Rapinoe vs Green... who you got?

[bebopdeluxe]

The difference is facilities between the men and women basketball players for the NCAA tournament is all you need to know about how deeply embedding sexism is. And just like racism, people don't appreciate being dragged out in the light.

So I wanted to zoom in on this specifically, and I'll say up front I don't know the details, but imagine this scenario:

Say you have two tournaments that are both try to budget based on the revenue and cost of their respective tournaments.

Say that many of the big costs - transportation, housing, playing facilities, support staff - have to be about the same.

Where would you expect the tournament that makes less money to cut costs relative to the tournament that makes more money?

I don't have an answer here, but I'd suggest the answer would typically be something other than "No, the tourneys must spend the exact same amount of money!" And yet, I think for many of the people outraged over the differences between the men's and women's tournament cost, they believe everything should be absolutely identical in the name of equality.

Many thinking in terms of Title IX will say that that's what the rule needs to be, and it's not like I'd be outraged were that the case, but it needs to be understood also that if the NCAA is spending money on the women's basketball tourney that causes that to lose money, that's money that could have been used for other things.

It could have been used for other women's sports.
It could have been used for other women's scholarships based on actual academics.
It could have been used for educational infrastructure in general.

I think we probably spend too much time asking "Why don't our female athletes have it better?" and not enough time asking "Why should we look to fund costly sporting events at all?"

If I understand the situation correctly, the women didn’t even have access to decent workout facilities. I mean, why should the NCAA expect elite female athletes to need the same fitness facilities during a tournament specifically geared towards some of the best conditioned athletes in the sport?

(I am being sarcastic here, in case you didn’t get that)

This isn’t like the men get to stay at the Four Seasons with an Oscar-worthy swag bag in their rooms while the women stay at the Motel 6 with a piece of chocolate on their pillow. It is about a mind set where the female athletes abilities and standing within their sport are truly respected - which in turn inspires young girls to follow their dreams in these sports. Nobody is saying Sue Bird should be paid the same as LeBron James (or Megan Rapinoe should be paid the same as Messi). It is about truly respecting what female athletes accomplish in their sports.

By the way, when I think about the greatest moments in soccer history, the Rapinoe-to-Wambach goal in the Women’s World Cup against Brazil may be one of the greatest (if not the greatest) moments in US Soccer history, and that play had ZERO to do with whether they were men or women. Given the situation and the stakes. It was probably one of the single greatest moments of sports I have ever witnessed. Playing 10-against-11 for the final 50 minutes (including 30 minutes of extra time) against the team that was ranked #1 in the world that year. According to this ESPN article about the goal, it was voted as the greatest goal in US Soccer history.

Read the article - it won't take too long.

https://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/2015worldcup/story/_/id/13075090/abby-wambach-2011-header-heard-round-world

And here is the goal (BTW, Rapinoe hits it with her LEFT foot...think of a left-handed layup from 45 yards away):

Watch on YouTube

Enjoy.

[clyde21]

but I think WNBA players framing it as some type of womens issue and leveraging the MeToo movement to get paid more is pretty weak. this is like...95% an economic and viewership issue.

Can you link me to the quotes of them doing this? I have not heard the WNBA players citing sexual assault as a reason they should be paid more and would find that detrimental to both the cause of getting paid more and protecting people from assault and harassment.

i don't mean they are specifically hashtagging #MeToo, I mean they are using a lot of the momentum behind the movement and other womens rights movements in general to push for more pay in the WNBA, when them not getting paid as much as they would like has never been about womens issues really at all.

the first thing they need to do is fix this framing, second thing they need to do is actually try to get women to watch the sport. but unfortunately the majority of women are just more interested in other things at this point.

but anyways, I agree the NBA should invest more into the WNBA, just like how they should invest more into the G League.

[Texas Chuck]

"I'm really tired of seeing them complain about the lack of pay, because they're doing themselves a disservice by just complaining. They're not laying out steps that they can take to change that. It's coming off as a complaint because the people that can change it are just going to continue to say, 'Well, the revenue isn't there. So if you don't bring in the revenue, we can't up your pay.' They're going to keep using that, but the reality is, as true as that is, it's an excuse. Because everyone says, 'We support women. We support women's empowerment. We support women in the workplace. We do this for women. We do X for women. Blah, blah blah. And everyone uses it to their advantage, yet these women are not using these people who are saying these very things to their advantage."

