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Caitlin Clark, and the pay disparity between men’s’ and women’s’ sports

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The Saga of Caitlin Clark continues, and she still hasn’t clocked even one minute in a professional basketball game.

This past Monday, Caitlin Clark was the first overall pick in the WNA draft, going to the Indiana Fever. Per the WNBA’s rookie pay scale, Clark will receive $338,056 over her first 4 years in the league; which includes a rookie salary of roughly $76,000. But fear not Clark fans, word is that she is close to signing an 8 figure deal with Nike that would include her own signature shoe. This NBC News article does a great job of breaking down her salary over Clark’s first four seasons. It also addresses the pig-skinned elephant in the room: Why are WNBA players paid so poorly, compared to their male counterparts?

Before I go any further, let me say that I WANT to see the WNBA succeed. I want to see the league become so popular that they have to start referring to the NBA as “The MNBA” to distinguish the men’s league from the women’s.

But the truth is that the NBA makes SIGNIFICANTLY MORE MONEY than the WNBA. The NBA gets SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER RATINGS than WNBA games; which means networks will pay SIGNIFICANTLY MORE MONEY for the rights to air NBA games. We can blame all of this “on the patriarchy” all we want to; but these are facts and the money does talk. It doesn’t hurt that the NBA began 50 years before the WNBA did. To put things into a better perspective, the average salary for an NBA rookie this season is $10 million. Hell, I heard this morning on the radio that several NBA MASCOTS make $60,000 per year.

Some recent WNBA jerseys look like something out of NASCAR; but even the men’s jerseys now carry sponsor advertising.

Burt not everything is doom and gloom in the WNBA, or women’s sports in general, as NPR explains here. Earlier this year, the Las Vegas Aces become the first WNBA team to sell out their entire allotment of season tickets. This year’s Women’s March Madness tournament saw record breaking ratings, and quite frankly, more entertaining match-ups than their male counterparts.

So I find myself returning to the same question that I asked HERE: Can Caitlin Clark be the first truly transcendent super-star of the WNBA? The kind that makes non-WNBA fans watch games on TV? Pay for tickets to the games? Buy the merchandise? Can she have the same effect on her league that Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods did on theirs? All signs point to “yes” but its ultimately up the the fans. Fan receptions is what dictates all those money markets that I mentioned earlier.

I don’t know if women’s sports will ever be held in the same regard as men’s, but I think we’re about to see that disparity diminish real quickly in the next few years.

UPDATE: Not even one hour after I published this post, I saw this on my Facebook timeline. The Caitlin Clark effect is real!

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The article “Caitlin Clark and the Pay Disparity Between Men’s & Women’s Sports” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.

9 responses to “Caitlin Clark, and the pay disparity between men’s’ and women’s’ sports”

  1. MaryG Avatar
    MaryG

    The MNBA – I like that!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. rebuilding rob Avatar
      rebuilding rob

      Not even an hour after I published this post, I saw on my timeline that the Washington Mystics announced they are moving their June 7 game against the Indiana Fever from their usual 4200 seat venue, to the 20,000 seat Capital One Arena!

      It’s gonna get real…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      1. MaryG Avatar
        MaryG

        Oh wow! That’s great. I loved watching Clark put Michael Che in his place on SNL.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Kevin Avatar
        Kevin

        I think the question here is, is it sustainable? Once the hype dies down, can they continue in larger venues? That is going to be the key to continued increases in paydays.

        Like

  2. trandyescapes Avatar
    trandyescapes

    I wish them well and would love to see them succeed, however a lot of players have come out of college highly rated and turn out to be busts. There is a lot of pressure on these ladies now to sustain the hype, hopefully the bloom stays on the rose.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  3. Amy Avatar
    Amy

    Eh. I’m not a fan of watching any women’s sports and I’m a woman. I’m a big tennis fan, but not of women’s tennis. It’s dreadfully boring unless there’s power behind the shots. For instance, Serena was always fun to watch and she had a great deal of power. There has been a debate for a long time about equal pay in the tennis world. I’m not gonna weigh in on that, but I will say that men have to play best of five sets and typically have very long matches, while women play best of three, and their matches are usually not nearly as long. The fact is, men’s tennis brings in more money than women’s.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  4. MyGenXerLife Avatar
    MyGenXerLife

    I was talking to a friend during March madness and was surprised I watched more women’s tournament than mens. I actually watched a bunch of games during the regular season. It’s become interesting to watch. I hope this transitions to people watching the wnba. The more revenue it brings in, the more salaries it can pay. Right now the nba is subsidizing it. Hopefully they won’t need the subsidy one day.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. rebuilding rob Avatar
      rebuilding rob

      The women’s sports fan bases, starting to sound a lot like the soccer in America crowd: “just wait. It’s gonna be big someday!”. But I’ve never seen the kind of hype surrounding a women’s basketball player as I’ve seen with Caitlin Clark. I feel like if the WNBA it’s going to see some serious growth in my lifetime, this is it.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      1. MyGenXerLife Avatar
        MyGenXerLife

        I watched a few of her games. I was surprised she wasn’t a one woman show. Her teammates were really good, too. And it wasn’t like she only scored. She’d put up a bunch of rebounds and assists. It was fun to watch

        Liked by 1 person

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