LOL...of that, she has to pay an agent and whomever else might be on her individual "team". So it is really almost minimum wage. It is hard to imagine they can make ends meet as they can't live with family (since most are out of town). In fact, even without NIL, they are probably making more in college than the WNBA as they at least get room and board. For Caitlin, specifically, she is going to make millions in endorsements so she is going to be just fine.
And they are still making about 3x what minor league baseball players are pulling in at the lower levels...those are the guys that are really scraping to get by while chasing their dreams.
yep. most of those lower-level guys could go to college on scholarships. But they, at least, have dreams of big paydays at the end. The WNBA is the pinnacle of women's pro basketball. There. is no upside or pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
WNBA has certainly been weak. But Caitlin has transformed the game at the college level. 18 million TV viewers? My God. If she can get 10% of that at the WNBA level it is a transformative game-changer. My point is that we see the WNBA as what has been. But we may be in for a round of "what is going to be".
babylonbee.com
so far. I agree. But the NCAA finals drew 18,700,000. The men's finals drew 4,000,000 less. So far, the WNBA hasn't been successful but until Caitlin, the same would be true about women's BBall too. We'll see where it goes but I wouldn't rule out a major lift for the WNBA.
The men's final got ratings in line with the norm...the women's got that bump based on the hype of everything Clark was doing down the stretch. It's not like everyone will be tuning in for her WNBA game on a random Tuesday in July (or was even tuning in for her early season games this past year). Hopefully this will bring more eyes to women's basketball, but I highly doubt that this will turn into any type of trend.
Agreed but if she can drive average viewership up from 750k to 1.5k (still a fraction of the last few NCAA games she played in) that would be transformational.
I think that's realistic for her first game or two, or late in the playoffs...More likely is that she drives it from 750k to 850k, which is still a big deal.
well, my current company is trying to build a new brand in a different market. I was just having this convo with my MKT team. It is like inertia. It is hard to get people to change habits. You just keep chipping away.
babylonbee.com
Bullcorn, as usual. She WAS on TV because the NCAA Women’s Tournament was going on. It’s over and so is the Draft. She will disappear until they want to use her again. Today, they’d have to pay ME to watch either the NBA or WNBA. Team play is dead.
Not to mention that Orlando hasn't had a WNBA team in over 20 years.
The post was about Brittney Griner, so that’s who I was talking about. And how many of those people are going to Russia to do their side hustle?
The WNBA has been a failure for one reason, women don’t watch. Female figure skaters, gymnasts and tennis players do well because women watch them. Until women start watching the WNBA, buying merchandise and going to games, it won’t be successful.
The last number I saw said that about half of the players in the WNBA were heading overseas to play in other countries...and one of the primary places they go is Russia. It was a lot more than Griner, as several players were going to Russia each offseason (before the war).
Do female figure skaters or gymnasts really do well, outside of the Olympics (and endorsements that come along with them)? I'd think the biggest issue with all of those that holds them back from making big $ is the lack of viewers, outside of one event every 4 years.
My question was in response to you saying that a lot of people making over $200K take on side hustles….how many go to Russia to do it? And I’m assuming women’s leagues in other countries actually make money…that’s why players here have to do that, their league isn’t making any money.
Lack of female viewers. Male viewers do a fine job of making the NBA, NFL, MLB, and college sports money and there are more women in this country than men. As far as the Olympics, that’s what those sports have and they are more popular than most of the men’s Olympic sports (that’s what I meant by them doing well).
