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Let’s imagine you are a kid who is exceptionally talented at the sport you love, in this case we’ll use basketball as an example.
It becomes your life, your passion and even further, your career.
You put your blood, sweat and tears into every practice, every scrimmage, every game and every tournament so much so that you make it to the big leagues.
You played in the minors as a kid when you had to use two hands to dribble the ball, moved onto middle school and high school teams, then made it to college. You were the best in your city or town so moving to a big university with a crowd cheering your name and teammates with as much energy is everything you could have dreamed of.
You win a lot, maybe even a championship.
Then the draft comes, and you sign your name at the bottom of a contract into the National Basketball Association so you can officially be on a screen and a part of a franchise that probably started this little dream of yours.
No matter if you are a man or woman this could be a reality, with the NBA famed around the world and the WNBA on the rise.
The biggest difference is if you’re a guy, you’ve become a millionaire. But if you are a girl, your starting salary is probably comparable to your dental hygienist’s.
Caitlin Clark became a household name to sports families across the United States as she broke the record as the all-time leading scorer in Division I women’s basketball during her senior year at University of Iowa. Journalists around the country jumped to cover her March Madness and Big 10 Championships as her performance propelled her to be drafted first overall by the Indiana Fever, which came as no surprise to her fans.
The first overall pick in the NBA that same year was French basketball player Zaccharie Risacher, who made his way to the Atlanta Hawks.
Both are incredibly talented players who are great additions to their teams and franchises, but let’s look at the numbers.
Clark signed a four-year, $338,056 contract which will start her off with roughly a $77,000 salary for the 2024-2025 season.
Risacher signed a four-year contract as well, however, his was $57,027,437 with an annual salary of a little over $14,000,000.
I will first point out the obvious, which is that viewership, fanbases and revenue for the NBA are on a completely different level than its sister league.
The NBA regular season’s viewership for 2023-2024 was about 1.6 million viewers, versus the WNBA’s 550,000. The NBA Finals had a whopping 11.64 million people watching, while the WNBA Finals had around 728,000.
The revenue gap is also an explanation for the price difference as the NBA brought in $10.58 billion to the WNBA’s $200 million.
But now let us look at some other statistics.
The average ticket price of an NBA game last season was $94 to the WNBA’s $87, and the average attendance of a men’s game was 18,325 to a women’s game’s 9,195.
Double the attendees may make you wince, but let us not forget that Risacher is making about 182 times more money than Clark, so really does double really explain that price difference?
There are a couple differences in the men’s versus women’s game including the ball size and the set up of gametime, but really besides small changes that account for the physical difference in the average female versus male stature, it’s the same game.
It’s the same game, with the same passionate players who were all the same kids growing up in the minor leagues dreaming of making a career out of throwing a ball into a hoop. And yet, in 2025 the inequality in pay is so outrageously vast.
Steph Curry is another household name, as the 37-year-old has been making threes on the Golden State Warriors as point guard for over a decade. He’ll make just under $56 million in the 2024-2025 season as the highest paid NBA player, which does not include any outside brand deals or sponsorships that most athletes, including himself, have.
Now this isn’t to say that WNBA players don’t have deals with different companies or promotions that bring in extra cash, but the highest paid player in the women’s league is Jackie Young, who was drafted first overall in 2019 by the Las Vegas Aces, and will make a whopping $252,450 in 2025.
That is 1/222 of what Curry will make.
So here’s where I make my case.
I understand it’s completely unrealistic for the WNBA to magically bring the salaries of their players up to any level near the NBA, but there needs to be a better attempt at making the disparities slimmer.
Back in 2020, a contract between the WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, that will last until 2027, agreed that the average annual compensation for players would be $130,000, and full salaries will be provided if maternity leave is needed. This was progress as it was the first six figure agreement made in the league and awarded the WNBA the first women’s national sports league to have maternity benefits of any kind, which paved the way to brighter futures as the Professional Women’s Hockey League, PWHL, followed suit in 2024.
But really, aren’t these all the bare minimum?
There’s a viewership difference, fine.
There’s a revenue difference, got it.
But in no world should the salary gap be so different that men are making hundreds of times more than women for essentially the same job.
A women’s game versus a men’s game may run a bit slower, with fewer possessions on average, but a lower score does not make it any less competitive or entertaining.
“In the WNBA, where players may not rely as heavily on raw physicality, there’s a greater emphasis on technical skill and basketball IQ,” said Sports Planning Guide.
The push to watch women’s sports has always been there, but more prevalent in the last few years as networks showcase women’s leagues more and more. The WNBA’s viewers have only increased in the last couple seasons with franchise expansion rumors in major cities all across America, but a thing to think about is how discouraging it must be that in 2025 we are still facing a wage gap.
I understand it’s two different associations, two different leagues, with completely different players and organizations, but at the end of the day they are two extremely similar businesses that are exemplifying problems women have been fighting for centuries.
A little girl who picked up a basketball and decided her dream was to play on a national court is going to be happy to make it to the WNBA, her young mind not thinking about a salary or financial responsibility. But she’s going to grow up and see other girls in the crowd of her games with her name and number on their backs and wonder if by the time they make their dreams come true and make their way onto the court, women will still make a decimal percentage of what an NBA player is making.
