The Sad Reality Of The WNBA and Its Wage Gap

[tondi123]

The reality isn't that they are underpaid, its that they are overpaid. They were being paid at a rate commensurate with the revenue they produced, minus all the other operational expenses, they would be earning practically nothing.

[clyde21]

It's a tough situation. On one hand, they are a new and developing league, so naturally it will take time to "establish" itself.

It's not really that tough or complex. No one wants to watch the WNBA, and it hasn't gotten better in its 22-year history. In fact, 2016 was its worst season EVER in terms of ratings.

Not sure why this is even still a discussion point. This has nothing to do with Equal Pay. It's just a bunch of people that don't understand basic economics that are trying to leverage today's social justice avalanche into better pay.

[Clay Davis]

They need to sell us on good fundamentals, which is more fun to watch

[soda]

Now I see how Ocasio-Cortez might get elected. Holy ****. How do people not understand basic economic concepts???

She's 28 years old. The berlin wall fell and the USSR ended in 1989. She was born the year after the end of the cold war. I was born in 1978, the cold war is the defining struggle of my childhood. I went to school at a time when we still did the duck-under-our-desks-in case-of-a-nuclear-attack drill. The only people who believe in socialism are young people with no real world experience. I will never, ever, ever vote for a socialist/communist. I'd vote for a member of the KKK first. I'd vote for Hitler first, because the Nazis have less blood on their hands then the commies do. They're all evil, but communism (which is what AOC is, read the platform of her party on its website) is objectively the MOST evil.

She will win her election in November, and she will enter Congress. She is young and naive, controlling her will not be difficult.

[RSP83]

How big is WNBA fanbase? How big of a revenue do they generate? Global? Ok, Local?

[eagereyez]

Watch on YouTube

this guy dropped the sledgehammer on the WNBA

I might be the only person in this thread who actually sat down and watched the entire video. The majority of it is stuff I already knew. One thing I didn't know about was the Candice Wiggins interview, who claims that she was bullied for being straight in the WNBA. Some quotes from her interview:

"Me being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge,” Wiggins said. “I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are gay women. It was a conformist type of place. There was a whole different set of rules they (the other players) could apply."

"People were deliberately trying to hurt me all of the time. I had never been called the B-word so many times in my life than I was in my rookie season. I’d never been thrown to the ground so much. The message was: ‘We want you to know we don’t like you."

So very progressive.

[Ball so hard]

Do people really need a complex arguemnent why insert WNBA star here isn't earning several million dollars per season?

Equal pay for equal work. They both play basketball, one gets paid a boatload of money more for the same work. This is textbook sexism on multiple levels.


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Except professional basketball is entertainment and men and women differ as to what they view as entertaining. Generally speaking, they spend their entertainment dollars differently. If a male version of the Hallmark channel failed, would anyone decry that as sexist, or would be say it was a dumb idea because there wasn't a market for it?

You're a sexist. There's virtually no difference between a male and a female.

[ropjhk]

The WNBA vs NBA pay gap is essentially the same argument as the gender pay gap in general, but taken to extreme measures.

People who say the wage gap is a myth point out how in most businesses women do get paid the same as men for the same work. There's plenty of material on the Internet regarding this, and it's estimated that the true wage gap in this sense is 2-8% at worst.

People who say the wage gap is a real concern will point to all the ways that women are denied an opportunity to achieve a high paying position. They will mention how pregnancy, social bias and expectations, family structures and such have an effect on wages. Their estimate for the wage gap is at least 20%.

Who you think is right is correlated to how much you believe in capitalism. The capitalist would say that it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, what matters is how much a workers output is valued. The socialist would put more emphasis in how much input is given by the worker and more focus on the resulting compensation.

[UcanUwill]

Watch on YouTube

this guy dropped the sledgehammer on the WNBA

I might be the only person in this thread who actually sat down and watched the entire video. The majority of it is stuff I already knew. One thing I didn't know about was the Candice Wiggins interview, who claims that she was bullied for being straight in the WNBA. Some quotes from her interview:

"Me being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge,” Wiggins said. “I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are gay women. It was a conformist type of place. There was a whole different set of rules they (the other players) could apply."

"People were deliberately trying to hurt me all of the time. I had never been called the B-word so many times in my life than I was in my rookie season. I’d never been thrown to the ground so much. The message was: ‘We want you to know we don’t like you."

So very progressive.

This was talked about here before.

[shakes0]

Do people really need a complex arguemnent why insert WNBA star here isn't earning several million dollars per season?

Equal pay for equal work. They both play basketball, one gets paid a boatload of money more for the same work. This is textbook sexism on multiple levels.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

someone cleary doesn't understand what "equal work" means. It's not equal when one job leads to billions of dollars in revenue and the other person works at a company that isn't even profitable.

Econ 101.

[shakes0]

I didnt watch the movie and Im not interested enough to Google in, but how much profit does the WNBA make per year?

way more than they deserve. Their whole existence is an act of charity.

