The WNBA season has begun and women’s basketball has made encouraging progress over the past few years benefiting from the tailwinds of the movement towards more gender equality in sports. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has done a phenomenal job creating marketing partnerships and public visibility for the WNBA and has enjoyed revenue and viewership growth in the past two years. In fact, last year’s WNBA playoffs enjoyed the best TV in the past twenty years.
However, I would present a more sobering viewpoint and advocate a dramatic change which would give women’s basketball a chance to become truly mainstream, as opposed to a being satisfied as a growing and successful niche sport. Despite recent progress and the push for gender equality the salary of WNBA players average roughly $100,000 where the average NBA salary is around $10 Million per year. The difference is shocking and the pay disparity is greater than in any other profession. But the reason is simple and quite logical namely that the WNBA’s audience is exponentially smaller than the NBA’s audience.
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