As I mentioned in my last blog post, Women in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) are speaking up about equality for women regarding pay and equal opportunities. For over a year, the WNBA has been fighter for “fair pay and play.” Notice how they use the word fair. I would like to emphasize that the women and others fighting for fair pay are NOT saying that they should be paid exactly as much as the mens basketball players. They are simply saying that they deserve more, proportional to the revenue that they bring in. They are also saying they deserve better and equal training facilities.
In the middle of January, a huge mile stone was reached in this push for equality. The WNBA has a new CBA (collective bargaining agreement) that will last eight years! According to Glamour, in a press release the WNBA said, “The 2020 CBA features significant investments by the league and its teams aimed directly at increasing player salary and compensation, improvements to the overall player experience, resources specifically designed with the professional female athlete in mind, as well as a commitment to implement an integrated marketing plan league-wide.”
The top players in the NBA will now be able to earn six figure salaries, more than half a million. This is the first time salaries for women in the WNBA will achieve an average salary that is six figures (Glamour). The CBA also includes deals for better equipment, whether that be for training or travel. As said in the article my Glamour, the CBA changes don’t equal equality for men and women, but we are moving in the right direction.
Now, it would not be right to only explain the end result of what has been a hard fight for women in basketball for many years. In an article by Bleacher Report, Diggins-Smith, a WNBA player, explained that women only receive 20% of the WBNA revenue, while men receive 50% of their leagues revenue. Again this is obviously not proportionally equal. She also mentioned that women do not profit off of jersey sales like men do (Bleacher Report).
In 2018, Diggins-Smith, the highest plaid player on the Wings, was payed a salary in the low six figures. The lowest salary in the mens league was somewhere around 800,000 dollars. While again, it may be unreasonable to compare amounts directly when revenue of each league is not equal. It is clear that the gap should not be this big.
Women in the WNBA have never been afraid to speak up for themselves. They made their stance very clear and continued to spread the word about their fight. This is a tweet from a player that played for Los Angeles in 2018, after LeBron James received a 154 million dollar contract.
154M ……….. must. be. nice. We over here looking for a M 🙃 but Lord, let me get back in my lane pic.twitter.com/IFDZLlI53z
— A'ja Wilson (@_ajawilson22) July 2, 2018
There was obviously a lot of planning that occurred from the last couple years till now regarding pay for women in basketball. The fight was fought on two fronts, one concerning the WNBA league and the other concerning the women’s national basketball team,. Two women leading these plans were Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi, two players on the national basketball team. Something they pushed for was women receiving pay as they train for the olympics (this is very relevant as the Tokyo 2020 Olympics are only months away). This resulted in another win for women in basketball and it was decided that women could earn 100,000 dollars while training for the olympics (NBC).
While all the progress made by the WNBA and women’s basketball in general. It is always important to look at the other side of the argument. According to NBC, men in the NBA play over twice as many games and have a large fan base. These result in a massive difference in ticket sales. The question is how to decide what wages would be proportionally equal. There are two ways to look at the argument. A common argument for equal pay is that women are doing the same work, the same job as men and receiving less pay. In this case, Women Basketball plays half the games so they should get half the salary. This is not what happens as women basketball players would be payed on average around 3.5 million (the average men’s salary is 7 million). This is when the argument comes in that women shouldn’t make as much because they don’t bring in as much revenue. As said before, women in basketball are not being payed the same percentage of their revenue that men are.
In short, there are still many barriers and logistics that need to be worked out in order for there to be equality for women in sports. But, many famous women in sports who serve as role models in the fight continuously tell their fans to never give up. Know your worth and don’t budge (Sue Bird, Bleacher Report).
Works Cited:
https://www.glamour.com/story/the-women-of-the-wnba-just-scored-a-historic-victory-in-the-fight-for-equal-pay
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2792349-skylar-diggins-smith-on-wnba-nba-wage-gap-im-at-a-loss-for-words-sometimes
https://www.nbcnews.com/know-your-value/feature/we-didn-t-back-down-how-women-s-basketball-players-ncna1131561
Do you think their contracts should have clauses that adjust for inflation? As well how would the % of revenue be compared in that situation?
This was a really good point to bring up, that fair treatment doesn’t only entail equal salaries but also access to quality training facilities and equipment. I like that you included a tweet to support the claims you were making on the basis of equality.
Again, fantastic post! I never thought about equal pay in the form of proportions, but it makes sense and seems to be extremely fair. I’m curious how this will all play out and when pay will become fair.
I’m very surprised that women did not have the same pay ratio as men, and was upset that they haven’t been able to profit off of their jersey sales. I’m very glad that this is changing, as this system is currently very unfair. Also, the question of proportionality is very interesting to investigate.