Machen Sie das auch? Sports have long mirrored society, and the gender pay gap has persisted in athletics just as it has in the professional realm. The Long Fight for Pay Equality in Sports. The WNBA according to the league the WNBA has yet to make a profit.. He talks about how womens basketball is his favorite thing to watch because of the way we play the game and work together. However, the WNBA isnt even remotely close to the NBA. He attended two games with the Dallas Wings and Connecticut Suns. They are often separated from their families and have to deal with the instability of uprooting their lives multiple times a year. And yes, clearly the WNBA does not have enough revenue for its top players to be paid like similar top players in the NBA. Read about a Freshman's upcoming book (Here), Read about The Pines coming to Bellwood (Here), Read about the NHS Easter egg hunt (Here), Light It Up Blue BluePrints Autism Awareness Initiative. Of course TV ratings themselves are less important to this topic than dollars attached to theirtelevision contracts, and to theWNBAs credit, ESPN doubled the value of their contract with the league to $25 million a year in 2016. This is Discrimination against women. However, you cannot have equal pay when you dont make enough money to have the same amount of pay. In 2014, the WNBA launched the first marketing campaign in professional sports to directly appeal to the LGBTQ market. Please everyone support our women athletes. 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. 2023 Womens Sports Foundation. All rights reserved. Most men, of course, sign with brands or maybe even run their own. Boys and men pick on the league every day. After all, sponsors want exposure for their brand. In fact, theWNBAs big television contractwas itself a byproduct of the channelreworking its agreement with their male counterpart. For example,last month theWNBAaveraged 250,000 viewers per game with a high of 378,000. This topic is brought up at least every year, and nothing has changed. That is 1 million in just a year, while for a regular season they get paid $400K in just a year. As The New York Timesreported in 2016,only half ofWNBAteams have managed to become profitable 20 years after the leagues founding. 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. Average attendance per game was 7,716 in 2017. So much talent seems to go to waste because so many girls dont get drafted since theres not enough space in the league. Some progress is being made. 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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. 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. Answer (1 of 22): I will be as objective as I can be. The league average in 2022 is just $102,751 for WNBA players. So playing womens basketball overseas is way better. And average pay in these leagues is at least three times the average pay in the WNBA, Diana Taurasi was reportedly paid extra by her team in Russia to skip the WNBA season, Stephen Curry and LeBron James in 2017-18 likely exceed the entire revenue of the WNBA, although we can follow the lead of boxing and rank the top WNBA players among the very best basketball players in the world, It was reported that Sylvia Fowles was paid $600,000 to play in China a few years ago, Chelsea Gray (Los Angeles): 8.5 Wins, $741,485, Sylvia Fowles (Minnesota): 8.0 Wins, $700,909, Elizabeth Cambage (Dallas): 7.3 Wins, $648,753, Nneka Ogwumike (Los Angeles): 6.9 Wins, $610,720, Skylar Diggins-Smith (Dallas): 6.3 Wins, $564,534, Jewell Loyd (Seattle): 5.8 Wins, $517,210, Alysa Thomas (Connecticut): 5.7 Wins, $509,387, Angel McCoughtry (Atlanta): 5.6 Wins, $508,341, Natalie Achonwa (Indiana): 5.5 Wins, $497,566, Breanna Stewart (Seattle): 5.4 Wins, $486,300, Diana Taurasi (Phoenix): 5.0 Wins, $455,025, DeWanna Bonner (Phoenix): 4.9 Wins, $444,980, Elena Delle Donne (Washington): 4.8 Wins, $441,305, Cheyenne Parker (Chicago): 4.7 Wins, $432,856, Chiney Ogwumike (Connecticut): 4.7 Wins, $432,013. According to the WNBA, this was most-watched regular season since 2014, with viewership across ESPN networks and NBA TV up by 31 percent. Your email address will not be published. , in large part, for the financial security it provides. We use all the fundamentals that the game was made for. In contrast, NBA players receive about 50% of league revenue. This year, the WNBA gave companies the opportunity to sponsor a second jersey patch, while offering sponsors the chance to include a logo on the court during games that dont air on ESPN. She is a WNBA champion, a 3-time Russian . in fact the wnba takes home more money from their revenue than nba players. Just like how these. Because these women deserve more money. But we are so glad they did, and were thankful because they could have done less But they did the right thing and did it across all of their events.. Although that's true, there's still a substantial gender wage gap in professional basketball, even after you adjust for the revenue difference. 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. Keep being inspired.Subscribe to our newsletter. It all has . Why WNBA players should be paid more? It is not a matter of sexism or discrimination. It was reported that Sylvia Fowles was paid $600,000 to play in China a few years ago. In other words, if the WNBA doesnt figure this out, players are going to opt out of the league. The success of this campaign resulted in the WNBA being the first pro league to take part in the NYC Pride Parade in 2016. 