But because the WNBA has a strict salary cap that . This was a stellar season, where the final eight teams that made the playoffs werent determined until the last few games. Charles Barkley appeared on The Bird and Taurasi Show during the 2023 womens national title game on Sunday and didnt hold back his thoughts on what WNBA players go through in comparison to other sports leagues. Obviously, if a player can only negotiate with one team, their salary will be depressed. Which, again, Kelsey Plum isnt arguing for NBA salaries she just believes the league should pay out 50% of shared revenue the same as the NBA does. Leagues and clubs are subject to what economists call "network externality," which means the value of something depends on how many consumers use it. Just as the Bangladeshis arent poor because they are lazy, Americans arent rich because of hard work. As an Englishman, my knowledge of basketball amounts to Nike Air Jordans, White Men Cant Jump, and Space Jam. "I never would have authorized offering or accepting, and never would have recommended to the board agreeing to, the same bonuses for Women's World Cup play that were contained in the MNT's agreement for their World Cup play for very simple reasons.". Last year, the average WNBA salary was US$71,635, and this year appears to be closer to $75,000. without needing to get a second job to pay the bills. "Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. The NBA player whose salary is closest to Griner and other top WNBA players is Joe Wieskamp, a forward for the San Antonio Spurs who made $202,068 last year after playing 17 games out of 82 and scoring an average of 2.2 points per game. And when LeBron James steps onto the court, it generates far more revenue for the Heat, Cavaliers, or Lakers than it does for the Lynx when Maya Moore does so. Its true that the WNBA generates about $60 million in revenue per year, while the NBA generates $7.92 billion. why wnba players should be paid more. The U.S.-Netherlands final reached an average live audience of 82.2 million, up 56%. For example, according to World Bank data, in 2012, the value added per agricultural worker was $61,634 in the United States. If the WNBA doesnt figure this out, players are going to opt out of the league. Any sport needs three kinds of support to grow into a large-scale, sustainable business. But WNBA players only take less than 25 percent of the total earnings of their league. Finally, sports need media to reach their full potential. While speaking with WNBA legends Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi, the NBA legend called out American companies for not investing more in the WNBA, because, otherwise, the players could earn enough money to not have to play in international leagues in the offseason. There actually isn't any correct number, because income data isn't broken out anywhere for the Women's World Cup. And last May, 175 players left the National Women's Hockey League to protest poor wages, and they have been barnstorming as their own group. Just one woman was ranked among the 100 highest-paid athletes in the world in 2019, according to Forbes (Serena Williams, at No. Yet as WNBA players came to a crossroads in 2018, nobody told their union leaders to demand million-dollar salaries. The women's national team filed a wage discrimination act against US Soccer, and in turn received a significant raise, increased game bonuses, improved per diem stipends, better travel benefits,. "So we can build the business, and then when it's really good like the NBA is then we can get that money.". Playing overseas in Europe, Asia, or Australia can often. Women's professional soccer was actually banned in Germany until 1970, England until 1971 and Brazil until 1979; the NWSL, its latest and longest-lived incarnation in the U.S., has now been playing for seven years. The squads face different adversaries, at different levels of competition, on different schedules, including World Cup cycles in different years. WNBA Journey to Equal Pay - Civic Issues - sites.psu.edu It's when the number of people with them grows that the devices become valuable. BroBible is the #1 place on the internet for the very best content from the worlds of sports, culture, gear, high tech, and more. AT THE NBA All-Star Game in Charlotte in 2019, where athletes met to discuss their collective bargaining agreement, NBA commissioner Adam Silver ran into Terri Jackson, executive director of the WNBA Players Association. The two sides channeled that willingness into the areas Engelbert and the league's negotiators discussed with Jackson, Ogwumike and the players, and reached an eight-year agreement in January. Please do not edit the piece, ensure that you attribute the author and mention that this article was originally published on FEE.org. The first two categories were exactly the same for each, but the final two were markedly different. High. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. He estimated that WNBA player salaries constitute 22 percent of league revenue, while NBA player salaries amount to roughly 50 percent of league revenues. Giants post-draft depth chart: Deonte Banks is Day 1 starter. What And we need access to better stadiums, facilities and everything that makes a better entertainment product.". UNLPD charges 6 for alcohol, 3 for stadium break-in, window smashing, theft, Five players who stood out at Nebraska footballs spring game, UNL student arrested on sexual assault charges, BREAKING: Nebraska Union, nearby buildings experience power outage, SHARACK: Stop treating UNL students with underrated majors as less than, Proposed new state prison sparks student opinions, Retiring custodians reflect on distinct experience of working at Massengale, Five Nebraska football players given professional opportunities after NFL Draft, St. Ritas Amazing Traveling Bookstore: bookstore on wheels stops at UNL. But the risk also offered reward: 15 million Americans self-identify as LGBTQ, and they represent a market segment worth around $830 million. In 2014, the WNBA launched the first marketing campaign in professional sports to directly appeal to the LGBTQ market. Carter, 22, was a key player on Georgia's back-to-back national championship team, earning 2022 first-team All-American honors while being named a Lombardi Award finalist after posting three sacks . WNBA's 25th Season: It's Time to Start Paying Attention - Sports The WNBA -- Or The NBA -- Should Pay Its Players More - Forbes From 1990 to 2012, for instance, MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL teams got a mammoth $17 billion in public funds for new homes, according to research by economists Robert Baade and Victor Matheson. Clearly, the WNBA still needs to work on establishing its long-term viability, and some might argue that the players shouldnt request raises until the league has become more financially stable. Im the highest paid player on the