Top WNBA Salaries: How Do They Stack Up?

[Carnac]

By
BRIGITTE YUILLE

The Women's National Basketball Association has steadily gained popularity and revenue since the league was founded in 1996. Despite this, player salaries have struggled to keep pace. In the 2019 season, the minimum salary for a player with two years of service was set at $42,728 annually, compared with a median income of $48,672 for the typical worker in the United States at the end of 2019.

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[bballnut90]

The part you quoted were the salaries before the collective bargaining agreement. Players on old rookie contracts are still paid lower but kids drafted in 2020/2021 get the higher starting rate. The pay doesn't compare to the men but it's apples and oranges...different leagues, levels of exposure, revenue, season length, etc. Compared to other women's pro team sports I think WNBA players are some of the highest paid.

 

[azfan]

A very interesting analysis....worth a read.

"A spot in the WNBA is one of the hardest jobs in the world to get. For perspective, there are more professional astronauts in the world (560) than WNBA players (144)! Yet, these elite female athletes aren’t compensated relative to the value they’re delivering, with the support of very little marketing."

WNBA Salary Rankings 2023: How Much Do WNBA Players Make?

See 2023 WNBA salary rankings. Find out the highest and lowest paid players, the average, and the perks. Plus, see how it compares to the NBA.

queenballers.club

 

[oldhusky]

Compared to the NBA it is ridiculous, but many players play year round including Europe and other parts of the world where they frequently make more than in the W. If they aren't a star, they can make a salary near the average income for a six month job, or play overseas and perhaps get more there, but it is a hard grind to play all year, not get a chance to give your body a rest, and be faced with such different cultures and living conditions year after year.

 

[azfan]

Compared to the NBA it is ridiculous, but many players play year round including Europe and other parts of the world where they frequently make more than in the W. If they aren't a star, they can make a salary near the average income for a six month job, or play overseas and perhaps get more there, but it is a hard grind to play all year, not get a chance to give your body a rest, and be faced with such different cultures and living conditions year after year.

Great ESPN article touching not only on salaries but a plethora of issues with great comments by Kelsey Plum, Candace Parker, and Courtney Vandersloot, a sample:

No player knows the ups and downs of making a roster like Los Angeles' Karlie Samuelson. Since 2017, she has signed 17 contracts to play for the Sparks, Wings, Storm and Mercury. Some of the contracts have been for training camp, others for seven-day hardships, others for the rest of season.

'I'm going to stir the pot': 34 WNBA players on the league's top issues

WNBA players identified travel, visibility and security as issues, and called for franchise expansion, increased roster size and changes to the salary cap.

www.espn.com

 

[militarydog]

The part you quoted were the salaries before the collective bargaining agreement. Players on old rookie contracts are still paid lower but kids drafted in 2020/2021 get the higher starting rate. The pay doesn't compare to the men but it's apples and oranges...different leagues, levels of exposure, revenue, season length, etc. Compared to other women's pro team sports I think WNBA players are some of the highest paid.

I certainly understand the players advocating for salaries and benefits. However, unfortunately at the end of the day it is a business and it does not appear the WNBA has ever made a profit.

 

[bballnut90]

Great ESPN article touching not only on salaries but a plethora of issues with great comments by Kelsey Plum, Candace Parker, and Courtney Vandersloot, a sample:

No player knows the ups and downs of making a roster like Los Angeles' Karlie Samuelson. Since 2017, she has signed 17 contracts to play for the Sparks, Wings, Storm and Mercury. Some of the contracts have been for training camp, others for seven-day hardships, others for the rest of season.

'I'm going to stir the pot': 34 WNBA players on the league's top issues

WNBA players identified travel, visibility and security as issues, and called for franchise expansion, increased roster size and changes to the salary cap.

www.espn.com

Aside from comments about marketing, it’s the same argument every year from players and everyone seems to conveniently avoid coming up with a financial solution. Players doubling and tripling their salary and getting private flights would be great, but who is fronting the bill for it?

I know it probably isn’t realistic, but if anything, I think the W should push harder to get funding from NBA franchises or leverage the NBA to advocate for the W to get better ESPN/TV contracts. The average NBA team has a salary cap of 136m, so if you took 0.5% of that each year from all 30 teams and gave it to the WNBA to help grow the women’s game, it’d yield 20m a year that the W could apply to increased salary caps, franchise expansion, better marketing, etc. I don’t think it’d ever happen but a little boost from the NBA could go a a long way to help grow women’s basketball.

Another idea is hiring folks at each franchise to work on landing brand partnership deals and sponsors like we are seeing with NIL. Most WNBA players have decent social media followings and could leverage this to increase money making opportunities. I think at South Carolina everyone on the roster makes 25k/year from some NIL deal and Texas Tech has a similar situation.