Women’s basketball is having a moment, thanks to this year’s NCAA tournament and stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso. Professionally, however, the WNBA is still years — if not decades — away from being the blockbuster global success that the NBA is.
It’s a 12-team league where one of the teams is owned by and plays at a Connecticut casino and where last season’s average viewership numbers are roughly in line with what the United Football League — the second-tier semi-pro football league formed by the merger of the USFL and XFL over the off-season — is getting so far in 2024.
Jemele Hill, noted lefty sports journo, is still very upset that first overall pick Caitlin Clark isn’t getting the big bucks from her rookie contract, because of course she is.
In a rant on X (formerly Twitter), Hill, formerly of ESPN and currently a contributing writer for The Atlantic, called the numbers “another form of misogyny” — despite the fact that Clark will likely make much more in the form of endorsements and other outside forms of income.
Clark was selected No. 1 in the draft, as expected, by the Indiana Fever. Her four-year deal is worth $338,056, broken down as such:
Caitlin Clark’s contract
(Via @spotrac ) pic.twitter.com/d0YQtVGriR
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) April 16, 2024
This is, as the New York Post noted, the terms of rookie scale contracts as defined by a collective bargaining agreement between the league and players covering players drafted between 2020 and 2027.
Nevertheless, Hill was Not Happy about this.
Do you watch the WNBA?
“I’m already annoyed by this conversation because for years, WNBA players have fought for more money. And when they were outspoken, so many of y’all told them to shut up or reminded them how they had no value The NBA has had 50+ years of investment, media coverage, etc. After 27 years, the WNBA will not be the current NBA. So stop comparing them,” she said in a post on X.
“Further context: This salary is for four months of basketball (40 games). Players also receive a free apartment + car. That doesn’t make the salaries acceptable, but now you know why so many women’s players play overseas to boost/supplement their income,” she continued.
“Weaponizing this information against WNBA players is another form of misogyny. These women have been dreaming of playing professionally in front of American audiences their whole lives.
“Instead of clowning and reminding them of what they’re not — buy the merchandise, go to the games, and watch the games on television,” she concluded. “Very easy to criticize when most of y’all couldn’t get paid to compete at anything.”
I’m already annoyed by this conversation because for years, WNBA players have fought for more money. And when they were outspoken, so many of y’all told them to shut up or reminded them how they had no value The NBA has had 50+ years of investment, media coverage, etc. After 27… https://t.co/ysGqkEPcNf
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) April 16, 2024
Yes, this is a very sound business model: It’s only right that you pay WNBA players like you pay NBA players because the league hasn’t been around as long and these women want to compete. If you acknowledge that they play fewer games and attract smaller audiences, both in-person and on television, it’s “another form of misogyny.”
To rephrase this in the language of “Field of Dreams,” if you pay them, crowds will come. “Field of Dreams,” I will remind you — in case you didn’t catch John Mulaney’s droll Oscars monologue about the plausibility of that movie’s plot line — was a movie that involved legendary ghost baseball players coming to play in an Iowa cornfield. The WNBA involves real players playing in real stadiums in front of real crowds and watched on TV by real people. Just to clear up any confusion you might have about how this works.
And yes, this year the women’s NCAA tournament was way more exciting than the men’s. This is partially because most players with some level of bankable talent leave for the NBA after one season in college, if they don’t play abroad or in the developmental G League to fulfill the league’s requirement that drafted players be one year out of high school.
This year was especially slim pickings on the men’s side of the ball; not only is it projected to be a weak class, but a Bleacher Report mock draft last month had three of the top five picks either playing abroad or with G League teams. Meanwhile, this year’s women’s class is expected to be transformative, with Clark leading the way.
However, these women will have a lot to transform. Consider that, according to Sports Pro Media, the average WNBA broadcast on ABC in 2023 got 627,000 viewers, with the total average across four networks (ABC, CBS, ESPN and ESPN2) being 505,000.
That was up 21 percent from the 2022 season — which is problematic when you consider what the nigh unwatchable second-tier UFL is currently drawing in terms of viewership:
#UFL Week 3 TV Ratings (Average Viewership)
Saturday 4/13
D.C.-Arlington (ESPN): 534,000
Memphis-Birmingham (FOX): 837,000Sunday 4/14
Houston-Michigan (ABC): 974,000
St. Louis-San Antonio (ABC): 1.023 million #UFL2024— Mike Mitchell (@ByMikeMitchell) April 16, 2024
Even with the surprising amount of support the St. Louis Battlehawks are getting from local fans, all four games beat the average WNBA broadcast in 2023, according to Sports Illustrated’s Mike Mitchell.
According to Pro Football Network, UFL players see up to $5,500 a week in salary for a 10-week season. (Two more weeks if you manage to make it to the playoffs and then the championship.) They’re also not going to get endorsements that name players like Clark, Reese and Cardoso are going to get. They’re playing to get on NFL rosters — and that’s it.
If this draft class finally makes the WNBA a permanent fixture in the American sporting firmament, guess what? Those salaries are likely to increase, and dramatically so. The league still won’t have the global footprint that the NBA does, which is part of the reason why salaries are so high there. The league isn’t just a money-printing machine in the United States; go anywhere in the world, and sports fans will likely know who you’re talking about when you say “LeBron.”
It’s economics, plain and simple. But not to Jemele Hill. For her, WNBA salaries are basically gender reparations. To not treat the women’s league as the men’s league is straight-up “misogyny,” even though they aren’t even comparable in terms of popularity and fandom.
You don’t even have to look at the numbers to know how bogus Hill’s argument is. But it certainly gets worse when you do.