Dallas Wings, and my salary is in the low six figures. In 2017, ESPN stayed with a WCWS game that went to extra innings instead of switching to a previously scheduled MLB broadcast. So what's really at stake? Players will also be able to earn up to $250,000 apiece from a $1.6 million pool the league is dedicating to marketing agreements and will gain free agency after five years, down from six. Bird said. NBAs teams generated $5.9 billion in revenue in 2015-16. From the point of view of the team owners, the measure of output that matters is the revenue the players generate. Can you guess in which season they rested Diana Taurasi and earned the league's No. And no one wants to see the WNBA die, least of all the players. "So we can build the business, and then when it's really good like the NBA is, then we can get that money," Bird said. In August, WNBA president Lisa Borders said, While I encourage WNBA players to speak out on issues important to them, it is equally important that they understand the realities of our business., Nows a good time for players to advocate for themselves because the product in the WNBA has never been better. "It centers contracts around the men's World Cup and uses TV coverage of women's games as a dry run for the men.". The league average in 2022 is just $102,751 for WNBA players. This per game mark is more than 10,000 fans below the per game mark seen in the NBA in 2016-17. As totals, these numbers are considerably smaller than for the men's game, but they are also generally growing much faster. Show Her The Money: Why Female Athletes Deserve Higher Pay - Forbes 1 pick in the NBA draft in 2012. In July 2019, the WNBA hired Cathy Engelbert, former CEO of the consulting firm Deloitte -- and a basketball walk-on who became a captain under Muffet McGraw at Lehigh in the 1980s -- as commissioner. | by Yannick Ondoa | Medium Write Sign up Sign In 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our end. The athletes did want a larger share of league revenues. Pay disparity between NBA, WNBA is a numbers game The fact that NBA players get a much larger piece of the revenue pie does seem to say something about how each respective league values its players. With Jones paid to be the franchise quarterback, there should be stability at the position to build around. "These are businesses, and none of us are out there saying we want to be paid the exact same as the men," says 17-year WNBA veteran Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm. Meanwhile, the Women's Super League in England has gone fully professional. As someone who has studied the WNBA for years, only about half of WNBA franchises finish the season in the black, a market segment worth around $830 million, have argued that interest drives coverage, Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), Lecturer in Environmental Art - School of Art and Design. The deal also pioneers a range of provisions important to players who are mothers or potential parents. Today, grassroots support for the national teams seem to be at parity. Over the past two years, U.S. Soccer has spent half its budget (which was $131.8 million in 2019) on management expenses and youth programs and devoted less than 30% to athlete pay and benefits. Male vs Female Professional Sports Salary Comparison Looking ahead, the women's national team also has a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer that expires at the end of 2021. And shes not arguing they deserve NBA-sized salaries. Think of cellphones: If you were the only person to have one, your phone would be useless. This is when the argument comes in that women shouldn't make as much because they don't bring in as much revenue. Playing overseas in Europe, Asia, or Australia can often pay substantially more than playing in the United States. They should fight for it because theyve earned it. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Earlier studies from 1990 to 2015 drew similar conclusions, whether looking at daily highlights or Olympic coverage, conveyed through print or images, on television or in newspapers or magazines: Men's sports got more coverage -- and more exciting coverage. Instead, she has a very reasonable argument for why the players deserve more: Kelsey Plum was a guest on The Residency Pod where she laid out an obvious and easily fixable discrepancy between the NBA and WNBA. We had incredibly thrilling semifinals series that went a full five games apiece. The players wanted a viable league where they could build careers, not just part-time jobs. In 2015, the WNBA averaged 202,000 viewers on ESPN and ESPN2. Why do WNBA athletes compete overseas? - NBC News One might argue that male players produce more points. It happened again three days later, after a ticker tape parade through New York's Canyon of Heroes honored the four-time Cup winners. NBC and its fleet of cable channels showed a record 631.5 hours of the 2018 Winter Olympics -- and for the first time ever, a majority of prime-time airtime was devoted to women's sports, according to research by Andrew Billings of the University of Alabama and James Angelini of the University of Delaware. A small number of women players are truly dominant at the college level, which makes the first few picks in the WNBA draft extremely valuable. According to the WNBA, this was most-watched regular season since 2014, with viewership across ESPN networks and NBA TV up by 31 percent. 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. New arenas allow teams to improve their game experience, hike prices and build up adjoining land. In 1881, Freidrich Engels wrote an article for the Labour Standard titled A Fair Day's Wages for a Fair Day's Work. You still hear the phrase today. Athletes were traveling by cramped coach flights, sometimes by bus, and staying in shared hotel rooms and dormitory-style housing. WNBA draft is Monday, but a lot of best players aren't in a rush But once two sides establish good faith in a negotiation, both can see spending -- or sacrifice -- as an investment. When Carlos Cordeiro, then president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, began speaking in front of City Hall, shouts drowned him out: At that time, U.S. Soccer was already battling the women's national team in court, after all 28 members sued their national federation in March 2019 for "purposeful gender discrimination." "It's not just FIFA that needs to be clear about the revenue that it's making from the Women's World Cup," says Molly Levinson, spokesperson for the U.S. women's national team. When it comes to others opinions, I feel as though we get picked on enough, and not getting paid fairly makes it even worse. We put bad NBA players in commercials before some of yall superstars. In a way, this strategy makes perfect sense. Major sponsors, including Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble, released statements supporting the athletes.