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Posted
2 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

I don’t know why the owners would keep her until after the negotiations. The players hate her which couldn’t be helpful in getting a deal done. 

Maybe that they know if the players are angling for her ouster to be a condition they can use that to get some sort of concession in return.   

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Posted
4 minutes ago, d2o said:

Maybe that they know if the players are angling for her ouster to be a condition they can use that to get some sort of concession in return.   

Sure, we’ll take 2% less revenue if you publicly fire that bitch into the sun! 

Posted

As in any CBA negotiation, it’s all about the money. The players currently get less than 10% of league revenue. NBA players get 50%. And franchise values have skyrocketed, up 180% in the last year alone. It’s going to be a knockout, drag out negotiation. Officiating, while important, is a relatively minor issue in comparison. And firing Cathy is barely on the radar as far as concessions go. 

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Posted (edited)

The NBA percentage is irrelevant compared to the WNBA percentage of league revenue.  The NBA makes billions in profit annually, and the WNBA is still looking for their first break even or modest profit season in their 3 decades of existence.  

It is good click bait but not based in reality

It is like arguing the burger cook at McDonalds should be making the same as a chef at the French Laundry

 

Let's compare the NBA/WNBA wages as a percentage of the NBA/WNBA profit. 

Edited by ChickenSandwich
Posted
1 hour ago, ChickenSandwich said:

The NBA percentage is irrelevant compared to the WNBA percentage of league revenue.  The NBA makes billions in profit annually, and the WNBA is still looking for their first break even or modest profit season in their 3 decades of existence.  

It is good click bait but not based in reality

It is like arguing the burger cook at McDonalds should be making the same as a chef at the French Laundry

 

Let's compare the NBA/WNBA wages as a percentage of the NBA/WNBA profit. 

As discussed many times before, the profit is a red herring.  Their new TV deal has gone up 6X and the W will now by making close to $500MM/year in TV money alone.  The cost side of the equation 1) not disclosed by the owners, so the talking point about "losing money" is a "sure-billionaires-we'll-take-your-word-on-that" point, and 2) is also conveniently pumped up by those same billionaire team owners who have the teams play in facilities owned by them (paying themselves, loss harvesting).

Just like the NBA, the billionaire owners do not buy WNBA franchises to turn a profit.  They make their money on selling the franchise at 50 or 100X what they bought it for down the road.  Those owners benefit greatly by the increasing values of the franchise, and the players do not.  That's fine, that's what ownership is all about since they put up the money, "took the risk," whatever we want to call it.  

However it's selling the players short to say they don't deserve a much larger slice of the pie than they're currently getting.  Caitlyn Clark's WNBA salary was $76,535 in 2024 and will go all the way up to ... $97,582 in 2027 before she's a RFA.  That's less than what my company pays an entry level product manager, and it's ridiculous considering the value that CC and the players bring to the WNBA and to the owners.

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Posted
5 hours ago, Js1 said:

By who? The owners like her. Adam Silver likes her.  Most players and fans hate the commissioners

She’s allegedly on her way out anyways. If not, it would likely be a stipulation of the new CBA because the players hate her so much 

I'm not sure Adam Silver liking Cathy is a flex.

The arrogance is demonstrated in that quote by Cathy, but I'm sure shared by the owners because as you said she's just a mouthpiece.  Anyone who believes that CC "wouldn't be making any money if not for the platform of the WNBA" is not living in the real world.  CC was making millions before the WNBA, and if she wanted to she could go join that stupid 3v3 Unrivaled league and make $1M/season playing over there too, plus her shoe deal, plus her Gatorade endorsements, plus more.  

The arrogance displayed by the WNBA's management and ownership is the kind of thing that if it continues could cause them to get disrupted.  What happens if Unrivaled decides enough-is-enough and opens a 5v5 league that directly competes and pays players more?  I could see a PGA vs. LIV type split in women's ball because the WNBA's "platform" isn't' nearly as strong as they seem to think it is, especially if their stars start opting out.  I'm sure the TV partners wouldn't like that much either, and if their lawyers are smart (they are) they put some clauses in the contract for just this type of contingency.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

What happens if Unrivaled decides enough-is-enough and opens a 5v5 league that directly competes and pays players more?

They should if the CBA breaks down

Hell, everyone who is a fan of the WNBA and supports the players getting paid should tune into Unrivaled 2026 to help the broadcast numbers.  Need the WNBA to even consider the possibility that if Unrivaled started a 5v5 league, fans would flock to it. 

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Posted (edited)
31 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

As discussed many times before, the profit is a red herring.  Their new TV deal has gone up 6X and the W will now by making close to $500MM/year in TV money alone.  The cost side of the equation 1) not disclosed by the owners, so the talking point about "losing money" is a "sure-billionaires-we'll-take-your-word-on-that" point, and 2) is also conveniently pumped up by those same billionaire team owners who have the teams play in facilities owned by them (paying themselves, loss harvesting).

