Why WNBA players face financial hurdles despite record viewership
Despite record ratings, women's basketball still struggles financially, leaving players far behind their male counterparts in compensation. Why is this happening?
It will take some time for the Caitlin Clark effect to be felt across the WNBA.
Clark enters the league as a budding superstar who is already widely recognized as having been the biggest figure in a sea change for women's basketball. Shortly after she helped the NCAA women's Final Four set broadcasting records, she went first overall in the WNBA draft, helping the event draw a bigger TV viewership than the most recent MLB and NHL drafts. Tickets for the Indiana Fever, who drafted Clark last weekend, are the hottest in the sport. Clark’s jersey has already sold out — though Dick's Sporting Goods intends to sell Clark name and number T-shirts in all 724 of its locations, according to a company spokesperson. Last year, it sold WNBA merch in only a fraction of its stores.
But even as women’s basketball surges broadly, Clark comes into a league that has faced steep financial shortcomings, leaving its players well short of being compensated at the levels of their male counterparts.
“It’s not good enough,” Nancy Lieberman, a Hall of Fame basketball player, Olympic gold medalist and NCAA champion, said in an interview. “It has to get better.”
It could take several years for all the crucial deals among players, the league, broadcast partners and other business interests to renegotiate the way money flows.
Rating: 5