ABSTRACT

In 2017, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) completed their 21st season. Relative to the National Basketball Association (NBA) today, both attendance and salaries in WNBA are comparatively low, yet the WNBA attendance story looks quite different when the reference group is other long-established, mainstream sport leagues such as the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and the NBA in their 21st year of operation. In fact, WNBA attendance after 21 years is actually better than attendance in the NBA at this same point in their history. With respect to salaries the temptation is to argue that pay is low in the WNBA because league revenue, relative to the NBA, is low. Even when we control for revenue, there is a substantial gender-wage discrepancy in professional basketball. Whereas NBA players are paid 50% of the revenue, it appears the WNBA allocates only about 20% of their revenue to the players. When the economic contribution of star players is measured, we see that the top WNBA players are underpaid by approximately US$1 million per season. If the WNBA paid its top players commensurate with the NBA’s players, it is possible many WNBA players would stop playing in international leagues during their “offseason,” and would focus more of their time and energy on promoting the WNBA and growing the brand throughout the year.