Nobody Knows How Much to Pay WNBA Players
Not league boosters, not Dave Portnoy, nobody
Greetings from my vacation, where even in the lovely Sierra Nevadas, I can’t avoid the WNBA. So you subscribers know, there will be no HoS podcasts this week, but I now tend to wake up before the rest of my family, and will try and write when the moment strikes…
The WNBA just had an All-Star Weekend, culminating in the players unveiling, “Pay Us What You Owe Us” warmup shirts for the actual game. Caitlin Clark looked like a hostage in photos and I’m not sure what to make of Kelsey Plum revealing that Clark was absent from the player’s meeting that set up the protest.
The league is in CBA negotiations, and the players make very little relative to other sports. “Pay Us What You Owe Us” is an interesting slogan because, due to the highly specific circumstances of this league, literally nobody can determine what is actually owed. People will argue, but few if anyone will give an actual tangible answer because “How much should the average WNBA player make?” is an exercise in impossibility. This isn’t a pro or anti WNBA take. It’s just an observation about what happens when a subsidiary product, one that’s been run for decades like an NGO under the aegis of a more lucrative business, suddenly spreads its wings.