The problem with salaries in the WNBA is women. If every American woman made a point of attending a couple of games a year and watching WNBA games on TV, then salaries for women players would soon outstrip what men earn.
Advertisers and spectators fund athletic salaries. The more women attend games and the more they watch them, the more money female players will make. And if they end up earning more than men, then they deserve it.
Last I checked slightly more than 50% of the population is female. Yet on average only 6,615 fans attend a WNBA game (the good news is that those numbers are up... in fact, they are "record-breaking". The average NBA attendance is 18,324 and many games are sold out (selling out means owners can charge more and pay more).
The average ticket price for a WNBA game is $47. The average ticket price for a NBA game is $94. So, based on attendance/ticket prices, the average NBA player should earn at least 6 times more than the average WNBA player.
The average WNBA viewership is 505,000 on ESPN and CBS. The average NBA viewership is 1.6 million.
An even more interesting statistic, men are three times more likely to be fans of the WNBA than women and twice as likely to be "casual" fans. In other words, even at these low numbers, men are supporting the WNBA.
So, the solution to WNBA salaries is simple. More Americans especially women need to support the WNBA. If women were as avid fans of the WNBA as men and willing to pay the same for ticket prices average salaries would likely increase around 10-fold. Plus, sponsorships would soar. If women supported the WNBA to the same degree that men support the NBA, well you likely would have had nothing to write about.
Professional sports are about entertainment. I am not a big sports fan, more in the casual category. I do watch the top women college teams play and the "quality" of the game among the top teams is very entertaining. But perhaps some sociology/psychology expert can explain why women don't watch women's sports more.
Perhaps they have better things to do...
