You’re certainly entitled to feel this way and I think I understand where it comes from.
Except it's not pay equity. Seriously, I wonder if people who constantly harp on this even understand this. WNBA players make more than G League players. Oh the humanity! NBA, WNBA and G League are three separate leagues. One makes gobs of money, one is a feeder program, and the other is a money pit. Normally when a business unit is a money pit, it gets divested. It's bad business to continue to throw good money away on a financial drain.Yeah, that whole "pay equity" nonsense.
These young women should study the history of the NBA- it wasn't until the late 80s/early 90s that we started seeing the explosion in revenues that set the table for the ridiculous player contracts we see today. The NBA was nearly a half century old before this took place, with many ups & downs before reaching that point. The WNBA is only 26. They may not like it but these women are still laying the foundation for women's professional basketball in this country- other women will reap the benefits of what they have built. It was ever thus....
The charter flights is one thing I can get behind. Forr what the league has spent on unsuccessful marketing they could afford charter flights.
I definitely agree, but outside of Indiana, most wnba teams seem to prefer keeping veterans over rookies. I feel you can still be in win mode and have a mixer of rookies on your team. I mentioned yesterday I’ve seen on each team at least one or two veterans that should have been cut over some of these rookies. Imo you still can’t win games/championships if you keep veterans around who aren’t producing anymore.
The 10th and 11th players on all the teams hardly ever play, and should never be used on veterans. They fill a roster spot and don't help win the championship.
Not to mention most will go overseas after the WNBA season is over to continue making a living. It's the unfortunate reality of professional sports for women.
Sure, charter flights would be nice. I'm sure the G League would also prefer them since they make travel much more comfortable/efficient. But they are very expensive and not all team owners can afford them. Who would be expected to pay for these? This is one of those examples where just maybe the players should have been thinking about this during CBA negotiations instead of how to get more money in their pockets.
It possibly was during the last set of negotiations and may have been left off the table for other things. Unfortunately, charter flights didn't happen but they were upgraded from flying coach. As with all negotiations, you don't get everything you want and sometimes have to give something up to get something else in return.
www.si.com
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Going team by team:
I appreciate the insights and clarifications of the economics of the WNBA, Overseas, and the interface
Thanks for posting about the 2020 contract items. I appreciate learning about the context!It possibly was during the last set of negotiations and may have been left off the table for other things. Unfortunately, charter flights didn't happen but they were upgraded from flying coach. As with all negotiations, you don't get everything you want and sometimes have to give something up to get something else in return.
A quote from an SI article that talked about the CBA that was negotiated in 2020.
"Salary and other cash compensation aren’t the only metrics by which WNBA players’ employment will improve. They will no longer fly coach. To that end, the new CBA will guarantee that WNBA players fly in premium airline seats, such as comfort or economy plus. Each player will also be given an individual hotel accommodation. Further, the new CBA will contain progressive motherhood and family planning benefits. Benefits will include fully paid maternity leave, a new annual childcare stipend of $5,000, workplace accommodations for nursing mothers and two-bedroom apartments for players with children. In addition, veteran players will be eligible for up to $60,000 in reimbursed expenses related to adoption, surrogacy, oocyte cryopreservation or fertility/infertility treatment."
Analyzing the WNBA's New CBA Deal
The new CBA is poised to provide major improvements in pay and benefits to WNBA players while assuring league officials that their players will prioritize the WNBA over foreign leagues.
Save the subsidies for Simmons and Irving.
She wasn't a one game wonder. She did what she needed to do for her team to win. She did the same thing against Stanford, scoring 18 pts. in the second half when we played them in Dec and were down 17 at one time.
That's sad to hear. I suspect there isn't nearly enough female interest in it either. I know within my circle of friends, not a single woman regularly watches any women's sports. They'll come over to our house every four years to watch WWCSoccer. But I'm the only one yelling during the matches. They even make fun of me for obsessing over WCBB.
