The Gender Wage Gap in Basketball is Bigger than Ever The league minimum for a player with two or fewer years of service is $41,202; for three or more years of . The success of this campaign resulted in the WNBA being the first pro league to take part in the NYC Pride Parade in 2016. WNBA Journey to Equal Pay - Civic Issues - sites.psu.edu WNBA players arent asking for NBA level compensation. In this article, we compare salaries in sports like soccer, basketball and tennis, and consider some notable changes over the past decade. Finding accurate financial data on any sport league is challenging. Similar analysis doesnt seem to exist for the WNBA, but we do know its revenue is far lower. Diggins-Smith has made hundreds of thousands of dollars during her five seasons in the WNBA, yet she feels its unfair that she makes considerably less than NBA players. Investment includes public money too, usually in the form of taxpayer-financed stadiums. But Gulati's first reason for paying them unequal rates was simple indeed: The women were playing better, so they would have earned more. They could advertise the womens league better. Meanwhile, Leandro Barbosa is scheduled to earn $500,000 from the Phoenix Suns in 2017-18. , WNBA players make $75,000 a year in the league, with only a few players earning as much as $113,000. Or for the USSF to follow FIFA's lead in allocating prize money. In an interview with comedian Adam Ray on his "About Last Night Podcast," the legendary Seattle Storm point guard and four-time WNBA champion explained her stance on equality in basketball. In actuality, the WNBA's all-time assists leader said she believes that calls for equality between men's and women's professional basketball are less about exorbitant salaries than about equal investment and exposure for the WNBA. (In its most recent fiscal year, ending in March 2019, the USSF paid $304,113 to current men's coach Gregg Berhalter for four months of work, $241,869 to former coach David Sarachan, whom Berhalter replaced in December 2018, and $1.475 million to former coach Jurgen Klinsmann, who was fired in 2016. Low investment and media coverage have led to limited viewership, rights deals and sponsorships, which leads to low pay, which hampers the development of new talent and initiatives, which leads to low investment and media coverage. A post shared by Kelsey Plum (@kelseyplum10). The biggest lesson: Today's athletes are asking for something even bigger than the strict definition of "pay equity." It would collapse without the support of the NBA, and it can't afford to pay the players more. This is when the argument comes in that women shouldn't make as much because they don't bring in as much revenue. Many of the women dont get lucrative endorsements, and getting into broadcasting or some other sports-adjacent field once they retire is not guaranteed. Of course, compensation has always been a serious issue in the WNBA, which paid its players one-ninety-sixth the NBA's average salary at the time Jackson and Silver chatted. As Berri puts it: "Men love investing in men's sports.". 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. 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. Furthermore, two years earlier, the league studied its fan base and discovered that 25 percent of WNBA fans identified as lesbian. "We're just like 'Could I get the same media coverage, and the corporate sponsor looks, and things like that?'" Cook found that under the men's wage scales, members of the women's team would have earned $91.8 million from 2014 to 2019. Now, as the league begins a 25th season of soldiering on in the face of those tired arguments, perhaps the time has. WNBA draft is Monday, but a lot of best players aren't in a rush Piece together all of these revelations about how the highest level of women's soccer has been functioning and you'll notice a new horizon is looming for the sport. "Their attendance is. Once again, though, we don't know expenses in the WNBA. By clicking Sign Up, you also agree to marketing emails from both Insider and Morning Brew; and you accept Insiders. But using league revenue, economics professor Dave Berri was recently able to calculate a significant gender wage gap in another respect. 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. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. 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. Theyre making the most of it while they can. But they were just as concerned about the relentless everyday signals that ownership -- which is split 50-50 between team owners and the NBA -- was running the league on a shoestring. , in large part, for the financial security it provides. Top players earn vastly more, such as Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook, who make $48 million and $47 million a year, respectively. