![\"Brittney](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2226068566.jpg\")
Brittney Sykes of the Washington Mystics following the 2025 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on July 19, 2025, in Indianapolis. (Steph Chambers \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\nThe WNBA pay crisis is more than a sports issue\u2014it\u2019s a case study in systemic undervaluing of women\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
Brittney Sykes of the Washington Mystics following the 2025 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on July 19, 2025, in Indianapolis. (Steph Chambers \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Scorecard:<\/p>\n
Not a single woman made it into\u00a0Forbes\u2019 2025 list of 50 top paid athletes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Startup league Project B recently announced it would offer $2 million salaries<\/a>, and has signed Nneka Ogwumike as its first player.<\/p>\n The salary-capped amount a woman can earn in the WNBA is only 35 percent of what a male player gets as his standard first year annual raise in the NBA.<\/p>\n When the league was only two seasons in, the average NBA salary was 58 times higher than the average WNBA salary. Twenty-six years later, the gap has jumped to 116 times higher.<\/p>\n Viewership of WNBA games is up by 23 percent, and in-person ticket sales have increased by 26 percent, compared to the prior season.<\/p>\n WNBA players take home 9 percent of league income, while NBA players pocket up to 51 percent.<\/p>\n Of the 31 voting seats on the Board of Governors, which controls WNBA pay, only three are women, and none are Black.<\/p>\n The WNBA had a $75 billion media deal in the works, which could have enabled the league and the players with more economic agency, but the NBA sliced it to $2.2 billion over 11 years.<\/p>\n The WNBA has a collective bargaining agreement in place, but the NBA still holds the purse strings.<\/p>\n The WNBA has been all over the news recently, with players wearing<\/a>\u00a0\u201cPay Us What You Owe Us<\/a>\u201d\u00a0shirts, and threatening a league-initiated lockout and\/or a player-initiated strike over compensation.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a long history of women in sport fighting\u00a0for equal pay<\/a>\u2014and what\u2019s happening with the WNBA today is less of a mirror of the\u00a0current gender pay gap<\/a>\u00a0and more of a throwback to a time when women\u2019s efforts were even more deeply devalued. The WNBA is a visible legacy of Title IX, and an indication of how far there is left to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n The NBA minimum salary\u2014that is, an entry level player with zero years of experience in the league\u2014is $1,157,153<\/a>, according to Ryan Phillips at\u00a0Sports Illustrated. The minimum salary for WNBA players is $66,079<\/a>. <\/p>\n A male player\u2014independent of performance, team record or any additional effort on his part\u2014will contractually receive a pay increase of $705,112 after his first year. <\/p>\n The hard cap on WNBA player pay\u2014called a super maximum\u2014is $249,244<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another way to say it: The top salary for women represents just 35 percent of what a male player gets as his mandatory post-rookie raise.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet, bring up WNBA pay, and the immediate responses are often that the league doesn\u2019t earn as much\u2014true! That there are not as many viewers and fans\u2014true! That the NBA already subsidizes the WNBA\u2014true! That it\u2019s just not comparable\u2014untrue. These players are not doing different jobs.<\/p>\n Brittney Griner\u2019s\u00a02022 incarceration in Russia<\/a>\u00a0shone a light on WNBA players traveling abroad to get paid<\/a>\u2014a situation that could have been wholly avoided by adequate compensation. The fact that there is a\u00a0formalized international exchange<\/a>\u00a0for female players looks more like evidence of knowledge of the problem rather than any kind of goodwill.\u00a0<\/p>\n In November of this year, Project B, a basketball startup, reopened the conversation around the pay crises,\u00a0by offering WNBA stars multi-million dollar salaries<\/a>\u00a0to play in Asia, Latin America and Europe.<\/p>\n The WNBA is nothing if not emblematic of the structural barriers women face for fair pay. Across all industries,\u00a0that\u2019s 75 cents<\/a> for every dollar that men earn. In professional basketball, it\u2019s 6 cents on the dollar. <\/p>\n The league began inequitably, and it\u2019s getting worse, not better.<\/p>\n Built That Way<\/p>\n A quick primer: The WNBA was created in 1996 by David Stern, then commissioner of the NBA, was approved by the board of governors, and was fully\u00a0consolidated under the NBA until 2022<\/a>. <\/p>\n There had long been a clamoring for a female professional league among fans. For anyone who grew up watching exciting ladies college hoops, like the\u00a0late Pat Summit\u2019s electrifying Lady Vols<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0University of Connecticut\u2019s 90s-era rise<\/a>\u00a0that led to the Huskies dominating across decades, or individual players like University of Southern California\u2019s\u00a0Cheryl Miller<\/a>, (a generational talent who many speculated could hold her own with the men), it was a bummer to know this was usually then end of these athletes\u2019 playing careers\u2014especially at such a young age.