The Average WNBA Salary, the Highest Paid WNBA Players in 2024, and the Gender Pay Gap

In early 2024, the women’s basketball world is exploding. The recent Elite 8 matchup between Iowa (Caitlin Clark) and LSU (Angel Reese) was the most watched college basketball game on ESPN ever. Yes, more than any men’s game. But something still doesn’t add u[, The minimum NBA salary is just over $1 million per year while the highest paid WNBA player in the current season is around $230,000. The basketball gender pay gap is significant.

The average WNBA salary is about $116,000 in 2024. In the NBA, the average salary is north of $10 million.

No matter how you slice it, the pay gap in the WNBA versus the NBA is remarkable. Some have argued that even with their current paltry salaries, WNBA players are overpaid. At TheDataJocks, though, we take a starkly different perspective. We believe that not only are WNBA players underpaid relative to their current league revenue, we also believe that the WNBA as a league could do much, much more to increase its revenue.

At the end of the day, salaries have to be related to revenue. It isn’t a surprise nor is it controversial that men’s professional sports draw more attention and revenue and therefore the players are paid more. However, we think the discrepancy is larger than it should be based on viewership and appetite for women’s professional sports. In this article we’ll list a few reasons and statistics why we think the average WNBA salary is lower than it should be.

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A Quick History of WNBA Profitability

The WNBA is a very new league, only having been founded in the late 1990s. For the first few years of the league’s history, it was so unpopular that the NBA had to subsidize the operating cost of their female counterpart. However, in recent years the popularity of the WNBA is skyrocketing. This is a great book detailing the history of professional Women’s basketball. We’ll give a quick synopsis of the economic perspective here.

This is not dissimilar to the history of the NBA, just many years later. The NBA was a tiny league that nearly collapsed multiple times. Some argue that if not for the brilliant rivalry between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, the league might not be anywhere near where it was today. There might not be an NBA at all.

The WNBA may be following a similar trajectory. In recent years, the popularity of the league has been increasing dramatically. Since the early 2010s, WNBA teams have turned profits without resorting to subsidies. Perhaps more importantly, the WNBA now has bona fide superstars to push its popularity. Becky Hammon, A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Brittney Griner and soon Paige Bueckers are on the precipice of becoming household names, of entering the zeitgeist of sports.

If the league’s popularity continues to increase as it is, the average WNBA salary will follow suit. We have three points and reasons why we think the average WNBA salary and the league revenue as a whole is set to explode.

1. Rapid revenue growth and the ratio of revenue to player salary
2. The ratio of highest paid WNBA players to the average salary
3. High consumption of women’s college basketball indicates that there is an appetite for increased consumption of women’s professional basketball.

Average WNBA Salary and League Revenue

As I said above, the average WNBA salary is about $116,000. One way to evaluate how well professional women’s basketball players are paid is to look at how the WNBA salaries compare to the total income of the league. The point of this exercise is to counter the myth that “we can’t afford to pay high salaries to WNBA players because the league just doesn’t make any money”.

Headlines like “The Highest WNBA salary is $228,000 while in the NBA it’s over $45 million” are well-intentioned, but disingenuous at best. NBA players get paid more because their league makes more money, full stop. But that doesn’t mean that the average WNBA salary should be so low that its employees are compelled to play year round in overseas leagues, often in parts of the world that many Americans would not want to visit themselves. Let’s look at some data from the 2022 season now.

The total revenue for the WNBA in 2022 was about $60 million while in the NBA it was about $7.6 billion. That means that the NBA brings in about 125 times as much revenue as the WNBA. Now, compare the average WNBA salary (128,000) versus the average NBA salary (7.5 million). The average NBA player makes about 60x as much as the average WNBA player.

For opponents of increased average WNBA salaries, this is the end of the argument. If you don’t give any extra thought to the above numbers, WNBA players make more money relative to their league revenue than NBA players do. But this line of logic is deeply flawed. Here’s why:

The WNBA is a 12 team league versus the NBA being a 30 team league. A 12 team league can’t possibly bring in the same revenue as a 30-team league. If you adjust the WNBA revenue in this way, then the NBA’s revenue is only 50 times the WNBA’s revenue on a per team basis. Now, because the average WNBA player makes 56 times as much as NBA players, the pay gap becomes clearer.

