Blog Post #4 - WNBA Wage Gap
Josh Childers
Dr. Clinton Jenkins
Intro to American Government
28 April 2022
Blog Post #4 – WNBA Wage Gap
On April 24, 1996, the NBA’s Board of Governors approved the idea of creating a professional women’s basketball league. This league became known as the Women’s National Basketball Association, or the WNBA, and became the home of the greatest women’s basketball players on the planet. The WNBA has served as an inspiration to many young girls who love the game of basketball; however, there is a looming issue. WNBA players do not earn nearly as much money as their male counterparts in the NBA. The average salary of an NBA player is $7.5 million while the WNBA’s average salary is just $116,000. This has become a hot topic recently as many of the WNBA’s players have become much more outspoken about their situation.
On the surface this seems like an easy fix. The WNBA should simply pay its players more since they are doing the same thing as the men. However, this issue is much more complicated than it seems. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver discussed the WNBA’s problems saying, “The WNBA players are still paid significantly more than the G League players, certainly the top players, but ultimately this is not a Title IX issue, this is a business issue and we still have a number of teams losing money. … We haven’t figured out a winning formula, to be quite honest.” The NBA’s total revenue in 2021 was $10 billion while the WNBA’s revenue in 2021 was $60 million. Many people have the misconception that WNBA players what to be paid the same amount as their NBA counterparts. What they are really asking for is that they receive the same share of the league’s revenue that NBA players receive. This is still a complicate request because businesses have fixed costs and the WNBA is no exception. Silver has reported that, on average, the WNBA has lost $10 million every year of its existence and the NBA has covered their losses.
The cause of this is that the WNBA is simply not as popular as the NBA. The average attendance for an NBA game is 17,760 while an average WNBA game has 6,535 fans. In the 2019 NBA Finals, each game averaged over 20 million viewers. During the 2019 WNBA Finals, the games averaged 400,000 viewers. Its not surprising how much more popular the NBA is because it has been around so much longer than the WNBA. It took time for the NBA to develop into the well-established league that it is today. Another reason why the WNBA is not as popular is because their product is not as exciting as the NBA. While the quality of basketball in the WNBA is good, casual fans are more drawn to the high-flying dunks and extreme athleticism of the NBA.
Like Commissioner Silver said, the easiest way for WNBA players to grow their salaries is to grow the WNBA as a whole. In order to do that, the WNBA has to find a way to become more entertaining. One possible method to make the WNBA more entertaining is to shorten the length of the courts. This would allow for teams to play at a faster pace and speed the games up. This change would result in nonstop action which should attract more fans. The most popular way to make the games more entertaining is to lower the rims to nine feet. Most casual sports fans watch games for the highlights. Everyone wants to see the crazy dunk or the insane block. Lowering the rims to nine feet would greatly increase the frequency of highlight plays in the WNBA which would attract more casual fans. More highlight plays would also bring more notoriety to the league’s top player which could cause more people to tune into the games and could cause an increase in jersey sales.
Most people hear about the WNBA wage gap and assume that it is and equality issue, but as you can see, the issue is much more about the economics of the league. In order for the players to make more money, the league has to start generating more revenue. For the league to star bringing in more money, it has to find ways to make the games more entertaining, such as shortening the court or lowering the rim. The WNBA inspires many young girls all over the world who love the game of basketball. That is why it is paramount that we find a way to increase the salaries of players in the WNBA.
https://www.deseret.com/sports/2021/4/7/22367915/pay-disparity-between-nba-wnba-is-a-numbers-game