Do they really "need" to play... overseas?

[j66kicker]

Ok, are you suggesting that some large percentage are comps? On a given night, how many do YOU think are giveaways? What do you base your guess on?

I don't remember the source, but have heard that up to half of all WNBA tix are freebies. I know that in Phoenix I can get Mercury tickets on the street outside the arena for less than face value. I have a buddy who was in the radio business. He still has contacts in the media who get him complimentary tix for various sporting events. One time he called to ask for this favor and the person he called told him they hoped he was going to be asking for some "easy" tickets like Mercury tix.

In the case of the Sun, the payback on the free tickets is an absolute no-brainer for the Casino, even if it's not for high rollers. The more people they can drag into Mohegan Sun, the more they will eat, drink and gamble. Giving away the tickets they haven't sold costs them absolutely nothing.

 

[crewbear742]

If WNBA players were actually paid what the market says they are worth, they would be paid on the same level as Arena Football. The league only exists because of NBA subsidies and would sink immediately in their absence. Elite level talent has no correlation with elite level paychecks.

The only way that WNBA players will see a substantial pay raise is if the NBA chooses to pay those salaries outside of the WNBA revenue stream. Of course the NBA will never do that because the WNBA would never be able to pay those salaries on its own. It would guarantee permanent dependence. There would also be pressure to increase that pay level over time to show "respect" for women's basketball. But how exactly do you set salaries in the absence of a market? There are answers to that question but you don't want to be the guy responsible to pay the money once the answer is given.

 

[psconn]

I don't remember the source, but have heard that up to half of all WNBA tix are freebies. I know that in Phoenix I can get Mercury tickets on the street outside the arena for less than face value. I have a buddy who was in the radio business. He still has contacts in the media who get him complimentary tix for various sporting events. One time he called to ask for this favor and the person he called told him they hoped he was going to be asking for some "easy" tickets like Mercury tix.

In the case of the Sun, the payback on the free tickets is an absolute no-brainer for the Casino, even if it's not for high rollers. The more people they can drag into Foxwoods, the more they will eat, drink and gamble. Giving away the tickets they haven't sold costs them absolutely nothing.

FYI, the CT Sun is not affiliated with Foxwoods. Maybe Shades has some actual info to flesh out his/her post.

 

[UConnNick]

FYI, the CT Sun is not affiliated with Foxwoods. Maybe Shades has some actual info to flesh out his/her post.

True, but it wouldn't be surprising if the casino management routinely buys or gets a certain allotment of tickets to distribute at their own discretion.

 

[psconn]

True, but it wouldn't be surprising if the casino management routinely buys or gets a certain allotment of tickets to distribute at their own discretion.

Are you saying Foxwoods Casino would buy Sun tickets to give their patrons? Effectively sending them to the Mohegan Sun Casino?!?! Or are you saying what is already known to be true... that CT Sun tickets are comped to Mohegan Sun Casino patrons. The question is how many of the average attendance bought their tickets.

 

[UConnNick]

Are you saying Foxwoods Casino would buy Sun tickets to give their patrons? Effectively sending them to the Mohegan Sun Casino?!?! Or are you saying what is already known to be true... that CT Sun tickets are comped to Mohegan Sun Casino patrons. The question is how many of the average attendance bought their tickets.

No, obvously the MS casino. What's Foxwoods got to do with it?

 

[DaddyChoc]

Would you turn down $1,000,000 a year to play overseas. Would the guys play in the NBA for 50k- 120k?

nope... and I may just say over there or only play there so I can have my summers to myself and not play in the cheap ol' WNBA

 

[DaddyChoc]

This is one of the dumbest threads in BY history and that's saying something. And I've been the idiot to make multiple posts here.

If you can't understand why folks wouldn't want to pass up lucrative earning opportunities in the very short window that they have, I can't help you.

thank you're fitting in very well... continue to enjoy!

 

[DaddyChoc]

Would you turn down $1,000,000 a year to play overseas. Would the guys play in the NBA for 50k- 120k?

yeah they would if thats all the budget would allow... but it allows for waaaaaay much more I think they get paid something like that in the D-League and the G-League

 

[DaddyChoc]

No, obvously the MS casino. What's Foxwoods got to do with it?

ask J66kicker... he's the one that mentioned Foxwoods

 

[psconn]

ask J66kicker... he's the one that mentioned Foxwoods

AND Nick quoted the Foxwoods part of my response...
Beam me up Scottie...