That's Draymond's quote. I see nothing adversarial about this.

You don't? He's making some assumptions and considering the responses he got from multiple WNBA players, clearly some wrong ones. And why did he just jump into this without having done any fact checking?

He starts to understand some issues -- and we see it itt -- if you don't generate the revenue they aren't going to want to pay you more. That seems fair. He points out that the NBA and its sponsors want to be seen as pro-woman and want to reap the social benefits of that without paying you more. Again that seems fair.

Like I said I don't think he meant harm. But he also said they are "just complaining" which the WNBA players rightfully took as a slap in the face since they know they have done far more. He's saying they haven't laid out steps. How does he know this exactly? He's just making assumptions and condescending ones at that.

Which is why Rapinoe (and others) pushed back. And pointed out that the men still have the money and the power and that telling women just fix it without acknowledging they can't without men's involvement as well is well ignorant at best.

If this issue matters to him, go call up the WNBA leadership team and share your thoughts instead of commenting out of turn to the press. He doesn't like people speaking on his business--he's made that perfectly clear.

[tbhawksfan1]

You should definitely revise your post and add that the reason why Meghan is clapping back at Green is because Green is saying that he is tired of women in sports complaining about equal pay AND they should do X, Y, and Z instead and Meghan is replying by educating Green on the fact that they have already been doing X, Y, and Z and they get ignored and dismissed and uses his post as an example.

I appreciate the idea and you're right about her position, but instead of revising my original post, I'll just let interested people read the thread and get all the interesting info from multiple good posts such as yours.

the reason for my post was that your original post is misleading as to what the beef is between those two. You are missing important information about the argument they are having.

If you don't mind, I copy pasted your info to OP post. If it's a problem I'll delete

[mademan]

"I'm really tired of seeing them complain about the lack of pay, because they're doing themselves a disservice by just complaining. They're not laying out steps that they can take to change that. It's coming off as a complaint because the people that can change it are just going to continue to say, 'Well, the revenue isn't there. So if you don't bring in the revenue, we can't up your pay.' They're going to keep using that, but the reality is, as true as that is, it's an excuse. Because everyone says, 'We support women. We support women's empowerment. We support women in the workplace. We do this for women. We do X for women. Blah, blah blah. And everyone uses it to their advantage, yet these women are not using these people who are saying these very things to their advantage."

That's Draymond's quote. I see nothing adversarial about this.

You don't? He's making some assumptions and considering the responses he got from multiple WNBA players, clearly some wrong ones. And why did he just jump into this without having done any fact checking?

He starts to understand some issues -- and we see it itt -- if you don't generate the revenue they aren't going to want to pay you more. That seems fair. He points out that the NBA and its sponsors want to be seen as pro-woman and want to reap the social benefits of that without paying you more. Again that seems fair.

Like I said I don't think he meant harm. But he also said they are "just complaining" which the WNBA players rightfully took as a slap in the face since they know they have done far more. He's saying they haven't laid out steps. How does he know this exactly? He's just making assumptions and condescending ones at that.

Which is why Rapinoe (and others) pushed back. And pointed out that the men still have the money and the power and that telling women just fix it without acknowledging they can't without men's involvement as well is well ignorant at best.

If this issue matters to him, go call up the WNBA leadership team and share your thoughts instead of commenting out of turn to the press. He doesn't like people speaking on his business--he's made that perfectly clear.

It's social media. A platform built to talk out of your arse and have opinions about stuff you are in no position to be talking about. I thought Draymond was asked about it and gave his take, but ya, if it was out of the blue, it is adversarial.

