this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
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[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 104 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Bill Burr had a good take on this one. Basically, how many of the people complaining about the pay disparity in women’s basketball actually watch women’s basketball? If you want them to get paid more, you need to watch their sport so they will bring in higher ticket sales and ad revenues. His take is a lot women are complaining about this pay disparity and few of them actually even watch the WNBA, so it’s kind of hypocritical since they’re not doing the very thing that would help increase their salaries.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 58 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Joke's on Bill, I don't watch men's sports either

[–] ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Closest thing to a sport that I watch is pro wrestling, and I greatly enjoy women's wrestling, so....

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[–] iegod@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago

No, but billions of others do.

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[–] JRush@lemmy.ca 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Except WNBA players don't get revenue shares like NBA players do. That's what they're asking for.

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Well, they should get it. I imagine some of the things NBA players have now were won through bargaining and negotiations.

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[–] markendsley@lemmy.world 45 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Hey that's about what most engineers graduating from college get. And they won't be able to do sponsorships and ad deals. I would say $76k is a much more appropriate salary to start with than what the men make in basketball. That is just crazy

[–] bjorney@lemmy.ca 43 points 7 months ago (1 children)

She has north of 3m in sponsorship deals right now, and we can only assume that number will go up in the WNBA

[–] silverbax@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It may go down in the WNBA. Caitlin Clark isn't the first player who was expected to make the WNBA popular (Maya Moore, Brittany Griner, etc). It's far too early to tell if she will have any impact on WNBA viewership.

The issue is that NIL money is also a way for boosters to pay players to stay instead of the shadowy back door deals that used to happen. Now NIL just allows boosters to pay players through a legitimate channel.

[–] booly@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago

A lot of NIL money during the off-season is booster money, yes. That's money that basically will only go to athletes signed with a particular school.

But there's also a lot of NIL money for actual big budget TV/print advertising from national corporations for ads produced by major ad agencies. That's money that follows the athlete.

Not all of it will follow the athlete to the pros (and not every athlete goes pro), especially since the WNBA seems to have lower viewership than NCAA women's basketball. But if anyone is gonna be making good money on sponsorships in the WNBA, it'll be Caitlin Clark.

[–] whoreticulture@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

76k is barely enough to get by in a lot of urban areas ... this is a shameful compensation for one of the best players.

[–] Soulg@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago (8 children)

I barely make 20k and would do a lot of things to nearly 4x my yearly income

The problem is that the NBA pays way too fucking much

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[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 36 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Women’s basketball has soared in popularity in recent years, with this year’s March Madness tournament dwarfing its men’s counterpart. There are plenty of reasons for this, but one of them is that the game is just fun to watch.

This should result in more media money, which should result in higher salaries. We'll see. Football really does suck a lot of the oxygen out of the room, financially speaking.

Another part of the discussion is that popularity is sort of meeting in the middle, since as women's basketball rises, men's college basketball has been gutted by (among other things) stars leaving after one year, as well as court-forced rule changes (completely reasonable, IMHO, because players should get agency) that have everyone else playing musical chairs as they switch schools to pursue their financial and athletic dreams rather than buckle down to get a degree, which is often nerfed anyway.

College athletics in general, and "revenue sports" in particular, try to meet the letter of the "Student Athlete" rules without giving a single shit about graduating players who have the same level of mastery and accountability as even a garden variety liberal arts major. It's not really a new thing, either. I muddled my way through an English degree, learning study skills as I went, and while I'm under no delusions that meeting the minimum standards was as hard as it would have been in an engineering program, there weren't exactly any athletes in my classes on Elizabethan Drama or the History of the English Language, either.

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[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago (4 children)

.....and millions in sponsorship deals

[–] JRush@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago (3 children)

According to the article, it sounds like those go to the team and owners, not the players. WNBA players don't even get a dime when someone buys their jersey.

[–] Wutangforemer@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Pretty sure that State Farm money is with her, Jimmy Butler, and Reggie Miller.

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[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Damn. You can’t force higher wages if the revenue isn’t coming in though. Maybe make a mixed gender league with co-ed teams.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It'd probably be dominated by the men.

[–] aubertlone@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

While you do make a fair point...

I imagine the rules would be somewhat similar to my co-ed soccer rec league team. At least every third pass has to be to a girl etc etc.

There's ways to keep it competitive and fun for a co-ed non-contact sport. Not sure how that translates to any kind of professional setting though.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

For a recreational game, it's about having fun, so that rule works. I don't think it will work in competitive games. People watch them to see the players exhibiting skill and ability.

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[–] ramsgrl909@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

It's up to us to keep watching the WNBA to keep their salaries raising

[–] guacupado@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

The world will be just fine when we stop worshiping athletes. Hopefully this news turns more people off to it.

[–] Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (6 children)

She already got a 5 million a year offer from big 3. Ice cube did an interview about it.

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