Inequality Faced in the WNBA

Ever since the foundation of the WNBA, we have seen the female athletes who compete be mistreated. These women give their all game after game, practice after practice, yet continue to be treated unfairly. In the NBA, we see men like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade making $14.5 million and $14 million last season alone, respectively. This is completely blown out of proportion, because women who perform the same job and entertainment service make only a small fraction of that. Professional women’s basketball players hardly make more than $100,000 a year. The average salary for females is the equivalent to what Shaquille O’Neal made in about 12 minutes of game time. Female basketball players are treated very unfairly, receiving far less exposure and fewer benefits than their male counterparts do.

How many women’s basketball games have you watched or even seen being played on major sports channels? Now compare that to the amount of NBA games that are broadcast during basketball season. There are lower ratings for women’s basketball, yes; but can you really expect the ratings to be similar when the broadcasting time is so disproportionate? Men’s sports make up 90% of sports media coverage. Now compare this to the Olympics, where almost 50% of athletes are females, and over 50% of the spectators are female. Women’s basketball is an Olympic event, where we see a majority of watchers are women; why do companies not air more WNBA games? The latest broadcasting contract for the WNBA has ESPN, ABC, and ESPN2 air a minimum of 18 games each season, compared to the NBA, which has no need for said contracts because they are already shown on air because they are believed to bring in much more revenue and ratings.

Clearly, with the underrepresentation on media networks alongside the unfairly low amounts of pay that these athletes have to endure as well, it is fairly easy to say that WNBA players are horribly mistreated and unappreciated compared to NBA players of similar stature. It is high time we do something about this, and stop the mistreatment of these highly skilled, specialized female athletes.