-30-

 

[Shades]

nope... and I may just say over there or only play there so I can have my summers to myself and not play in the cheap ol' WNBA

The only problem is they pay those kind of salaries to the players who are most accomplished in the WNBA.

 

[meyers7]

And things will never change if people keep enabling and explaining away the tough choices elite female athletes are forced to make just to make a living. We on this board get such enjoyment out of women's basketball and then create a thread that in its title expreses such tone deafness. Sad.

Well I would definitely agree someone rolleyes on here is tone deaf.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

That’s for the potshots. Much appreciated.

I started to read your laundry list of action items but it occurred to me that an awful lot of people would need to care about the W to make it work and most people just don’t. I’m a die-hard UConn fan and I want Our Girls to do well but I’ve never bothered to go see one play a pro game. I don’t think more advertising or blogs or support from the NBA would change anything either

But, hey, at least now you get another one of my opinions to denigrate

Here's the thing. It's true that the W isn't as popular, or nearly as popular, as the NBA. The WNBA players aren't claiming that it is. Nor are they claiming that they should be paid anything close to LeBron or other NBA players. But what they are contending is that 1) their game is popular, that it gets good attendance and rising TV viewership, 2) that given the popularity and resiliency of overseas women's basketball pro leagues, it suggests that there is the potential for a strong pro league in America, and 3) that the NBA is starving the WNBA of investment, ignoring its potential, falsely claiming that the revenues aren't what they are in order to keep salaries low, and that with good marketing and strong investment, the WNBA can make far more money- for the league and for the players.

And let's keep in mind that this movement by the WNBA players is part of a larger movement by women athletes to get their due. Wimbledon relented and started paying women far more years ago, Olympic women athletes are agitating for better conditions and pay, as are the women athletes of the national soccer team. And when women take a stand, we should note that they often win. In other words, the poor treatment poor conditions, and inferior pay turn out to be just that.

I'm willing to bet that the WNBA players win major concessions from their NBA handlers, that the league not only doesn't fold, but prospers, and we see that they were right all along.

 

[Shades]

The WNBA has similar problems to women’s college basketball. College women’s basketball loses money, but Title IX protects women’s basketball at the college level. There is no Title IX at the professional level. It’s all about consumer demand. It’s mostly about television viewership and how that translates to media rights. That’s where the money’s at.
Hopefully this new CBS Sports contract with the WNBA will help attract new viewership. One big problem with the WNBA is there are only 12 teams. It’s hard for the nation as a whole to embrace a league with only 12 teams. I myself probably would have never gotten into the WNBA had I not had a local team. Since the WNBA tries to run on a sustainable business model (unlike overseas), it’s probably going to remain a slow process to gain popularity and build that revenue stream.


Here’s an article that talks about how Louisville women’s basketball loses money despite being one of the most well-attended clubs.

https://www.courier-journal.com/amp/2863008002

 

[the Q]

Here's the thing. It's true that the W isn't as popular, or nearly as popular, as the NBA. The WNBA players aren't claiming that it is. Nor are they claiming that they should be paid anything close to LeBron or other NBA players. But what they are contending is that 1) their game is popular, that it gets good attendance and rising TV viewership, 2) that given the popularity and resiliency of overseas women's basketball pro leagues, it suggests that there is the potential for a strong pro league in America, and 3) that the NBA is starving the WNBA of investment, ignoring its potential, falsely claiming that the revenues aren't what they are in order to keep salaries low, and that with good marketing and strong investment, the WNBA can make far more money- for the league and for the players.

And let's keep in mind that this movement by the WNBA players is part of a larger movement by women athletes to get their due. Wimbledon relented and started paying women far more years ago, Olympic women athletes are agitating for better conditions and pay, as are the women athletes of the national soccer team. And when women take a stand, we should note that they often win. In other words, the poor treatment poor conditions, and inferior pay turn out to be just that.

I'm willing to bet that the WNBA players win major concessions from their NBA handlers, that the league not only doesn't fold, but prospers, and we see that they were right all along.

Then the nba should just pull out entirely.

Let it stand completely on its own.

Problem solved.

 

[mbr33ct]

I think there are many comp tickets given to high rollers.

I have only been there once, signed up for the "card", played the penny slot machine (by the way why call it penny slot machines when the minimum to play a game is 5 or 6 "pennies") and lost about $60 bucks total (I'm probably considered a "cheap" roller). Now all I get are emails with comps to shows and others. I will soon see if there are emails with comps to the Sun games.