\u00a0<\/p>\n The NBA put up the original funding for the WNBA, and as the nascent league found its footing, just two years in, during the 1999-2000 season, the average NBA salary was already\u00a058 times higher than the average WNBA salary<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, as the model matured and popularity increased, and as contemporary WNBA players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese proved the draw of star power, the gap hasn\u2019t shrunk. In the 2024-2025 season,\u00a0the average NBA salary, not inclusive of endorsements or other compensation, was $11,910,649<\/a>, compared to the\u00a0average WNBA salary of $102,244<\/a>\u2014or 116 times higher.<\/p>\n Though all pro basketball players have a collective bargaining agreement, the pay structure of the WNBA (and NBA) is ultimately in the hands of the\u00a0NBA commissioner<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0board of governors<\/a>, which has only three women in governor positions\u2014and one,\u00a0Jody Allen<\/a>, is selling. There are no Black governors, though both the NBA and the WNBA are comprised of about 70 percent Black players.\u00a0<\/p>\n What began as a wholly owned division in 1996 eventually transitioned to a\u00a042 percent split<\/a>\u00ad between NBA and WNBA, with private investors holding the remaining interest. Thus, the WNBA has no financial majority over their own teams.<\/p>\n Where Does the Money Come From?<\/p>\n In American hoops, valuation of franchises are determined by a complicated mix of factors, but where the salary money pool comes from is\u00a0basketball-related income, or BRI. This includes revenue generated by stadiums, like through concessions; and revenue from the league, like ticket sales, broadcast fees and merchandising rights.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Both the NBA and the WNBA have a salary cap; however, the NBA uses a soft cap, meaning that\u00a0there are work-arounds if $195,900,000<\/a>\u00a0isn\u2019t enough to sign a star. The WNBA has a hard cap: It\u2019s the backboard-glass ceiling on pay, period,\u00a0at $249,244<\/a>.<\/p>\n Arguments abound that the WNBA is not as large or popular as the NBA\u2014which, again is true.\u00a0There are fewer games<\/a>, fewer teams, fewer players per team, lower viewership and less revenue.\u00a0At the same time, television\u00a0viewership is up by 23 percent<\/a>, and in-person ticket sales up 26 percent<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Women\u2019s sports globally are projected to\u00a0surge to $2.35 billion<\/a> in revenue\u00a0by the end of fiscal 2025\u2014and even still, that\u2019s a small share of what the NBA on its own brings in: between $10 and 11 billion, compared to the WNBA\u2019s $200 million.<\/p>\n Yet, WNBA players are not asking for full pay equality, but rather pay equity.<\/p>\n The Difference Between Equality and Equity<\/p>\n NBA players enjoy up to 51 percent of BRI,\u00a0while WNBA players receive just 9 percent<\/a>. A new collective bargaining agreement could change that, but nothing has been signed as of yet. The current agreement\u00a0expired Oct. 31<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n While economies of scale do matter in running any organization, it\u2019s hard to see the delta of operational and administrative costs between running the men\u2019s league and the women\u2019s league being so divergent. If we believe this expense differential, it would indicate that in the NBA, 49 percent of BRI goes to non-salary related costs, and for the WNBA, 91 percent of BRI goes to non-salary related costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n The math is not mathing.<\/p>\n Considering that the NBA was established in 1949, it seems reasonable to expect they would have established some back-office efficiencies that would translate to the sister league.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s also important to remember that in the ownership structure\u2014both historic and current\u2014that the language of \u201csubsidy\u201d\u00a0in terms of the financial support the NBA offers<\/a>\u00a0does not exactly track;\u00a0the NBA has an ownership stake in the WNBA. They do not have to \u201csubsidize.\u201d They could cut the WNBA loose, or they\u00a0could appropriately value the WNBA\u2019s media rights<\/a>, which would offer the league and players economic agency.<\/p>\n The men and women of pro basketball work just as hard to get to where they are, though female athletes have often taken\u00a0on more social and progressive work<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The question remains: Does it really take such a larger percentage of BRI to run 13 teams in the WNBA against the lower percentage of the 30 in the NBA?<\/p>\n And, with a $75 billion media package on the table for the WNBA, then why did the NBA cut a deal for just $2.2 billion over 11 years?<\/p>\n These are women at a pinnacle of professional achievement, who are still beholden to structural barriers. This is not a sports issue. It is a feminist issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Caitlin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2226196258-1.jpg\")
Caitlin Clark prior to the 2025 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on July 19, 2025, in Indianapolis. (Steph Chambers \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n