The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) had its All-Star Game on Saturday. Before the game started, both teams warmed up with shirts that admonished, “Pay us what you owe us.” You got it — that silly “pay gap” controversy is back.
Amazing opportunity for the WNBA commissioner to be like:
“OK, deal. You lost us $40 million last year, each of you owe us $231K”
— Jason Howerton (@jasonhowerton) howerton/status/1946756289939271933?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 20, 2025
According to Washington Post sports columnist Candace Buckner, “For most of its lifespan, a game in the WNBA has felt like a cultural gathering — a safe space in sports that supported girls and women, especially women of the LGBTQ+ community who were performing on the court or rooting in the stands.” In other words, the WNBA is the ultimate feminist sport and makes plenty of money, so the league can afford to pay its players more, right?
Wrong.
The WNBA is not a profitable organization — and never has been. The only reason it has been able to stay afloat is because the NBA (the men’s league) owns 60% of the WNBA and has been subsidizing it.
The NBA makes more money because significantly more people watch men’s basketball. However, the WNBA’s balance sheet has started to improve with the addition of superstar Caitlin Clark. This golden goose has helped attract millions of new fans to the professional women’s side. Yet how does the WNBA treat her? Well, with contempt — because she’s white. Even with the shirt that the All Stars wore on Saturday, Clark and her team had no say in it.
Which leads to the flip side of the argument introduced by sports personality David Portnoy, who points out these women are on the ground floor of a league that’s about to explode. They should be paid proportionately to the exploding sales of seats and merchandise.
WNBA rant for people with smaller brains than me. pic.twitter.com/biDNBX7JWA
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) July 20, 2025
However, what most observers find ridiculous and tone-deaf is that these women players are counting their chickens before they hatch. The money isn’t quite rolling in yet. The only player the average person knows about is Caitlin Clark and maybe Angel Reese, but only because of her disgraceful antics. As if to underscore this point, last week, comedian Shane Gillis roasted the WNBA at the ESPYs — an award show for professional athletes — and made the audience clap for a lady who wasn’t even in the WNBA.
Shane Gillis tricked the ESPYS crowd into believing his friend’s wife was a WNBA star 😭
“4x WNBA All-Star Brittany Hicks is here. Give it up for Brittany, everybody. I’m just joking around; that’s my friend’s wife, I knew none of you knew WNBA players.” pic.twitter.com/uC5Ta7v7u1
— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) July 17, 2025
As of now, the WNBA looks like a bunch of entitled fools. At least with the women’s national soccer team and their fight for equal pay, the squad is actually good and has a huge fan following. Saturday’s shirt stunt is a bad look for the female ballers. Will they stop? No. They are protesters, and this is just the latest cause du jour.
Pro tip for the WNBA: Stop making Caitlin Clark a sacrifice on the altar of racism and get back to playing the game, which people are finally starting to watch. If you get too self-righteous, people will just go back to watch something else.
