making less than 10%<\/a> of team revenue, a rather tiny figure for any professional organization, especially if it is male dominated. Sexism undoubtedly plays a dominant role in this case.<\/p>\nAccording to Market Watch, under the current CBA (collective bargaining agreement), \u201cWNBA players only split 9.3% of total league revenue, which is much less than what athletes in other major sports leagues earn. NBA players in aggregate receive between 49% and 51% of basketball-related income, NFL players get 48% of all revenue and NHL players get 50% of revenue. Those revenue splits encapsulate money generated from broadcast TV deals, tickets, merchandise sales and licensing.\u201d (Oct. 22, 2024)<\/p>\n
The highest paid WNBA players make close to $242,000, while the lowest paid make under $70,000 annually. Compare this to the NBA, with the highest paid players averaging between $40-$50 million and the lowest paid making close to $2 million annually. Many WNBA players feel compelled to play for teams in Europe and elsewhere during their off season to generate more income for themselves and their families.<\/p>\n
Players demand better pay and benefits<\/p>\n
WNBA players are not seeking salaries that even come close to their NBA counterparts but are demanding what they see as their fair share in the form of higher pay and more benefits.<\/p>\n
For this reason, WNBA players opted out of their current CBA agreement which expires at the end of the 2025 season, once contract negotiations broke down on July 17. The players have threatened to organize a walkout in October if they don\u2019t get a bigger share of the revenue that their popularity, skills and talents bring to the game.<\/p>\n
During this year\u2019s WNBA All-Star Game (ASG) in Indianapolis on July 19, all of the players wore pre-game warmup shirts that bore the slogan \u201cPay Us What You Owe Us.\u201d It was a splendid display of unity from all the players, no matter what team they were representing.<\/p>\n
And when the WNBA commissioner, Cathy Engelbert (whose position represents the interest of the owners), began to announce the winner of the most valuable trophy to Napheesa Collier following the game, fans began to chant, \u201cPay them! Pay them!\u201d to the point that Engelbert could hardly be heard. A great majority of WNBA fans are women, gender oppressed and working class and therefore are well aware of which side they are on.<\/p>\n
WNBPA (Women\u2019s National Basketball Players Association) president Nneka Ogwumike said after the ASG: \u201cI\u2019m just so inspired by the amount of players that showed up, the engagement that was there. That\u2019s really what it\u2019s all about. Because the more that happens, the more that we\u2019re going to be able to get things done. I think today we\u2019re going to be able to use this conversation to start rolling the ball on things.\u201d (The Guardian, July 19)<\/p>\n
The writer\u2019s father, Isaac T. Moorehead, was head basketball coach for the Norfolk State University women\u2019s basketball team in Norfolk, Virginia, that won a Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) championship during the 1980s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Women\u2019s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a league of teams playing women\u2019s basketball, the fastest-growing sport in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-48330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48330","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=48330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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