There’s been a lot of talk about WNBA salaries lately.
Of course it’s not exactly a new discussion, as there are many who have regularly called for female athletes to be paid the same as their male counterparts.
But the issue was brought to the forefront this week when superstar basketball player Caitlin Clark was the #1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft on Monday – and people realized just how little she’s going to be making in salary.
Clark’s four-year rookie contract with the Indiana Fever is worth a total of $338,056 – or an average of around $85,000 per year.
Breaking it down, that means that Clark will be making:
- $76,535 in year one
- $78,066 in year two
- $85,873 in year three
- $97,582 in year four (assuming the team decides to pick up her option, which will be in 2027)
So, she won’t even break six figures during her first four years in the league.
Now, everybody knows that WNBA players don’t make nearly what NBA players do. And whether that’s fair or not has long been the subject of a debate, although it stands to reason that their salaries would be lower since the WNBA draws a fraction of the viewers that the NBA does, and in fact the WNBA is bankrolled by the NBA because they lose money every year.
The NBA brought in over 10 BILLION last year, while the WNBA racked up 200 million in revenue. Profits? According to NBA commissioner Adam Silver in 2018, the WNBA loses about about 10 million each year, which is absorbed by the NBA. In 2022, when asked if they were still losing money each year, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said:
“Despite the challenges of the past two years, we have made terrific progress in growing the business of the league. We feel very good about where we are today and interest in the WNBA is at an all-time high, which is why we are capitalizing on this moment for the W.”
Sounds like it’s still a net loss…
But President Joe Biden recently weighed in on the debate (well, his Twitter account did, because I have a feeling Joe isn’t exactly over there cranking out his own tweets like his predecessor was…) and called for female athletes to be paid “their fair share.”
And Twitter had plenty to say, pointing out to the president that the WNBA doesn’t bring in nearly as much money as the NBA:
The WNBA loses money. It’s completely subsidized by the NBA. How can you expect to get paid more when you make zero money? Also, what is a woman?
— Nice Guy P (@RealPJPaul) April 16, 2024
Dear Joe’s intern,
When the WNBA makes as much as the NBA on a per player basis, then player pay should be roughly equal.
You know that’s not the case though, don’t you?
— Brick Suit (@Brick_Suit) April 16, 2024
It has nothing to do about gender, it has to do about what brings in more revenue. You seem to not grasp how the world works. For example women doing porn get paid more than men
— IncomeSharks (@IncomeSharks) April 16, 2024
The WNBA made $60 million last year but had costs of $70 million. That’s a $10 million operating loss.
The NBA had revenues of 10.58 billion last year.
What’s the problem?
— Wade Miller (@WadeMiller_USMC) April 16, 2024
And many also brought up Biden’s position surrounding the ongoing debate on transgender athletes being allowed to compete in women’s sports:
Maybe let’s start by not letting men compete in their sports if you want to talk about “fair”
— Meghan Maureen (@Keggs719) April 16, 2024
If you really want to defend women’s sports, get dudes out of women’s sports
Lord help us
— Devotions (@GodlyDevotions) April 16, 2024
Maybe you should keep men out of our sports then? Have you ever thought about that? It’s not right that they’re dominating our games. pic.twitter.com/MfmMciAf8x
— Sassafrass84 (@Sassafrass_84) April 16, 2024
When they say the quiet part out loud.
Believe them. pic.twitter.com/6BwaJTFnlM
— Mayra Flores Vallejo (@MayraFloresTX34) April 16, 2024
Imagine posting this when you support men competing against women.
— David Cone (@davidadamcone) April 17, 2024
What is a woman
— Helena Handbasket 🐊 (@hobbes16) April 16, 2024
And still others simply accused Biden of pandering during an election year:
Who ever runs your X accounts is awful at pandering.
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) April 16, 2024
While the president’s tweet isn’t likely to make much difference, Caitlin Clark may be the catalyst to improve WNBA pay. She’s proven to be a ratings powerhouse, with Iowa’s final three games of the women’s NCAA tournament drawing higher ratings and more viewers than the men’s tournament, and the championship game featuring Clark and the Hawkeyes taking on the defending national champion South Carolina Gamecocks becoming one of the most watched basketball games in history – men’s or women’s.
If viewership for the WNBA increases thanks to Clark and the attention she’s brought to women’s basketball, naturally revenue for the league will increase – and so will salaries.
But for now, I guess we just have to settle for Biden getting dunked on over on Twitter for not understanding economics.
