The NCAA women’s basketball championship game on April 7 between Iowa and South Carolina had a massive audience. This was due in no small part to Caitlin Clark, a uniquely talented player for the Hawkeyes. Clark has been a star for a while but national interest in her took off this year.
According to reports, the game “had a preliminary audience average of 18.7 million on ABC and ESPN.” Notably, “it’s the most-watched basketball game — men’s or women’s, pro or college — since 2019.” Yet, the WNBA and women’s sports, in general, lack the kind of following men’s sports regularly enjoy. Despite claims to the contrary, this isn’t proof of female oppression.
Monday night’s WNBA draft drew an audience almost four times as much as the 2023 WNBA draft. With the increased attention came familiar questions about why female athletes don’t get paid as much as their male counterparts. Congressman Ro Khanna expressed his disgust for the pay disparity. Even President Joe Biden’s account posted about it on X, wondering why women “are not paid their fair share” and bemoaning the lack of opportunities.
It’s all so tiresome. It’s also hypocritical, given the left’s current obsession with allowing transgender athletes who are biologically male into what should be female-only spaces, including sports.
It’s no mystery why women who play in the WNBA are paid less than men who play in the NBA. The former, which has only been in existence since its inaugural season in 1997, has far fewer viewers than the NBA. The viewership is lower for both televised games and in-person attendance. In terms of 2023 revenue, the NBA comes in at $10 billion compared to the WNBA’s revenue of $60 million, according to WSN. The NBA is more popular and profitable, which translates to bigger salaries for male athletes.
It is no surprise that NBA stars are stronger, faster, and bigger than the women who play in the WNBA. Fans want to see competition between elite athletes. That male basketball players garner more attention than female basketball players is not shocking. As a woman who enjoys watching basketball, I naturally gravitate more to watching the men compete. This doesn’t mean Clark, Kamilla Cardoso, or Angel Reese, all recently drafted into the WNBA, aren’t talented athletes with bright professional futures ahead of them.
The fact that leftists refuse to accept the reality of the pay disparity in sports (and other fields) is not the least bit surprising. They see smaller salaries and assume sexism is to blame. On top of that, they assume it’s because girls and women are denied opportunities. These arguments play on emotions instead of relying on facts. It’s a tactic that makes them look like the good guys in the neverending gender culture wars. But it doesn’t take much at all to rebut their points.
The salaries in the NBA and WNBA are proportionate earnings to the popularity, revenue, attendance, etc. Not everything is a conspiracy created to reduce women and cheapen their worth. Interestingly, many of the same people who demand higher pay are eager to allow transgender women (biological males) into female-only athletic spaces. At both the high school and college levels, girls and women are told we must start accepting this type of “diversity.”
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It is the height of sexism to push females to accept men as one of them. And it’s much more of a problem than WNBA salaries.
Men and women have different physical abilities. This is a truth to acknowledge, not ignore. Instead of focusing on talent and achievement, leftists try to convince us that unless everyone has equality of outcome, something is wrong.