This alone should be enough to argue for higher average WNBA salaries than the status quo, but we have two more points still to convince you further.

Ratio of Highest Paid WNBA Player to Average WNBA Salary

The highest paid WNBA player this year is a tie between Arike Ogunbowale, Kahleah Copper, and Jewell Lloyd, each making just about $242,000 a year. That means the highest paid WNBA players only make about 2.1 times as much as the average WNBA salary. In the NBA, the highest paid player this year is Steph Curry, making almost $52 million. This means in the NBA, the best paid player makes just over 5 times as much as the average.

Because the WNBA is a smaller league, the 144 players on active WNBA rosters are the best 144 women’s basketball players. Therefore in the last section when we compared the average WNBA salary to the average NBA salary, we were comparing the salaries of the top 144 women’s players to the salaries of the top 360 men’s players. Thus, looking at average salaries biases the argument in favor of the men!

The ratio of the highest paid WNBA player to the 144th best paid WNBA player is about 3.8. In the NBA, the same ratio is about 4.7. This means that not only is the average WNBA salary lower than it should be, the top tier female athletes are underpaid!

Opponents to increasing the WNBA player salaries at this point will say “you can’t just adjust a 12-team league to a 30-team league and assume that the numbers will work themselves out!” This is an interesting point – but in the next section we argue the exact opposite. By looking at viewership for women’s college basketball, we argue that the revenue gap between the WNBA and the NBA can be closed.

There is an Appetite for more Professional Women’s Basketball

As I mentioned in the introduction, women’s basketball is getting really popular. The most watched college game in 2024 was not a Men’s game, it was a women’s game. The most popular college basketball athlete this year is a woman, not a man.

While the revenue versus player income statistics in the last sections were compelling in and of themselves, our silver bullet in arguing that WNBA players are due for a larger payday is looking at potential league revenue. Earlier, we pointed out that the WNBA is a young league. Leagues in their infancy need time to expand, find their audience, and exploit their revenue streams. The WNBA is on the precipice of a sharp inflection point where the total league revenue will explode and the average WNBA salary can finally increase to where it should be.

To make our point, we need to look at the viewership statistics of a more established womens’ sports league: women’s college basketball. The NCAA women’s college basketball tournament has been played since the late 1970s.

The men’s college basketball tournament is no joke, it is one of the premier sporting events of the year. The average men’s tournament game averaged 10.7 million viewers per game. This is over half of the average viewership for an average NFL game, the undisputed king of American sports from a viewership and revenue perspective. But get this: the average viewership for a women’s NCAA tournament game is about 600,000. And the viewership is increasing rapidly.

When comparing college leagues, the men draw about 15 times more viewers than the women. In professional leagues – as we stated above – that number was 120 times. To me, this says that viewers are interested in watching women’s sports. The problem is just that the WNBA isn’t pushed as well as it could be.

There is a significant appetite for professional women’s sports. This will lead to an increase in the average WNBA salary.

One Final Nail in the Coffin

From my perspective, the gender pay gap in basketball is attributable to the WNBA being a new league and not achieving the viewership it is capable of. It isn’t the WNBA’s fault necessarily; networks are wary of showing and advertising for games they think will be less profitable. But if women’s college basketball can come close to competing with men’s college basketball during tournament time, the WNBA should be able to draw more eyes.

A recent New York Times’ article talks about how Paige Bueckers is waiting to go pro because there is more money in college basketball than in women’s professional basketball. There is simply no reason that women’s college basketball should bring in more money than women’s professional basketball. The professional game is of an indisputably higher quality than the college game. The problem is that the WNBA needs to gain footing with networks and advertisers. Once that happens, WNBA salaries will reach the place where they should be for the entertainment value they are capable of providing.

Final Thoughts

Our overall argument is not only that today, right now WNBA players should be paid more. While we have cited some numbers above that indicate that player’s in the W are underpaid even relative to current revenue, the point is that the league’s revenue is not where it should be.

Even just a small increase in income in the WNBA revenue will lead to more equitable salaries for these players who are the best of the best. In the NBA world, we’ve reduced salary costs to “buying wins”. However, WNBA teams are just trying to stay afloat because the current market doesn’t reward the best teams for winning. However, we expect WNBA viewership to increase rapidly in the near future. When that happens, the average WNBA salary will be more representative of the quality of the players in the W.