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. THE CHANTS BEGAN almost as soon as the U.S. women's soccer team won the World Cup last July. All rights reserved. In 2017, ESPN stayed with a WCWS game that went to extra innings instead of switching to a previously scheduled MLB broadcast. The athletes are planning to appeal, but at least for the moment, crucial parts of the suit have been dismissed. While equal pay for equal work has emerged as a rallying cry in the ongoing struggles of women athletes, equity doesn't always, or even often, mean literal equality across all sports. As one writer explained. Low pay has also warped the women's game itself. 'Bet on me': Griner seems like old self in first interview since detainment, Serena announces she's pregnant with 2nd child, Healthy Delle Donne excited for Mystics' season, Griner: 1st practice 'everything I wanted it to be', Alcaraz, Swiatek cruise into Madrid round of 16, Hannah Green wins LPGA at Wilshire in a playoff, Halep questions long delay for doping hearing, Suns, Mercury cut cable, moving to new TV setup, How Hailey Van Lith's transfer impacts NCAA champion LSU. And we need access to better stadiums, facilities and everything that makes a better entertainment product.". This has been a common complaint from some of the best. Charles Barkley on WNBA Stars: 'Y'all Should Not Have to Go to These I dont understand why these companies havent been partnering with yall for years and years, Barkley said. Currently, the NBA pays its players 50 percent of its total revenue. Pay WNBA Players What They Deserve | HuffPost Opinion Archive In 2023, the highest average WNBA salary is held by Aces guard Jackie Young as she makes $252,450 per year, according to Spotrac. By contrast, the highest scoring team in the NBA that year was the Golden State Warriors, who averaged 112.8 points per game. Im not going to call out some of the bad NBA players we got in commercials but yall know who they are.. The players wanted a viable league where they could build careers, not just part-time jobs. At peak popularity, marketability and leverage, they are also seeking more equitable spending on coaching. They're looking for better training and travel budgets. The week in tennis: Djokovic and Nadal out, and the younger generation steps up again, Why it's easy to forget that the world's best full-back, Ellie Carpenter, is just 22, College softball rankings: The top 25 teams in the NCAA this week, Everything you need to know about "The Bag Game," a podcast on college hoops' bribery scandal, USWNT lawsuit vs. U.S. Soccer explained: Defining pay gaps, what's at stake, a federal judge sided with U.S. Soccer on most of the key issues at stake in the lawsuit, The WNBA inked a landmark labor deal in January, and reached an eight-year agreement in January. 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. 1 pick in the WNBA draft in 2012. Its so much wear and tear. "Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. Please, enable JavaScript and reload the page to enjoy our modern features. And make no mistake, fans today have more access than ever to the games played by female athletes, because a burgeoning number of networks and apps, hungry to acquire and offer new content, are programming all kinds of formerly "niche" sports. 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. The ability to turn inputs into outputs is what economists call productivity. Why WNBA stars play overseas, and how the WNBA is trying to deter them This past July, though, Barbosa was waived by the team. About 70 WNBA players went to compete overseas this offseason, the WNBA said Monday. Diggins-Smith also spoke about the sheer physical efforts of female basketball players. In the WNBA the range of salaries is $117K to $215K for the highest-paid players. 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. But that gap has virtually disappeared since the women's team won the 2015 World Cup and then maintained its global supremacy: The women's team has brought in $63.4 million since 2016, compared with $66.3 million for the men, according to U.S. Soccer's most recent financial statements. A league requires seed money to grow. John Phelan is an economist at the Center of the American Experiment and fellow of The Cobden Centre. From the highest-paid athletes to the newest rookies, professional male athletes are still making significantly more money than women. Last year, total attendance for the WNBAs 12 teams reached 1,574,078, with an average attendance of 7,716 fans a new high for the 21-year-old league. Las Vegas Aces point guard Kelsey Plum wants to change that. "The good news is that folks outside the federation, from sponsors to broadcasters to partners, are incredibly bullish on the U.S. women's national team and on women's football," Levinson says. 