Conversation centering around the pay of the female athletes in the WNBA has become a topic recently. While a couple of fake quotes have been exposed as made-up, the players maintain that the issue is very real.

Reading the article, I learned that WNBA players earn only 22 of basketball-related income (BRI) as compared to the NBA players’ 50 percent (which used to be even higher, before the Player’s Association got taken to the cleanersduring the 2011 lockout). The highest paid WNBA players make a little over $100,000 for a season; those same top players make in the million-dollar ballpark playing overseas in the winter months. For a female, professional basketball is a year-round sport.

Looking at the NBA, there are individual benchwarmer players who make more than entire WNBA rosters by themselves. A male player who is relatively low on the NBA totem pole makes a hell of a lot more than a female WNBA player who’s a superstar.

I can fully understand how, from the women’s side, these facts are hard to swallow.

However…

For Your Game
WNBA players are under contract. Which means, somewhere along the way, each player in the league agreed to the number they’re being paid. The players can form as a group and negotiate a better deal if they can make it make sense. But to complain about a contract when you yourself signed the contract makes no sense.