But we're not really talking about college. This is specifically about the pay gap between men's league pro athletes and women's league pro athletes.
And what a disgrace it is that our women's professional athletes are paid more in other countries. They could literally walk off the court (with their decades of skills they have worked hard to achieve) and make more money in hundreds of other fields with no real specialized knowledge. And how we refuse to do anything about that, just because... But it's cool for women to have to put themselves in harms way to make a respectable living doing what they love. That's probably the way it should be I guess...
Where is the added income coming from? Raising ticket prices enough so you can pay them all more? The league is already loosing money every year. They average 2607 people in attendance per game as a league. Raise the tickets enough to pay them more and that number will go down. What is your solution to raise revenue for the WNBA enough that they can pay them more?
I discussed that above. One solution would be A 5-10% fee on nba players salaries. Or even a % of NBA revenue. NBA teams lose money before revenue sharing all the time.
Professional sports teams lose money all the time. Heck, Paul Allen lost money on the Blazers for years. Most NBA owners did. Except Donald Sterling. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...arly-half-nba-lost-money-last-season-now-what
Why in the world would the NBA Players association agree to a 5-10% fee on their salaries? Why would the league subsidize another league even more then they already are doing? Are they going to start subside Track athletes? They work very hard and are at the top of their profession have to go over seas to make income also.
If a men's track league becomes a billion dollar business then yeah... Supporting a women's division with 10% of profits would be a good thing.
Talking about specific teams losing money is a whole other conversation. Success can ebb and flow, but the league as a whole is extremely profitable. Paul Allen bought the Blazers for $70 million. The team is worth $2-3 billion dollars now. How much is a WNBA team worth?
Then the NBA players should get equity in the WNBA and/or the NBA gets even more equity in the WNBA than it already does.
Soccer is a billion dollar business. Professional soccer players are living 3 or 4 to an apartment to survive. Baseball is a billion dollar business. Their isn't even a professional softball league in the USA. The WNBA players make a great salary in the US compared to most professional athletes.
Average salary of MLS player is $472,008. Average salary of an NBA player is $8 million. The goal shouldn't be to drive all women down to the level of the lowest paid woman. It doesn't seem like I should have to explain this in this day and age... Again, those successful leagues helping to support a women's division in their sports would be a good thing. And paying them 1/3 of what men make per game doesn't seem like a big ask. It's disgraceful that American women need to go risk abuse or worse in other countries to make a top wage to play their sport. This is America. The richest country in the history of the world, and the media center of the world. Shameful.
I don’t follow this at all. So since it’s a sport they should be given more money because men play the same sport? Are the WNBA and the owners withholding millions of dollars in profits from players? Maybe they are I have no idea
I feel like you still don't understand basic economics. It's called supply and demand. There's very little demand for women's basketball in the US, thus there's very little money in women's basketball. Why should we pay people money that doesn't exist? Why not instead look at the root cause, which is why aren't Americans interested in women's basketball? You solve that question and you will magically solve the issue of their pay being lower than the men. Do you go see movies just to support an actress? Did you go see the female Ghost Busters in theaters? There seems to be a prevailing thought that we need to support different forms of entertainment simply because it has a woman in it, or a POC. I thoroughly enjoyed Black Panther, but I didn't go see it just because it had a largely black cast. I went to see it because I like the genre and it had great actors in it. But if the movie had sucked, and gotten bad reviews, I probably wouldn't have gone to see it. But in your world, I should go see the movie regardless because it's the right thing to do.
That's not the point. Revenue sharing is the point. Some teams who can't make a profit are propped up by others who can. It takes money to make money.
It is a big ask if the league is loosing money. If a league cannot support it self, it is not going to be in existence long. I cannot see many NBA players willing to take a pay cut to pay WNBA players. Most won't even take a pay cut to help the team they are playing on sign other players to improve their own team and you want to ask them to take a 10% cut to pa WNBA players. Never going to happen. The league draws on average of 2600 people per game in attendance. If they want to increase their salaries so they don't have to play overseas, they should figure out a way to increase attendance.
