As the end of her college senior season approaches, an LSU division one player has just accepted her offer from the WNBA team, the Washington Mystics. Excitement overwhelms her when she thinks about playing for a professional team and she can’t wait for preseason to start. The player takes a look at her contract and sees that she’s only going to get paid around $63,000 for her first year. With this being surprising to her, she takes a look at the average pay for rookie NBA players and is shocked to see that men get paid from $1-10 million for their first year. This discovery leaves her shocked and disappointed.
The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a professional basketball league for women. It is composed of 12 United States-based teams. Women who dreamt about becoming professional basketball players were given the chance on Apr. 22, 1996, but there is still controversy about whether WNBA players are getting paid enough. “WNBA players should be getting paid more because they work just as hard as NBA players to accomplish their dreams,” senior Erin McGinness said.
NBA players in their first year get paid anywhere from around $1-10 million, while WNBA players only get paid around $62,000-$74,000 for their first year. Women basketball players have tried protesting for more equal pay, but there are still people who believe that NBA players should be getting paid more. The NBA makes more revenue and attracts more viewers than the WNBA does and people claim that this is the reason they get paid more. They bring in more money, therefore they should receive more money. “They can’t get paid more because WNBA players make much less revenue,” sophomore Jack Weinstein said.
On average, people watch NBA games more than WNBA, but the reason for this is still not completely known. The WNBA is not widely watched and that is because people say they don’t find it as exciting. NBA games are said to be more exciting because, “they can do more like dunk and it’s higher scoring and more entertaining,” Weinstein said.
Even though one explanation for WNBA players getting paid less could be because they bring less money in, there are arguments supporting this claim that state that WNBA players actually do not get paid a fair percentage of their revenue. NBA players get paid 50% of all league revenue and although at first glance it might seem like WNBA players get the same percentage, they only get paid 50% of the league’s incremental revenue. Incremental revenue is the money the league makes beyond its target for the season. That target is set at 20% growth from the previous year.
The Collective Bargaining Agreement is the agreement between the WNBA and the WNBA Players Association that, among other things, dictates the rules of player contracts, trade and revenue distribution. “When they negotiate the CBA it should be renegotiated so the players get a higher percentage of the revenue,” sophomore Avni Koeing said.
