Guess what the highest salary in the WNBA is? (I relate this to running)

rojo wrote:

Remember, this is a league that averaged 7,452 fans per game last year for each of its 204 regular season games (each of the 12 teams plays 34 regular season games) and more than 8,000 fans per game for each of its 18 playoff gamess.

Remember, this is a league that each year has 27 games a year on national television.

Both of those numbers absolutely crush what track and field does in this country.

So go ahead and guess.

The league maximum salary in the WNBA is $109,500.

And everyone thinks pro runners are underpaid.

seriously? You're paid what you're worth. This post has no more validity than the silly "teachers should get paid more" claptrap. Supply and demand. Come on, you went to school, right?

WNBA and track are the same. You have to leave the United states to make good money running track. For example if you are an 800m or 1500m runner, you could never earn a living from the sport in the USA. Thank goodness the Europeans like track enough that you can actually make good money. Women's basketball is the same except you can actually make some money in the USA. But you make a lot more overseas.

The WNBA's Diana Taurasi is getting $1.5 million to play in Russia. Someone's willing to pay her what she's worth

rojo wrote:

Remember, this is a league that averaged 7,452 fans per game last year for each of its 204 regular season games (each of the 12 teams plays 34 regular season games) and more than 8,000 fans per game for each of its 18 playoff gamess.

Remember, this is a league that each year has 27 games a year on national television.

Both of those numbers absolutely crush what track and field does in this country.

So go ahead and guess.

The league maximum salary in the WNBA is $109,500.

And everyone thinks pro runners are underpaid.

Wow, I am surprised it is that high. Many years ago I used to do taxes for one the league's top players and she only earned in the mid-60s from the WNBA. However, her total income was over 200K from playing in Europe and a variety of other things. Btw, when you are in your mid-20s, with no family to support or student loans to pay, earning $50K a year to do what you love is not a bad deal at all, so don't feel sorry for those girls.

Interesting development with Taurasi. The Russians are paying her not to play WNBA this summer. Griner, Delle Donne, Moore might follow suit.

econ major wrote:

I'm a little surprised the first few posts have been defending the runner's salaries. Rojo's point is, "Hey, there is a pro sports league with tons of games, that averages more than 7,000 fans per game where people get paid peanuts."

Everyone who thinks the WNBA stars aren't well known is fooling themselves. One thing Rojo didn't point out is that the salaries in Russia are much bigger. Diana Taurasi makes $1.5 million there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/sports/basketball/diana-taurasi-can-rest-easy-but-wnba-cant.html?_r=0

Edward Teach wrote:

They run a lot of promotions through schools, radio stations, and stuff and give away a lot of tickets. They probably count all those as attending, whether they are or not.

THIS.

It would be interesting to hear how many tickets they SOLD on average and what the average selling price was.

My bet would be less than 1000 per game at an average price of $10.

The median price is probably $0.

The solution: bun huggers and a height restriction of 5'9"

The all time leading scorer in United States professional women's basketball, Katie Smith won state titles in the shot put and discus.

She also won two WNBA titles, two ABL titles and 3 OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALS!

I went to the same high school as Candice Parker. Otherwise I probably wouldn't know who she was.

I wouldn't be so sure about HSers not knowing about pro runners. Your low end JV teams who are in it for the social side? Maybe not. But I know in HS we would get together to watch the Pre Classic or the OT trials. Hell, in college, we'd stream the big meets (boston indoor games, USATF, NCAA's, etc) on our 50" TV and half the team would be over.

I would say more HS girls would know names like Diana Taurasi, Swin Cash, and Sue Bird than could name any pro runner.

I disagree with high school teams knowing all those pro runners, especially if they saw them randomly in a crowd, probably just heard their name. I remember a few years ago at a local road race with runners from all over the northern California including many local high school runners, Sara Hall walked around basically unnoticed by the crowd(she was not racing), and although she might not be the fastest runner we have in the U.S. she has still be in the spotlight for probably 15 plus years now.

The WNBA is a failed league only being kept alive by the NBA revenue stream.

The only thing that could save that league is to change their season to parallel to the NBA season, rather than in summer when exactly zero people care about it.

My bet is that the reason the WNBA players are paid so poorly (and hence that many play overseas the rest of the year for much more money) is that the NBA under David Stern set up a very low cost structure with a weak union or non(??) where team ownership is non-competitive and salaries are unilaterally imposed, something like the major league soccer in the U.S. I looked up some facts about them, average salary was $72k in 2012, minimum was $36,900, salary cap set at $840k or so, average team makes about $4 million from ticket sales per year. That doesn't factor in the tv contract or other revenues, so my assumption is that they are getting a bad deal, because that puts the fraction of revenues going to player salary at less than 20% probably, versus 40-60% over the best couple decades in the NBA and NHL. They typically make $40k offseason playing elsewhere but some make over $400,000, with a top salary of $1 million, and these foreign gigs come with free apartments, chauffeurs, and other perks.

bd87 wrote:

I disagree with high school teams knowing all those pro runners, especially if they saw them randomly in a crowd, probably just heard their name. I remember a few years ago at a local road race with runners from all over the northern California including many local high school runners, Sara Hall walked around basically unnoticed by the crowd(she was not racing), and although she might not be the fastest runner we have in the U.S. she has still be in the spotlight for probably 15 plus years now.

I wouldn't recognize Sarah Hall either.

The point I'm trying to make is the fanbase of HS/Collegiate runners following the pros is higher than that of HS/Collegiate basketball players following the WNBA

Isn't the average like ~$45k? I make just a little more than that, but I would rather be playing basketball.

Salary for 100% of Track & Field athletes is $0.

Our model is completely based on sponsorship dollars, so there is no comparison unless you are talking about how many of the WNBA players have shoe contracts.

Some of the big names in T&F get appearance fees, but nothing is guaranteed through any sort of a league. It is performance based and can disappear at any moment if there's an injury during a contract year, drop in performance, etc.

Loot wrote:

The WNBA is a failed league only being kept alive by the NBA revenue stream.

The only thing that could save that league is to change their season to parallel to the NBA season, rather than in summer when exactly zero people care about it.

Not true, even if the season is in the winter, its still going to be women's basketball. The whole thing is a joke.

bd87 wrote:

I disagree with high school teams knowing all those pro runners, especially if they saw them randomly in a crowd, probably just heard their name

HS teams? Hell I walked into Cornell practice one day realizing much of the team was very young. I asked the guys, "how many of you know who Haile Gebrselassie is?" Less than half raised their hands.

Now it was a mid-d group that i was meeting with and most were frosh, but Haile set the WR in the marathon in 2008. So maybe that's when they were in like 9th grade or something.

Average WNBA salary is $72,000. Average Arena Football League salary is $80,000. Very comparable. Minor league baseball players get paid the least -- $2700/month at the highest Triple-A level. ($13,500 for a 5 month season.) No wonder baseball players are desperate to make the bigs.