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. The NBA's collective bargaining agreement indicates the players must receive about 50% of the league's basketball-related income. Last year, the average WNBA salary was US$71,635, and this year appears to be closer to $75,000. But in 2007, a furniture-store owner named Hilton Koch bought the club for $10 million, then couldn't pay its bills, and the team was disbanded the following year.) 10 years or more: $38,199,000; WNBA: Minimum salary: $15,000; Salary . AP Photo/Elaine Thompson But here's the thing. All they want is better pay equity. In 2023, veteran players who report late to their WNBA team's training camp because of overseas commitments will be fined one percent of their salary for each day missed and could be suspended. 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. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Why WNBA players are not paid as much as NBA players? 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. After pushing their bodies to the limit in their regular season and in an equally demanding World Cup, a whole lot of WNBA players will be spending a significant chunk of their year overseas playing on professional teams and in leagues in order to supplement their WNBA income. But that is still a pittance. B/R Live shows the Women's FIH Pro League, where women's national field hockey teams face off; FloSports streams Premier Girls Fastpitch, a top club softball league for high school and younger players. What many of the women are asking for is equity in revenue sharing, as economist David Berri has written about repeatedly at Forbes. Stats show that in 2018, the top scoring team in the WNBA, the Connecticut Sun, averaged 87.6 points per game. As fans, we deserve to see them playing at their highest level after a restful off-season. Meanwhile, the Women's Super League in England has gone fully professional. They could, for example, have tighter shorts." "The NWSL has the opportunity to be the best league in the world," says Becca Roux, executive director of the U.S. Women's National Team Players Association. But the number was wrong. 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. The more exposure they receive, the more theyll dole out the cash for sponsorships, endorsements and advertisements. Meanwhile, the organization's financial reports projected just $131 million in total revenue from the 2019 Women's World Cup, a number that spread like wildfire among outlets last summer. Leagues and clubs are subject to what economists call "network externality," which means the value of something depends on how many consumers use it. There was a problem saving your notification. As important as all these changes are, their total cost is about $1 million per WNBA team per year, which means the proportion of league revenues paid to players will rise only from about 20% to approximately 30%. The league has more gay players and fans, percentage-wise, than any other major professional sport. And I dont want to lose the WNBA or miss out on seeing the best female basketball players playing in the league. In 2014, the WNBA launched the first marketing campaign in professional sports to directly appeal to the LGBTQ market. For instance, FIFA says the 2018 men's World Cup generated $5.4 billion in revenue. In other words, if the WNBA doesnt figure this out, players are going to opt out of the league. But WNBA players only take less than 25 percent of the total earnings of their league. He estimated that WNBA player salaries constitute 22 percent of league revenue, while NBA player salaries amount to roughly 50 percent of league revenues. And shes not alone playing in European and Asian leagues in the offseason is extremely common among WNBA players. And no one wants to see the WNBA die, least of all the players. I just got the same amount of rings, maybe more. Hart has played at such a high level that his $13 million player option should be declined without a second thought. One of the reasons we're even talking about equal pay in sports today is because of the courageous fight of. Can you guess in which season they rested Diana Taurasi and earned the league's No. In 2017, for example, a majority of the most popular sports sites on the Internet didn't dedicate even one page to a women's sport or league, according to research by Berri. But in a sense, it doesnt matter. Players who go overseas end up playing almost year-round, with little break for their bodies to recover. She believes the athletes deserve more money. Not so, says Dave Berri, economics professor at Southern Utah University. Meanwhile, for the upcoming NBA season, the minimum salary of a professional NBA player is $838,464. In the WNBA the range of salaries is $117K to $215K for the highest-paid players. Considering the widespread acceptance of something like Engels formula, to say that a hard days work doesnt guarantee a fair days pay is one of the more shocking things an economist can say in polite company. As important as the equal pay lawsuit is for the players who are seeking back pay and damages, it's essentially about the past. For decades, sports media figures have argued that interest drives coverage.
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