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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – The players of the WNBA and league management are in the middle of a bitter labor dispute. Plans to add two more teams are on-hold because there’s no players’ contract. The college draft hasn’t been scheduled. The start of the regular season could be pushed back by a players strike.
For people who aren’t WNBA fans, there’s only one celebrity player: Caitlin Clark. And she is so hated by other players that she’s brutalized in almost every game. She absorbs hard fouls, She’s clothelined. Other players high-five each other when they injure her. She was so banged up last season that she missed the league’s all-star game. Because she wasn’t playing, tv viewership and sponsor interest evaporated. That is madness.
And for the all-star game warm-ups, the players had the nerve to come out onto the court wearing shirts that said “pay us what we’re worth.”
The situation with the WNBA is simple. They don’t make money. And if there’s no money, there can’t be expensive contacts for the players. The latest estimate is that the league operated at a loss of $50-million. That’s chump-change in professional sports. But the league is not profitable. Every team is subsidized by the NBA.
The league’s finances are expected to improve. A new TV rights deal will bring in more money. The players want all of it, even before the broadcast checks are in the bank.
The message should be simple: There can’t be raises for the players until there are profits. The league should play under its current collective bargaining agreement until more money comes in. Then, not before, the profits can be divided up.
The WNBA plays a short season on purpose, because many of their players earn a second paycheck playing overseas. Until they grow their product at home, and stop brutalizing their only superstar, I suspect many of them will continue spending winters in Turkey, Spain, Australia, and Russia.
It’s a very strange irony that if the players go on strike for the entire season, it would be the first year that the WNBA doesn’t lose money.
Chris Conley
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