[Pg81]

"Equal pay" always makes me scratch my head. By an large not only are women not even remotely as good as their male counterparts but there exists plenty of sexism on both sides of the equation. I have a certain problem with women sports in its entirety from my experience as someone who was a referee for women`s basketball in Germany. Bear in mind I am really a scrub who played just for fun and fitness in the lowest league. Now imagine my first game where the two women teams participating were several leagues above me. Suffice to say what I saw shocked me and not in a good way, that was over a decade ago by the way. The techniques the ladies displayed were plain awful through and through in every aspect of the game. Just to give you an example there was a young woman who allegedly played her entire life but her jump shooting teqchnique was something so awful I will need a somewhat lengthy sentence to explain. So basically when she got assisted on her shot she would make a small hop to catch the pass, land and only then shot with one of the worst hitch shooting motions I have ever seen think Larry Bird but the ball being almost behind her head. Suffice to say I called a travel obviously and EVERYBODY on her team and their coach were railing on me telling me that no ref ever called her for traveling, that I am blind, wrong and other niceties, and that she was shooting that horribly her entire life. I went even so far to explain what she did wrong and praised her when she finally got it right. In the end I got quite a bit of negative feedback, and that is putting it mildly, and was thoroughly frustrated since I realized despite coming back overweight from a broken foot injury I could smoke any of these women in my sleep despite them playing several leagues above me. Not only that apparently everybody seems to never utter any criticism just forced positivity and woe if you ever dare say something critical you are at risk of getting crucified especially as a guy even if you actually mean well. My only luck was that one of the big wigs of that team was around and told me that I did nothing wrong and that they needed a reality check. Never mind that the game ended iirc something like 41:43 iirc which even for women is plain awful.
Women want equal pay? Well maybe start bringing a similar performance as men and not lose to U15 boys as a national team. Stuff is plain embarassing. Or tennis were the women play somewhere around half the time men play.

[CS707]

It's been covered ad nauseam but there are ramifications of structuring pay for U.S. Women's team similar to that of the men. Certain players will see increases but it will pull funding from the U.S. Women's pro league that would likely result in the league folding and many more players being out of work. Rapinoe is know for looking out for self first. The issues of facilities, etc. is disgraceful though.

[GYK]

I don’t know how he think he came across but whatever he’s the next Charles Barkley type of guy.

The Onion had a funny article
https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.theonion.com/draymond-green-if-wnba-players-want-to-get-paid-they-1846637410/amp

[Ryoga Hibiki]

If you listen to what each of them actually said, she is in the right. But mind you that's way different from what this discussion will boil down to which is women's sports suck and don't generate revenue so shut up.

But I hope some people will take the time to actually read the quotes before their usual lazy commentary. Several female athletes actually engaged with him in very meaningful ways to acknowledge some of what he said while correcting him on the areas he missed on.

It spurred a good dialogue, but we won't have it here sadly.

to be honest, every argument I heard so far has been ridiculously weak.
I don't get why the normal negotiation process and market dynamics shouldn't apply here

Sent from my Nokia 3210 using RealGM mobile app

[tbhawksfan1]

I don’t know how he think he came across but whatever he’s the next Charles Barkley type of guy.

The Onion had a funny article
https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.theonion.com/draymond-green-if-wnba-players-want-to-get-paid-they-1846637410/amp

Very funny, thanks

[Lunartic]

I got Green, and I usually detest him.

Rapinoe is a dunce

[Ambrose]

- You can of course argue that since the NBA revenue is what's driving the vast majority of these infrastructure needs, the WNBA should only have to pay for the stuff that is WNBA specific. That feels fair, but it's totally out of alignment with industry in general. The company that owns the means of production is expected in general to squeeze their employs as much as they can in the US, and so what Rapinoe is essentially asking for the NBA to act as something other than an capitalist entity, which hardly a realistic demand from labor toward management.

- The comparison with Russian women's leagues doesn't make sense because as far as I understand, there's no thought that the Russian leagues will actually make money. The women who go over there are basically just being the pets of the oligarchs who have more money than God and are looking to spend it on on their own opulence rather than building a society that's worth a damn. Suffice to say, I don't think the WNBA should EVER try to outspending these guys because this money is a rounding error to the oligarchs and they aren't operating based on the idea that there's a concrete sense of worth for basketball play.

