• jeffw@lemmy.worldOPM
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    8 months ago

    It doesn’t though. That’s the problem. As a % of league profit, the pays don’t match. Women don’t get much on sales of apparel either.

    • Tom_Hanx_Hail_Satan
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      8 months ago

      Profit or revenue? Idk latest numbers but iirc the wnba lost 12 million in 2019 alone. The total value of the wnba is 1 billion dollars. For context, Steve Ballmer bought the clippers for 2 billion.

      The entire wnba has a value that is half the value of the number 2 team in the LA market. Baller bought the team in 2014 btw, so it’s half the value from 10 years ago. I think the most recent sale was when an investment group paid 3 billion for majority share of the hornets about a year ago. By that measure the wnba is worth, maybe a quarter, of one of the least valuable franchises in the nba.

      Plus these are rookie scale contracts. That’s pretty standard part of union collective bargaining. The union wants available funds to go to veteran players. You can’t really make a strong argument for those funds being too low when the league has never turned a profit in 25 years.

      • Tom_Hanx_Hail_Satan
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        8 months ago

        They do have a union. They just have zero leverage because the wnba isn’t profitable. They go on strike, lose an entire year and the owners save money. I’m not going to call the wnba a charity case for the NBA because it does have value in promoting the sport itself. That value is too abstract to put into a cba negotiation though.

      • eardon
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        8 months ago

        Lol. I can just imagine all of the owners only hiring women who aren’t a part of a union after that.

        Not saying it shouldn’t happen, but there will be no shortage of women willing to sell out their fellow women for a chance to make money playing basketball.

        Capitalism, ho!

        • Tom_Hanx_Hail_Satan
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          8 months ago

          The WNBA does have a union. They WNBA also have strong ties to the NBA itself. If the WNBA tries to run with replacement players they would face backlash from the NBA players union. Because it’s essentially the same owners/management group.