{"id":11933,"date":"2025-07-21T02:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T02:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/11933\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T02:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T02:56:07","slug":"dave-portnoy-calls-out-morons-who-think-wnba-players-shouldnt-get-more-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/11933\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Portnoy calls out ‘morons’ who think WNBA players shouldn’t get more money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Portnoy is fed up with those who believe WNBA players don\u2019t deserve a higher payday.<\/p>\n

In the wake of players wearing warmup shirts that said \u201cPay Us What You Owe Us\u201d <\/a>at Saturday\u2019s All-Star Game, the Barstool Sports founder and owner made his stance clear with a lengthy post<\/a> and subsequent video<\/a> on X on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how anybody in the world with a brain, and maybe my brain is just bigger than most, can rationally say women don\u2019t deserve more money at this point,\u201d Portnoy said in the video.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Portnoy went on to reference how Caitlin Clark\u2019s rookie salary, $76,000, is less than what Barstool personalities Nicky Smokes and Ben Mintz make per year, calling the disparity \u201cinsane.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of the 2024 season, the WNBA\u2019s average salary was $147,745<\/a>, according to DirecTV.<\/p>\n

Portnoy noted how some WNBA critics have referenced reports of the league losing tens of millions of dollars each year, but said the finances of the league are \u201ca mess, tied in with the NBA and purposely murky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barstool Sports founder and owner Dave Portnoy thinks WNBA players deserve a pay raise. @stoolpresidente\/X<\/p>\n

In October 2024, The Post reported the WNBA would be losing $40 million in the 2025 season<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, as Portnoy put it, the league is \u201cexploding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFranchise values are exploding. Ticket sales, merch, tv rights all exploding. The players have an opt out in their CBA. Of course they took it. It\u2019s all about leverage in re-negotiations and for the 1st time in history of [the] league players have power,\u201d Portnoy wrote.<\/p>\n

Dave Portnoy attends a game between the Indiana Fever and the Connecticut Sun at TD Garden on July 15. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The league agreed to an 11-year, $2.2 billion TV rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime Video and NBCUniversal last summer, and TV ratings (up 23%), ticket sales (up 26%) and attendance (13%) are all surging halfway through the season, according to NPR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe players make virtually nothing while the entire league explodes,\u201d Portnoy added. \u201cOf course they deserve more money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Portnoy, who is one of Caitlin Clark\u2019s most vocal superfans, also refuted the notion that the league\u2019s recent success is unsustainable because it over-relies on Clark\u2019s star power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis league is so white hot right now, and I know everyone\u2019s going to say, \u2018Well, it\u2019s only Caitlin Clark, it\u2019s a one-person league,\u2019\u201d Portnoy said. \u201cCaitlin Clark was 100% the match that lit the fuse\u2026but, Caitlin\u2019s not going anywhere. She\u2019s year two of a 15-year career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fever star Caitlin Clark wearing a \u201cPay Us What You Owe Us\u201d shirt before the WNBA All-Star Game on July 19. Getty Images<\/p>\n

He added that other young stars like Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers and the soon-to-be pro JuJu Watkins mark a bright future for the league, too.<\/p>\n

Portnoy concluded by writing that if he could purchase a Boston-based WNBA franchise for $250 million, he \u201cwould do it without blinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all you got to know about the WNBA finances,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Portnoy is fed up with those who believe WNBA players don\u2019t deserve a higher payday. In the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[10498,49,735,48,11257,82,6998,630],"class_list":["post-11933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-barstool-sports","tag-ca","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-canada","tag-dave-portnoy","tag-sports","tag-sports-media","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}