One of the nuances of the career of a professional athlete is that the public is aware of their salary.
Websites like Spotrac are dedicated to giving every detail of contracts of professional athletes, and many publications also create lists that rank the athletes that have earned the most money every year.
So when the public got wind of the first contract of Caitlin Clark in the WNBA — $338,000 over four years, well below six-figures annually and just a tad over $76,000 in her first year — there was a massive outcry.
Clark was drafted by the Indiana Fever as the first overall pick of the 2024 WNBA Draft, and was only a week removed from being the primary reason why nearly 19 million fans tuned in to watch the NCAA Women’s National Championship Game.
It’s important to know that Clark is going to make millions of dollars in her first professional season. Last week, she reportedly signed an endorsement deal with Nike worth about $28 million over 8 years.
On top of other endorsement deals with the likes of Gatorade and State Farm, Clark has the opportunity to do work outside of playing in the WNBA, which only runs for about four months in the year. She could find other places to play basketball or even look at media opportunities like her new teammate, Aliyah Boston, who was the first pick in the 2023 WNBA Draft and spent her first WNBA offseason working as a studio analyst for the Big Ten.
Aliyah Boston (left) and Caitlin Clark (right) were the last two first overall selections in the WNBA Draft.
But those other opportunities still don’t change the reality that Clark’s WNBA contract does not justify the millions in revenue that she’ll rake in for the league.
And she is not alone. Angel Reese, who was selected by the Chicago Sky with the seventh pick in the same draft, will only make about $73,000 in her first season.
Some of the big name veterans like A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart also deserve much more than the max contract for a WNBA player which hovers around a quarter of a million dollars annually.
The common argument against raising WNBA player salaries is that the league is not profitable and is only going to attract eyeballs this season due to Clark’s arrival. But David Berri, an economics professor at Southern Utah University who studied the rise of women’s sports for his soon-to-be-released book “Slaying The Trolls,” argues that the WNBA has the ability to pay its players significantly more than they’re currently receiving.
It’s just not doing that.
Related: WNBA ticket prices already showcasing Caitlin Clark’s massive pull
The WNBA should be able to pay its players more
The salaries of WNBA players, ideally, would come as a percentage of the league’s basketball-related income just like it is in the NBA, where players are entitled to 50% of that income.
The WNBA needs to meet certain revenue thresholds in order for them to hit the marks to trigger revenue sharing with its players. That number is unclear, but the league has reportedly not reached those marks.
Bloomberg projected that the league made around $200 million in revenue last year, which is about three times more than the $60 million in revenue it reportedly made the year prior.
But the league is not profitable — so there are arguments to be made that regardless of the growth of the league, it cannot pay its players any more than it already is giving now.
Berri disputes that claim, citing that many massive companies around the world are paying fair wages to employees despite operating at a loss.
Related: WNBA Commissioner has big plans for the league’s next media rights deal
“That’s not how economics works in the slightest,” Berri told TheStreet. “If that was the way firms worked, everyone would have paid zero because every firm would just tell you that they make no profit so therefore they can’t pay.”
Berri also projected out how much a WNBA player would make if the league instituted the same 50% split of revenue done in the NBA — and the results were staggering.
Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun, would have been paid over $3.5 million in 2023 — which is about 16 times more than the $212,000 she received.
The NBA/WNBA has substantial monopsony power in the market for players. Hence they only pay the players 10% of revenue.
Players are worth far more (as we note in Slaying the Trolls!)
NBA/WNBA doesn’t have same power in other labor markets. Hence, pay is much higher. https://t.co/DfSJT6Q5Zk pic.twitter.com/bPJCiJdRl8
— David Berri (@wagesofwins) April 19, 2024
But Berri knows that his exercise is an idealistic one, because ultimately the labor conditions for U.S. professional athletes are different. In most other industries, the percentage distribution is a lot more favorable to employees.”
“In many industries outside of sports, 70% is what they pay so athletes get ripped off anyways,” Berri said.
WNBA athletes have been asking for years now to get a similar percentage split of the revenue pie — not the hundreds of millions that the men get paid.
