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Message: [QUOTE="Fairfield Fan, post: 2798320, member: 6911"] Even the title is misleading: "Why substantially increasing WNBA player salaries is more complex than you think" ([URL="http://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/24247429/why-increasing-wnba-player-salaries-more-complex-think"]Why increasing WNBA player salaries is more complex than you think[/URL]) You sure about that, Mechelle? Maybe it's a lot simpler than that. Perhaps the players are just plain being ripped off. Voepel refers to David Berri's Forbes article ([URL="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidberri/2018/07/22/the-wnba-or-the-nba-should-pay-the-wnba-players-more/#5be7bc8440fe"]The WNBA -- Or The NBA -- Should Pay Its Players More[/URL]), claiming that Berri estimated that the players are being paid 22% of revenue. But he did nothing of the sort. Berri wrote that that he it was "estimated that WNBA players are receiving only about 20% of league revenues. Yet when players suggest this is wrong, people quickly argue that nothing can be done if the WNBA teams aren't making a profit." Berri, an econ professor in Utah, explained that, "the WNBA receives $25 million from ESPN, and we can estimate that minimum gate revenue is $27.4 million. So although it appears WNBA revenues are at least $52.4 million, we don't know how much revenue the league receives from Twitter, FanDuel, Tidal, merchandise sales, corporate sponsors, local television and radio deals, and subscriptions to the WNBA League Pass." So far from estimating that players get 22% of the gross as Voepel claimed, Berri was pointing out that they likely get a lot less. Voepel claims that getting financial data "is part of an age-old game of cat-and-mouse between management and labor in many industries, financial specifics with the WNBA have always been difficult to pin down." Excuse me? If management concludes a collective bargaining agreement, which they did, to pay 20% of the gross to the players, then they're obligated not to play a "cat-and-mouse" game, but to tell the truth. Yet while admitting that the WNBA isn't being forthcoming with the financial information, Voepel simply accepts WNBA management's viewpoint: "How many franchises make a profit? It changes year to year, but usually it's about half. How much have some franchises lost? Some say in total, over the years, it's millions." You sure about that, Mechelle? You just admitted that you don't know the numbers, and that the WNBA is not being forthcoming. Voepel also basically tells the players to shut up and play, writing that "the WNBA sends its paychecks on time, and they don't bounce." But she gives no solid information on the financials of a single team overseas, except to point to one team that folded. She takes management's position by claiming that overseas teams have cut back on foreign teams on their rosters. But except for the one Turkish team she mentions, it appears that most leagues and most overseas teams are paying far more than the WNBA. So what does it matter if the checks "don't bounce," if the paychecks are lousy to begin with? Had she read Berri's article closely, she would have seen that he stated that the players are almost certainly being underpaid even under their present agreement, that the franchises are almost certainly worth far more than the misleading "operating profit" figures pre-revenue sharing indicate, and that if the league were to actually attempt to market the product, they could do far better. Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird are beginning to push for fairness in the contracts for the next generation. Michael Voepel did them a major disservice with this misleading article. [/QUOTE]

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