I suspect that more women watch the NBA than watch the WNBA.
I know they go overseas to make more money because of the higher pay compared to the WNBA. But that doesn't mean that they are worth that same salary playing in the US. Just because they are really good in basketball doesn't mean that they deserve to earn more than a HS teacher or a nurse...unless the demand for their services warrants the pay (which it doesn't). They act like they are impoverished and taken advantage of when in reality, their financial situation is one that pretty much any non-athlete/non-celebrity would kill for. The free college education alone is a huge benefit.
Is the players the reason, though? There are many exceptionally good young players in the league...but no one is really paying attention. Breanna Stewart is probably the best player in the league, and she has under 300k Instagram followers. Conversely, Joel Embiid has 5.6m followers. Te'a Cooper is (was?) the WNBA-leader in IG followers with 1.5m; LeBron James is the NBA leader (I think) with 119m. The level of interest in the players just isn't there, and obviously Te'a has a whole lot else going on for her besides the WNBA that contributes to her social media following.
TV contracts rely on $ponsors and viewer$.
Truth
I read somewhere that it would cost $20 million annually or something like that to provide charter flights for all of the league games. My fuzzy math estimates that's more than the salary cap for all 12 teams combined. From my understanding, the league commissioner gave a hard "no" on this being something that would happen anytime soon. But I would be surprised if it isn't a continued talking point all season long (more than, "how can we grow our fanbase?").It possibly was during the last set of negotiations and may have been left off the table for other things. Unfortunately, charter flights didn't happen but they were upgraded from flying coach. As with all negotiations, you don't get everything you want and sometimes have to give something up to get something else in return.
A quote from an SI article that talked about the CBA that was negotiated in 2020.
"Salary and other cash compensation aren’t the only metrics by which WNBA players’ employment will improve. They will no longer fly coach. To that end, the new CBA will guarantee that WNBA players fly in premium airline seats, such as comfort or economy plus. Each player will also be given an individual hotel accommodation. Further, the new CBA will contain progressive motherhood and family planning benefits. Benefits will include fully paid maternity leave, a new annual childcare stipend of $5,000, workplace accommodations for nursing mothers and two-bedroom apartments for players with children. In addition, veteran players will be eligible for up to $60,000 in reimbursed expenses related to adoption, surrogacy, oocyte cryopreservation or fertility/infertility treatment."
Analyzing the WNBA's New CBA Deal
The new CBA is poised to provide major improvements in pay and benefits to WNBA players while assuring league officials that their players will prioritize the WNBA over foreign leagues.
Or get women to support women's sports.
I get your argument here, and if those were the only factors, I wouldn't hesitate at all. But I wonder if there haven't been historical factors that have suppressed interest in women's sports. I mean TV coverage has lagged behind existing interest, and not just in terms of what gets broadcast, but how and when. I can't say it enough how many games in the women's tournament had almost no replays available during games. Not enough cameras or crews. At times, it felt like community TV coverage of HS games.
Totally fair, but I also think people are short changing the efforts being made to improve things. The WNBA made some decent strides in the past couple years with the new commissioner at the helm. She's very pragmatic and is trying to be realistic. Her business background is a huge benefit in comparison to previous commissioners.
The counter argument is the popularity of women's tennis, women's gymnastics, and women's figure skating (the latter two particularly compared to their male counterparts). I think the big difference here is that a.) women's tennis has broad appeal to male audiences and b.) gymnastics/figure skating are popular with female viewers. If market research and/or historical trends indicate that it's an opportunity, then it will get coverage regardless if it's men's or women's sports. The WNBA has neither. They've been around for 25 years and there's no clear positive trend. Contrast that with the women's tennis tour that started in 1972 (without the advantage of internet and massive cable television) and where they were by the late '90s. It's night and day.
The LPGA has been around for about 60 + years and the players do well, not as well as the men. But they have had good commissioners who help brand the product.