But the women of the WNBA are in a much more difficult spot, one that the men were once in when the league was also in its infancy. Berri said WNBA revenue right now mirrors that of where the NBA was in the 1970s — when the league was in the midst of a merger with the ABA and wondering whether it would be able to sustain itself.
It took NBA players decades to bargain for the 50% revenue sharing they have right now, including multiple lockouts that shortened NBA seasons as recently as in 2011. WNBA players don’t have that leverage.
“WNBA players have no bargaining power,” Berri said. “If the WNBA players walk off the job, the NBA could just shut the league down.”
WNBA’s revenue is growing — but Berri doesn’t expect that to change salaries in an equitable way
Media rights deals are often the biggest revenue drivers for pro sports leagues. The NBA receives about 25% to 30% of its revenue from its current media rights deal, which is worth about $2.7 billion annually.
The WNBA is set to receive a new media rights deal starting 2026, which coincides with the NBA looking to receive a new deal. The WNBA’s current rights deal earns about $60 million for the year annually across different networks like ESPN, Scripps’ ION, and Amazon’s Prime Video.
The NBA is hoping to double the amount paid for its media rights deal, and the WNBA could expect the same growth. Whether that would even be enough for the league is in question.
“Those [WNBA] broadcasting rights, if they’re based on ratings and they’re based on growth, they’re worth a hell of a lot more than just double what they’re getting right now,” Berri said.
Major League Soccer, a league that receives comparable viewership with the WNBA, signed a 10-year, $2.5 billion with Apple.
That’s $250 million annually, a deal that if the WNBA achieved, would be over four times more than its current one.
The NBA is currently negotiating the WNBA’s media rights deal in conjunction with its own media rights package, which doesn’t fuel Berri’s optimism that the deal for the women will come close to its true value.
“Can the NBA negotiate [more than double?] I don’t know,” Berri said.
But regardless of whether the number is doubled or quadrupled, the WNBA revenue is going to continue to rise exponentially. Theoretically, that should trigger salary gains for the players. But it just may be far from the numbers they should be receiving if revenue sharing was what Berri believes it should be.
“Caitlin Clark helps — I don’t know that she changes the bargaining power of the league,” Berri said. “The attitude of these owners is typically that they don’t want to pay the talent. They don’t feel like they’re supposed to and they have negotiating power.”
Does this support the argument that players like Clark should stay in college? Berri doesn’t think so.
A common talking point surrounding WNBA contracts has also been that players like Clark could make more money staying in college. The common argument for Clark leaving is that she will be able to keep and gain endorsements whether in the NCAA or WNBA, and that WNBA contracts are set to rise in the future.
Related: Is Caitlin Clark losing money by going to the WNBA? Here are both sides of the argument
But when asked whether he thought this situation supports the side of Clark staying in the NCAA, Berri disagreed.
He believes the endorsements will remain for Clark regardless of where she goes because she’s already built up a following. But the massive sums of money that college athletes receive is drastically different for women’s basketball players, because many of the players receiving millions in the NCAA receive it from school’s collectives and boosters. Those schools often support the men’s basketball and football teams, and there’s not as much that’s thrown at women’s basketball players.
“It would have made sense to stay in school if she was a man,” Berri said. “One the men’s side, you see men getting NIL deals from boosters that has nothing to do with marketing … If Caitlin Clark would have gotten that deal where somebody said, ‘Hey I want you to come to South Carolina and I’m gonna pay you $5 million just to play, nothing to do with marketing, you’re right, stay in college. But that’s not the deal.”
There are definitely colleges with collectives who pay their women’s basketball players. The LSU Tigers and USC Trojans are believed to be compensating their players well, and Clark may have had the option to transfer to those schools.
But she’s shown a loyalty to Iowa, so perhaps that money difference wasn’t that drastic anyway. And LSU’s Angel Reese also had the opportunity to stay in college but decided to go.
We may never know the exact answer, but Berri’s research only further shows the nuance in the conversation of pay at the professional level versus in the NCAA.
