One thing seems quite clear given the hubbub over Caitlin Clark’s WNBA starting salary https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/gap-caitlin-clarks-wnba-salary-male-counterparts-draws-outrage-rcna148024: look for the WNBA Players Association to trigger its opt out provision in the collective bargaining agreement by the deadline this November, which would leave one more season under the labor deal.
For those outraged over her starting salary of $76,535, blame the CBA inked in 2020 which set the number. That CBA sets the cap for each year from 2020 to 2027, rising from $1.3 million to $1.58 million (that’s each team’s spend, so yes a rookie is going to get a small slice). And yes, that’s barely a game’s pay for some NBA stars, but it is reflective of where the economics of the two leagues are.
When the WNBA inked the CBA in 2020 it was not even getting paid to air its games. That changed with a new TV package, but even here it comes to $60 million a year https://frontofficesports.com/wnba-could-seek-its-own-media-deal/ (and I have had sources tell me that part of that figure is marketing spend). And the thing is, it's not clear under the current CBA how much the players will get from more TV money because their cap is pre-set.
This is not how money is divided up in the NBA–or the NFL or the NHL. There the cap is based on a percentage of revenues, so if revenues rise so does player pay. There are some mechanisms built into the WNBA CBA to distribute more comp to players if the league exceeds its revenue target, which is almost surely will this year given the Caitlin Clark effect sparking teams to move home games against the Indiana Fever to larger venues.
The debate over female athlete pay has been long running, just ask Billie Jean King. Tennis has made great strides–the U.S. Open awarded equal prize money in 1973–but even in this sport there is still great work to do. What makes the Clark situation so sharp is we’ve never seen a sport go from say 20 to a 100 almost overnight. Besting the men’s NCAA championship ratings, drawing 2.4 million viewers for the Draft, one player’s jersey sold more than any draft pick in history–men or women; this has just exploded on us and mooted the calculations that undergird the WNBA CBA.
The agreement the WNBA players agreed to in 2020 reflected where women’s basketball was at that time: a low-watched sport with decent attendance, but continuing questions about its long term growth. To play in the WNBA, Clark needs to sign a player contract that binds her to the CBA and the five figure salary. So it's not as some have positioned it, including the president, another example of discrimination against female athletes. It may underscore the appalling lack of attention paid to women’s sports by Corporate America and the media, but her meager pay is spelled out in the labor contract signed four years ago.
Now there is some hope. The CBA contains the opt-out provision, and if the league is washed over with a gusher of revenue, there is nothing stopping the league and players from amending the existing CBA (my guess is owners will see the new revenue as payment for past financial losses and not want to forgo that).
Clark of course will set some kind of record for the imbalance between on court income and off course income. She is signing a deal with Nike that reportedly is in the eight figures, and she looks to quickly ascend that list of top female athlete earners Forbes puts out annually, based almost entirely on endorsements (Naomi Osaka remained high on this list while she was away from tennis). So don’t feel too bad for Clark, even though it is patently unfair the interest, and dollars, about to rain down on the league are largely due to her but she won’t reap. Hopefully she will soon be playing under a CBA that aptly rewards her insane talent.