- As I say all of that, I do think the NBA needs to ask themselves: How much money would it cost us to tie WNBA salary percentages to NBA salary percentages? If the answer is "negligible", I might recommend that they do it as it allows them to settle the issue. If you try to force any other standard other than the NBA percentage, it'll just keep raising questions and potential for conflict indefinitely.

Just like the G-League, just like the NBA academies across the world. Now yes those are different because the hope is that that leads to unearthing or developing new talent, but its also to grow popularity of basketball and thus the NBA.

G League players get paid 35K for 5 months worth of bball, that's nothing, that's not enough to survive, I'm not sure comparing this to the G League is the way to go, because those dudes get paid even less than WNBA players

What? This is in comparison to other athletes and not the general public, right?

[Sabas11]

G League players get paid 35K for 5 months worth of bball, that's nothing, that's not enough to survive, I'm not sure comparing this to the G League is the way to go, because those dudes get paid even less than WNBA players

I'm not comparing salaries. I'm talking about things the NBA invests resources in that aren't revenue generating.

ideally speaking yes, I think both G League players and WNBA players should make more...but I think WNBA players framing it as some type of womens issue and leveraging the MeToo movement to get paid more is pretty weak. this is like...95% an economic and viewership issue.

also...let's be honest here...if women don't even watch the WNBA, why should anyone else watch the WNBA? the first thing they need to do is try to get women to watch the sport...because if they can't even do that, it's dead in the water.

You're the one that's weak (and ignorant, and insecure). The MeToo movement is about sexual abuse, wtf are you talking about?

[Lunartic]

I don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand, women's sports are usually less competitive than men's and so they generate less revenue. But that is also a function of receiving much less funding.

Women's tennis has shown that pay equality can work. The women cannot compete with the men physically (obviously), but the quality of the women's matches is still very entertaining and draws strong viewership numbers.

It has nothing to do with whether or not women can compete with men in a sport. Only thing that matters is the revenue their sport (business) generates. If womens' tennis makes as much revenue as mens then of course they deserve equal pay.

That's obviously not the case with NBA vs WNBA.

And why is women's tennis more popular than the WNBA?

It's because the quality of women's tennis is generally much higher than the quality on display in the WNBA. That quality discrepancy exists because women's basketball is poorly funded, leading to a lack of player development.

Perhaps it's due to a multitude of reasons? "funding" doesn't make a sport interesting. It doesn't increase the talent level suddenly.

I enjoy watching tennis becuase I enjoy looking at attractive women playing a finesse game. WNBA is not my cup of tea, I don't really find their level of play to be impressive and I don't find them attractive. WNBA is unpopular in entire world, whereas women's tennis has a large following internationally. The quality discrepancy has more to do with a lack of interest in WNBA, a lack of innate talent, a lack of innate very tall females and overall it's not a very feminine sport.

Funding may play a role but overall, the WNBA is a chore to watch. If you invested 20 billion dollars into it this week the product wouldn't magically improve.

[BK_2020]

Women's tennis is about as far from finesse as you can get. They just hit it back as hard as they can and hope the other player is the first one to sail one 20 feet beyond the baseline.
There's nothing except stereotypes supporting the notion that men's tennis is about power and women's tennis is about skill and touch. It's the opposite.

[FNQ]

Draymond frequently pipes up on situations he doesnt quite understand. He's Skip Bayless as a basketball player

[Sabas11]

Remember when Steven Adams told us we shouldn't take political advice from pro athletes and everybody on here praised him? You guys cannot be so hypocritical

[DubTheVanDamage]

If you listen to what each of them actually said, she is in the right. But mind you that's way different from what this discussion will boil down to which is women's sports suck and don't generate revenue so shut up.

But I hope some people will take the time to actually read the quotes before their usual lazy commentary. Several female athletes actually engaged with him in very meaningful ways to acknowledge some of what he said while correcting him on the areas he missed on.

It spurred a good dialogue, but we won't have it here sadly.

How is your response spurring a good dialogue? You flat declare Rapinoe right, but don't say why or how.

