The WNBA is gaining plenty of attention in no small part thanks to Caitlin Clark. Her exciting March Madness performance has turned her into one of the most fascinating basketball players in the world, and her entry into the league is bringing more eyes into a league that’s long been in the NBA’s shadow.
However, the number of eyes on the top women’s basketball league also brought attention to the salary gap between the WNBA and the NBA. Fans were livid that a player as good as Clark wasn’t getting something akin to the kind of contract a player like Victor Wembanyama was getting.
Former NBA star broke his silence on the pay inequality between the NBA and the WNBA
Matt Barnes had a successful NBA career where he played for multiple teams and earned millions of dollars in his career.
While he understands that people are frustrated with the gulf in pay top women cagers receive compared to their male counterparts, he argued that fans should concentrate their efforts on more worthwhile efforts that would help boost the WNBA’s overall reputation.
Per Basketball Forever’s Duncan McColl:
“Everyone’s outraged and now Ice Cube looks like he was onto something,” Barnes said on All the Smoke. “But instead of being outraged, you gotta support. You gotta support now. Go to games, watch games on TV, buy merch. Same thing you do for the men, for the NBA side. That’s the only way the WNBA is gonna grow.
“All of you that are outraged and mad all of a sudden, like, these salaries have been f***ed up. But up until 2020, the WNBA hadn’t really made no profit. The NBA has kind of been floating it. So again, the only way all this s— changes, these women start getting paid the money they’re worth, is y’all go out there and be fans, man, really be fans. Don’t be fake mad on the internet. Go to these games and support these talented women.”
Why are women’s salaries lesser than men’s in pro basketball?
There are various factors behind the salaries of pro women’s basketball players being significantly smaller than their male counterparts, but the biggest contributing factor to this is the revenue the respective leagues make.
According to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth’s Sanjesh Singh, the WNBA made $2 million in revenue in 2023. In comparison, the NBA’s estimated earnings were at $10 billion for one season. The gulf between the earnings have a major say on why the women’s pro game isn’t as lucrative as the men.
However, with the arrival off Clark and her contemporaries, it’s not hard to imagine the overall wages of the league to increase. As more talented players join the league, more investors become interested and would want to pitch in. When that happens, it’s only a matter of time until rookie deals for WNBA and NBA players won’t differ as much.
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