[NBARocks]

the WNBA marketing has been mishandled pretty badly. they need to look into successful women sports and see what made those sports marketable. i don't think it has anything to do with better athleticism or jumping higher or being stronger. women's tennis players don't hit as hard as the men, they don't serve as hard, they don't play as quick. yet they are watched. so there must be some quality which makes them watchable and entertaining. it's the same in volleyball. women volleyball players are generally weaker, slower, and less hard-hitting than the men. yet they're still watched.

it's not about biological inferiority. it's about something else. what makes Serena Williams marketable as opposed to Diggins or Taurasi?

they have to tap into that psyche which makes women marketable.

reading about the plight of straight women in the league, it's easy to see why the WNBA is failing. its own players aren't inclusive. they're highly bigoted against heterosexual women. it's like reverse racism. that kind of attitude won't attract following. if you practice discrimination while crying out against discrimination, no one will pity you.

imo, to save the WNBA, they need to build up the percentage of straight women in the league. women attract women AND men. lesbians attract what kind of audience again? they need to change their jerseys and shorts to resemble that of women volleyball players. they need to stop pretending they're men and accept that they ARE WOMEN. they need to be proud of their sexuality (as women) maybe that will attract following. women don't follow them because they don't inspire women. they don't evoke empowerment. look at Serena Williams. girls idolize her because they feel empowered by her. She's strong YET sexy. you can be sexy without appealing to sexist attitudes.

it's a branding issue. not a discrimination issue. owners are more than willing to pay them their real value. if they can provide it.

[Duke4life831]

So how do we solve this problem then? If there is minimal viewership how do they expect making big money? Even wnba team owners dont make THAT much of money where they could throw these bigger contracts left and right. Some of them can't even sell their team because there are no buyers. The players are getting like 25% of revenue, if they want 50% like nba does then sorry its not gonna happen until more people legitimalty watch wnba.

There is no problem to solve. There is no one saying there is a problem that the minimum salary in the MLS is 53k. No one is saying there is a problem that the minimum salary in Major League Lacrosse is 7k and the average salary is between 10-20k. Most sports dont pay well, 90+% of the sports on the Olympics the athletes cant make a living off of playing those sports.

To put things into perspective, I read that a conservative guess for revenue of the WNBA is 60 million (25 mil comes from the TV deal which comes from the NBA TV deal). And again, this is revenue not profit.

So 60 million in revenue and minimum salary is 50k. MLS revenue in 2016 was 644 million. LA Galaxy by themselves had a revenue greater than the WNBA (63 mil). And again their minimum salary is 53k.

The only problem here is the WNBA salaries are way too high for the kind of revenue that they bring in.

[Stanford]

Equal pay for equal work. They both play basketball, one gets paid a boatload of money more for the same work. This is textbook sexism on multiple levels.

[JB2]

Do people really need a complex arguemnent why insert WNBA star here isn't earning several million dollars per season?

Equal pay for equal work. They both play basketball, one gets paid a boatload of money more for the same work. This is textbook sexism on multiple levels.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

A DJ for a local college radio station may have done the same work as Casey Kasem, but Casey Kasem got paid millions and the kid at the radio station got close to minimum wage. Do you not understand why? Casey Kasem had a worldwide audience. He had millions upon millions of listeners so ad revenue was through the roof. He brought in money so his radio station had both the desire and means to pay him so much. If the kid working at the college radio station demanded equal pay, he'd get fired. Why? Because that kid isn't bringing in anywhere near that type of ad revenue. The college radio station doesn't have the budget to pay him that much and even if they did, he hasn't shown that he is worth that much.

I've mentioned before, I'm very thankful that the NBA is keeping the WNBA afloat. It is a positive image for my basketball-loving daughter. And I do wish it would be promoted more. However, media companies make decisions on what to cover based on what is going to most positively affect their bottom line. It's definitely a catch 22 situation where it's not popular so they don't cover it and because they don't cover it it's not popular. Still, your argument seems to be ignoring basic market principles.

this should be re-posted every time someone brings this "pay gap" up...

Another anology from the sports world, Floyd Mayweather gets paid $200MM+ per fight in major sold out venues while other guys scrape by at $50K a fight. If people don't understand the difference between the 2 draws, I don't know what else to say. In business, al things are not created equal.

[Vampirate]

The only way this changes is if there's some massive women's movement where there is a huge influx of female viewers and fans to cater to.

I'm not seeing a big influx of male viewership of fan interest anytime in the future.

[dc]

the WNBA marketing has been mishandled pretty badly. they need to look into successful women sports and see what made those sports marketable. i don't think it has anything to do with better athleticism or jumping higher or being stronger. women's tennis players don't hit as hard as the men, they don't serve as hard, they don't play as quick. yet they are watched. so there must be some quality which makes them watchable and entertaining. it's the same in volleyball. women volleyball players are generally weaker, slower, and less hard-hitting than the men. yet they're still watched.

Here's the thing: Women's tennis and volleyball still LOOK LIKE the men's game (so long as they are playing vs. other women, of course). It definitely helps in Volleyball that the net is lowered.

Women's basketball just doesn't even look like the same game. It's almost completely below the rim and the differences in size, speed and athleticism are just the magnified in the game of basketball. It's played on much a bigger court than volleyball with a lot more ground for each player to cover and the rim is still 10 feet tall (as opposed to the lowered net in volleyball).

Often times, it's literally like watching a watered down version of boy's Junior Varsity basketball. It's just not a very entertaining product.

[TheDavinciCHODE]

Do people really need a complex arguemnent why insert WNBA star here isn't earning several million dollars per season?

Equal pay for equal work. They both play basketball, one gets paid a boatload of money more for the same work. This is textbook sexism on multiple levels.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

Are you trolling? Or just stupid?

[Effigy]

Do people really need a complex arguemnent why insert WNBA star here isn't earning several million dollars per season?

Equal pay for equal work. They both play basketball, one gets paid a boatload of money more for the same work. This is textbook sexism on multiple levels.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

Are you trolling? Or just stupid?

Honestly, what's the difference?

[Nate505]

Do people really need a complex arguemnent why insert WNBA star here isn't earning several million dollars per season?

Equal pay for equal work. They both play basketball, one gets paid a boatload of money more for the same work. This is textbook sexism on multiple levels.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

That argument works better when the same division of a company is generating equal revenues.