. must.be. The WNBA might be the most boring form of basketball I have ever seen. Relative to the history of the league, this was an extraordinary success, up 39 percent from last year. It felt like, According to the WNBA, this was most-watched regular season since 2014, with viewership across ESPN networks and NBA TV up by 31 percent. All they want is better pay equity. If you don't sell tickets and negotiate a huge TV deal, you're not going to get rich. Better cooks etc. While all four of the major Grand Slam tennis tournaments have awarded men and women equal prize money since 2007 when Wimbledon finally evened its pay gap, the games biggest female stars have not held back when it comes to speaking out about equal pay. So, are women better than men at anything? Imaging being a player in the WNBA who maybe will make 150,000 a year for no other reason than gender. However, they fail to realize that NBA is self-sufficient and if they want to be the same they need to put butts in seats and become self-sufficient as well. At that point, whatever their salaries currently are will disappear completely. Read More . , in large part, for the financial security it provides. From 2014 to 2017, Cambage competed in China and her native Australia. Many people don't like the WNBA just because they have low talent but the girls don . And average pay in these leagues is at least three times the average pay in the WNBA. But the notion that women deserve to be paid more just because theyre women is absurd and counterproductive to my daughters future earning potential. These numbers were promoted by theleague as the highest since 2003. Nothing rude there. 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 new CBA addresses this issue. But obviously, her pay doesn't match her performance. So not only are the players taking home 30% less than their NBA counterparts its 20% of a much smaller pie. Diese*r Petitionsstarter*in setzt sich fr Dinge ein, die ihr/ihm am Herzen liegen. As a result of all this, merchandise sales grew by 18 percent in 2017, attendance has increased, more people are tuning in, and players are acquiring significant social media followings. The more money that women make, the more respect they will get. You can pay your athletes more if they actually bring in the revenue for you to pay them with. Last year, the average WNBA salary was US$71,635, and this year appears to be closer to $75,000. Here are five athletes, teams and leagues that are leading the charge: The USWNT has long been associated with leading the way in the fight for gender equity in soccer. Tho Bishop is an Assistant Editor for the Mises Wire. nice, wrote Wilson. Average attendance per game was 7,716 in 2017. Founded by Billie Jean King. 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. Where the NBA pays its players between 49-51 percent of the leagues revenue, WNBA players take home a maximum of 22.8 percent. So even relative to other non-major professional leagues, theWNBAstruggles for relevance. 2 Thats far away from here, but thats what were fighting toward.. She joined the Journalism program because loves to Former Vice President, Mike Pence, is attempting to fight a subpoena requested by the Special Counsel regarding former president Donald Trumps activities after the 2020 Chinese Balloon Shot Down by F-22 After Days Traversing the U.S. With college application season nearing an end, Centreville senior stress levels have reached their peak as students frantically try to maintain their high first semester Theatre Centreville Presents Mutually Assured Destruction, FCPS Welcomes New Misgendering and Deadnaming Policy to Punish Students (Update), OPINION: Increasing Usage of Social Media, CVHS Student Opinions on College Admissions and Standardized Testing, Donald Trump is Holding the Republican Party Back, Opinion: Walking Has Many Health Benefits, Opinion: Why The Minions Franchise Has a Positive Affect On Our Society, Opinion: Why Dr.Oz Shouldnt Win the Pennsylvania Senate Election, Opinion: Why Players in the WNBA Should Get Paid More, Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window). 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