So, here are the quotes for context:

Green said:

"As long as y'all make the argument about pay, while the revenue stays the same... They will continue to point at the revenue not being high enough to cover bigger salaries. While that is true in damn near every business, how do we take that card out of their pockets? That's the key to changing the pay. There's no argument for lack of revenue, unless... You make those that say they stand for women actually stand up."

He then said:

"The NBA wasn't always the global game that it is today. It wasn't always driving as much revenue as it does today. But there were people behind it, building the platform, and more importantly telling INDIVIDUAL...stories and building up the interest in the players. That's how the game took off. Who's building up y'all platform? Who's telling the individual stories of how great y'all are? Building the interest and transforming women's basketball into a global game?"

Rapinoe's response:

"It's really unfortunate, in the position [Green's] in, having all of the resources that he has and the ability to have a much more educated opinion, that he just hasn't. And then, drag all these other people into it by tagging them and speaking at a time when the [NCAA] tournament is going on and all that we saw with the lack of resources and funding."

Her first response to to claim that an opposing view is "uneducated" and that Draymond doesn't understand what Rapinoe and other female athletes talk about. If Rapinoe disagreed with anything Draymond said, she could have countered them, but this sort of broad, dismissive response is intellectually dishonest, self righteous, and quite offensive. I find it surreal that you're standing up and clapping for this sort of marginalization.

She continued:

"That's frustrating that's the take you have. You obviously showed your whole ass in not even understanding what we all talk about all the time -- WNBA players and us on the national team. Like what Sue [Bird] said, you tagged the wrong people. You don't think we asked for more money? I mean, what are we screaming about? Nonstop!"

More talk that Green doesn't understand. Poor, uneducated fool... and the fact that Rapinoe is defending her girlfriend -- no, there is no bias here.

The true irony is this -- Rapinoe actually didn't bother to read what Draymond wrote. She said, "You don't think we asked for more money?" when that was exactly the point Green made -- asking for money without increasing the revenue pool won't work.

Finally, on a (slightly) more constructive note, Megan said:

"When we talk about equality and women's sports, we always talk first about investment, and funding and resources and marketing and branding and investing in not just the players but the support staff and coaching and media, TV media, print media, all of it," she said. "Those are the things that we talk about first, and I think anybody who watches us or follows us, or really has skin in the game and equal pay or equality in that sense, knows that that's what we talk about first."

This is where she more directly addressed Draymond's comments -- although, again, I think she missed the mark. She is asking for investment -- expecting other people to step up when Draymond's message was do it yourself.

As a final note, attendance for the WNBA has pretty much declined since its inception -- the league peaked at an average of 10.8k fans in its second year and was down to 6.5k in 2019. The league loses money -- pretty clearly, the approach to market the league hasn't worked. Megan is naively demanding more investment in a dying, loss making business.

NBA players have, overall, done an excellent job off the court, both in promoting themselves, building businesses, and speaking out. Instead of shrilly castigating Draymond for giving his advice, why not say, "Ok, show us how to do it. Let's team up."

The WNBA's approach, including that of the players, simply hasn't worked. It's foolish to think, given the long-term decline the league is experiencing, that continuing to do the same thing will lead to different results. Also, Draymond, and many of his friends (including James and Curry) -- could do a lot to help and mentor WNBA players. Perhaps Bird and the other WNBA players should have spent less time "correcting" and more time collaborating.

[Pg81]

I got Green, and I usually detest him.

Rapinoe is a dunce

Not just a dunce but also a deceitful wretch who want her cake and eat it too as evident from her attempts to "negotiate" for women`s football, or soccer and basically got laughed out of court.

[clyde21]

I'm not comparing salaries. I'm talking about things the NBA invests resources in that aren't revenue generating.

ideally speaking yes, I think both G League players and WNBA players should make more...but I think WNBA players framing it as some type of womens issue and leveraging the MeToo movement to get paid more is pretty weak. this is like...95% an economic and viewership issue.

also...let's be honest here...if women don't even watch the WNBA, why should anyone else watch the WNBA? the first thing they need to do is try to get women to watch the sport...because if they can't even do that, it's dead in the water.

You're the one that's weak (and ignorant, and insecure). The MeToo movement is about sexual abuse, wtf are you talking about?

good talk.