Over the past years the pay gap in basketballs gender wages have narrowed but continues. According to High Post Hoops, the average WNBA player gets paid less than $80,000 last year, while the average NBA player salary is 7.7 Million. The WNBA player salary cap is only $110,000. Now there is no mistake in that basketball is a male dominated sport, but to have this incredible pay gap is unmistakably huge.  

Why should male athletes be given this incredible salary if they are performing in the same sport as women at the same level? You could argue that it is just the norm after many years of this sport being dominated by men, but if professional athletes like LeBron James who make millions of dollars for just playing are outputting the same amount of effort and skill as female players, why should they be getting more? In fact, the NBA referees make a salary of $150,000 which is higher than the WNBA player salary cap and they aren’t even professional athletes.  

Now it could be argued that sine all the money is focused on the male athletes that they deserve this increase in pay, but it could also act as an incentive in the sense that they are playing as a job not for the love of their sport. If you switched the pay gap around for a decade and male athletes received female athletes’ pay, I believe more than half of them would leave the league. Now there is no question that money is an influence, but it also has significant impact on how we view different things. So why are we letting money control the way we play sports.  

Nicholas Suriwka  

Featured Image  

Caption: WNBA finals moving shot of players  (Source:  Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)