Basketball Inequality

      

Napheesa Collier and Katie Lou Samuelson

Last week Katie Lou Samuelson, and Napheesa Collier, two senior stars on the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team were picked #4 and #6 in the Women’s National Basketball Association’s (WNBA) 2019 draft. It is extraordinary to see two women from the same team go so high in the draft.

Although they lost in the semi-final of the NCAA tournament to Notre Dame, the two UCONN stars had stellar careers during their four years. In those years the UCONN women lost only five games, but unfortunately three came in NCAA tournaments. 

In 2019 they will probably earn the WNBA minimum rookie salary of about $52000. That figure is considerably less than the estimated $60000 to $70000 annual value of their athletic scholarship at UCONN, a benefit that is also tax free to athletes. It’s not as if there will be a pot of gold at the end of the WNBA rainbow. The top salary in the league is about $120000 and many of the leagues stars choose to profit from their ability by playing overseas during the off-season. Salaries for women players can be fifteen times higher in other countries.

Even if Samuelson and Collier go on like other UCONN women to have successful careers in the WNBA, they will never make in their entire career what an NBA player like LeBron James or Kevin Durant makes in a game or two. NBA stars make in excess of $30 Million per year. Even Duke freshman Zion Wilkinson, the likely #1 pick in this year’s NBA draft, will probably sign a pro contract that exceeds the entire WNBA payroll.

Equal pay advocates usually complain about the apparent income inequality between men and women. They argue that the average woman makes only 80% of what the average white male makes. They like to focus their attention on corporate America which they regard as the bastion of white male supremacy. However, they rarely complain about the enormous income gap in the worlds of entertainment and athletics. Do they overlook the huge contracts of black athletes because they do not fit the white male story? 

The disparities in income between professional male and female basketball players is certainly not caused by discrimination. The difference seems entirely market driven. Although the extraordinary success of the UCONN women’s basketball program under legendary coach Geno Auriemma has led to packed houses at their home games, the interest in women’s professional basketball in this country is minimal. 

As a result, the pro women play only a short 32 game schedule during what is usually the basketball off-season. As noted above, many of the WNBA stars go abroad to earn the big bucks. UCONN all-time great and WNBA MVP Brianna Stewart played this year for a Russian team.

The NBA and WNBA are two distinct business models. The packed houses and TV ratings for the men’s game have allowed the best players to command huge contracts and move freely from one team to another. On the other hand, the WNBA, despite the quality of play and the ability of its athletes, must struggle for revenue. To keep the WNBA viable the teams must use a pay scale where there is little difference between the salaries of the best players and the benchwarmers. Otherwise, the league would have folded years ago and there would be no option for players like Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier to continue to play the game they love at home. 

In that case, they would be no different than the thousands of athletes who play in American colleges and universities today for love of the sport. My granddaughter rows crew at UCONN. She had no scholarship but just tried out and made the cut. She loves it, is in the best shape of her life, and has bonded with her crew mates. At the same time, she has kept up her grades and became a scholar-athlete award winner this year. Congratulations N.B.

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