 

[iri10]

Financially, the WNBA sort of sits in purgatory. They seemingly make enough to not go under, which in itself is an accomplishment. But, they don't make enough to offer player salaries that would convince many of them to stay at home after the season.

As an exercise, I tried to think how much more money would it take to make the players...comfortable, at least, if not wealthy.

The 2019 team salary cap is $976,300, meaning that the league as a whole is capable of paying a little under $12 million (just for information's sake, it's about equal or less to the top 120 NBA player salaries). It's safe to assume that if they paid much more than this, the league would become non-viable. The WNBA doesn't get the massive subsidies that come with being associated with wealthy overseas sports clubs or oligarchs.

But let's say that the WNBA surges in popularity and revenue, and instead of a salary cap of $976,300, you have a salary cap of $2 million in 2019 dollars ($24M for the league as a whole). Now it becomes feasible to pay a team of 12 as follows:

1. $300k*
2. $300k*
3. 200k
4. 200k
5. 150k
6. 150k
7. 150k
8. 125k
9. 125k
10. 125k
11. 100k**
12. 75k**

*Hypothetical new max player salary of $300k **Rookie scale salaries

With a $2M cap, you can now pay franchise players up to $300k (max), average non-superstar vets an average of about ~$150k, and a new rookie scale of $75-100k or so. Or you could reduce the average non-superstar salary a bit in exchange for boosting the max to $350 or $400k. Not NBA money...but not bad for a summer's work.

Obviously, players will still go overseas a ton, especially if they're the superstar-caliber players that can get much bigger paychecks. But at these higher WNBA pay levels, the typical WNBA player would at least have a bit more money to (hopefully) invest or splurge with. Or at the cost of no overseas salary, they could more easily use the long WNBA offseason to go back to school or be earning experience toward a future career.

 

[Orangutan]

3) that the NBA is starving the WNBA of investment, ignoring its potential, falsely claiming that the revenues aren't what they are in order to keep salaries low, and that with good marketing and strong investment, the WNBA can make far more money- for the league and for the players.

That seems to be the biggest problem right now. With labor negotiations on the horizon, the NBA seems to actively be sabotaging the WNBA.

I suspect that the NBA wants the league around for optics but they don't care if it succeeds or not and they are certainly aren't interested in investing more now in the hopes of future returns. There is an argument that if the NBA really got behind the WNBA and pushed it that the WNBA could be more successful. We will never know because they don't care enough to make that investment.

 

[j66kicker]

ask J66kicker... he's the one that mentioned Foxwoods

Sorry for the confusion - I meant Mohegan Sun

 

[mbr33ct]

Sorry for the confusion - I meant Mohegan Sun

It's ok, it's the "off season"...anything goes.

 

[Shades]

That seems to be the biggest problem right now. With labor negotiations on the horizon, the NBA seems to actively be sabotaging the WNBA.

I suspect that the NBA wants the league around for optics but they don't care if it succeeds or not and they are certainly aren't interested in investing more now in the hopes of future returns. There is an argument that if the NBA really got behind the WNBA and pushed it that the WNBA could be more successful. We will never know because they don't care enough to make that investment.

If half the owners make a little profit and half lose money, how does giving the players a raise right now make the league more profitable? Will the product suddenly be better and gain viewership? Shouldn’t they put that money into marketing instead?
What the league really needs to do is to expand so more people are likely to take it seriously. It’s kinda hard to find prospective owners that are willing to take on the WNBA as an “investment” if you’re asking them to lose money from the start, and now you’re asking them to lose even more money.
I’m curious exactly what percentage stake the NBA has in the WNBA that it would be worth it to them to pump a lot more money into the WNBA?

 

[willtalk]

I believe that women's college ball is the best litmus test for the prospective popularity of the WNBA. As we all know title nine is what is keeping WCBB afloat. It has over time increased the popularity of the game so that now more than just a few teams draw a decent crowd. There are quite a few teams drawing more than 5000 a game and even they are not self-supporting. I can see it's popularity increasing incrementally but not over night. The players cannot realistically expect an increase in pay until the league is more viable or teams get financial support of sponsors like the leagues overseas do.

There are some very rich women ( or men ) who are constantly on record for gender equality. Well, why don't they put their money where their mouths are and buy a team to help support the league. It would be a drop in the bucket for them but might help support and give a leg up to the league. the WNBA would be a perfect vehicle to promote gender equality. I am not trying to be sarcastic. I mean this seriously. However, I have found that most people - especially high profile individuals are all talk. When it comes to them actually living what they promote the quickly become invisible. It's generally do as I say and not as I do.