Just like the NBA, the billionaire owners do not buy WNBA franchises to turn a profit.  They make their money on selling the franchise at 50 or 100X what they bought it for down the road.  Those owners benefit greatly by the increasing values of the franchise, and the players do not.  That's fine, that's what ownership is all about since they put up the money, "took the risk," whatever we want to call it.  

However it's selling the players short to say they don't deserve a much larger slice of the pie than they're currently getting.  Caitlyn Clark's WNBA salary was $76,535 in 2024 and will go all the way up to ... $97,582 in 2027 before she's a RFA.  That's less than what my company pays an entry level product manager, and it's ridiculous considering the value that CC and the players bring to the WNBA and to the owners.

Totally agree they deserve a raise, but comparing salaries/revenue percentages to the NBA is nonsensical.  The league already offered a sizable increase as their base offer, and if they negotiate above that, they will all receive a large increase across the board.  Their focus though, is on comparing percentages to the men which is not a good faith argument.

Edited by ChickenSandwich
Posted
1 minute ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Totally agree they deserve a raise, but comparing salaries to the NBA is nonsensical.  The league already offered a sizable increase as their base offer, and if they negotiate above that, they will all receive a large increase across the board.  Their focus though, is on comparing percentages to the men which is not a good faith argument.

It's a negotiation, at least partially happening publicly in the media.  That's why we get owners lying about their true costs, or at a minimum not correcting people who make egregious assumptions about "the W has and never will turn a profit!," and the players are going to do it from the other side to appear reasonable by saying "hey we're just asking for the same deal the men have, not on a dollar but on a percentage-basis."

Like any negotiation, it will land somewhere in the middle.  The owners don't get to set the value of their labor, that is set in the market and the players do have alternatives that currently pay them more, especially the stars.  The owners just need to decide if they're willing to pay the new market rate, or go for a lockout.  And I guess the players need to decide if the value of the WNBA's amazing platform is worth giving a discount to on their salaries.  

I come down more on the side of the players than the billionaires, but none of us here know what's actually going on in the room where it happens.

Posted (edited)

What are the viable alternatives?  I have read that the Euro leagues only pay the absolute top players large salaries and the rest get the scraps.  The 3 on 3 does not have the capacity to absorb the entire league even at their current salaries.  Are there really alternatives that pay the same amount for 4 months of work?

Yet multiple WNBA agents, granted anonymity in order to openly discuss details of overseas payouts, estimate only five to 10 players make more than $500,000 in a given season abroad, and that is when high-paying countries like China and Russia are fully accessible to WNBA players. “It’s always been a very small elite group that are getting paid like that,” one agent says. “And everybody else is getting paid OK.”

What do WNBA players make overseas? Not as much as you’ve heard - The Athletic

Spoiler

Chelsea Hopkins went undrafted in 2013, despite receiving honorable All-America recognition and helping San Diego State win a school-record 27 games. That September, the 5-foot-8 guard saw action in four WNBA contests — all in a nine-day span — with the San Antonio Silver Stars. Upon the W season’s conclusion, she joined Bnot Herzliya in Israel. She made $2,700 a month.

Hopkins has now played professionally in Israel for a decade. Having won the Israeli league MVP in 2017 and a league championship in 2018, she says her salary peaked at around $12,000 a month — a low five-figure monthly contract is “pretty standard for a WNBA-like player at this point in time,” she adds. Hopkins says that amount has “always been sustainable” to live on. But she also acknowledges that she has made a second home in one of the world’s most expensive countries. Her money might have gone further elsewhere.

 

Such as Turkey, for instance. There, $100 is currently equivalent to more than 1,900 Turkish Lira, with the recent series of earthquakes weakening an already struggling economy. When McCall left Stanford in 2017, she says she didn’t think much about salary conversions, varying tax regulations and global economic trends. Yet she has learned the impact of differing economic situations.

During the 2021-22 campaign, McCall suited up for the Turkish club Beşiktaş. This season, she opened by playing for the Spanish club Perfumerías Avenida. “I was playing in Istanbul before, and I was paying like $15 for a bunch of groceries, versus when I went to Spain for that same bunch of groceries I was paying like $60,” she says. “I wish I was definitely more knowledgeable about that when I first came out of college and going into professional basketball.”

McCall began her professional career with KSC Szekszard in Hungary, making around $60,000. She spent the following three seasons with the club, and says her salary increased by about $10,000 each season. With Beşiktaş, she earned around six-figures. This season with Avenida and Turkish club Botaş, her contracts added up to around $110,000.

This doesn't even touch things like the Russian billionaire money laundering accusations etc

Edited by ChickenSandwich
Posted
2 minutes ago, LTtxfan said:

meh on that Nike branding effort logo for CC.

Expected something a lot better...

It's giving if Chanel and Gucci got together and then did a retro telecom logo from the 90's

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