A narrative about a player's wage is the best indicator of a rising sports league. Since it was announced that Caitlin Clark,
the biggest star in women's college basketball, will earn $338,000 over four years as a WNBA professional, foul cries have been heard everywhere.
Today program host Hoda Kotb remarked, “When I saw the numbers – $76,000 in the first year, $78,000 in the second year, $85,000 in the third year – for somebody who is now the face of women's basketball,
it seemed kind of ridiculous Even Barstool Sports' famously misogynistic CEO Dave Portnoy looked insulted, offering Clark $10m to play for his professional basketball club.
On X, Joe Biden said, “it’s time that we give our daughters the same opportunities as our sons and ensure women are paid what they deserve.”
Clark's compensation is half of the WNBA's events department salary and compared to the $55m NBA rookie Victor Wembanyama will make from his first contract. The typical WNBA salary is $78,000, 2% of the NBA average.
After WNBA rookies are cut as the season begins, the median may rise slightly, but it's still a Grand Canyon-sized pay gap compared to other professional professions, where women make two-thirds as much as males.
The average player pay was $90,000 28 years after the NBA's establishment, or $633,000 now. Perhaps worse, Clark, who smashed almost every collegiate scoring record, will make slightly more in four years than the average male dentist in one.
Many WNBA players play overseas over the offseason because to the salary gap, which has become riskier after Brittney Griner was detained in Russia and Israel went to war.
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