So, I really want to be happy about the new collective bargaining agreement the WNBA players signed this week. It’s so much better than the previous agreement, yet it falls short in several critical areas.
Good Morning America reported a “landmark deal” that for the first time in WNBA history athlete establishes a six-figure minimum salary for all players and allows the league’s top players to earn up to half a million dollars. It also includes paid maternity leave and a provision that players don’t have to share hotel rooms on road trips. Players association president Nneka Ogwumike and WNBA boss Cathy Engelbert disclosed the eight-year deal in an interview with GMA host Robin Roberts. “We’re hoping to lift, not just women in sports and women in basketball, but women in society,” Engelbert said. Ogwumike said she hoped the deal would “set the tone” for women in other professional sports leagues.
Let’s break this down a bit.
The new WNBA maximum salary is less the NBA minimum salary. And the salary cap for each WNBA team is less than the salary for three out of four NBA players. With half of what the LA Lakers pay LeBron James, the WNBA could pay the salary of every player in its league.
And while the women now don’t have to share hotel rooms, the league still won’t allow teams to use charter flights for travel because it would be too onerous on the finances of some of the teams. It did, however, guarantee that the players would have premium economy seating on commercial flights, providing an extra five to seven inches of leg room.
Much has been made of the maternity leave. Too much, I think. The federal government requires family leave and many employers provide pay during the leave. It makes me wonder if the parent NBA offers paid leave for new fathers in its league.
The deal is also for eight years. That is an extraordinarily long time for a collective bargaining agreement, especially given the soaring popularity of women’s athletics. It might not be as short-sighted as short-selling Tesla stock, but the deal will outlive almost every player now in the league.
I guess what bothers me more than the details of the deal is the gee-golly-whiz way the giddy media is covering the deal, applying breathless adjectives like historic, ground-breaking and unprecedented.
The coverage has been great PR for the WNBA, but the league has underpaid and undervalued these athletes for a long time. In reality the salaries may have increased 53% but they still can’t compete with what women are able earn by playing overseas. And it’s a good bet most of them will continues to play in other parts of the world.
It’s not my hope that this deal sets the tone for women athletes (Sorry, Nneka). My “hope” is that the courts take up the lawsuit against the US Soccer and forces it to compensate the women’s National Soccer Team equally with the men’s soccer team. That would be a real “lift” to women in sports and society.