With all eyes on the WNBA All-Star game last weekend, the ladies took a moment to wear shirts with a powerful message on the front: “Pay us what you owe us.”
It was a reminder to the rest of the world that the women are grossly underpaid despite being the best in the world at what they do. They are the preeminent league for women’s basketball and yet, many of them don’t make a liveable salary. Despite some advances in recent years, WNBA players just began making salaries that were competitive with the NBA’s G League, but even the highest paid WNBA player isn’t even close to the NBA minor league’s highest paid player.
Jackie Young of the Las Vegas Aces makes the largest salary in the WNBA at $252,450 annually. Compare that to Cleveland Charge guard London Johnson and the South Bay Lakers guard Bronny James, who both made over $1 million annually in the G League.
What’s even more puzzling is that current stars: Angel Reese, Paige Buckers and Caitlyn Clark, (players who many believe are responsible for the recent uptick in attendance and viewership) all earn around $70,000 a year.
You know who else makes around $70,000 a year? The Coyote, the mascot for the San Antonio Spurs. Not an NBA player, the guy in the coyote suit who gets the crowd hype during down time makes as much as the ladies who are poised to become the face of the WNBA.
It’s embarrassing and the women of the WNBA are right, they deserve to be compensated fairly, but I can already hear the naysayers “talking about the league losing money and how dare they” and that’s not hyperbole, all of those who can’t stand that these women had the audacity to demand more money took to social media to voice their hate.
Here are just a few:
So let’s try and break down all of these asinine comments one at a time.
First, every budding league takes losses in the beginning as it takes time to cultivate a fanbase and a consistent revenue stream while trying to catch on with the right market. The WNBA has only been around for 28 years and in league talk that’s not very long. In fact it took the NBA, which began in 1946, took some 40 years to turn a profit. So let’s stop acting like this is about financial loss. It’s not.
Secondly, and I don’t want to get too far into the conspiracy weeds here, but where did this WNBA loss analysis come from? Several publications have listed that the WNBA took a $40 million loss in 2024, but where did those numbers come from? Did the owners of the teams release that to the media? It appears that everyone that ran with the figure got that from two unnamed sources who spoke with The Washington Post.
“Ten years ago, when the revenues were smaller, the WNBA claimed, ‘We’re losing $10 million a year,’” David Berri, a professor of economics at Southern Utah University who’s been following WNBA business for the last decade, told the Post. “Now the revenues are $200 million. They’ve doubled, and now we’re losing $50 million a year. Are you telling me the revenues are escalating and so are your losses? How does the math work on that?”
The WNBA didn’t respond to Post’s request for comment. But just think about it, isn’t it in the best interest of the league to claim that they are losing money, especially when the league signed a landmark media rights deal worth $2.2 billion that is set to go into effect in 2026?
Which brings me to my third point. WNBA players aren’t demanding in the middle of their season that they have their contracts renegotiated, they are talking about the upcoming “11-year media rights deal…with Disney, Amazon Prime Video and new rights holder NBCUniversal.”
According to ESPN, “The deal is valued at about…$200 million per year…but future agreements with additional partners could bring the league’s overall media deals closer to $3 billion.”
In fact, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert even had this to say after the deal was announced in July 2024.
“Partnering with Disney, Amazon and NBCU marks a monumental chapter in WNBA history and clearly demonstrates the significant rise in value and the historic level of interest in women’s basketball,” she said in a statement. “These agreements allow the league to continue to build a long-term and sustainable growth model for the future of women’s basketball and sports which will benefit WNBA players, teams and fans.”
So where are the benefits? That’s all WNBA players are asking for.
In a recent interview with Kare 11, Berri broke down how the WNBA’s new influx of bread could be spread around the teams.
“WNBA players get less than 7% of (league) revenue,” he said. “The top salary in the WNBA right now is less than $250,000. The NBA 50 years ago was paying its top players $400,000 a year, and that was (at a time) when the NBA only had $30 million in revenue 50 years ago. The WNBA is at $300 million in revenue, at least, and we also know that with the new television deal, it’ll be at least $500 million.”
Berri added: “They’re not asking for charity. They’re not asking for a handout. They’re saying, ‘Look, we’ve built up a business for you. We’re the ones that people are coming to see, pay us for doing that.’”
If only the women of the WNBA could get something like this put on a t-shirt.
Nah, that’s probably too provocative.