Blame sexism.
Blame the extensive and growing gender salary gap. Blame misogyny. Blame capitalism. Blame the mentality of the misogynistic bros that flood the comment section of any article celebrating women’s professional basketball (or any women’s pro sport). Blame all of the reasons that women professional basketball players have to play year around, in at least two leagues in order to make a decent living that still doesn’t come close to what many of the lowest-paid NBA stars receive for riding the bench.
Pause rant.
March 1, 2016 the Los Angeles Sparks announced they’d acquired veteran guard Riquna Williams (and the 6th pick in the 2016 draft) in a trade with the newly dubbed Dallas Wings-they sent veteran guard and recent WNBA champ, Erin Phillips, to Dallas along with two draft picks for 2016 and 2017.
Williams is an aggressive player, whose shooting arsenal is well-stocked and above par, exactly what the Sparks need this season as they rebuild a struggling franchise. To give you an idea the official press release from the L.A. Sparks included this: “Williams set the WNBA’s single game scoring record with 51 points vs. San Antonio on September 8, 2013. In the same game…she also set career-highs for field goals made (17), field goals attempted (28), three point field goals made (eight), three point field goals attempted (14) and minutes played (35).”
The Los Angeles Sparks needed Riquna Williams.
March 30, 2016, Los Angeles Sparks announced their newly acquired veteran guard will sit out the entire 2016 season due to an injury she suffered while playing for the Al Nasr Sports Club in the Abu Dhabi Inter-University Sports League. She’ll be undergoing surgery for the injury and no timeline has been set regarding her return. In short, no Williams this season. And the Sparks still have a very important void to fill.
It seems like the Sparks just cannot win for losing. Last year was painful to watch as they barely made it through the season, kicking and clawing to stay in the game, game after game.
Los Angeles has struggled for a few seasons now, but last season fans saw them at one of their lowest points in years; an already devastating drought of championships was made worse when their franchise player, Candace Parker, decided to sit the beginning of the season out for a rest after a full season of overseas play with her Russian sidepiece, UMMC Ekaterinburg.
Nobody is denying that Parker is the foundation of that team. Don’t get me wrong-Jantel Lavender, Kristi Tolliver, and my fav, Nneka Ogwumike, are underrated forces to be reckoned with. They’re not suckers and the Sparks wouldn’t keep making it to the post-season without them. When any one of them is missing from the game, it’s pretty obvious. When Parker is missing from the game, things fall apart.
Were the Sparks mad? Of course. They never said it. In fact, the general manager, Penny Toler, said, “It was Candace’s decision and she felt she needed to get her body 100 percent healthy.” Followed by, “What we’re doing is supporting her in that decision.” In other words, it wasn’t the Sparks’ idea but they can’t do anything about it either.
Even if they weren’t, the Sparks had a right to be mad. Their star player was sitting out the regular season because she was busy taking her Russian team to the Final Four along with her WNBA co-star Diana Taurasi. Who, by the way, was getting paid by the very same Russian team to take a well-deserved rest during the entire WNBA regular season. Parker wasn’t getting paid to rest but needed it just the same.
Per the Sparks’ website, currently, seven Sparks players belong to overseas teams, including their entire starting lineup. According to the WNBA’s website, more than 75 of the league’s players play with overseas teams. This means about half of the league’s 154 players, including almost all of the league’s top players, haven’t stopped playing since the last season ended and depending on how their international teams fare, some may still be playing when the new WNBA season starts in May. This is true year after year, season after season, and most of these players do it to supplement their pathetic WNBA salaries.
As of the 2015 season the average league salary for WNBA players was just $75,000 compared to the NBA’s $5.1 Million. Phoenix Mercury star, Taurasi, is arguably the league’s top player-in skill, in stats, and in her ability to elevate the game of everyone she plays with. So naturally, she earns the maximum salary the league allows: $107, 500. This is what she was paid the year she helped bring the Finals trophy to Phoenix for the third time in her career.
From Vice Sports: “In 2013-14, the Phoenix Suns employed Dionte Christmas for 198 minutes. For those minutes–the only minutes Christmas has ever played in the National Basketball Association–he was paid the league minimum of $490,180.”
Taurasi never disclosed how much her Russian team paid her to rest, but knowing how committed she is to the game and to her team, I’m guessing it was many times more than her WNBA salary (we know it was, at least, six figures) and she was wise to take the offer. Taurasi’s regular season contract with UMMC pays her nearly $1.5 million-they wanted her healthy and rested in the off-season and were willing to pay for it.
The argument that the WNBA makes less than the NBA inevitably comes up as a way to explain the gender wage gap in professional basketball. The thing is, once the numbers are adjusted to account for revenue and labor differences, the gap is still there and it is still staggering.
NBA players receive 50% of the league’s revenue and the WNBA just around 30% (estimate). From Vice Sports: “In 2013-14, the NBA capped the salary of a player with at least ten years of experience at $19,181,750, or about 3.8 times the wages of an average player. If the WNBA paid 50 percent of its revenues to its players, the average player— given the above estimates for the WNBA— would receive $114,249, which is more than the current league maximum. In turn, a maximum player like Taurasi, a veteran superstar receiving 3.8 times more the average salary, would be paid $440,313. Which is roughly four times what she actually made in 2014.”
WNBA players are paid a lower share of revenue than their NBA counterparts, and the WNBA owners get to pocket the difference. -David Berri
As David Berri explains in the same article, “Two factors dictate a worker’s wage. The first is the revenue generated by the firm that employs them. The second is the worker’s ability to bargain for a share of that revenue.”
Enter sexism.
Last year Vice Sports writer, David Berri, asked, “Why haven’t WNBA players been able to demand the same share of revenue that NBA players receive?” He noted that WNBA players “have not appeared willing to walk off their jobs.” My best guess is the reasons are eerily similar to the reasons women hesitate to demand raises at work, even when they’re long overdue.
In a letter to fans, after her decision to not play the season following a championship year, Taurasi said something that’s been with me since the first time I read it last year. “I want to be able to take care of myself and my family when I am done playing.”
This is not a concern of any of the privileged stars in professional men’s basketball, just a concern of arguably the best player currently in women’s professional basketball.
The Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, and the 10 other teams, owners included, in the Women’s National Basketball Association should be mad about their players sitting out. Moreover, they should be furious when their players get injured playing in other leagues just to gather their coins.
They should be mad enough to do something about it…the right something. WNBA owners insisting on the imposition of significant penalties on players who may have to miss some portion of the WNBA season in order to fulfill overseas commitments is not the right something. Closing the gender wage gap is. And so is insisting on better working and playing conditions for their players.
Demanding gender equity across the board is paramount to fixing the gender pay gap— in the league, in sports, in society— and that starts with acknowledging that sexism is at the root of the disparity and tackling that issue.
Imagine this scenario: Williams is traded and spends her offseason gelling with her new teammates and coaching staff, learning the playbook, and physically preparing to begin the regular season, strong and healthy, with her new team.
Most WNBA fans probably realize that scenario sounds pretty farfetched, even if it is the norm for their brother-league. More often, the WNBA’s season is scheduled around international play, with abbreviated training camps taking place at the last minute, frequently missing key players who are still across borders. Players are readjusting to stateside living— moving and getting other personal domestic affairs in order— and preparing for a new season of play all at the same time.
If gender equity could have prevented (in theory) Williams’ injury and the Sparks’ latest loss, then sexism is to blame.
p.s. this is the WNBA’s 20th season and the tagline is “Watch Me Work.” Ironic, right? {Turns up volume on BBHMM.}
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