Where’s your pay equity now?
This week the WNBA decided to suspend one of its stars, Brittney Griner, for three games follow a brawl between her and another player that resulted in the other player running away from Griner while players and officials restrained her. The three-game suspension is about 8.8% of the 34-game WNBA season, so Griner will forfeit 8.8% of her pay. Before you get too upset, we’re only talking about a little over $10,000.
That’s right, one of the biggest superstars in the history of the WNBA makes the maximum allowable pay level of $115,000. For some comparison, there are journeyman benchwarmers in the NBA pulling down more than $10 million a year for multiple years. An NBA player making $10 million a year makes more PER GAME than Griner makes for an entire season.
Griner’s initial response was to say that she was constantly being physically abused by other players, and if the league wouldn’t let her defend herself, then $115,000 wasn’t enough to pay for the privilege of playing in the WNBA Griner told ESPN she still felt that way after learning the length of the suspension). Another superstar, Diana Tirausi, skipped playing in the WNBA in 2015 to play for more money in Russia.
I’ve always been unsure how the WNBA continues to exist. I understand it is subsided by the NBA (to the tune of $10 million a year in the mid-2000s), and that many fans praise it for having a style of play that is more elegant than the NBA while still being physical. Yet the league averages about 6,800 fans per game, which is about 40% of the average NBA attendance of 18,000. According to the Wikipedia entry on the WNBA, ratings for WNBA games draw fewer viewers than college games.
Sports is a bottom line business, and the NBA pays its stars up to $40 million a year while WNBA players are capped at an amount that a good accountant could pull down. If the WNBA product is so good, why aren’t more people willing to pay for tickets, or advertisers pay more for ad time during televised games? It’s nice that women basketball players have a place to play after college, but if their skills are so in demand, why don’t they make more money (especially since overseas leagues are able to pay a lot more)?
This is particularly resonant now following the controversy over equal pay for the women’s national soccer team. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, women soccer player’s shouldn’t make as much as men; they should make more. The women’s team has won four World Cups (and never finished lower than third) and four Olympic Gold Medals since 1991, while the men last won in . . . let me check . . . that would be NEVER. The men’s team was eliminated from even qualifying for the 2018 World Cup because they were beaten by that mighty soccer giant, Trinidad and Tobago. It’s hard to imagine the US Mens Soccer Team beating a team from a soccer powerhouse like Germany, Spain, France or England when they can’t beat a small Caribbean island with a population roughly equal to that of Dallas, Texas.
The debate over soccer pay equity has devolved into splitting hairs over exactly how much players on each team receive; meanwhile male NBA players are making over 100 times more than WNBA players yet no one seems to be concerned about “pay equity.” Yes, attendance and viewership numbers are less than those of the NBA, but they aren’t 100 times lower.
If Brittney Griner follows through on her threat and leaves the WNBA, it will lead to a great deal of soul searching by the league and its fans. Can the WNBA survive with an economic system that pays their superstars so little? Can they raise enough revenue to pay their players enough to keep them from going to leagues in other countries that can pay more? If Griner leaves, will other stars follow her lead?
Griner’s fight and subsequent suspension might prove to be an expensive one for the WNBA.
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