2 If that is so then why can Russia and Europe and China pay them well? Those numbers are very surprising to hear but that is just the cold hard truth. At the end of the day, just about any article focusing on how athletes are either under (or over) paid stem from the fallacious view that their compensation is an inherent product of their labor, rather than the subjective values of consumers. about what they have said to make them seem petty or jealous. Lebron James is 69 and 250 pounds of pure muscle and can jump 40 off the ground. And it also appears -- in response to McCoughtry's comment -- the WNBA should be more competitive with leagues around the world. All rights reserved. Last week, this exciting season of the WNBA ended after the Seattle Storm swept the Washington Mystics to win their third championship. Did You Ever Wonder How and Why the Left Is Able to Push Their Narratives Almost Unhindered? Where the NBA pays its players between 49-51 percent of the leagues revenue, WNBA players take home a maximum of 22.8 percent. But forcing employers to pay based solely on gender is going to mean that fewer employers will be willing to hire women. She wouldn't be in a Russian prison in a country that is at war. In 2019 the NCAA lost $2.8 million on the womens basketball tournament. Ryan Rolls Over on Tucker Over Fox News Content, We Need to Talk About Mark Levin's Interview With Ron DeSantis, MONDAY AT 3PM EASTERN: 'Five O'Clock Somewhere' with Kruiser, VodkaPundit - Replay Available, LOL: White House Official Shares Tweet From Biden Showered With His Daughter, California - Do Not Sell My Personal Information. In order to make a living playing basketball, most WNBA players compete overseas during the offseason to supplement their WNBA income. 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. Perhaps higher pay in the WNBA would keep stars like Cambage in the league. Many NBA players are vocal in their support of the womens league because of the quality of play and because they understand the hard work these women put into their game. 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. I dont fault the WNBA players for wanting more money. Gender wage disparity arguments are a great way to virtue signal. 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. Many of the women dont get lucrative endorsements, and getting into broadcasting or some other sports-adjacent field once they retire is not guaranteed. This should not be tolerated. But should they be seeing an increase in their earnings? The U.S. women's soccer team has filed a gender discrimination lawsuit. By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. Of course, they won't talk about how the stadiums are empty and nobody cares. She was returning to Russia to fulfill her contractual obligations to her Russian Team. It is a credit to the economics profession that the labor theory of value has largely fallen out of style. The segment came on the heels of the WNBA Players Association telling the league that they are opting out of the current collective bargaining agreement. Of course, the NBA rakes in far more revenue. According to Bird: So, I thought that it needed . They are not going to watch a game where the best team in the league would lose by 30 to the best high school team in the nation. In the NBA, players take home around 50% of shared revenue and in the WNBA players only take home 20% of shared revenue. As many may not know, men get paid way more money than womens basketball does. The players want more money. In conclusion, the WNBA will never be paid the same amount as the NBA players. That being said -- in response to Cambages' comment -- the WNBA does appear to have enough money to pay its top players as well as an NBA referee. And average pay in these leagues is at least three times the average pay in the WNBA. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the new game.] Better cooks etc. As women, we have to fight," Diggins-Smith told Bleacher Report. So instead of grumbling about the salaries male basketball players enjoy, perhaps Aja Wilson should be thankful that the mensproduct helps bolster her own paycheck. 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. The WNBA brings in $25 million dollars a year, while the NBA brings in $7.4 billion. By comparison, last years Professional Bowling League averaged650,000 viewers for ESPN. The maximum veteran salary is $113,500. Unlock premium content, ad-free browsing, and access to comments for just $4/month. Cass Anderson is the Editor-in-Chief of BroBible. Thats far away from here, but thats what were fighting toward.. He estimated that WNBA player salaries constitute 22 percent of league revenue, while NBA player salaries amount to roughly 50 percent of league revenues. 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. 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. This . But the risk also offered reward: 15 million Americans self-identify as LGBTQ, and they represent a market segment worth around $830 million. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. If WNBA players demand a higher salary that would match the NBA, the league. Basically, they want a fair share of the total revenue of the WNBA. Some of those responding on Twitter to Cambage's comment noted that the NBA brings in far more revenue than the WNBA. Last week, this exciting season of the WNBA ended after the Seattle Storm swept the Washington Mystics to win their third championship. But in terms of pay, it definitely is not. Join now to unlock comments, browse ad-free, and access exclusive content from your favorite FDRLST writers. According to ESPN estimates, NBA players receive around 50 percent of the EBRI; WNBA players receive around 22 percent. The financial disparities between the leagues are undeniable, and these women arent asking for the same multimillion-dollar salaries their male counterparts make (though that would be nice). Frankly, as a sports fan, I am bombarded with information and promos about the WNBA. The NBA doesn't even do that much compared to other jobs and sports. A 47 point difference is absolutely terrible. Thats why most women play their time in the league rather than right after they play overseas, so its a year-round thing. Organizing and negotiating prompted that viable business. However, the players union has the option to terminate the agreement after the 2019 season if they give notice by Oct. 31 of this year. "Pay us like you pay the men. We need to come together as one and fix this problem. 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