It’s totally unfair to use Caitlin Clark as an example of the pay disparity as well. She’s a rookie on a pay scale. Her salary is less than half the average wnba salary. What’s really crazy to me is that the average salary is about 150k with only one woman making over 250k. For the salaries to be that flat seems odd compared to other pro sports but it’s just a part of the W having less revenue. Athletes have very strong unions also.
You do know that professional sports is considered part of the entertainment industry, right? This is like you insisting that Margot Robbie and Christian Slater should be paid the same because they do the same job.
“Some of the best players in the wnba could likely play in the NBA…”
As an avid NBA fan (occasionally watch wnba) this is absolutely not true. Golf, Nascar, Tennis, yeah. It’s more likely to happen in the NFL than it is in the NBA though, because specialists positions like kicker. The NBA, players are required to play both offense and defense. For a woman to have both the pure athleticism to be competitive with the best 500 male basketball players in the world? Not an impossibility but she’d still likely be bench depth and seen as a pr motivated move. That level of nba player gets paid, maybe, 3x the top paid WNBA player but it’s give and take with potential endorsements etc.
Average NBA salary is about 10 million. So Wemby is getting paid like 120% the average in his league. Clark is getting about 50% the average in her league.